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April 6, 2013: Live From New York; this is a part of the Riot Plot.

The redhead faced the cameras with a smile her viewers had never seen before, except perhaps in their dreams.

"Good evening, New York," she began, with all her usual cordiality.

"At ten o'clock this morning, I received a call from Officer Maru. Some of you may remember him: he's one of the five officers recently exonerated in the Gina Schuyler beating." The redhead's lips quirked. "That's the gargoyle girl, for those of you who have trouble remembering mutant names."

"Officer Maru informed me that there was something the investigating committee had repressed; a new angle to the story that the police did not want getting out. He invited me out to meet with him and his fellow officers, for an exclusive interview."

There was something conspiratorial in her eyes and her posture; something that beckoned the viewer closer to their screen. She herself leaned subtly across the desk, and the camera obligingly zoomed in.

"Here's the real story, New York: here's what the NYPD didn't want you to know."

The screen framed her messy hair, and her torn shirt, quite nicely. The senior cameraman at Wolf News had quite the flare for the dramatic.

"The attack on Gina? That was no accident. She was targeted because she was a mutant; beaten because she was a mutant. Some of you knew that already; but I—I had really thought—"

The smile flickered off for a moment, then was back.

"Four members of the NYPD called me out to a deserted street this morning, and physically assaulted me. Do you know what they said? That they didn't need help from a freak like me. That if I told anyone what they'd done, they'd kill me. They said they were untouchable."

The same emotion that her lips carried crawled up her face, and settled in the laugh lines around her eyes.

"Untouchable," she repeated, like it was the cutest thing in the world.

"You heard them, mutants—they don't need our help, and they don't want it. They're going to keep doing whatever they want to do to us, because they're untouchable, and because the NYPD is actively covering up hate crimes perpetrated by its officers. On the scales of stupidity, I think humanity just tipped things to burn this city down."

She was serious; in that moment, she was deadly serious.

"Maxine Ralls, Wolf News."

She knew something was wrong, but she'd gone anyway.

The call had come in that morning, to her direct line: she almost hadn't answered, because the number on the caller id was just some anonymous city payphone. Between sips of coffee, and rings, her brain had woken up enough for that to click: anonymous city payphone. Who calls a reporter's direct line from an anonymous city payphone?

The kind of person a reporter wants to talk to, that was who.

Once the caller had identified himself, she'd recognized the voice: it was a voice most people in the city had heard in the past months, repeated ad nauseam. Of course, it wasn't the voice they'd been paying attention to, when they'd been watching that clip. He had the identification to back things up: the badge number, the names of the others involved, the hints of details that weren't released with the official statements.

She caught a pen out of the air, pulled off its cap before it could so much as wriggle in complaint, and started writing. Place, time. Guarantees that they'd remain anonymous. Bring no one else. No cameras. No recording devices. Just pen and paper notes. This would be anonymous, right?

"Sir," she said, with all due affronted dignity. "I'm a professional."

When she hung up the phone, she stared for a moment at what she had written. Then she fist pumped victoriously enough to attract the attention of at least three senior reporters.

This was it: her first anonymous witness. Her first anonymous witness who had come to her, no less. And why not? She was a professional; it was about time people started treating her like one, instead of like the token mutie around the office, rounding out the affirmative action lineup with the Latino secretary, the Asian girl in HR, and the black guy who covered international news. She was exactly the person they needed to break this story, and they'd realized it.

Whatever this story was; he wouldn't get into details over the phone.

It took some quick subway jockeying, but she was there on time. Plotting the routes and hopping the trains kept her mind occupied enough that she was a block from the station before she realized what kind of neighborhood she was in.

For just a moment, her steps slowed. Maybe she should have brought Rex. The octoclip had a certain way of screwing everything up, though. Especially with people who might be a bit jumpy around obvious mutations.

"Ms. Ralls?"

She spun around to face the voice, tensed, then relaxed. She recognized it; from the phone, and from weeks of hearing it played in clip after clip on every news program in the city. It was the voice of one of the officers involved in the Gina Schuyler beating; with him where three of the others. Only one was missing.

She'd be fine. She was going to be hanging out with cops, wasn't she?

"Hello, Officers," she smiled in glib greeting, pushing her purse higher up her shoulder. "So, where are we going to do this?"

The officers looked at one another; the smiles that broke out made her grip on the purse strap tighten, though she kept her own smile in place.

"Oh," the caller replied, taking a step towards her. His fellow officers flanked out, easily surrounding her. And she just stood there, watching them do it. That was the part she would remember mostly clearly later: she just stood there. "I'd say right here is fine, wouldn't you? A filthy street, for a filthy freak."

"What?" She said. Stupidly: like she didn't already understand.

The rest wasn't clear. It had a dreamlike quality: disconnected images, tied together only by sensation and emotion.

The first contact was a push; almost gentle, by comparison. She staggered to one side, and another officer shoved her back the other way.

These things didn't happen.

"Did you really think you could say all those things, and get away with it?"

"Say what thi—?"

The first hit was with an open palm.

"You don't talk when I'm talking. That's the problem with you; you don't know your place."

One of their belts was lose, and the fly unzipped; she remembered being more afraid of what they could do than of what they were doing. Especially after she lost her footing.

"Defending us? You arrogant little freak. You think we needed your help?"

One of their shoes was untied. The laces were a bland army green; they seemed to hang suspended in the air as the man drew his foot back to—

These things happened to other people.

"Hey hey, don't kill her, we just gotta teach her a lesson."

She remembered feeling grateful when she heard that: pathetically grateful, like a cringing dog.

These things didn't happen to Maxine Ralls.

Fingers in her hair; her head was raised off the ground.

"You really think that what happened to that gargoyle girl was an accident? Broken bones, five officers to take down one girl, that's an accident? God, they breed you things stupid."

She didn't know when they left. Her ears were ringing; she wanted to throw up. Maybe she already had. There were sounds of a warbling siren in the distance, but she couldn't think of that as a good thing anymore. She had to... get somewhere. But it felt like the only direction she could move was inwards; she curled more tightly around herself, but it didn't make it any better. Her shirt was getting dirty. It was new; white. Not her usual color. White made her freckles stand out.

It wasn't a siren. She shut her mouth, and the sound stopped. She was alone on the asphalt, with the last words they'd said.

"If you tell anyone about this, we'll kill you. They won't believe you anyway."

She'd known that something was wrong when the call came in that morning. When it came to her. What was she, but some gag-a-week freak? The station kept her around for the controversy, not her reporting skills. No one, no one, would come to her with a scoop. She'd known something was wrong, but she'd come anyway, because she was stupid stupid—

They could have killed her. They really could have. She'd never felt so... so...

Only in her dreams had she felt so helpless; only in her dreams had she put up with men treating her like that. And even in those, she hadn't put up with it for very long. But it was different out in the real world; she was laying on a real street, and...

And that had really just happened.

"We're untouchable," he'd said. "Not like you, freak. You remember that."

She had an excellent memory, yes. Thank you.

Maxine Ralls uncurled one hand, and stretched it out; the muscles were sore from being held clenched for so long. Her hand scrapped over the rough ground, until it found the strap of her purse. She worked it closer to herself, inch by inch. Then she pulled out her phone.

"...I need a ride back to the station."

She'd gotten herself into a sitting position on the curb by the time the car pulled up. She'd even found the emergency comb in her purse, and made something presentable out of the wreck that was her hair. Three oil-free cleansing wipes, and her face was cleaned up, too; only a hint of red still showed in her eyes, and that was easily covered over with a glare.

"You took your sweet time," she snapped.

The driver's window rolled down and Gabriel, intern cameraman extraordinaire, stuck his head out. "What the heck happened to you? You get mugged?"

"Feels like it," she replied.

"Scoop didn't pan out?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that." She took a few steadying breaths, then marched stiffly over to let herself in the passenger's side. She stared out through the windshield. "Drive."

Gregory Samson was vermin. A large, exoskeleton-encrusted walking representative of what every man really was on the inside once you got past the pretty face and the sweet talk and the warmth of their arms. Vermin. Large vermin, that would crunch nicely under heels.

Maxine had broken up with, not been dumped by, the marketing intern on the tenth floor. At the start of the month. She didn't want to talk about it.

Her schedule had been busy since then. Extremely busy. Too busy for any of those quaint men-creatures who were clamoring—should be clamoring—at her door. Too busy for interviews with them, too busy for the offers for dinner they should be making to her. She was a strong, independent woman who led a too busy for men life.

Until, that is, her interview for next week's segment had fallen through in a literal conflagration, leaving her with... this. This B-list self-styled activist; this gag-a-day villain with the obvious Order ties, and the flimsy new cover lobby for whatever droll new joke he was planning. Lord, digging up dirt on him was as easy as finding cockroaches in her kitchen. Which, by the way, was one of the things she had been busy with: if her landlord did not address the problem immediately, he was going to get his own expose.

God, what she wouldn't give to have her Amazons back. She just needed a little bit of girl time, with maybe a dash of violent venting.

Instead, she had this.

This overgrown insect. This veritable vermin. This man.

"Gregory Samson?" The young redhead asked, smiling shyly after the waiter had shown her over. "I'm Maxine Ralls. What a pleasure it is to meet you—I'm so glad this slot opened up. And might I just say, what a wonderful hat."

Cat on the head. She didn't even want to know what that was overcompensating for.

December 7, 2012: Riot Plot

By now, everyone had seen it. That was clear enough by the red head's face, and the way her hand was hovering over her mouth as the segment opened. Had she been stifling a yawn?

She wasn't facing the screen. There was a TV set up on her desk, angled so that both she and her viewers could see it; on that screen was playing a ViewTube clip most of the city would recognize on sight by now. Most of its genetically divergent citizens, anyway. A gray gargoyle mutant was walking down the street; insert punch line here.

Pun not intended.

"Gosh, this is horrible," the redhead deadpanned, still looking at the TV rather than at her viewers. "My outrage. It is outrageous. Why, someone should go do this to humans, so they know what it feels like to be targeted based on how they look."

She brushed a strand of errant hair out of her face; a silver tentacle uncoiled itself from her metallic hair tie, and drew the strand back into her ponytail. She finally turned enough to cast a glance at her viewers.

"There's a lot of that sentiment going around the internet right now. I'd quote you some of the juiciest ViewTube comments, but you'd really miss out on the bad spelling and caps lock. But hey, why am I being a grammar Nazi? That's not the point here, right? The point is, some cops just went excessive force all over our fellow mutant. Time to get angry, right?"

She snapped her fingers, and a small stack of papers jumped on top of the desk and crouched there like an angry terrier. The red head made a point of pulling on a pair of black dress gloves; then she picked the top page off of the snarling stack, and began to read.

"Lawrence Metzler."

"James Cervini."

"Jeffrey Fletcher."

"Evelyn Jolitz."

"Martin Bailey."

She tossed the paper behind her; with a vehement flutter, it drifted back in front of her and rejoined its stack.

"I could go on, but we've only got five minutes. Those," she gestured to the stack, "These, are the names of the NYPD officers injured or killed on our streets in the past five years while responding to mutant-related calls. Honestly, I'm not surprised this little beat down happened: I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner, and I'm happy the girl survived. All in all, our boys in blue have shown a hell of a lot of restraint, as their friends get taken down around them. A superior amount, one could say. So all you Homo superiors out in the audience: prove that you're the better race, and chill. Every group of people has its idiots. Far be it for me to say, but just because some people are stupid doesn't mean we all have to be."

"Any mutants with ideas of vengeance: leave it to the legal system, please. Unlike with us, it works for humans."

"Until next week, remember: though our genetics may differ, we’re all equal in stupidity. Though I'd love to be proven wrong, one of these days.”

She sat up a little straighter, changing gears from somber deadpan to cordial host.

"Before I sign off, remember: all Bone Bikini Babe and Bone Bikini Nurse calendars are on sale for Christmas. By popular demand, NYC's very own Cthulhu Christmas Special is also back in stock, on DVD and BluRay. Merry commercialized giving season, and a happy New Year."

“Maxine Ralls, Wolf News.”

Maxine had no intentions of making Miss Lodestone here look bad, by the time taping was a wrap. She had no intentions of making her look good, either. The outcome of this interview was entirely in the Scottish girl's hands. Like any good interviewer, Maxine was only there to ask questions.

Like any bored interviewer, she was hoping to keep the questions interesting enough that the answers kept her awake.

" 'The leading stone,' " Maxine repeated, rolling it around on her tongue like a cat enjoying cream. "That's a good name. What kind of leader do you see yourself as being?"

"Oh, right," Maxine said, shoving her hair back from her face, curling it into around her hand in quick, tight bun of sheer—

Ugh.

"Right. Because those people who broke into the Mansion and shoot you? Clearly my fault. You're completely right—I'd been out earlier in the day 'playing' with all of them, and whoops, they just followed me home." This was her 'oh shucks' face; wasn't she just the picture of contrition?

It was a good thing he was on that side of the couch. If she could get her hands on him, she would just—

Agh!

"Following your ass to Seattle to find your mother? Getting us into that warehouse? Sure, go ahead and blame me for that, too. I'm a horrible person."

Oh, was that one aimed a bit low? You don't say.

"When have I ever gotten into something I couldn't get myself out of without you riding to my rescue? I wouldn't have even been at the Mansion that night if it wasn't for you. I'd have been home—"

In her apartment, that had been demolished in the first blast. She would have never stood a chance. Minor facts; he didn't need to know that.

"You want to know the reason you died, Gawain? Because you're the hero, out to save the damsel. Maybe if you let the girl defend herself—or, here's an idea, if we worked together—maybe I won't have to leave you bleeding on the floor while I run off to save myself, because those were the hero's last heroic goddamn words to me."

"How about the next time you think about catching a bullet for me, you—oh, I don't know—give me a f***ing self defense lesson instead."

She had to stop for breath; she'd started running out, somewhere between goddamn and the end of that. So help him if he interrupted, though. So help her. The look in her green eyes clearly said she had one more thing to say, to round out the set.

"Get over your knight complex, Gawain."

Maxine's heart was pounding in her chest. Not the good beat that came with butterflies in the stomach; the kind that was bruising itself against the inside of her ribs, trying to find a way out of its cage.

The last boy who'd had her like this had gotten a knife slid between his ribs one cold, dusty night.

That hadn't been real, though. It had been a dream: a dream that might be something more, but life was clearly going on. This was the waking world; the real world. This was Gawain; she was safe. She trusted Gawain. He'd had her back, and she'd had his.

He had her on her back.

A queen wouldn't have let anything show on her face. Maxine wasn't sure how well she was doing with that, but she knew she at least had the smile down. Slowly, sweetly she drew the back of a nail over his chest in a figure eight, and whispered just what every man wanted to hear:

"How's your girlfriend?"