>> "Name's Mirror. If you wanna help, tag along, but I'm not babysitting trainees, this is a real mission. What's your power anyway?"

Rebecca was not a fan of the tone Mirror took with her, but she kept her composure. It was not in her nature to handle being doubted or chided well. She tried to keep any sass out of her voice and replied, "Ah can control metal-- ye know, like th' metal in a house." Okay, maybe that was a little pointed.

She would do her best to fix it, since it was clear Mirror was in charge. As much as she was used to being the Captain of a team, she had to play nice and know her place. "Ah'll carry mah weight. Promise. Emerald has been training me." It might have been name-dropping, but it was the truth.

Cafas smiled at Gawain "If I slept in it, Calley would be very disappointed. That hotline ain't subtle though mate." The first part was mostly talking himself up, though Calley would have killed him for saying it. The second was true though. By the time they made the lobby Cafas was receiving orders. He didn't much like the experience, but there was a chain of command, and the fact that he was yet to prove himself did mean he had to take it. "Well you picked the right man for that job."

It was a short run to the garage, right past the hangar, which he was sad to not be going into, but there were some toys in the X-collection that needed to get out of the shed more often. For instance, the two vehicles they had with lights on the top courtesy of the NYPD. Sleek and black. He drove both out front, just in case. He sat with the engine running and the lights flashing on his own.. Deputisation had its perks.

Hurry the hell up it's been like, 5 minutes

>>"Ah can control metal-- ye know, like th' metal in a house... Ah'll carry mah weight. Promise. Emerald has been training me."

Those were two... well,three things that Gawain needed to hear. He grinned at the girl over his shoulder and nodded.

"That's good enough for me. Two of my friends seem to... trust you. Welcome to the team."

The other friend, obviously, being Agnes. Who also needed some more training, once this mess was over.

And metalbending just sounded useful.

On their way to the lobby Gawain took a stop and peered into the living room. He couldn't hold back a satisfied smirk when he saw the figure of the Mansion's resident demolitions expert stretched out on the couch with some nondescript program running on the TV screen.

Walking up behind the couch Gawain reached over and pushed on Saphirus' shoulder, rolling him off the furniture.

"Put your spandex on Saph, we got a building that needs its ass kicked. Our ride is here. Out front. Now."

Did buildings even have asses?...
Details.

What was he watching?

ADVENTURE TIME!

Why?

Because he'd spent all damned night last night moonlighting as the Judge, and he felt like he'd earned a day of rest and relaxation. Did that mean he was grumpy when he felt a hand moving toward him with enough force to push, and fond himself on the floor before he could snap his attention from a small kid fighting a foot monster with his stretchy dog? Heck no! He was getting an offering for his first real X-mission! Jesus, he'd been working for more than a year and they hadn't called on him once!

Now was his time to shine! He hopped to his feet quickly, and saluted smartly. "I'll see you out there in one minute, maybe two!" He eyed the two other people with the young team leader, nodding silently to Cafas, and then speed hobbled out of the room faster than you would expect a man with a hobble could. On the way he pondered what exactly it Gawain meant by a building needing a beating... like... a building full of people, or an actual building?


Bam! The door of his room slammed shut behind him. Andrea was cleaning his room. D'aww, he hadn't asked her to. How sweet! He started stripping.

"Not much time. Building needs to be punched, wish me luck! Kiss?" He had his spandex leggings on by the time he leaned in for a kiss, and his crowbar and top in hand by the time he dove out the window, and landed in the garden, careful to land on the proper foot. From there it was just a hop skip and a jump to the driveway where he could meet the rest of the team.

An odd thought occurred as he slid his spandex shirt on over a bruised muscly frame while walking up to the driveway... Did buildings even have asses?

No worry, if it was there, he would kick it, if it wasn't he'd find something else to kick.

Wow, Saph really did have spandex.
Where is Kealey when you need her?

By the time they walked outside CJ had parked two cars out front, ready to go.

"Looks like out ride is here" Gawain nodded, activating his X-comm. "All right everyone, last chance to get in on the fun. To any X's who are still makin' out in the building: you have exactly one minute to meet us out front ready for a mission. We have a building full of people to save and we don't want the grown-ups to beat us to it. Now!"

Hopefully that would get people's attention. If there was anyone else who wanted to tag along and tear down an office building.
X-men style.

Streak was just stepping out of his room to get a bite to eat from the mansion when he heard it. His had been silent for quite some time now and he actually ahd to think for a second before he realized whate exactly was making that noise. Streak dashed back inside his room and grabbed his communicator. He listened closely as Gwain's voice came over the coms and spoke about mission in the city.

He was on it. In seconds he'd forgotten that he was hungry and was heading out the door, wearing his xmen uniform, and heading towards front where he saw two cars parked. Streak looked quite fitting in his uniform. He'd had it made a long time ago but it still fit and he still liked it. Most of the ime he didn't get to wear it. It was black leather with silver outlining the seams and a raised collar that had two silver X's on either side. There were already quite a few people there when he showed up and the only thing he could think of was, Man this has got to be serious if there are this many people here.

Usually the missions he went on were with small groups of maybe five max, but this one had more than that and even had a few that he didn't recognize. He probably should have but it wasn't like they had weekly clubhouse meetings or anything like that. Streak walked up and said to
Mirror, "If everyone's here...Lets roll." He wasn't used to taking this many people but it could work especially if it was a big of a deal as it sounded. He only hoped that Gwain would fill him in on any details that he'd missed on his communicator.

Koga started getting ready for the mission as soon as he heard the conversation in the hall. He was going on that mission with or without an invitation. He would normally start grabbing weapons and getting in his ninja gear but after thinking about how well that went against the last giant he fought, he opted for his toolkit. Battery powered drill, hammer, small crowbar, etc. He threw that in a Messenger bag along with a coil of rope, a roll of duct tape, and a small fire extinguisher. He slung the equipment over his shoulder and opened his window. He would be doing save the people work not kill the building work today…he hesitated for a moment and grabbed a wakasashi off of his dresser just in case. He typically liked to be better dressed for saving the world, but it looked like a tank top and jeans would have to do.

He then proceeded to climb down the wall and jog to the cars as Streak was announcing they should roll out. “I’m still a trainee, but an experienced one, I’ll hold my own.” There wasn’t time to argue so he didn’t leave it for debate not bothering to wait for approval he simply piled in the back of one of the vehicles.

Even though time was running out, Gawain allowed himself a grin as everyone piled into the cars. Quite a neat little X-team. He wondered where the hell Sam was, he needed to see this.
...
By the way, where the hell was he?...

Even though CJ probably broke every possible speed limit and traffic regulation on the way downtown, the police still beat the team to the Crystal Tower. Most of it, anyway. No one beats a werewolf on a motorcycle.
Mental note: Train people to fly the Jet.

Once the X-team piled out of the cars and gathered in front of the building within the perimeter the police managed to set up (who, thanks to the flashy uniforms and Jorge's shiny MRC badge, now were extremely occupied with keeping the press and media out and leaving the work to the mutants with uniforms and shiny badges)...
... so, once the team gathered, Gawain looked up at the building.

The Crytal Tower was one of the new, modern office buildings of downtown Manhattan, twenty-five levels all metal and plastic and glass and who-knows-what, digitalized, wired ten ways from Sunday, and, as for the moment, apparently sentient. All entrances were locked down from the inside, and none of the "several hundred" people trapped inside showed in any of the windows.
To tell the truth, the Tower was eerily quiet.
Minus the creaking sound that signaled that the building was either settling, or...
.. doing other things on the inside.

Gawain looked at the other X-men and cleared his throat.

"All right... We need the doors open, the people out and in safety. It obviously doesn't want people leavin', so we're gonna pry it open in as many different places as we can, and keep it open until everyone's out. That is our priority. We also need a small team that goes in, scans the place, finds the mutant responsible, and shuts the building down. No lethal force, we are the good guys, but keep your wits about you. Anything can move on the inside. Keep your comms open. Ready? Let's see the teams."

((Feel free to call what you're gonna be doing and then break off into smaller threads. We'll wrap up in the end. Have fun! ))

When Rebecca heard "living building," she pictured something like Monster House, not a living skyscraper. The building's size was intimidating, but even at a precursory glance, she was happy to see just how much of the building was made of metal. The power Rebecca had was not strong enough to rip out big pieces of the structure, but there would be plenty of other opportunities to show her stuff.

Rebecca decided that she wanted to add as much flexibility to her outfit as she could to compensate for the metal bands and her breastplate. She ended up settling on a black unitard to go under her armor, which allowed for movement but also left her feeling somewhat exposed.

Mirror offered several objectives, and one sounded like something that had to be done first and fell right into her skill set. "I can force open nearby doors with metal or knobs, sir." "Sir" was probably a bit much since Mirror was around her age, but her first impression was that of an uncooperative team member, and she was still a trainee after all.

The drive had been swift, reckless, and siren-y, with a hint of screeching tires and the pleasant odour of burnt rubber. More than once he had narrowly avoided a collision, and there was even a point he was surprised the car behind them had kept up the pace, given that a car ran between them. Timing is everything.

Oh look, a giant skyscraper, man, would have just sucked if this was something nice and simple and not deadly...

Cafas put on his hat as he stepped out of the car. From the boot he pulled his shield and a hammer. Not one of those sissy bang nails in hammers. Not even a sledge hammer, no, this was a proper hammer, made for wrecking stuff. He'd made it from a bunch of scrap metal in the Garage. It was potentially someone's engine block. Would he reimburse them? No.

Orders? Seriously? Cos we needed more.

"Okay I'll take evac crew. Break and Enter is kinda my specialty." Plus he had heard something about metal in the girl's volunteering, which interested him. He wanted Saph with him too, there would be things not made of metal in there, potentially doors, windows, walls, and what couldn't be dealt with through his mutation could almost certainly be dealt with through Saph's.

Why didn't I just ignore this call out? Minimum thirty floors to clear and evac, and stories of angry furniture and strategically collapsing ceilings...

Comms open was the bit he wasn't too fond of. His were sitting in a pile of wire and circuit boards in his room. He needed someone to have theirs on them. Not to mention, as a trainee, he would likely be taking orders inside as well. He didn't like that idea, but he didn't seem to be getting a choice in the matter. His choice was when to act, and that one he was going to take before someone could take it from him too. "Evac team with me, I need anti material powers and people skills."

This may hurt...

"Alright, let's do this!" Cafas readied himself mentally for what he was about to do. He got his balance, tensed for the take off, and set of at a run, hammer swung back, directly at the glass of the lobby.

Leeeeeeroooooooooy...

The glass shattered under the force of the hammer swing, and the first entrance was blasted wide open.

Jenkins.

EDIT: (OOC: Evac crew for ground floors goes here!

Streak was in the follow car. He was actually driving the follow car, to be precise. Cafas was definitely a good driver... crazy, but good. He was having a little trouble keeping up, especially when a car jumped in between them. Apparently the whole lights and sirens thing was lost on this random driver. Fortunately, as soon as the driver saw the lights behind him he moved back out of the way and Streak caught up to the lead car. He was actually glad that the police had been the first ones there because they were able to make a path for the X-men to cut through to get to the building...correction skyscraper. This thing was huge. It was at least twenty-five stories, probably more, and made of a lot of metal and glass. From the street people could be seen freaking out inside and he was just hoping that none tried to jump. They didn't exactly have anything to catch them with.

The X-men piled out of the cars sand Mirror started giving directions. He was a little glad that he was in charge because Streak was just impressed at the sheer magnitude of power it must have took to mobilize the building. Streak immediately volunteered, "I'll take three others with me to find the mutant." He only really needed to get inside. He was going to leave the demolishing to other people. He was pretty good at finding things and he was going to take only a couple that could be spared. Most would be needed to get the building full of people emptied.

Streak followed Cafas and his little demolishing team into the building. They made quite the hole. The silvermancer silently hoped that the metal manipulator that was with them was going to be able to contain some of the buildings metals. Streak and his team were inside and the fun had started. His communicator was on and he was ready for action.

(OOC: Continued here If you want to help looking for the mutant responsible I'll take you. Jorge may want to come with Streak to make the official arrest. *forgot handcuffs )

Jorge had changed and made it to the scene faster than he thought he was going to. After he had changed, Jorge left Gemma behind and dashed out of the apartment and headed down for his car. Maybe he really shouldn’t have been taking his own car, but since he really did not have any other right, he did not argue with himself about it. This was going to be his first mission in uniform (thanks to that X-Man Kealey) so he needed to make sure that he not only represented X-Men, but also the police department that trusted him to work as their liaison. So Jorge was going to have to make a good impression.

Stepping out into the light he smirked a little as he glanced down at the X-uniform that had been custom made for him. He had to admit that it looked like it would have been rather encumbersome but that young woman certainly knew how to make a uniform. It breathed easily, yet still had strength, and it even under the jacket, the top was sleeveless so that he could easily slip back into the costume after he went water form.

All in all, he was pleased.

Pulling the X-communicator from his pocket, Jorge dashed for his car, slipped in, and revved the engine. It seemed like it was seconds before he managed to get out onto the road and was barreling towards the Crystal Tower.

****

The police were already there. Jorge spied the flashing red and blue lights as he drove up to the building and spied that it looked like a menacing sight already. It was huge and intimidating, and the knowledge that it was bustling instead with life just made everything all the more terrifying. He could only imagine what the people inside were going through. They needed to be gotten out, the mutant responsible needed to be found and, most of all, they had to keep people from getting killed.

Jorge pulled up to the police line just as pair of vehicles showed up. Instantly he recognized them as fellow X-Men; well some he recognized, the rest he had yet to be introduced to. Jorge had nodded to Gawain and, with a flash of his badge, the group had made their way into the fray while police officers everywhere tried to keep the populace and press back.

>> "All right... We need the doors open, the people out and in safety. It obviously doesn't want people leavin', so we're gonna pry it open in as many different places as we can, and keep it open until everyone's out. That is our priority. We also need a small team that goes in, scans the place, finds the mutant responsible, and shuts the building down. No lethal force, we are the good guys, but keep your wits about you. Anything can move on the inside. Keep your comms open. Ready? Let's see the teams."

Jorge nodded, blinked as one of the X-Men called out people and ran off with a sledgehammer. Someone was obviously very pleased with this mission. He smirked at that.

He then turned to Gawain and nodded.

“I can get in and scope out for survivors or the mutant causing this,” Jorge said with a nod. His powers, manipulating and turning into water, should be useful enough for him to get around even the tightest corners and locked doors. The detective joined whichever group was going to be heading in.

God…he hoped he was not going to get killed.

And DAMN did he look old standing amongst all the youngin’s.

Koga hoped out of the car, He had spent the ride over looking up as much Intel as he could about the building. He located several exits, saw potential for escape strategy's and found the closest and most likely building to evacuate people to via helicopter, or Shin Shard bridge maybe?

He took stock of the police officers in the perimeter and quickly found a man in charge. " Do you think we could get the energy cut off to thiss building in about ten minutess? If the mutant in quesstion hass control of the building but needss power to operate the electronicss, itss an advantage we can take from him, from the outsside. way." He looked to make sure the Officer understood, whether he would take the request from a reptilian kid that was currently bright orange with blue hair, and in jeans and a tank top, was a whole different matter. Just in case that wasn’t enough reason, he added. " Not to mention if it gets destructive in there we can avoid electric fires. Give uss ten minutess before though pleasse. Alsso if you can get ssome helicopterss for rooftop extraction, that'd be great."

Koga bowed to the officer and then ran toward the entrance where the pink hammer had just smashed the front window. That was one way to do it. Catching up to the group Koga glanced around and looked for the most level headed looking individual. His eyes feel on Jorge. "Ssir? I recommended checking the ssecurity camerass for cluess and recon, I am going to climb to the top out here, but I think that would be a good place to start. I requessted the officerss had the power cut in ten minutess, sso thats a limited time advantage." He then pointed to a door just behind the lobby's greeting desk. " The ssecurity camerass will be jusst through that door."

Koga bowed once more to Jorge and ran to the side of the building where he kicked off his flip flops and started scaling the outside wall. Upon contact the windows began to chatter and a story up they were starting to shake, it’d take more than that to knock him off though.

Through the roof

They got to their destination quickly; Cafas drove like a maniac, which was perfectly fine in the mind of the Masochist. He'd caught sight of lots of familiar faces... Koga, Gawain, Streak... and detective Cervantes... A grin formed on his face. It really was a small world; he made a mental note to thank the good detective for helping Andrea out.

Before that, though, he had bigger fish to fry. Cafas was charging in headlong, and the new girl, who had a very green look about her, showed her eagerness to help out. Heh. She called Gawain 'Sir', and she was serious about this. He chuckled under his breath. Before he had too much time to enjoy the moment, though, he heard the sound of shattering glass, and turned to the girl. "If you can hold doors open, then you'd prolly be best helping free the people trapped inside... Just... Don't get in the way, alright?" Without another word he turned and speed hobbled toward the entrance Cafas had made, his crowbar clenched tightly in his hand.

Interesting choice, he thought as he eyed Cafas' new toy, taking a page from the Judge's notebook; he'd always thought a sword fit the younger mutant's style better, but he couldn't complain about the effect it had, and the need for higher impact weapons was clear if they would really be fighting the building itself as Gawain had said.

Well, it was time to get to work, then.

>> "If you can hold doors open, then you'd prolly be best helping free the people trapped inside... Just... Don't get in the way, alright?"

Alright, she understood her role as the new, unproven teammate, but Rebecca sincerely hoped this was not going to last forever. They had every reason to doubt her since they have not watched her do anything yet, but she knew what she could handle. She beat the Sewer King. She beat Malachi-ish. She would help beat the Skyscraper of Death and prove her worth. "Ye've got it."

She watched her team leader burst through a window, almost wanting to chuckle. She could follow a man like that. Just... not through the window. She ran toward nearest metal door and shoved it open with a burst of magnetic energy, making it in just before the building retaliated and closed it up.