A lot could happen in a few seconds. 

Lee stepped forward, acted first. Will had followed, only a moment behind. Distract the one, put them down. Will had expected to hear and feel movement from behind him as he grabbed the guard. Others would surely step up as well, right? 

They did, but Will hadn't been prepared for the cacophony that would erupt. 

Noises, a flurry of movement from nearly everyone as the ragtag group lurched into action in an attempt at teamwork. There wasn't proper coordination, but it -did- seem like everyone was working towards the same goal. Will heard footsteps as he tried to focus on calling up the link between himself and his target, a mental map of criss-crossing threads forming up in his mind's eye. His inexperience showed, he'd thought he was quick, but seconds were long in a situation like this, and he wasn't used to calling up his abilities at a moment's notice. 

The hum and crackle of electricity stabbed his ears as Other Will unleashed on one of the targets. He wasn't sure how much of the whine was within regular hearing range, but the noise cut into his head. Worse, he could smell the charged air and ozone from the other mutant's use of their powers, and Will's concentration wavered, the connection to his own target forming up more slowly than he'd planned as he was distracted by everything around him.

Less than a second passed and cinnamon joined the assault on his senses as Ashton suddenly was up in the thick of things, announcing himself with the crunch of riot shield on flesh. Ah. That's what trading places meant. Neat. But he really could have done without the olfactory combo of ozone and cinnamon. 

>>> ”God dammit Jeff! Watch out people, they may be armed!”

That'd be the clatter of metal on pavement behind him then. Yelling. Ashton yelled warnings and instructions, Lee yelled at Ashton and Fred, guards yelled in pain. Somewhere behind him, Fred yelled cheers. Cinnamon. Ozone. It was all overwhelming, but it was the kind of overwhelming he could deal with. Will was glad he wasn't as shaken up as yesterday. Maybe it was having other people in charge to follow, maybe it was having a plan, maybe the adrenaline and panic just hadn't properly hit yet. 

The lady in the X-men uniform spoke. The guards were being compelled. It wasn't their fault, but they had to put them down and out for the sake of both sides, the guards might hurt themselves or they might end up hurting themselves. 

Will finally got his sensory link locked on the person's wrist, only a few seconds, but a thousand little events. Just in time to hear Jordan ask Will to not hurt them. 

Well, that much he could do. Mostly. What he did wouldn't hurt, but it wasn't going to be pleasant. Hopefully Jordan wouldn't remember much of the jolt, though they might wake up wondering why they could smell sounds and taste colours for a few minutes while their system recovered. 

With a mental push, Will flooded Jordan's senses with a total overload of sensory energy. Will felt Jordan jerk and then go limp, and he caught the collapsing guard as best he could as their legs went to rubber, easing their descent to the ground. 

"One here, but gonna need somethin' to keep this one down for more than a few minutes. Tricks I got don't last that long."  Will called out in between the other conversations and orders being thrown about.

That done, he took a few steps back from the thick of things, grateful they were outside so that the open air could clear out the dizzying combined scent of ozone and cinnamon. He never thought he'd appreciate New York smog, but that blend of smells was like toothpaste and orange juice inside his head. At least the use of his powers took the edge off of things, but jeez. 

>>>  ”Anyone want this gun…because I sure as hell don’t.”

Will shook his head at Tarin's question. He didn't have any kind of training with firearms, and the last thing he needed was to blow out his ears in the middle of a fight. Maybe Other Will was a marksman? And Ashton already had a gun, so he might take it.

So much happened so fast that Quin found herself kind of standing in the middle of the chaos and not really doing a whole lot. Supposing that it was one of those things where careful planning and coordination would have made things much smoother, Quin just made sure she was ready to help if anyone needed help.

The guy with the bag, Ashton, was zipping around from place to place and wherever he went, people ended up on the ground. A beat passed and Ashton was calling for her to use one of the zip ties…Quin grabbed two of the zip ties instead, dropping down with her knee in the middle of the guy’s back and reaching for his arms.

It only took a moment to secure the guard’s hands, and another moment to get his feet too. Reinforcing both spots with more zip ties melded into the originals, Quin stood and surveyed what was happening. At least she’d managed to help

There was electricity. Lee was taking guards down left and right, then zipping off like a speedster towards the guard that had walked at the X-Man who seemed to be in charge. Will seemed to have subdued the guard he was working on and Quin quickly made her way over there to give that guy the same zip tie treatment as his co-worker as Kealey explained that the guards were being compelled and to make sure they couldn’t act on the compulsion.

It was stomach turning to think about, not being able to control your actions to the degree that you would hurt yourself rather than disobey an order.

Standing and glancing over at Will, Quin nodded down at the guard with a smile, ”Nice.” she said, “Maybe he’ll be able to tell us what chartreuse tastes like later.”

It was a weird thing to ask, especially considering the fact that they were walking into a situation where they were probably going to need every ounce of their powers that they could access, but Quin sighed.

”I hate to ask…but any chance you can do what you did yesterday? Running over here I realized I can’t move very well, trying to toss people or move fast isn’t going to be easy….”

The man William had targeted went down. Hard. Such is life when you lose all control of your muscles. It was no doubt incredibly painful, but it was less-than lethal like a normal Taser. As long as William kept the power cycling, the man would be unable to move to resist. As soon as William stopped, the man would be free to move again.

The skirmish raged around William as he kept his target subdued. Everyone moved, everyone worked toward the goal. Well, almost, one if them had become a cheerleader. Pom-poms and all.

There were a myriad of powers on display. It was an impressive display of what mutants were capable of, why they were the next to inherit the Earth. Teleporting, object manifestation, strength, speed, ghosts. It was fantastic.

Kealey called out that the guards were being compelled. Lee criticized the level of force being used. William knew she couldn’t have meant him so he carried on. His electric power was dialed down to a very low current, like a taser. The risk of death or permanent injury was already acceptable, but with William controlling the electricity as it was in range, he kept it from endangering the heart.

As the guards were being zip tied or otherwise restrained William chimed in, ”Someone get ready to tie this guy up. When I stop, he is free to resist again.” If not harming weren’t the objective, William could simply increase the current and turn out the man’s lights.

As for the gun, William chimmed in, ”Let me have it. I’ll slag the thing.” William could feel his power nearly warmed up enough to accomplish the feat. They weren’t in a hurry… yet.

His focus was on the fight, on grappling, on helping Will. And he had a headache. What Kealey said, what anyone else said, or was doing… was far, far in the background, practically unnoticed. Even if they had pom poms. Or had literally said his name, sorry people.

There was screaming, there were ghosts. It was chaos. His head throbbed. And the guy he had moved was returning. Or moving. To bother Kealey. Hopefully, the woman could protect herself because he really didn’t want to up the throb to a lancing migraine.

In the background, he heard someone shouting something about not hurting the guards. And Ashton was really glad all he had done was knock the guy backwards, then grapple him and force him down. He was probably the least deadly of all the people there. Bruises. Only bruises. Not thirty million volts.

Yeah, he focused on restraining and completely ignored anyone completely missing the point. He was doing his job. He was protecting people, sending them away. Keeping them off folks, and grappling a guard. And— was that person yelling at more people again? He turned to stare in their direction, eyebrows furrowed.

Man. Lot of unconscious folks by the shouting woman. Hadn’t they just been shouting about not hurting people? Doing whatever it was they did— probably hard on a heart. Hopefully nobody had heart conditions like William’s guy.

>>> "One here, but gonna need somethin' to keep this one down for more than a few minutes. Tricks I got don't last that long." Will called. Ashton tuned in, just in time to catch that… and Tarin talking about a shiny new handgun, a few seconds later. Must’ve been Jeff’s.

Ashton looked up from where he was holding his guard. And Quin arrived. He moved aside so she could plant her knee on his back, replacing the one he had placed there mere moments before.

”Thanks,” He said.

Then, he ran off to help William.

Quin got Will. Ashton went to help William. Not confusing at all. He arrived about a couple seconds before William said

>>> ”Someone get ready to tie this guy up. When I stop, he is free to resist again.”

He had zip ties in hand.

He dropped to zip tie the guard best he could.

Well. Everyone sort of listened. In general there was loosely organized chaos. Heaving a sigh as she continued to move forward, Kealey tried to continue focusing on the guards even though she knew there wasn’t a lot she was going to be able to do. At least one of the men was absolutely terrified and it sent a shiver down the empath’s spine as she moved forward, tamping down that terror. Despite what was happening, the guards had no reason to be afraid of them. Except that they kind of did.

Ashton and his riot shield and William and his powers had incapacitated two of the guards. The other Will had successfully incapacitated a third and the tall redhead was working on getting them secured in a fashion that would render their attempts at escape or deterral useless.

Lee had successfully incapacitated two of the guards on her own and with the help of Tarin’s spirits and was already scolding Ashton and Ion for hurting the guards that they’d decided to take on. Which was…fair…but also not her job. Had Lee wanted to run a team of X-Men or their recruits, she’d had plenty of opportunities to join up.

Realizing that the tension of the situation might be bleeding into her own feelings, Kealey took a deep breath and a moment to regulate her emotions before she started speaking again. There wasn’t much more to organize, but the cat would be out of the proverbial bag now that they had attacked the compelled guards. The cheerleading outsider was a distraction and Kealey reached out to tamp down some of that manic happiness in hopes that he would calm and be helpful.

That accomplished and leaving Lee to incapacitate the guard that had approached her, Kealey moved around and towards her trainees.

”William.” the blonde said tersely, ”You were told not to harm the guards. They’re innocents in this and no different than the general public. Not only that, but our image is everything, especially right now.” she said. The media debacle with Sam had not done much for public opinion of the X Teams.

Swinging her attention to Ashton, Kealey addressed the man in the same terse voice, ”That goes for you too Ashton. They didn’t walk into work today planning on this.”

Looking at the rest of the assembled folks, Kealey shook her head, ”Nobody else here is on my team, so I won’t presume to issue orders.” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Lee, ”But if we can’t work together this is going to get ugly fast. If I know anything about situations like this, it's that when we get inside it’s going to be chaos. We cannot add to the chaos…”

Taking a deep breath, Kealey let it out, ”Here’s what I’d like to do…”

Shorty yelled at Zek and his smile just widened, "Dead wrong, Toots!" he said. "This is the most appropriate stuff ever!" he tacked on as he waved his pom-poms at her. Somehow she could grab people and make them go beddy-bye and ohmygoodness what a blur! She was fast, too!

Maybe Zek would have to start hanging around museums more often. Who knew they could be so fun?

He smirked as Ghost Guy started offering people a gun. It was cute. And tiny. "That's a cute gun," Zek said, but he didn't offer to take it. He still had a bunch of rifles and shotguns from that awesome pool party slash deadliest game adventure which he'd totally won. But guns usually weren't too fun in most cases, nor were they that dangerous.

Plastic Girl continued to be boring, but Boring Guy also touched someone and somehow took him down. Huh. Zek wasn't sure if that was cool or lame. Maybe situationally cool? Because Shorty was getting less and less cool now that Zek thought about it. He wanted more special effects.

And then out of nowhere, things were suddenly way less fun.

Zek paused his cheering for a moment. He blamed Ashton. Ashton was now just tying people up. Granted, with zip ties, but that was it. "Aw, c'mon, Ashton! You can do better than that!" he shouted. "Smack them around some more!" He waved his pom-poms more, chasing the surge of joy he'd had a moment ago.

"And you! Purple Taze! Don't stop now, keep going!" he shouted at the other fun person.

Then Erin Go Blah stepped up. And made everything more boring by sheer virtue of being herself. Until she mentioned there would be chaos inside.

Happiness started to come back and Zek's eyes glowed. "Do you promise?" he grinned.

Jeff couldn't even moan in pain as his arms were tied behind him and he smiled into the ground. The compulsion wouldn't let him. Somehow he still had to act like everything was normal and nothing was going on, even though he knew nobody would believe it. Fortunately, the compulsion didn't seem to care how effective the guard's performance was, only that he tried as hard as he could to achieve it.

James and Jimmy swiftly fell into gentle slumber, escaping the pain and harm some of the others experienced.

Jordan though...

Suddenly every sense he had lit up. He could smell, hear, feel, taste, see anything/everything/all the things and...he gave out as the sensations crashed threw him and overloaded the man.

Jason wished he couldn't been so lucky. Instead, every nerve in him was on fire as electricity flooded his system for far longer than just a couple of seconds.

But that too would end.

Johnny saw it all, what happened to his coworkers. Three of them out like a light. One looking like he was getting tazed. Another the victim of assault. He saw the X-Woman lose control over everything and there was nothing he could do except say, "Please go away!"

And then there was another woman in front of him.

When cheerleader guy talked back to her, Lee's eyebrows raised in surprise. He thought him being a cheerleader as innocent guards being compelled by an ancient mystic were beaten was appropriate? Lee just hoped that they could get rid of him before they got inside and things actually got serious.

As Lee started to siphon from her third guard, Lee heard Kealey doing more to chastise her teammates for not exactly following the 'don't harm the guards' directions. That was good, because it sounded like how the others had restrained the other guards wasn't going to be good enough; the guards may still end up hurting themselves due to the compulsion they were under if they were left conscious.

This was not going to be fun. She already felt like she was almost vibrating from the energy she had. She had never siphoned from six people before. But she had also never found the upper limit of how much she was able to take.

Maybe today she would. At least she should be able to burn a lot of it off inside, Lee thought. Because as it was now, she would crash in a week even if she turned her siphoning off that entire time.

Wait, the cheerleader wasn't part of the X-Men? Then why had he been in their vehicle? Why was he even there?

"I can take care of the guards not being able to hurt themselves," Lee said as she let Tony catch guard number three as he passed out. "But we might want to at least get them out of the parking lot because they're going to be asleep for about the next 10 hours."

That said, Lee made her way over to the guard that Ashton had 'restrained' first to siphon and render him unconscious before doing the same with the remaining guards.

As Tarin approached, one thing became abundantly clear. Kealey’s idea of “do not harm” was different from what Ashton and William had decided.

Kealey and Lee were right. These people had not shown up for work and planned to find themselves compelled to do the bidding of the mystic. Tarin knew a thing or two about not being able to control your own body and the affect that it had on a person. Beating these folks to a pulp or causing them unnecessary pain was out of line. Kealey and Lee seemed to be handling it though, so Tarin left them to it.

Lee was taking guards down left and right. She’d already brought three to unconsciousness and she was saying she could take care of the rest as she moved over to the other guards, who had now been restrained.

Tarin frowned, watching her move. Lee had been fast when she’d approached the guard who’d been pleading with Kealey…how much energy was she building up? What was going to happen when all of this was done?

”I’ll have the spirits move the guards.” Tarin said finally, feeling more than mildly apprehensive as he handed the gun to the electricity guy in the X-Man uniform who barely looked old enough to be handling the thing.

Kealey was laying out a plan now, Lee was rendering more guards unconscious, and Tarin was getting more concerned. When she moved fast and used her powers to hit harder, Lee tended to hurt herself. Somehow she’d managed to avoid doing so the day before, but at that point she hadn’t had nearly this much energy.

As it was, it only took a quick mental command until the guards were being taken off to the side of the building where there were a lot of trees and shade. They could come back for them later, or send help.

From there, it was into the fray. Kealey said it was going to be chaos and Tarin expected that’s exactly what it would be.

Stay close to her… Tarin said to Tony, I don’t think I’ll be able to stay close, but you might be able to keep up. Tarin honestly didn’t know if the spirit could keep up with Lee at this point or not.

Moving to where she was working putting the last guards into a sleep, Tarin looked over at Lee, “All this is safe for you, right?” he asked, ready to do whatever he needed to do once Tony had taken the final guard away for his nap.

There was a lot happening. People moving, orders still being barked, plans laid out. Will didn't have anything to do, nothing to add. He felt... Well, not useless. He'd done his part, distracted, taken someone down. More or less painlessly, though not without... lets call it discomfort. But now? Will was well out of his element. The people around him either seemed to know each other, be professionals at this sort of stuff, or were Fred. They all snapped to action, more or less working together towards the goal, (Or were Fred) while he was feeling lost without a direct action to take. 

And so, when Quin approached with her request, he was almost glad. Made him feel at least like he'd have something to do rather than stuff his hands in his pockets and wait for the next step of the plan. Should he be offering ideas? All that came to mind was half remembered spy movies and action flicks. 

"Oh? Oh, right. Sure." Will answered after pulling himself out of his thoughts. Turn things down, easy. Right? His ears were still (figuratively) ringing from the burst of his powers he'd used, and he was adjusting to the slightly duller senses. Somewhat appreciated the fact everything was a bit less sharp around the edges now, with the thinning olfactory chaos in the air around him. "It's not gonna fix anythin' though, so try not to do too much runnin' or you'll make it worse."  Was it really a smart idea to be numbing her sense of touch so she could ignore her banged up ribs? No. But it probably wasn't a smart idea for them to be there at all. Better that they could pretend they were at 100%.

Will placed a hand on Quin's shoulder and started to do his thing, calling up the constellation of threads that made up her sensory map. Ever so slightly familiar. Making changes were a little easier than the last time. Was he actually getting used to this? Odd thought, but not an entirely unpleasant one. Still, he felt oddly exposed doing it in front of others, in spite of speaking up about what he could do earlier, like his brain was finally catching up with the situation. Either way it was too late. 

Will tried to keep his attention from being too strictly focused on his powers, to keep some situation awareness of the others around him as he worked to dull Quin's sense of touch. A bit of a rough way at getting to a painkiller, but it was all he had. He looked up from what he was doing. Guards were down, Lee was making sure they stayed that way, and Tarin's floating friends (ghosts... seriously...) were making sure that the KOed security didn't roast in the summer sun. Conveniently it also made it a little less obvious to any passersby that something had happened if there wasn't a pile of people just out front of the building. "Hopefully we're just playin' lookout and you don't have to strain yourself though." 

Will doubted that was true. The X-Lady had said that they'd be needed to clear a path inside. But still, it gave him an idea. It wasn't like having better awareness of the trouble around them would be a bad thing, and while Will had sort of thought the lion's share of that would land on him, he was already going to be linked up with someone...

"Hey, uh. We're prob'ly going to need every edge we can get." Will said as he made the last few adjustments to Quin's sense of touch, but left the mental map hovering there in his mind's eye and his hand lingered on her shoulder. "Y'think you can handle if I give your eyes and ears a tweak? Help me notice any trouble coming?"

Things were dying down now. Guards were restrained, the little blonde was yelling at everyone who hadn’t followed her directions, and Quin was glad that she’d picked law school over vigilantism. Though…was that what she was doing right now? Playing at being some sort of superhero vigilante? It almost made her giggle, but this was not the time for hysterics.

Lee was making very quick work of the guards and Quin tried to remember if the older woman had shared any details of her powers. Quin could remember Lee saying that she took energy from people…needed to do it. Maybe the woman had also said that she got stronger, or faster? There had been something about why they weren’t using powers to spar. It didn’t matter, whatever Lee was doing seemed to be putting the guards into a peaceful sleep as opposed to the rigored grins that had been plastered on their faces before.

The weird guy was still being….weird and Quin decided her mind was just too full to deal with that at the moment. The guy with the bag, Ashton, was still getting yelled at, and

Will looked a little shell shocked, but he had just taken a guy out with his powers and was standing in the middle of a group of vigilantes about to take on a five thousand year old sorceress who had managed to bring literal gods into New York City. Quin thought she should probably be a bit more shaken up herself, but that weird sense of calm that seemed to overtake her in situations like these had settled in. She’d freak out later…but that was a problem for future Quin. Right now, Will had agreed to solve her immediate problem and that was excellent.

Just like the first time, Quin didn’t feel anything but Will’s hand on her shoulder as he started to do whatever it was that he did. As that happened Quin couldn’t help but remember what he’d said about how he did what he did and how cool it still seemed. Soon enough though, the pain and soreness started to fade and the redhead relaxed, her posture loosening in a way that made her realize she’d been holding herself far more carefully than she’d realized.

Nodding at Will’s reminder that she wasn’t actually healed, Quin smiled, ”That’s a problem for Quin three hours from now…” she said. ”but thank you…again.” she added.

A few more moments passed, but Will didn’t remove his hand from her shoulder. He seemed to be concentrating and Quin didn’t know if he was still doing his thing or if he was simply distracted by the damn ghosts floating around all over the place (how was Lee not freaked out by that?).

But then Will spoke again, and while he seemed a bit unsure about the idea, he asked if Quin thought she could handle it if he enhanced her sight and hearing.

Eyes widening slightly as she grinned again, Quin nodded, “Absolutely…I think I’ll be fine…even if I’m not, it’s not like it’s going to hurt right now, right?” Quin glanced over at the little blonde for a second before looking back to Will, ”Besides, It sounds like we’re going to need every edge we can get.”

William he had done as asked. He had not harmed the guards. They may have experienced pain, but they were as of then unharmed. That didn’t stop Kealey from chastizing him for… Gravity? Needless to say, it was irritating. He had used an innovative, and difficult, use of his power to accomplish the task at hand as directed and was told off. What kind of internalized mutaphobia was that nonsense?

Biting back on a retort, William let it pass. It was not the time and Kealey probably felt his protest anyway. Besides, William would be busy. The gun had been handed to him. William nodded to the person who handed him the gun and then said, ”You will want to stand back.”

Giving it a beat, William checked that no one was close to him as he dropped the magazine from the pistol and clumsily worked the action to eject the round from the chamber. His hand blocked the ejection and it fell out of the magazine well. William was momentarily embarrassed but hid it behind the electrical breakdown that replaced his corona as his power ramped up generation.

Instead of the eerie purplish glow, electricity crackled as it arced from him to anything nearby. The ground, the gun, up into the air where it diffused. Over the next few seconds it went from a few arcs sparking into existence, traveling a for a moment before disappearing, a constant stream of arcs all over him.

There was a discussion of what to do with the guards. William didn’t concern himself with that. Instead he focused on his irritation and set the gun on the ground. He balanced it on the frame such that the beaver tail was up in the air. With one hand on either side, electricity arced from one hand to the other in a brilliant flash. The arc was constant and ripping through the gun.

The longer the arc held the brighter it became and the more the pistol glowed where it lanced through. After a good long moment there was sputter and molten material moved. The electricity was cutting through the steel.

Ashton was zip tying, when he heard…

>>> "Aw, c'mon, Ashton! You can do better than that!" Fred shouted. "Smack them around some more!"

Ashton finished up what he was doing, and did not look towards Fred. He didn’t trust himself to look neutral. He was too annoyed. And Kealey was approaching— he looked at her instead.

—

Kealey got in on William, and he said nothing, went to mess with the gun.

As Kealey rounded on him, Ashton realized all the screaming and reprimands about hurting guards earlier… that had been for him, as well as William. He felt mildly annoyed with them for not understanding stuff. William’s power? Seemed non-lethal and handy. And his own methods? Well.

The guard had been armed, and that changed dynamics. If one of them had been shot, if Lee had been shot, or if the guard had missed, and hit another guard… it changed things. But he had acted with what an outside observer might think was police brutality. And he hated that sort of thing.

”You’re right. Next time, I’ll disarm, then grapple a bit more gently. Only shoved him, not hard, but— I understand what you are saying.” He had forced his emotions down, made hit attitude a lot more mild. He was not thrilled, mostly a little frustrated with himself, and the others, but it was not overwhelming. He was not furious with Kealey or anything. He was taking the reprimand and dealing.

And they were moving on. Lee said she’d take care of the guards. Her and Tarin did so. and Kealey had a plan.

Kealey was paying close attention to how her trainees responded to her reprimand. Could they both have acted with more force than they chose to use? Absolutely. Did that excuse them harming the guards when they’d been given explicit instructions not to do so?

William didn’t speak, but Kealey could feel his consternation and self-righteousness…derision even? Blue eyes narrowed slightly in the teen’s direction. Kealey didn’t know the boy well, but it appeared that maybe she needed to remedy that fact. Did Shin know him? Who, exactly, had William been working with for a mentor?

Questions for later.

Aston was annoyed too and all of this doubt made Kealey doubt herself a little bit…whether she wanted to or not. Ashton mastered his emotions though and acknowledged her criticism. That was a mark in his favor. Regardless, it was time to move on.

Lee and Tarin were clearing up the guards, moving them to a safe location out of the way so they wouldn’t be incidentally injured. Lee was moving very quickly and Tarin seemed concerned. Surely Lee knew what she was doing. The woman was nothing if not meticulous and Kealey had no question in her mind that Lee knew her limits.

The redhead and the other Will were chatting, the former asking the latter for help with an injury. Had she been hurt in the struggle with the guards? Kealey didn’t remember her being struck…right now it didn’t matter. There wasn’t time. Will offered to give the redhead’s eyes and ears a tweak as well? What had he said his powers were? Sensory manipulation?

Taking not of that and filing it away for later, Kealey laid out her plan.

That finished, they were ready to head into the Museum proper.