People weren't meant to bounce against asphalt. The added weight of two men slowed and eventually stopped their mutual forward movement, but made the friction unbearable.

For the briefest moment, Noel saw God. He was white light and dissolved into starbursts and pain. Something moved and Noel inhaled a rattly gasp of air before she rolled over coughing. She hadn't been holding her breath, someone's knee had been holding it for her.

Through her coughing wheezing and gasping she heard the boys banter. Not their exact words, but she did understand that they were talking which was a step in the right direction.

God, now this was all her fault.

When the lawyer stood, so did Noel's hand and so she would have to stand too. No man offered his hand that she noticed and no man's hand was needed. She stood. The back of her suit jacket looked like it had gone through a cheese grater. She felt a little like the terminator, standing up after all that.

"Out of the road." She didn't should as solid as the terminator did though. She straightened her shoulders and tried to pretend nothing hurt. Headlights in the distance meant they would be playing Frogger before too long if they tarried.

"Can you cut with your water?" Noel indicated the chain between herself and Aurum the lawyer. She knew water was responsible for the Grand Canyon, but didn't want to wait a millennia to disentangle herself from these people.

The cop left his perch. In its place, there was a moment of minor relief. It lasted but a moment, replaced by throbbing pain, the starts of a headache, and a groan. He was alive, sure... but he was alive. And pain went with living, when one fell out of moving vehicles. His lip was bleeding. He was battered and bruised. ... and someone was being snarky.

Aurum ignored the helping hand, rolling off the woman. He lay on his back for a moment, taking note of all his bodily features. Legs still worked, arms, toes, eyes, and so on and so forth. Then, he snapped his eyes back to the woman he'd so thoroughly smooshed into the ground. With a hiss of pain, he pushed off asphalt to his feet.

They had to get moving. He started moving for the shoulder of the road. The sane and insane would have no choice but to follow.

>> “"Out of the road."

There was no time for arguing. Before he knew it, the rest of the part was up and on the move. So, unless he was able to remove his arm, he would have to follow. He definitely did not like handcuffs, but given their circumstances, all he could do was tag along. The lawyer and the fed moved off the road, hopefully they could duck out of sight before any cars rolled by too quick to see them. Thought logic dictated it might be better to flag someone down, with no idea where they were or how they got here, it might have been better to avoid further contact with people. At least until they could get the handcuffs off.

As they moved off the hard asphalt, the repercussions for falling out of a moving vehicle finally started to dawn on Jorge. The whole side of his body where he made contact with the ground was on fire now. That added to the soreness already on the side of his neck there was just pain everywhere. Still, with only a slight limp from where he landed too hard on the side of his knee, the detective followed this little train of handcuffed individuals, so they were out of the way of passing cars.

Then the woman addressed him again.

>> “Can you cut with your water?"

Jorge was about to shake his head in reply but then raised his arm, and inadvertently, raised the lawyer’s arm as well. He gave him an apologetic look then looked closely at the chains between the cuffs. They definitely weren’t mutant grade, that’s for sure. Maybe…just maybe he could.

“I might be to fire off a jet stream strong enough to compromise the chains,” he said as he began to look around. “But I need that water source I felt earlier.”

He raised his free hand and began to concentrate. He felt the water in the back of a moving vehicle, but the problem was it could have come from anywhere. Though it was sizeable, it simply could have meant that there was a large sewer or something beneath their feet. But as he reached out, that tug began to pull him. He felt the source of water somewhere off the road and it was sizeable, just like from what he felt in the vehicle. What was it? A reservoir? A lake? Maybe somebody’s large swimming pool? He was not sure, but there was a good amount of it. Enough for him to keep a steady stream of water pressure to possibly break the chains.

The detective began to take the lead, heading off where the water pulled him. “Come on, I feel the water somewhere off over here.”

She had the distinct urge to put her hands on her face. But she knew that if she put her hands on her face she would bend over and then down and she would end up in a ball of pouting pain. That was no way to hang with the boys even if she felt as bad as she looked.

The fall had made her feel loose and out of control. She fell and bounced like a rag doll. Now she was stiff and hurt in places where she wasn't entirely sure that nerves had existed before this low, low point in her life.

Every step made her throb. She used the shuffling rhythm to build a mantra in her head to help her keep what was important in the forefront of her mind. She had to get away from these men. Her clock was ticking. How long had it been? For how much longer would she be safe?

Noel trudged, no longer leading the train. When the blind led the blind, they apparently fell off the back of the truck. She was glad someone had some good mutant huju (which was also really interesting to watch) because hers wasn't really working out so hot right now.

"Please tell me you're a teenage mutant ninja lawyer..." She felt like he would have said earlier when he introduced himself. What could she have wanted with a policeman and a Lawyer? They were related a bit in that their jobs fed off of each other. Had they dug too deep into RUPERT? Tried to prosecute an Adapted? Noel looked down at her hands as she walked.

There was even an art to walking beside someone with cuffs on. Everyone was stiff after their tumble, but they had to be stiff in time with each other. And there were no sharpie notes visible on her exposed skin. That didn't mean they weren't elsewhere, though.

By now, he still hadn't gotten used to the arm-flailing movement dealio. Apologetic look was met by look of minor annoyance, tinted with forgiveness. He didn't say a thing. The man was talking about his power. Aurum let him. He wanted out of those cuffs just as much as everyone else did.

His head hurt. His body hurt. Thinking about this guy's power was a pain he didn't feel like forcing upon himself. So he didn't. He just filed away 'stuff with water' for a rainy day, and left it to those two. Aurum turned his attention towards the road, to passing cars, and tried to will the pain from his mind, onto some other person's plate.

And then, Mr. Guy started leading. Aurum jerked along behind him, one link on the human chain.

>>"Please tell me you're a teenage mutant ninja lawyer..."

He didn't look her way, didn't say a thing. Pain did that to a guy, made him unsociable.

"No." Okay, fine. Maybe he could spare a syllable. "Just a lawyer." And four more. Because he was feeling generous. Like the ground. Because that certainly hadn't held back in giving them plenty of pain.

More conversation broke out among the duo and had no option other than to follow him. Jorge hoped that he knew what he was talking about when he said there was a possibility of breaking these chains. It was their best bet so far…unless they happened upon a wander locksmith who just so happened to have spare keys to their handcuffs. But the odds of that were extremely small…at least in the detective’s opinion anyways.

The pull of the water was getting stronger the further he walked. Normally he would move a little faster but he had to keep in mind that he was connected to two others. So the going was a bit slower, yet thankfully that urge to follow water was still strong. It felt sizeable too so that would be a help when trying to remove the cuffs.

With another step, Jorge suddenly felt the pull and knew that had arrived. As pulled them both through from bushes and low hanging trees and there it was, the sparkling sheen of a rather large pond. Jorge had never been so happy to see water in his life. He had to wonder if that was what it was like when a thirsty man in a desert felt like when he found an oasis, a sense of salvation. Still though they were successful in finding water, that did not change the predicament. Why couldn’t he remember what happened? Was he really just knocked on the head that hard?

With a shake of his head he nodded over to the large pond, obviously something created by the city in order to keep the environmentalists happy about freeways and development deals. Whatever the reason it was there, Jorge could not be happier. He flashed both his partners a relieved grin and headed off towards the waters.

“Alright,” he said as he nodded to the lawyer. “You and me first, Kitten.” he then turned to the woman. “No offense, but I can manipulate the water better with both hands, I need this one free first.”

He offered his apology then nodded to Aurum as he raised his hand into the air, pulling up the lawyer’s at the same time. Both arms up, Jorge reached out with his free hand and summoned the water from the shimmering surface. The water quickly responded and snaked up into the air, dripping only a little in the process. As the sparkling, shimmering liquid hovered, Jorge turned his attention back to the lawyer.

“Keep the chain pulled tight. And, ugh, sorry if you get wet.” Before he could say more, Jorge lashed out, a bit awkwardly with his free hand and immediately a thin, powerful jet of water shot out and struck the chain. The liquid crashed against the chain in a pressured stream with enough force to start to bend the links back.

I hope this works.

Of course. She was the one with an agenda, who had somewhere else to be (anywhere but here) and she would be the last to be freed. She frowned —a deeper frown than her usual— and tried to wait her turn.

How long did she have? Where could she go? She ran through all the usual insecurities and heaped on a few new ones... how would she escape when she felt like the drying blood on her back was gluing her joints together.

She wanted her jacket off. She wanted out. She wanted gone.

So she didn't really mind the fine water spray.

This had better work...

They reached the pond. The cop seemed really happy about that. Aurum took it as a sign that they were nearing something good in all this 'not good'. He liked good things. He felt a little less terrible, for one second, then he bobbled along, a rat on a chain. He remembered he'd just fallen out of a moving vehicle. The terrible returned, with tearful joy.

Cop smiled at them. Aurum didn't smile back. He held up his hands. "Do it. And cut the kitten crap." He said tersely. He kept the chain taut. Aurum didn't care about wetness. "This had better work." He verbalized the same line they were all thinking. He was surprised nobody had beaten him to the kidney punch.

>> "Do it. And cut the kitten crap…This had better work."[/color]

“Some hero’s welcome,” Jorge muttered as he nodded to Aurum to hold up the chain.

Jorge continued to concentrate and forced the pressurized water jet to strike one spot on the chain that held both himself and the lawyer together. His fist tightened and he could already feel the push of the water on the metal. He had never used his abilities in this way before so he had to hope and pray that it was going to work. Water splashed all around, dotting both himself and the lawyer but he did not let up from the source of water that floated nearby. It was already running low but as he forced his chained wrist forward a bit, trying to put some opposition against the water jet, he felt as it bent back even farther.

The water that splashed on his face had a rejuvenating effect. After waking up disoriented in the back of a moving van and then falling out like row standing dominos, everything seemed to be a haze of pain, confusion, and loss, but now he was beginning to feel like his old self. Now he had a problem to solve…why was he chained to these two people?

In the middle of his musings though, he felt the give in the chains. They really must have been of the older variety and not at all up to current standards. That was at least a clue, the handcuffs were not something made recently.

Jorge quickly stopped the flow of water and looked at the chain again. One of the links looked extremely warped and bent to the point that it looked very fragile. Encouraged a bit by this, Jorge pulled more water up from the nearby pond, had it at the ready, and summoned a bigger, stronger jet stream to fire out at their chain. Another few seconds of the pressurized water and before he knew it…

CLINK!

The detective felt his arm go free and he brought it down to see that the single link he had been aiming for had finally broken. There was a tremendous sense of relief as he dropped his arm and shook it to jingle his new handcuff bracelet. He grinned a bit in satisfaction at having his freedom again and then looked up to the woman and Kitten.

“Well, I guess that work. Come on, you two, same process as before. Keep the chain tight. Let’s get you out of those so we can figure out what’s going on.” he said.

With both hands free, and after some significant wrist rubbing, Jorge reached out and summoned the water that hovered in a large globe behind him. A twitch of his wrists and the detective shot out his hands, aimed directly at the handcuffed duo and the chain that linked them together. Immediately the water responded as a larger jet of swift moving water flew forward and struck the chain hard.

She would keep the chain tight alright. Noel, against her better judgement, took a seat on the ground with her legs tented in front of her. The movement cost her, she had to move her arm up in order to not yank the lawyer to the ground next to her and that meant moving her scuffed up back and shoulders.

Ow.

Noel took it like a champ, though, and other than unintentional sucking in of breath at a few key points in the process, she didn't utter a peep and she was doing what she could to keep Kitten's Aurum's job of holding the chain taught as easy on both of them as was reasonable.

She closed her eyes against the water spray and tried to think.

>>“Some hero’s welcome."

Damn straight, Aurum thought.

The water was chilly. He dealt with it. And the pain from falling out of the moving vehicle. And the stress of having water cut through handcuff chains, jerking him around. He was dealing with a lot of things, wasn't he? Today was just one of those days.

The cop's power was pretty cool. Freedom was cooler. He got a little wet, but it was a price he was willing to take.

It had sure taken the cop a long time to get through those cuffs, though.

Thank goodness it had worked.

Welp, onto the next one. Any relief he'd had was short-lived. Aurum lifted the cuffed wrist, so the cop could cut through it, same as the last time.

”How was your night, Detective Cervantes?”

“Oh it was fine, the unusual. Nothing too crazy. Woke up in the back of a dark van..hand-cuffed to two other people…with no memory of how I got there…then got thrown out and had to cut through chains with water…”

“So the usual.”

Jorge shook his head as these thoughts rebounded in his head. It really began to bother him why he was here, in this night, with these two other people. What were they to him and how come he had no memory of them? I could not remember anything that happened within the past few hours and neither of them looked familiar. It was obvious that they all just must have met today…unless they were both playing him for a fool right now. The paranoia was hard to ignore but he could not let get to him. Unfortunately everyone here seemed to be in the same situation. Fighting amongst each other was not going to help.

Instead he had to get his head back into the game. He focused in on the chair between both the lawyer and the woman and kept the surge of water against the tightened chain. He ground his teeth as he felt a headache come out. If he had been in that van for so long, he would definitely be dehydrated by now. He would had to take a cool sip of water once he was done here.

Still, despite the shake in his hands and the throbbing that started in the back of his skull, Jorge kept the pressure of water on that chain until finally, when it seemed like it could not be done, SNAP that weakened link cracked and set free both the last two handcuff victims.

Once it was over, Jorge collapsed onto his knee, breathing heavily as he tried to keep the throbbing from his dehydration from knocking him out. He sighed as he looked up at the pair of them.

“Well…this has been an interesting evening.” he sighed as he closed his eyes, trying to hold back the pain. He needed water…and he needed it now…

Shiver (v). The result of a drop in core body temperature, often heralded by goosebumps. Ex: Noel was shivering.

And boy did she have goosebumps. Noel's goosebumps felt like they were growing goosebumps. A natural effect of sitting on a lunar lit and soggy creek bank while having water sprayed at her again and again. Why was she taking a splash attack to the face? Because she wanted out of her own handcuffs. Why was she in her own handcuffs? That was the topic of tonight's Jeopardy.

The metal pulled but eventually snapped under the pressure and persistence of one Mutant Policeman. He crumpled over in a flop sweat like he had just run up ten flights of stairs. Too many doughnuts in Noel's professional opinion.

From her seat way too close for comfort, she worked on gingerly easing off her damp jacket. It tugged at the parts where the asphalt had ground it into her skin and she grit her teeth to keep from crying out or hitting someone from the annoying needling pain of it. Every inch was a battle and with her arms mostly behind her back she didn't see the dark shapes scrawled up her arm that showed barely through her slick light blue shirt.

It was definitely writing. Eventually the jacket made it all the way to the muddy ground and she sighed in relief. The message was clearly marked on her skin.

"YOU KNEW" on her left forearm "TOO MUCH" on her right.

((OOC: Is it night-time? I imagined, daytime. Hence no blinding headlights, and them being able to see. Also, the chair? I think you mean chain, Jorge.))

Freedom. Full freedom, this time. No halfsies. It was good.

The night was cold. The first thing Aurum did was wrap himself in a self-hug, shivering. "Frick." Shiver, teeth-chatter. "Can we work on finding some place warm, now?"

He hadn't even noticed the cold until the cuffs had been taken off his mind. They were still dangling, too, which made the cold even worse. He couldn't even use them to clock the bad guy, or save himself from a fall. This kind of stunk.

... And, his shirt was kind of in tatters. The things you notice, all too late.

So, there they were, one policeman, a nearly-naked lawyer in scraps, and a mysterious woman with pet names for him. What would they do?

>> "Frick….Can we work on finding some place warm, now?"

Jorge said nothing in responsible but instead remained knelt on the wet, muddy grass as he tried to catch his breath. Too much time had passed between his last drink of water and now. Already he could feel the onset of the Thirst, that point at with too much water had been manipulated and too little water had been drunk. His body was angry, showing its disappointment in him for doing too much. But try as he might to ignore it, it was not going to happen right now. Water…he needed water.

A glance between the woman and the lawyer, Jorge slowly struggled to his weak feeling legs and forced himself to turn back to the water. With shaky steps he urged himself to move, to walk on towards that glittering, sparkling cool liquid that beckoned to him like some siren from Homer’s “Odyssey”. He could feel the coolness of the air as the large pool of water inched closer and closer until finally he found himself standing at the edge.

His dry tongue licked his chapped lips as he moved onto his knees, reached out and let his fingers grazed the surface of the water.

The chill that shook down his spine made him lightly shudder. The water was so refreshing feeling that he could no longer hold back. He cupped a single, shaky hand into that diamond surfaced water and brought it up to his lips. Oh the euphoria that he experienced as that crisp element rolled across his tongue and flowed down his dry, raspy throat. As soon as that handful was downed, he dipped his hand back into the water and took another drink, and another, and another and before he knew it, he began to feel like his old self. It was amazing how much a life saver water truly was.

Once he was adequately hydrated again, Jorge sighed contentedly as he moved onto his feet and turned back to the two. They definitely made an odd group but why were they all together? Why had they been shipped off and left with absolutely no knowledge of what happened? None of it made any sense in the least. The lawyer seemed innocent enough and the female, well, she seemed pretty no nonsense, but what her was game in all of this? Matter of fact…what was his own? He worked for the MRC so that meant he made plenty of enemies, but…never had he heard of anything like this. In the end though, the simple question was, what had they done to get handcuffed together like this? How were each of them involved?

Still confused, he made his way back to the group with a remarkably different air than how he looked mere moments ago. He looked refreshed, rested and satiated. Still, despite that, he did look haggard with his thick stubble and dirtied clothes. Idly he scratched his chin as he made his way back to the group and seemed ready to agree with Aurum. They needed a someplace warm after he drenched them with water. But as he came up, he arched a brow when he spied what looked like writing on the woman’s arms. From the dark and his angle, he could not make out what it said, but he nodded to her.

“You alright?” he asked before he turned and began to survey their surroundings. “Where to now?” he asked to no one in particular. Seemed like a better question for the wind than either of his two “colleagues.”