xp_logs | Papa Don't Preach: X-Men at the Scene

Upon arriving in Italy, the X-Men track down the GPS signal, but not without complications

The investigation into the cause of the pipe bomb the previous night had thus far yielded no results. With the target having been a popular and well known mutant disco, police were treating the case with the suspicion that the attack was an anti-mutant hate crime and with more severity and urgency than they might normally would have. The street where the club lay was partitioned off to block traffic from entering, and the area was thick with police presence. For all the hustle and bustle of the police however, there were no news crews about or many onlookers gawking at the scene.

One onlooker crouched on the roof of the building across the street, a dark-on-dark shadow, invisible as long as he remained still. "Okay," Scott said quietly over his com. "We're not getting in there through the front door. Sunfire, I'm guessing they've got the back covered too?"

"Nn, sou," Shiro affirmed from his shroud of shadows on the other side of the nightclub. "I see investigators everywhere. At least the media has not yet arrived, so we have that to our advantage."

"That's something," Monet muttered. "Can we get in through the side? It butts onto the next building and there's a few less police there, because of it."

"I don't think we're getting in at all," Scott said, not quite grimly. There were a couple of options, but he didn't quite feel like masquerading as a police officer, especially without a telepath able to help with the play-acting. So that left a different kind of discretion. "Wasp. Scouting time. Do you see any helpful vents, or open windows?"

"Looking right now," Jan replied, her voice heard by the others through her mini communicator. Quickly, she flew around the building, searching for the best way inside the club. "Found one!" she announced happily. "Going inside now. Wow, it's a mess in here. Not going to be easy to find anything, but you can count on me to get the job done!"

While it wasn't easy to spot anything related to Callie and Clarice right away, it was easy for Jan to fly anywhere she wanted without notice. People didn't tend to keep an eye out for bug-sized girls, and even if they saw a tiny person, they didn't tend to realize what they where looking at.

"I found something," Jan said, flashing a tiny beam of light inside a purse. "Yep, we have a confirmed phone sighting, but no Callie or Clarice."

"Hell." Scott grimaced. It wasn't all that surprising, but still - he had hoped for something, at least. "Well, they weren't among the injured, and the place has been cleared, by now..." Where the hell are you, Blink? Of all the X-Men to go missing. He couldn't not worry about Callie, too; she was a sweet kid. And so young. "Okay, do one last sweep and get out of there, Wasp."

He paused for a moment, considering. "Sunfire," he said, "any thoughts on our next step?" He had some ideas, but two heads were better than one.

"You are asking me for advice?" Shiro coughed to cover up his voice cracking. His strategizing was limited to Final Fantasy. "Anou . . . I suppose we go to where they were staying to see if they fled there?" Though Clarice disappearing without even a short blink back to New York to let everyone know she was OK, was worrying.

"We'll call Mr. Betto again, definitely," Scott said, stepping back from the edge of the roof and heading in the direction of the fire escape he'd used to get up here. "I somehow doubt we're going to be that lucky, though." It was always a little distressing to realize that he had absolutely no natural optimism whatsoever.