Put on Your Shades 'Cause I'll be Dancing in the Flames

[sonoflongshot]

Ever since Angel had been beat up by some bigots, Aiden had taken to patrolling of sorts. Just to keep an eye out for organized gatherings. How he had managed to squeeze it in between working as a popular bartender, training with his fellow New Mutants, and keeping Angel company was beyond his ability to consider. He just did what needed to be done.

Like tonight.

He had gotten a good idea on where a local chapter of the Friends of Humanity liked to hang out. The Mojoworlder knew about the chapter at Sara and Angel's school, but this was encroaching too close to home. While he could tell the others and they could go be proactive about it, Aiden decided to do this with sneaks and stealth.

He had on his black-lightweight hoodie as he sorted through gear on his side of his bed. While he could produce whatever hand-held weapon of hard-light, he needed help for anything at a distance. Sabotage was the game of the night, so he was carefully choosing projectiles that didn't scream ninja.

Comments

[sonoflongshot]

It was an easy couple blocks jog. Aiden slowed down a couple doors down from the defunct bakery that was now a Friends of Humanity headquarters. He was careful where he placed his feet so not even weeds growing out of sidewalk cracks would show someone was passing by.

Though it was summer and the palm of his hand holding Angel's was all kinds of sweaty.

"Alright," he whispered. "Let's see what they're up to first. Then we can sabotage."

[crawler_kid]

Angel nodded, then realized that Aiden couldn't see the gesture. "Got it," she whispered.

It wasn't too hot, fortunately, but when you were covered in a fine layer of fur, hot was rather subjective. She felt tenser, this close to the heart of the enemy. These people had beaten her, nearly within an inch of her life. And they'd just been ordinary people who'd gotten lucky.

[sonoflongshot]

Aiden carefully moved to an alley beside the building. He could technically just stand in front of the big, plate glass window and put his ear to it, but that seemed very un-ninja-like.

He used his grip on Angel's hand to gently pull her closer as he skirted around some particularly ripe trash. He was glad she could see the faces he was making at the smell.

There was a side door propped open three-quarters of the way down the alley. Aiden headed right for it.

[crawler_kid]

Okay, that definitely stunk. Angel was just glad they were passing through too quickly for the smell to linger in her nostrils or fur.

She let Aiden take the lead. He'd done this before, after all.

[ngm_villains]

The meeting had not formally started yet, but there was lots of chatter floating out into the alley.

"-doncha wish they leveled that mutie-loving business to the ground?"

"... woulda hung that furry freak from a street light if that angry blond bastard hadn't shown up."

"I hear they give a virulent and incurable form of syphilis to anyone they sleep with. I wouldn't want my nuts to fall off."

"Damn hippie liberals are keeping Rutgers from booting out the muties. Affirmative action, my ass."

The chatter started to die down after a couple raps on wood. One louder voice cut through the din.

"All right, people. Let's settle down and see what we can do about the mutant menace in town."

[sonoflongshot]

Aiden ground his teeth together. This never got any easier for him. He peeked in the door to see people settling into metal folding chairs. He was thankful they faced away from this door.

He stepped back from the door and considered the side of the building. He used his free hand to trace up Angel's arm, over her shoulder, and up her neck a bit. He leaned in and kept his voice low.

"Can you carry me up to the roof without 'porting?" The smell of her teleport would give them away.

[crawler_kid]

Well, she was going to be honest: those comments hurt. And her former job certainly didn't deserve any of the malice either. They done right by her, until they'd caved to the pressure.

Nevertheless, she didn't realize for a moment how hard she'd been clenching her fists. Probably gave Aiden a sore hand.

"Ah can," she said. "Climb on my back."

[sonoflongshot]

Aiden tried to shake his hand loose from her grip. He was certain it would throb later, but he needed that hand to hold onto Angel now.

"Stay holding onto me when we get up top. I'm not sure if they have security cameras or not up there." He hoped not. Or if they did, it was the kind that needed light. As opposed to body heat, which he could do little about.

[crawler_kid]

Angle grunted slightly with the exertion. She was in about as fantastic a shape as it was possible for a body to be, and her own musculature was rather specialized and adapted, but that didn't mean Aiden wasn't heavy.

Climbing, though, was the easy part. Her adhesive power, achieved through a subtle manipulation of static electricity, was more than strong enough.

[sonoflongshot]

It was one sure fire way to tell Aiden was not his father. Though the men looked a lot alike, the son weighed at least double what his father did. He tried to hold on in such a way to not impede Angel's progress.

He kept a cautious ear out since looking around would probably make him wiggle too much.

"Don't worry if you drop me. I can safely land in a dumpster." Noisily. But it would be cushioned.

[crawler_kid]

"Ah got you, don't worry," she whispered. With a light grunt, she pulled them both up onto the roof.

She might have had a quip about cutting back on the pancakes, but this was a little too serious for that.

[sonoflongshot]

Aiden got off of Angel as quickly as he could. Not that he went far. He had to hold onto an appendage of some sort. Though he had no real idea what he was holding at the moment.

He glanced around. Yep. It was a rooftop. With access to the building below. Also, a skylight.

"Okay. Over there. Let's see what they're doing and things we can mess up for them."

[crawler_kid]

That would be her tail. Which was probably one of the better parts of her to hold on to, though not really one of the fun parts Aiden probably liked holding on to best.

She grinned slightly, baring her fangs. "Ah like the sound of that."

Maybe she'd feel a little good old Catholic guilt for it later, but tonight was gonna be fun.

[ngm_villains]

Someone had wheeled in a big board with a map of New Brunswick on it. Several locations were noted with red flag pins. The group was discussing what to do to these mutant-friendly businesses.

Some of the gestures from people talking indicated picketing or explosions or other things.

[sonoflongshot]

Aiden squinted through the dingy skylight. They would need to get closer for him to figure out which places to protect.

Most everyone was in the large room, but someone had gotten up and gone into another room.

"Hows about we cut the power and then start working them one by one?" He kept his voice low just in case there was some weird acoustics trick to this roof.

[crawler_kid]

Angel had very excellent vision, including at night, but seeing enough of the map was beyond her as well. But this didn't look good. This wasn't just violence against one individual. This was definitely stirring up a whole pot of crazy, and that always boiled over into trouble.

"Ah like it," she whispered. "We cain't let this get bigger than this. Could spark a whole mess of trouble."

[sonoflongshot]

He carefully adjusted his grip on her tail, making sure he did not let go of her. Then he gave a very gentle tug. Mostly because he knew she couldn't see if he pointed.

"This way. I see roof access and a metal box that could be electrical." Once he was sure she got the message, he started that way to check out both.

"They're close together, so you find a way to sabotage the electricity and I'll see how we can get in undetected."

[crawler_kid]

Angel wasn't much of an electrical whiz, but like all the X-kids, she had a pretty good grounding (heh. grounding) just in case she needed it. In the world of the X-Men, you never did know if you were going to need to trip up a circuit breaker before getting the drop on the bad guys.

Carefully, once they were there, she pried open the box. Definitely easy to sabotage.

"Reckon all Ah gotta do is rip out some of these wires. Oughta go right out."

[sonoflongshot]

"If there's some feathers about, stick them up there so it looks like birds did it," Aiden advised as he crouched by the roof entry. Just by luck, there were some large, black bird feathers against the wall below the electrical box. The blond wasn't aware they were there.

He had had pulled out a screwdriver to poke at the rusty lock on the roof access door. Aiden tentatively poked it. The lock broke off from the door and plummeted toward the ground. Aiden tried to juggle/catch it without dropping the screwdriver or Angel's tail.

[crawler_kid]

Angel was preoccupied with the electrical box, and didn't see Aiden's tampering with the lock until it was too late, catching something out of the corner of her eye.

"Oh, damnation...."

[sonoflongshot]

If Aiden had had pinkies, he might have caught it. As it was, it landed with a soft pumpt on his toes. The Mojoworlder winced a little as his footwear was not very thick. His toes did not like the suddent application of metal to their tops.

He grunted a bit as the lock slid off his toes to the rooftop. He sighed softly as he went to check if the door was painted or rusted shut. It came open easier than expected with nary a squeal or ominious sound.

[crawler_kid]

Angel let out a sigh of relief, finishing up with the electrical box. "An' there we... go."

[sonoflongshot]

"Okay, babe," Aiden whispered. "Get closer. We need to go through as quickly as possible."

He stuck his head inside the door to make sure the coast was clear. As far as he could see, it was. He pulled his head back out to say the next bit. He figured it would be the last thing said for a bit.

"And go." He went to jump inside and carefully shut the door behind them.

[crawler_kid]

Angel kept close to him, moving quickly but carefully.

Time to make some mischief.

[ngm_villains]

As Aiden and Angel crept through the repurposed bakery, there was the murmur of the voices talking in the back room. Off to their right, down a very dimly lit hallway came the ominous sound of... a toilet flushing.