<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://i.imgur.com/1c0wyTG.png)</div><strong>Name:</strong>James 'Logan' Howlett<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Downtown, besiged library<br/><strong>Date/Time:</strong>September 8th, 2017, 6:30 PM<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Salem Summers | Cyclops, Piotr Rasputin | Colossus, Joanne Weber | Blackout<br/><strong>Content:</strong>Logan makes Graydon an offer: "Let her go. Take me."<br/><hr/><br/>There was chaos in front of him, and madness behind. Logan thought it couldn't get worse, but then it did. He heard the sound of the air shredding as one of Salem's beams shot out at low energy. He couldn't afford to glance back at her, his eyes glued to Blackout as she was dragged through the crowd, but before he could activate his comm and bark at her, she barked first.<em>Armed suspects</em>. Logan knew that. He could see them standing like soldiers, waiting for Blackout to be hauled before their master. But now it at least made sense that Salem had used her powers; He'd almost gotten mad at her for disobeying orders, but he could forgive her for defending herself.<br/><br/>Before Logan could clear a larger swath towards his objective, another of his team members used their powers. Logan saw a baton rake across Blackout's face as she tried to struggle out of the grasp of her captors, and they paid with their limbs. Joanne's shadows flashed out quickly, though as shadows were an absence of light, they were not blinding in their speed. What did arrest his vision was the crimson spurt of blood that erupted from the men's now shortened limbs as Blackout severed their arms and collapsed to the ground at their feet, just before they could stagger away to suffer their agony elsewhere.<strong>"Damnit... Damnit all to hell."</strong>The old mutant felt so much in that moment as he watched her, transfixed, just as horrified as the rest of the crowd that had become captivated by the sight of her vomiting on the ground, flanked on all sides by disembodied arms. Any anger at his young charge was immediately bottled up and tossed out. Blackout did what she did because she was terrified and inexperienced, and it was his fault that she was in this position now. So he felt guilt, and pain, and immense worry as he saw the leader of the anti-mutant crowd descend on her, flanked by his shotgun-wielding goons. Blackout, still wrapped up in her own agony, was at least wary of the threat around her, as people overcame the shock of what they'd seen and remembered their hatred. She disappeared inside of a ball of shadow, still huddled on the ground, waiting for her team leader to save her... Or just waiting for everything to go away.<br/><br/>He tried to wrestle through the crowd with renewed urgency. He knew what her shields were capable of, and gunshots were too hot and fast to bounce off of the shadows for long. His back to the rest of his team, he didn't see Peter make a big motion with his hands, but he<em>felt</em>the ensuing sonic boom breeze against his back and nearly lift him off his feet. His metal frame meant he had a big, low center of gravity, which helped to keep him planted, but so many other humans around him were rocked off balance or right onto their asses. The big Russian that had been guiding him through the comm's told Logan to take the leader down, but he didn't need any direction.<strong>"I see him Colossus, I'm goin' in to save her!"</strong><br/><br/>Logan closed a great deal of distance between himself and Joanne, but not fast enough. His boots turned to lead and he stopped at the sound of the shotgun cocking through the megaphone. His hands went to his sides, and he showed the man his open palms. He shook his head slowly, as if to dissuade his opponent from doing anything stupid. Their eyes were locked, but Logan was in the unfamiliar position of prey, watching the predator closely, waiting for him to make a sudden, violent movement. The moment he thought to open his mouth and talk it out, the man with with the shot gun spoke, his megaphone still pointed down. This conversation wasn't for the cops, the cameras, the other X-Men, not even the riot he had incited. It was for Logan.<br/><br/>At the mention of his code name, bestowed by a government project that had turned mutants into weapons, he gave a slow, steady nod.<strong>"That's me, bub. Now let's think about this-"</strong>Logan took a step forward, carefully moving over the bodies of those dazed and wounded by the thunderclap, but a sharp inflection from the armed man paused him again. Logan didn't really listen to what he had to say. His rhetoric of fundamental hatred wasn't anything he hadn't heard before. The only message that mattered to Logan was the intention to hurt Blackout, as he moved to stand over her cocoon and pushed the tip of his gun barrel against its shell. Logan met the threat with a snarl, the menacing upturn of his lips to bare his teeth as instinctive as breathing to him. He could feel the blades in his forearms, embedded in his knuckles and trembling to be released, to slash his throat and rip him to shreds, to leave enough pieces of him that all of his ignorant followers could take a chunk home with them. Everything that he said about Logan was right, but he didn't care if it meant he could save Blackout.<br/><br/>He didn't have the advantage in this situation; he couldn't rush him, not before he got a few shotgun blasts into Blackout's shell, and not before his men could put a dozen into Logan's chest. That was a low win scenario. As much as he hated to do it, Logan hesitated but finally complied, slowly lifting his hands into the air at his opponent's urging.<strong>"Let the girl go. Take me with you. She's just a kid. You kill a kid on live TV,"</strong>he gestured towards the news helicopters roaring above their heads,<strong>"And the whole world will see that you people don't care about 'enforcing the law'. I can't be the animal if you're the one executin' babies. Let her go. Take me."</strong>He was ready to pay for that offer. Logan could take anything they could dish out. He'd been through everything and worse. She hadn't, she couldn't take it.<br/><br/>The gunmen, clad in body armor, began to encircle him, and Logan carefully studied them, scrutinizing their movements to find an opening. What he found instead was a name that he hadn't seen in more than fifty years; His eyes narrowed as he studied the word<em>Purifier</em>. The involvement of Reverend Stryker was not surprising, but it was troubling, at least if these Purifiers were anything like the ones he had known in his world.<br/><br/>A long few seconds had passed before he repeated himself.<strong>"Let her go. Take me. No tricks."</strong>Logan flicked his wrists forward and back, to show the man the back of his hands, where no claws could be seen. His green eyes were fixed intensely on his opponent, his face a mask of determination, though subtly betrayed by the slight tremble of his lower lip. He was terrified that he would be responsible of another X-Man. It didn't matter if it wasn't at the end of his own claws, she would be another body at his feet if he didn't get her to safety.