xp_logs | Kyle and Garrison, Harry's.

Kyle seeks Garrison out to apologize, and start the painful process of building a profile to counter Malice. Also he is introduced to The Platter and may be helping Garrison start a new religion.

It was never as obvious that Harry played favourites in his bar than it was on Sunday afternoon. The bar was packed with locals hungrily following their NFL games, arguing over their pools, setting new bets, and devouring a constant stream of buffalo wings and pitchers of domestic. Every television was locked into the games except one.

A large screen, just off the side of the bar, pointed towards the corner, was on a football game, but it was the CFL instead. And it was pointed there because that was where Garrison Kane always sat. It wasn't just that Kane was a valuable customer, with his mutant metabolism all but guaranteeing a final bill of two or three hundred per visit. It was also that word had gotten around that the big Canadian was a cop, and rowdy customers and potential bar fights didn't happen when he was around. The one time he'd ended a potential situation by lifting three hundred pounds of Big Biff McConnell up by the face with one hand, walking him out, and with a flick of the wrist, tossing him into the dumpster was the last time anyone had tried to start trouble.

He accepted another Moosehead from Brier, watching his Argos go up 14-3 against Montreal.

"Hey, you mind if I drop in and, uh.." Kyle's attention drifted off slightly towards the screen. "Not have any opinion on this game, actually, I was gonna be all subtle but I know crap and all about the CFL." He shook his head. "I keep doing this, like, Hey Gar, can I buy you a beer and apologize for being a butthead, so lemee do it that way. Hey Gar, can I buy you a beer and apologize for being a butthead."

"You can always buy me a beer. I actually have that as my email signature." Kane said, eyes following the screen until Andrew Harris was pulled down at the 37 yard line. "But you don't really need to apologize for anything."

Kyle dropped onto a stool, and took a few seconds to order his own beer, let Brier know he'd pay for two of Garrison's, and got thoroughly distracted by the football on the screen. "Okay, I know one whole thing about the CFL and that's the three downs thing." He took a long drink of beer. "Eh, I kinda do. I was pretty shitty at you for the Red Hood Guy thing." He paused. "Red... hat? Red Fist? Okay, I legit forget what you were calling yourself but I was shitty about it, and you didn't deserve that."

"Erik the Red. Apparently he was some kind of minor villain back in the day." Kane leaned back and sighed. "Kyle, you got dumped into the shittiest situation possible and I kept piling on that. And while I regret that I did it, I don't think I had any choice. I stand by it. But that doesn't mean you weren't right to be pissed at me. It doesn't mean I didn't deserve it. It just means that there were mitigating circumstances you found out later. I can't fault you for that."

"Eh, I'm a grown ass adult who is supposed to look at situations and not blame the guy who had a complete shit waffle delivered to him for the shit waffle I got delivered previously." Kyle explained. "I was mostly taking out my anger about the whole demon thing on you, and the Red Hood thing just made it easy." He paused again. "Yes, I am just gonna call it Red Hood now. Erik the Red should be like a big viking with braids and a sword, not you in a red bike helmet. Anyway. Like, the whole Laurie thing had me thinking about it, and eh, feel like you deserve at least me saying I'm not gonna be a dick to you about it."

"I don't know what the Red Hood thing is, but you do you." His eyes drifted back as the Argos missed an easy second pass and had to set up for a kick. "You know you're likely on Collins shit list as well, right? We need to figure that situation out."

"Man, I am both like, bitch bring it -and- scared shitless of that." Kyle admitted. "I am super aware. Like, last time she was purple and evil, I barely got a win and that was with Ms Frost, uh, Emma, doing some kind of thing to shut down some pain centers, and with people with guns as backup. And this time she's got, what at least most of her brains intact, and that backup team. We're kinda fucked."

"No. Collins fucked up. Her ego made her show the threat. Now we can prepare." Kane said, and for the first time, his attention was split by the game. "So guess who just signed up for extra DR sessions? Because I can think of a number of ways to use our team to get to her and hers. And the next time they show up, we're taking them down. I promised her that I was going to drag in by the neck to a tiny cell to live the rest of her life, and I intend to make good on that."

Kyle half-grinned. "Is it me? Did I win the six am Danger Room slot prize?" He had relaxed, just a little, and downed a good half his beer. "I'm gonna need Jean or Emma or even the Prof to go in here and yank all the stuff I don't remember about that fight out, but I think it's valuable. Last time it was like fighting myself. Same claws, same healing factor. I dunno if Essex stapled me onto her or not." He paused, stared at his beer bottle and then finished it. "What a fucked up sentence, right? But yeah. I kept thinking maybe I could shake some decency into her, but maybe this was inevitable, so count me in for whatever we need to do to put her away."

"Laurie Collins is gone. It's just Malice now." Kane said and when Kyle looked away for a moment, he slammed his hand on the table. "No, listen to me. Your friend is gone. And any hint she isn't is going to be used against you!" The bar went silent for a moment, as Kane shook his head and tried to move past his embarrassing display. After a bit, conversation picked back up and he took a deep breath. "She's gone, by her own choice, Kyle."

"I know, I just hate it." Kyle said. "I mean, I know up here." He tapped his forehead. "I just. Fuck. She's the last one of my classmates to fuck off, and t's the fucking worst. The dead people are easier to cope with." He caught the bartender's eye, and was met with another beer. "It's why I stopped being a dick about you. You, like. You knew you had no good choices. She thinks she made a good choice. Big difference. God, like. How the fuck do we even deal with her though. I mean, physically, sure, but emotionally, like, how do we confront the shit she's gonna pull."

"I have a few ideas. For her and her team. That's why I want to get us running scenarios alongside the Brotherhood ones we're doing. The X-Men are rapidly acquiring potential opponents with the same levels of power and possibly skill. Only upper-hand obvious to me is being better prepared than they are." Kane rubbed his eyes for a moment. "As for emotion, she's going to play that hard. Maybe enough simulations will help inure people a bit when it happens."

"We've got all her old training stuff but I don't think that'll help much. It's gonna have to partially be based on what I remember, yeah?" Kyle popped the top off his beer. "So we run training, and get everyone up to speed and like. Enough people knew her, we could mock up the shit she'd say, right? I mean fuck I could go through the last year of text messages alone."

"That's a good idea. Tell Vi to access them when we're back at the mansion and she can put together a basic script mixed with the literal flat out villain monologue she delivered to me."

"I hate that you don't fall for my "I'm too dumb to do things in the Danger Room" act." Kyle muttered. "Oh, we should get that fuckin' journal thread where she was doing science experiments on people's leftovers too, and fuck, the journals are a gold mine of shitty things Laurie said." He huffed a little and drank some beer. "Man, she monologued? Fucking what. Did she get a theatre degree while she was off being evil."

"Worse. She's in love." Kane drained his pint and waved for another. "With a teenager."

Kyle made a fake retching noise. "Gross." He took a long drink off the beer, opened his mouth as if to speak, then finished the bottle instead. "Okay I'm an asshole for asking this but can we use that to throw her off?"

"Possibly. It feels like that mutate conditioning from Genosha again, but a hell of a lot more sophisticated. The kid might be a weak point." Kane said and shrugged. "Or maybe not. I don't know, but keeping her distracted and talking is a winning strategy, at least initially."

"Well God damn, she loves to talk." Kyle said wryly. "If it's the mutate shit, she was weirdly... like, loyal? To that bitch handling her. Cunning enough to give Wade a heart attack, not smart enough to realize she was never gonna win against us. Sounds like that's not a problem anymore, with the not retreating. Plus she's gotten shadier in general since Genosha. Which, Darcy and me wanna sit down and build a profile, but I don't know shit about that, so gonna have to lean on you being FBI man."

"It wasn't as obvious as Genosha. She believes she's in love. I wouldn't bet against that guy coming up with a few new tricks in the last decade." Kane agreed. "I'll help with the profile, but let's get the upload done first. We can start running scenarios right off the bat."

"Works for me. Plus I guess more information will help, so we dump, what all my texts and emails into Vee, and then we put our heads together with like ninety two beers, and get a profile, and then..." Kyle shrugged. "Can we give that to VI too? I mean, I joke about how I'm Danger Room Stupid but that is legit outside what I know how to do."

"Tonight we have some drinks. And food. Whatever. Tomorrow, we sit down with VI and start to plug info in. Once we have that, we start building profiles; operationally, psychological, whatever we can."

"I dig it. Onion rings? You want onion rings, because I really really want onion rings."

"No, serious conversation like this, we need The Platter." Kane said, waving over Briar. "The Platter, please. And another pitcher of Moose." You could hear the capitals in his voice.

Kyle was quiet until The Platter arrived, and even for a few moments after, breathing out a "Jesus fuck." when it did arrive. "Jesus man. I know you can eat, but ..."

"Ssh... just take a moment to appreciate it." Kane said. It was a monument to gluttony, tiered, the like fried version of a seafood tower. Levels of hot wings, fried cheese sticks, chicken fingers, stuffed potato skins, onion rings, jalapeno poppers, fried pickles and fries. There was an entire extra plate with nothing but dips and sauces to accompany it. Harry's kitchen had a list of Kyle's food issues on hand, to accommodate as much as possible for him.

"Appreciate? Gar, I might have to actually be religious now. God exists, because someone invented this."

"I might have had a hand in it. Which makes you the first disciple! If I remembered more about my deeply lapsed Anglican faith, I'd know who that was. Peter? John? All I know is on this chicken wing I base my church."