New York Minute: The Wolf is Always at the Door

[x-kaminari.livejournal.com]

If you find somebody to love in this world
You better hang on tooth and nail
The wolf is always at the door

2:43 am:

It was not the best lit alley in town, and considering it was New York City, and all the city had been through, that was saying something. It also smelled remarkably like a New York alley, which was to say, 'bad', although the ozone flavor to the air was somewhat unusual. The security system had given this as the location Noriko had been when her phone's alarm went off, and somehow it wasn't suprising that she'd found a club as seedy as the one which let out onto this alley.

Haller's nose wrinkled at the stink, among other things. All-too-current destruction of Manhattan, four injured and still-missing people, and now a destroyed cellphone? Yeah, a total absence of Noriko was exactly what everyone needed right now. Sometime during World's Tensest Car Ride with Kyle, Terry, and a CO whose hands had probably been in danger of breaking the steering wheel, Jim had finally given up and let Cyndi ride shotgun for a while. Putting aside the difficulty of pegging Noriko's mind as anything other than painful static, Cyndi lacked Jim's secondary mutation of Fret. Far be it from her to get in the way of Jim if he were called for, but just about now he needed a break from caring.

"Annnnd we got nobody," the alter said flatly, assessing the empty alley. "Awesome."

Kyle's concession to the cold weather was a pair of black socks with holes ripped in them for his claws, and a long-sleeved t-shirt under his regular black one. So he padded around even more silently than usual, occasionally pausing and crouching down. After a few minutes of this, he straightened up, shaking his head. "Nori was here, I'm positive of that." It was the first thing he'd said in the last half-hour. "She's distinctive." Ozone, and tin and salt, and the very specific smell of being female.

Scott was wearing the stone-faced, clenched-jaw expression that screamed I hate the world to anyone who knew him well enough. "I should have thought to bring a flashlight," he said under his breath. The streetlights in this area of town were clearly still on the 'to be repaired' list. Something about Jim's tone nagged at him, and he cast the other man a sideways look. "I don't suppose you might shed a little light on the subject?"

Cyndi preened inwardly. It was nice to be recognized unannounced. "Sure. Just nobody bump me or anything. I don't want to get yelled at for teammate-immolation again."

Spreading her feet, Cyndi raised her hands to chest-height and turned her palms upwards. It wasn't so much that the alley had nothing to burn so much as nothing she'd want to smell burning, so this was going to be tricky. Concentrating on the space above her hands, Cyndi sparked the air into a cloud of fire -- and then, as that burned out, the same space again. The bursts came unevenly for the first few tries, but after a few tries the pyrokinetic found a rhythm. In a moment the new bursts cycled smoothly into the fading to cast a steady, if flickering, light.

Terry had been on edge for the last two weeks and the flickering of Cyndi's flame wasn't helping the biting nausea that had surged to the fore the second she'd pulled on her uniform. Like Scott, she looked like nothing so much as a woman disgusted with the world and all its ways. "Burn marks on the walls," she pointed out tightly, "She was fighting."

"No blood." Kyle grunted. "Whoever she was fighting, nobody was bleeding." Which was an immense relief to him, it would've been anyway, but it was even more so lately. "I don't recognize anybody but Nori though. It's not anyone I'd know by smell." Implied in that statement was the unsaid "It's not Sabretooth."

"That they didn't leave her alone when she started flinging power around bothers me," Scott said, his voice tight, but level. There were so many possibilities here that he couldn't be particularly reassured by Kyle's inability to pick up any familiar scents. If nothing else these days, citizens of New York in a dark alley with a young mutant might find certain inhibitions lowered. But if that's what it was, where is she?

"Yeah, well, call me an optimist but I got trouble seeing that kid being hauled off without somebody bleeding." Presuming its purpose had been served, Cyndi allowed the fire to extinguish itself. It was easy to be optimistic when Jim was being kind enough to hold the entire system's anxiety. The alter put her hands on her hips and regarded Scott. "So are we talking or are we moving?"

"Moving where?" Terry snapped, still scanning the alley. Her eyes fell on a handleless metal door. "What does she do when she comes to the city? Clubbing right?"

"Or shopping." Kyle offered. "Too late at night for that. If you were Nori, and you'd gotten jumped by some dudes or something, where would you go?" He knew where he'd go, but Kyle had absolute faith in the X-Men's ability to get his ass out of any mess he'd gotten himself into.

"We're going to split up," Scott said after a moment's thought. "Terry, Haller - you take the clubs. If we can retrace her steps, maybe we might get some useful information." He glanced at Kyle. "You're with me. I want to follow her scent-trail as far as it'll take us."

He took his com out of his pocket, raising it so that Terry and Haller could see, even in the flickering bursts of light. "Stay in touch," he said, "and if you find anything, let us know. We'll do the same." Something that might have been a muttered curse escaped him as he turned away, along with something that sounded suspiciously like I love my job, oh, yes...



-


They found his clothing
Scattered somewhere down the track

Kyle was getting some strange looks from the other people on the subway train - bordering on the hostile, in a couple of cases - and Scott's jaw clenched slightly. Just what one wants to be - a semi-visible mutant stuck in an enclosed space with New Yorkers, these days... "We'll get off at the next station and check," he said to the younger man, under his breath.

Three years ago, Kyle would've been covering his ears with a hat and struggling in a pair of shoes. A year ago, he would've been confronting whoever looked to be the most outwardly bigoted person on the train and making a point to show off not just the ears, but the claws, and fangs. Instead he just made eye contact with anyone that had the temerity to say anything, even when they thought he couldn't hear them, but mostly kept his attention on Scott.

But despite his surface calm, Kyle didn't actually trust himself to speak without it coming out as some kind of snarl, so he just nodded. No sense in actually confirming anyone's beliefs that mutants were all violent nutjobs.

The next station was quiet, still showing some of the wear and tear of Apocalypse, and Scott looked around, shaking his head. "Anything?" he asked tightly.

"Not sure." Kyle grunted. He'd been identifying Nori by the smell of ozone and burnt air, and in the subway, that was a little more abundant. The additional scents of human waste and the jumble of smells that Kyle could only identify as 'trash' and of just people in general wasn't helping.

"I swear to God," Scott muttered under his breath, "if she's all right.. I'm going to kill her." He kicked at an overturned trash can lightly, jaw clenching. "I suppose if there's no sign of her here, we wait for the next train and keep going." He had this sudden, horrible image of him and Kyle going in circles, around and around the subway system.

"Unless you wanna go see if there's a bathroom she's hiding in." Kyle was -not- going into the women's room. He just wasn't. But he didn't think Nori was the type to hide out in a subway bathroom for half the night. He walked the length of the platform, and to the stairs leading up to the street, and then back. "I'm -almost- sure she wasn't here."

"Then let's get on the next train and go check the next station," Scott said. Fortunately, there was one along before too long, and fewer hostile-looking people on it. The next station wasn't totally empty, however; as soon as the noise of the train departing had faded away, shouting was audible. Scott gave Kyle a quick look, then led the way up the stairs, taking two at a time.

Kyle was in just enough of a rotten mood that he took the stairs up in the most expedient way possible - half crouched over, hitting every fifth stair with a hand instead of foot - without any care for what it looked like. It was -fast- and the at least one of those shouts had a very distinctly 'filthy mutie' type of sound to it.

If someone is beating on that girl, I swear to God I'm going to put them in the hospital- But the victim in what was clearly turning into a fairly vicious attack was a lanky teen-aged boy, blue-skinned, bloody-faced, and currently curled in a fetal ball on the ground as two much larger men kicked him.

The only reason neither of the attackers got an optic blast in the head was that Scott was, all at once, far too angry to trust himself not to smash their skulls like a watermelon. Instead, he ran at the nearest man, who, despite being a couple of inches taller than him and far more burly, had clearly not had anything approaching real hand-to-hand training. Because his attempt to defend himself was quite literally pitiful, and Scott dodged the first wild punch and proceeded to demonstrate precisely why size didn't matter.

Where Scott didn't look like a mutant until the eyebeams came out, Kyle did, all the time. He came over the top of the stairs, and realized that Scott was already elbowing one of the men in the throat, and so went for the other, tackling him into a wall. The man yelled something about filthy muties -again- and Kyle snarled. "Shut the -fuck- up, thanks." and shoved the man into the wall again.

Another shove that bounced the man's head off the wall and Kyle let him drop, kicking him in the chest - claws pulled in. "How do you like it?" He kicked again, and the man tried to back away, and Kyle let him, watching with a glare until the man ran off.

Scott's opponent seemed to be determined to make a fight out of it. Big and dumb, the part of Scott's brain that was still coldly functional processed. Also had clearly been downing some liquid courage, as became perfectly obvious when he charged clumsily at Scott, spitting curses and emanating whiskey fumes.

Seeing Scott punch someone in the ear made a part of Kyle wonder if "Maybe that's a little too much..." is what people thought when -he- did it. Four times. In the same ear. And while the big obviously-bigoted man getting the ear-punching probably deserved it, having his team leader arrested for assault would be bad. Getting arrested for assault himself would also be bad.

He'd had every intention of pulling Scott of the man right up until the last second, and then somehow it turned into "Grab Scott's opponent by the back of the head, say something about "Run. now." and then shove him in the direction that the other man had run away. Which was just as effective - and slightly more -fun-.

Scott actually whirled on him, looking furious. "Why the hell-" It was the would-be victim, scrabbling to his feet and running away as well that drew Scott's attention away from Kyle. "Hey, wait, are you-" But the young man didn't even look around, and Scott let out a harsh sigh, the outstretched hand falling back to his side.

"Maybe we should ask that Mark guy if he knows that kid. Blue kids can't be too hard to miss, right?" Kyle had been to Silver a few times, Mark knew -everyone-. "Sorry bout the, you know. But I kinda figured being arrested would suck a lot, and... " Kyle shrugged waved at the security cameras that he wasn't sure were on or not - power was still out in places, not all the stations had full lights, even if the trains ran through. "uh, well, I don't think the cops are really gonna be seeing that as "Defending some poor mutant kid.", you know?

"Sorry," Scott said, facetiously. "Sometimes I can't help but remember that I am a vigilante." Sarcasm was infinitely preferable to irrationally biting Kyle's head off. He took a deep breath and then let it out, willing his blood pressure to go back down. "I'll ask Mark. But he was moving on his own, so that's a good sign. We need to get back to looking for Nori."



-


And he won't be down on wall street
In the morning

"Look, I'm her friend, okay? She was supposed to come home and she didn't, so can you maybe cut me some slack here and at least tell me if you saw her leave with anybody?"

The stare the bouncer turned on her was completely devoid of credulity. Cyndi fumed. This evening was so not getting any better. Since she was by nature somewhat less socially retarded Jim was letting her handle the questioning at the club, but it wasn't going well. She wouldn't be having this problem if David's stupid body wasn't weird, male, and almost a decade older than Noriko. Or if the bouncer wasn't a jerkass drunk with the power of admittance and ejection. That would have helped.

Jim's telepathic squeamishness was hurting them here. Cyndi was currently trying to kick him to the front to go brain-spelunking, because she seriously doubted this guy was going to give it up. The only thing worse than a lame power was an awesome power you wouldn't use.

Terry finally satisfied herself that the bartender had told her all that he was going to and stalked back over to where Cyndi was still arguing with an ever more unimpressed bouncer. He didn't look any more likely to give in to the tiny, annoyed redhead than he was the tall, spindly man with too much attitude. But Terry had been small all her life and it took more than a large man looming over her to shake her. Particularly when she was already in something of a mood. "Anything?" she asked Cyndi, just confirming what she'd already overheard.

"Not even," Cyndi replied, giving the man a dire look. The bouncer stared back with the confidence of a man blissfully unaware of the fact that the only thing between him and complete immolation was the patience of a personality that had maintained a mental age of 16 for more than half their life.

"How disappointing," Terry hissed and her voice vibrated with the emotion of it. Power laced through it, mostly just testing how difficult he would be. It was an unfortunate truth that she had a harder time with people who worked in clubs and the like. Years of loud music and endless shouting damaged the delicate workings of their inner ear and she had to work harder to make her suggestions stick. What would be the easiest way to crack this guy? Flirting with the bartender had worked, but bouncers tended to see through that. Terry's shoulders hunched and she gave him her best wide-eyed and distressed look, "I'm really worried about her."

"You're worried." The bouncer's voice was still unimpressed, but now there was a hint of uncertainty. Cyndi glanced between the man and the redhead and raised an eyebrow.

Terry nodded and pushed a little more power into her voice, "She was supposed to check in. She always at least sends a text. Are you sure that you never saw her? No idea where she's gone? Please, it would really help us." Some part of her still felt guilty for this manipulation, stealing free will at least on some level, but right now, it was a small part. They'd already lost four. She wasn't going to lose another.

"No idea," the man repeated, all inflection now drained from his voice. His eyes had a slightly glazed look, but his lips moved regardless. "She came in, drank, danced, talked with some guys. Didn't see her leave."

The alter gave the man a weird look and leaned over to Terry. "Dude, this is a little creepy," Cyndi hissed. "I mean, what, no 'these are not the droids you're looking for'?"

Terry cast a hard look at Cyndi and shook her head sharply, meaning 'shut up', not 'I'm sorry'. They didn't have time for sorrow. "Where else would she have gone?" Terry demanded, her voice still coaxing and enchanting though she'd dropped the act. She was better at this, so much better, than she'd been when she'd started developing the ability more than a year ago.

The bouncer rattled off a few other club names, followed by vague directions. Cyndi committed a few to memory, noting from the names she recognized that the list was about equal parts popular and infamous. And, because it was that kind of night, she was pretty sure she knew which category Noriko would have gone for.

"Well, somebody had to do it and better you than Jimmy, I guess," Cyndi said as the two left the dazed bouncer, "but next time couldja warn me with the handwave or something? It'd be cool to know when it's coming."

Terry spent a moment imagining Mr. Haller invading someone's mind and stealing their free will like she'd just done. Cyndi was right. Better her than him. "Don't fuss about it. Where to next?"

Cyndi thought of the closest of the named clubs. It was one she had misfortune to recognize from word of mouth. She zipped the collar of her jacket up to her neck with a sigh. "Put it this way: from what I heard, if Noriko's there, we better call back ahead to give Voght time to get the vaccinations together."