Kyle, Wanda, an investigation and a shoe.

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

The suggestion that Forge might've gone and done something stupid sends Kyle down to beat up on a heavy bag. Wanda finds him, and gets his help in finding his missing roommate. At the mall, Kyle, forgetting to be self-conscious for once, finds a trace of Forge. Then Wanda finds Forge's broken
PDA.



With plans finalizing with Maddie about searching the mall that Forge had been going to before he disappeared coming together, Wanda was on another kind of mission. They had the mall for a starting ground but as one, it was far too large to be covered by only the two of them. And the last thing they wanted was to bring down the X-Men enforce to the mall.

Not only would it ring some alarm bells but it could also potentially kill any physical evidence left behind. She and Maddie had different backgrounds but times like this were when anthropology and criminal investigation went hand in hand. Start by squaring off certain sections, don't contaminate evidence. And the perfect way to do all of this was currently attempting to kill the heavy bag in the gym.

It was better than killing his classmates. The bag didn't mouth off, say stupid stuff that anyone with half a brain knew wasn't true, and didn't set him on fire or hit back.

"Forge!" Kyle sent the bag flying back from his fist with a grunt. "DIDN'T!" Another punch, and a low growl came up out of his chest. "Run. Away." It just didn't make a goddamn bit of sense.

Well, that was reassuring. "You are right, Kyle, I doubt very much that he ran away," Wanda said, knowing that he would have known that she was there, as she slipped into the room. "It's very much against his nature to just leave, not with the kinds of connections he has made here."

"And he left his -stuff-." Kyle said, half snarling the words. "Forge doesn't leave stuff like that unfinished, or out just laying around where, you know, I could get into it." Not that Kyle didn't know better, but really, Forge just didn't leave it out like that if he wasn't coming back to it."

"Apparently he left his lab notes," she supplied, which was one of _the_ biggest signs that something simply was not right. And his genius hat and damned near everything except for the stuff he had on him when he'd left the mansion. "So, gut feeling right off the bat is that he did not decide on a sudden vacation."

"Well its nice to know someone thinks so." Kyle growled. Okay, not -everyone- thought Forge ran off, but he didn't care. That anyone did was just, in his opinion, fucking idiotic. "So, where'd he go?"

"Honestly? We do not have a clue." Wanda took a good look at Kyle, the anger was just pouring off of him. Along with frustration. "Maddie and I are actually going to have a look at the mall to see if we could find some clues. In fact, I was wondering if you could help us."

"What, ransack his room?" Kyle shrugged. "Too late. This is Forge, how would anybody know? The only reason he does laundry is because I start bitching that it stinks." For a teenage boy with no organization skills, Kyle was -remarkably- anal about laundry. Dirty boxers were foul. He paused with a scowl. "Sorry 'bout the b-word."

"No worries. And actually...you're nearly right." Tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, she was still getting used to the new hair cut, Wanda smiled at him. "Between Maddie and I, we could probably go over the mall with a fine toothed comb and eventually find something. But time would be wasting away, the mall is very large and the security cameras are everywhere. We need you to help us find where he was at the mall."

"Uh..." Kyle gave Wanda a long look, eyes narrowing. "Um. Huh?" He had a bad feeling this was going to lead somewhere bad. "I know most of the places Forge goes to be all nerdy-guy. There's a decent sub place across from where he gets some of the... whatevers he uses to build stuff."

Sighing, she leaned over and gently tapped his nose. "Kyle, your mutation lends itself to locating his _exact_ whereabouts," she explained. "The fact that you are his roommate intensifies this...adding on to the fact that you know where he would logically be found at."

"Uh." The lightbulb that went off over Kyle's head was dim and flickered like that of a cheap diner. "Oh yeaaah. " He finally said, expression lightening slightly. "I bet I could do that. Forge's pretty distinctive, you know? Metal and burned metal and..." Lost in though, he trailed off, only to burst back into conversation a second later. "He was at the mall? There's gonna be a lot of other people smells covering up Forge smells. When can we go?" Going now, he hoped, was an option. The sooner the better.

Wanda beamed at him. "As soon as possible. Maddie is paving the way for us to get a hold of the security tapes, as soon as that access comes through, we can leave." The muscles in her jaw clenched slightly. "We'll find him, one way or another."

"Good." Kyle idly started stripping away the athletic tape around his knuckles with his claws. "I'll go put on my Tevas, because, you know, totally not going to get kicked out of the mall for not wearing shoes. It'd slow things down." An odd look passed over his face, almost determination, if it hadn't been mixed with the lingering anger over his roommate being missing. "And I gotta get something of Forge's. Its easier to track people... at least, police dogs do that, and it can't hurt." The shoe. He still had that shoe, and Forge's foot stunk to high heaven most of the time.

"That's probably a good idea. I'll go and see what I can do to help Maddie and then we'll meet back up here." The faster they went, the faster they would have any evidence of something going wrong or something happening. Those tapes might hold the answer.

For Forge's sake, she hoped they did.




Malls were usually nearly overwhelming for Kyle, a blend of noises and smells that ranged from the fantastic to the foul. A good fresh steak sandwich was a smell he could put his nose in for hours. An unwashed child in dire need of a new diaper? Too many people did not get the value of a good shower for their kids.

Finding a specific smell, faded away in the blend was a challenge.

Kyle gave up on any pretense of normalcy thirty seconds into the search. The shoe, laces rescued from Catseye, was tied around his wrist; he was too worried about losing it to care what it looked like.

The hints of Forge in the air were ... like glimpses of a face through a window in the rain. The crisp rasp of metal, that weird earthy smell of whatever the hell it was Forge washed his hair with, sweat, the tinny almost-taste of fear...

A deep guttural growl, audible over people's voices, like a chainsaw, came up out of Kyle's chest. "Move..." He snarled, pushing roughly past a slow-moving man and his packages. "Get. Out. Of. My. Way."

Coming up to Wanda, he pointed towards the storefront where the smells had been strongest. "He was here, and man, Forge was scared -shitless-."

Keeping up with Kyle had been a miracle. Wanda's height had really been the only way she'd kept an eye on the teen as he had darted through the dense traffic mall. Those who were irritated at him only had to look once at the expression on her face before deciding they had better things to do than snap at the pair.

Arriving at the spot where he was indicating, Wanda keyed up the communications to Madeline, who was currently dealing with the security people. "Maddie? We'll need the security tapes off the camera..." She consulted the list that the guards had given them. "Camera 24B. Kyle says he was here. And scared."

Turning, she cast a glance around. There was nothing out of the ordinary here, just a mall with people and benches and trash cans. "What happened, Forge?" she said softly, suddenly wishing for Marie-Ange's powers. Reading chaos strings was one thing, affecting them another but she'd kill for the precogs abilities at this moment in time.

As Kyle poked around a little more, looking more like he was guarding the area, Wanda started searching for something. Anything that might point to where Forge disappeared off to.

Turning something caught her eye and she knelt in front of the trash can that was nearby. "What do we have here?" Wanda asked, fishing out... A PDA. A darkened PDA that obviously came from Xavier's. From where it was it looked as if it had fallen out of the trash--probably when they had emptied them for the evening.

Frowning, she attempted to turn it on but nothing happened. It was obviously busted but not by the fall. Well, then. This might be the clue they were looking for.

Comments

[x-rahne.livejournal.com]

The hints of Forge in the air were ... like glimpses of a face through a window in the rain. The crisp rasp of metal, that weird earthy smell of whatever the hell it was Forge washed his hair with, sweat, the tinny almost-taste of fear...

A deep guttural growl, audible over people's voices, like a chainsaw, came up out of Kyle's chest. "Move..." He snarled, pushing roughly past a slow-moving man and his packages. "Get. Out. Of. My. Way."

I felt that.

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Thank you. ;) That was my intention.