More Logs
St. Nicholas Park
It's been a while since the pen and paper have found their way to Pyro's hand. It shows too, from the frustrated look on his face as the words refuse to flow. Well, it /would/ show, except that he's got a light windbreaker with hood pulled high over his head, despite the warmth of the fine June evening. The gnawed ends of the pencap show he's been at it for a while, oblivious to the passing time. He scratches out what seems to be a number of words, begins to write, stops again and frowns at the page.
Bobby, on the other hand, appears to have been quite busy. Laden with bags from a variety of stores, he makes for his last stop: a favorite old hang out which used to be visited with the one on his mind. It's a slightly disappointed frown which lands upon the stranger's back- if someone wants to write in the park it's all very well but they could at /least/ pick their own spot instead of his and Pyro's. He continues towards them regardless; they don't /seem/ rowdy enough to disturb thoughts.
Appearances can be deceiving. Pyro glances up at the approaching footsteps, his eyes settling on the sneakers, then traveling back down to his writing. A small sigh escapes as the other approaches. "Park's plenty big 'nuff. Find your own space," he mutters, voice low to minimize the noteable accent, as the other enters audiable range, not bothering to look up from his notebook.
"This space is plenty big enough too." Bobby's voice is not lowered but as distinctive as ever. He places the bags down a short distance away and follows them to the ground where he sits cross-legged (grass stains be damned), looking out over the view he had almost forgotten and toying with one of many handles.
Pyro freezes. As in, a visible stiffening and hand stops writing abruptly midsentence. "Bobby?" he finally gets the name out, taking a moment longer to lift his head and actually look up at the other.
Bobby turns quickly to face his name before he freezes. Mental wishes apparently work. "Oh. Hey." it's lame, but the tone and awkwardness that there never was before speaks volumes for him where use of vocabulary does not.
Pyro doesn't have words either for several moments, not believing his eyes. "What the hell are you doing here?" he finally says in way of greeting.
"Uhm," The same? "What're /you/ doing here?" Bobby turns the question with an indication of the writing pad. Some things you just don't say. Anyone else might find it a passable attempt at concealing emotions, indifference, but to Pyro his equal confusion, surprise and to some extent joy are quite plain to see.
"Planning my next felony," Pyro scowls, snapping the notebook shut. Oh, there's a mix of emotions there too, not just the sulleness apparant on the surface. The refusal to meet his Bobby's eyes may give clue to the mask.
Bobby looks into his lap for a moment as even eye contact is refused, "Uhuh." he attempts to prevent the silence which then rules over the next few seconds. "S'kinda weird without you, still. I keep wanting to go tell you something or other." his gaze rises again with an outwards breath borne of both mirth and nervousness- way to jump right in.
A slow sigh whistles through Pyro's teeth, a prepared snide remark dying on his lips. "Had some good times, heh," he mutters. "I...wanted to talk to you before...before I left." There's a reluctance in his voice, a mixture of guilt and relief, both springing from consorting with the "enemy."
"Loads." Bobby agrees, the next part drawing a more noticeable smile which he doesn't even try to repress. "Yeah, talk about being cut short..." he tries to speak with the sort of ease they did in the past but something, probably the hope tainting both tone of voice and word choice, leaves it lacking.
John stares at the cover of his notebook, absently tracing shapeless patterns on the surface. "It could be again, mate," he says, head jerking up to stare at Bobby. "Why do you /stay/ with them? Can't you see the world is falling apart?"
"'cause they'll do everything they can to stop it?" Bobby shrugs, "I could ask the same of you just as easily." he doesn't, though. Silent observation of both the patterns and his ex-roommate in general follows.
"Everything they can to stop it?" Pyro sneers. "They do nothing. Nothing, and you know it. They sit around and hope the world will get better on its own. Newsflash, mate. It's not. Humans won't be satisfied until everyone of us is dead or tamed." His tirade wavers for a moment, the last bit coming out less heated. "At least Magneto gets things /done/."
"He's doing a great job." Bobby observes sarcastically with a roll of his eyes, accusations left unaddressed.
"You have Magneto to thank for your rescue," Pyro steamrolls right past the sarcasm. "He's the one that organized it, called the truce that got Cerebro working and let us find where you were." He pauses, voice lowering as he adds a discouraged, "Don't believe everything Jean Grey and CNN tell you, mate." Ah, the world, according to St. John Allerdyce.
"Lots of collective terms there for someone who claimed they didn't save me." Bobby steers the topic, a small grin even making itself known. "Thanks again, by the way." he adds then starts to unwind the plastic, which has managed to become quite deformed by now, from his finger.
Pyro has no response to that, and he sits there in silence. "Nothing of it," he finally says gruffly. "You and your narrow path," he mutters, but there's no hostility in the tone.
"Magneto allow you lot phone calls?" Like it's a jail, smooth, "Mobiles?" Bobby asks, keeping the conversation moving with the first thing that comes to mind- a rather direct approach that allows for little forethought. "/Damnit/, that's it!" apparently one of the few words made him remember something. He checks the time.
"Not like I'm in /prison,/" Pyro rolls his eyes. "So long as we're careful, don't kill each other or give away our home base...kinda free to do as we like. Which is more than I can say for the mansion," Pyro adds, unable to resist that one last (mostly) good-natured barb.
"Joke all you like, I had one kid push me in the lake with my old phone and I didn't even have a chance to remember the number for its replacement...," Bobby smirks, "You partial to shopping or do you want to keep trying to plan felonies?"
"Shopping," Pyro sniffs. "I've got all the clothes I need. /And/ a uniform. They decided you're big enough to handle a uniform yet?" Again, Pyro's words aren't cruel, just casual poking fun. Old patterns, so easy to fall back into.
Bobby kicks the bags, "Those're all replacements- the leather's back home. I wasn't taking it to Boston." he grins, "I meant for a phone so I can give you a number, anyway.". He looks levelly at John, unable to keep a smirk out of the challenge to make something of it, "Yes, Leather." he repeats.
"Yah, somehow, I don't think those folks of yours would understand," Pyro shakes his head. "Summers must be pretty desparate, letting you onto the team." He falls silent a bit. "Might be better if you gave me your number instead," he finally says, flipping open to a blank page and shoving the pen and pad toward him.
"I'd need a phone to do that," Bobby points out, "Unless you want the school's? They'd put you through if you asked nicely, used a fake name and withheld your number, I'm sure."
"I think I remember it," Pyro replies, pulling the notebook back toward him. "And might be better if I didn't call. Come to think of it, you...might not want to mention seeing me at all."
"Figured. Same for you, I guess." Bobby hesitates and once again falls into silence as he considers possibilities. No numbers exchanged. "Well if I go get a phone now, before I have to get back, I can pass you the number somehow?"
"Yeah. It doesn--" Pyro stops, thinking better of the words. "Dunno how long I can stay around here. Before someone recognizes me," he shrugs. "If I'm not here...wrap it up and stick it in one of the gaps in that wall. I'll check next time I'm in the city."
"Will do." Bobby nods and... doesn't get up. He gathers the bags in front of him and then remains seated a moment longer, "Look, it was great seeing you again- stay good, okay?" finally he gets to his feet along with the veritable wardrobe of clothes.
"Yeah, same," Pyro says, slowly, not moving from his seated position. "And you too...mate. Didn't... yeah, for. Eh, dunno when I'll see you again, but...it was good talking."
"You'll phone." Bobby reminds him, lifting a hand along with the three bags in it to point to the wall. 'Reluctance' would be quite perfectly defined as the nature of Bobby's departure, he even takes that look back (at the wall! Yes.) which you usually manage to convince yourself would look too stupid.
<> Kitchen - Lower Level(#3301RC)
Pyro has found his way to the kitchen. There's a half-demolished sandwich on the table, which has been ignored in favor of the beer in hand. Which is one of a moderate series, a few empty ones neatly lined up in a row. At the moment, he is entertaining himself with sending little flames into the bottle and covering the opening with his palm and frowning as he battles keeping it alight as the oxygen burns out.
There is noise to warn of Yuriko's arrival: her feet are bare and soundless on the cold concrete. The hampering tangles of cloth that have drowned her movements are gone, in part; the slim legs are bare, covered to mid-thigh by the long hem of shirt. A man's shirt: Magneto's, recognizably so. Well. Sleeves rolled fat around her elbows, Oyama pauses with a hand for the door frame and considers her newfound fellow.
It's a moment before Pyro recognizes a second presence and glances up. "Ah, gidday," he greets, words slightly slurred. "Join me," he offers, graciously waving toward one of the empty chairs.
Dark eyes blink. "Thank you." The woman's voice is husky, touched with a gentle, foreign accent. Yuriko detaches herself from the door and pads into the kitchen. A glance touches on the beer, then moves on to the refrigerator in private interest. "I will make a sandwich."
"I think there's more lunchmeat in the freezer," Pyro comments, head nodding toward that door, "Not sure what all there is left there." That bit of advice given, he bends forward, peering through the blackened bottle in front of him. "M'Pyro, by the by," he says without looking up. "Didn't have a chance to introduce mself properly before."
"You were among those who came to save us," the woman says. She opens the refrigerator door to spill light and cold across her part of the kitchen. The black head turns to look over her shoulder at Pyro, hair gleaming down her back. "I am Yuriko." There is butter. She removes it from the fridge door and inspects the long stick.
"Yeah, the cars blowing up...? That'd be me," Pyro says, affectionatly patting the lighter laid flat near his elbow. He leans back in his chair, tipping the bottle in progress back to his lips and taking another draught.
Butter is placed gently on the counter; bread is next, fished out and unclipped to produce two slices. Yuriko contemplates the cupboards next. Plate? Ah. "Cars blowing up?" she murmurs, questioning. One fingernail delicately telescopes, adamantium scaling into a deadly claw. She looks at the nail. She looks at the butter. Perhaps not. "I apologize. I was not present for the ... explosions."
"Bloody shame," Pyro shrugs. "Don't get to go all out that often." He eyes her display with curiousity. "So..." he squints across the room. "Nails?"
Knife. The drawer scrapes out and produces a more practical utensil for the spreading of butter. "So," Yuriko says, glancing up from the toaster to open a hand -- nails flicker out with an ophidian hiss -- then retract. The toaster clunks. "Also," she adds with deprecating humility, "I heal. Your name, Pyro--" Her gaze turns towards the bottle.
Pyro lifts an appreciative eyebrow at the hand. "Ace. Well, glad to have you on our side." At his name, he scoops up the light, opening it with a practiced flick. One hand pulls the flame off the metal molding it around the other like a glove. "Also, I blow things up."
"Is this a separate ability?" Yuriko wants to know, her fingers rolling a flat-padded percussion on the counter as she waits. The toaster, unimpressed, broods, unaware of the short lifespans of its predecessors. It is new. It will do toast /right/. She attends to Pyro's malleable flames. "Or is it a facet of your talent with fire?"
"Just fire," Pyro shrugs. "But you get them hot enough, most things will explode. Especially cars." The fire travels down his hand, causing the last thin layer of beer in the bottle to roil and bubble.
Yuriko watches the show with quiet interest. Behind her, the toaster gets its bit in its teeth and settles on a slow, concentrated burn. "It is quite beautiful," she observes, thoughtfully. "Your ... gift."
"It is, isn't it?" Pyro agrees, caught up in the flames licking the edges of the bottle. "If I was the praying sort, I suppose it would be my top thank you on the list. There are a lot worse gifts to have," he shrugs. "Knew a girl with an extra eyelid once. Talk about useless."
"I have met one with such a mutation," Yuriko says, turning her gaze back over her shoulder to the toaster. As if aware of its audience, it triumphantly burps up its work: two slices, masterpieces of the genre. She gravely fishes them out of the machine and begins applying butter. "When I encountered Dr. Lensherr and Ms. Dramstadt for the first time, I believe it was."
"Really?" Pyro's fist closes around the flame, extinguishing it suddenly as he looks over at her. "Ah, nevermind." He sets the bottle aside with a thunk onto the table.
The rasp of the knife across toast is loud in the sudden silence that follows the thump. Yuriko folds the butter's wrapper into a neat seal, replaces it in the refrigerator, whisks crumbs into the sink, and bears her plate to the kitchen table. She sits. She regards Pyro. "She was frightened," she thinks to say. "The situation was unusual. Unlike you, my mutation has no ... benevolent applications."
"Oh, believe me," Pyro rolls his eyes. "There are times I wish mine didn't. Don't get me wrong, I love starting fires, but there's only so many times you can get asked to help start the grill or a campfire before... you snap."
Deathstrike's right hand splays open under her quizzical glance, the nails glittering metallic, if unsharpened. "Perhaps I will be asked to chop wood," she muses. "It is not a difficulty. I am unaware of any other uses for me beyond killing."
"There's something to say for that," Pyro shrugs. "Too many people want powers to be /useful/ all the time. Nothing to say for the art of it or anything." At this point, Pyro's quite happy to ramble on just about any topic, the drink in him doing half the talking.
Yuriko has no drink; has little talking, either, though some subtle amusement slants her eyes. "No," she says. "I have encountered another in this place who has artistic instincts."
"Yeah, better here," Pyro agrees. "I get to push myself a lot more...than before. Say, I knew someone with abilities like yours."
Indeed. Yuriko crunches even white teeth on toast and quizzes Pyro with an uplifted brow.
"Before I came here. And to my senses," Pyro nods. "One of the...teachers at a place I went to school. Except he wasn't much of a teacher. Just sorta there. But he healed. And had knives in his hands."
"Logan," Yuriko says, and looks at Pyro. Her dark eyes turn opaque. "Wolverine."
"You know him," Pyro nods. "He'd like to think his are for something other than killing."
The smooth brow furrows, black eyebrows dipping into a faint frown. "Unlikely," she says, turning her hand slowly to watch as the talons extend in whispering, delicate scythes. "There seems a very specific purpose to this design."
"Seems?" Pyro queries on the word, pushing off from the table and crossing the room to rummage around in the fridge for another beer. "Want something?" he lifts his head up to peer over the door.
"My bread is adequate," Yuriko says, looking down at her plate. Her bare legs curl under her chair. One long claw spears her toast and lifts it, impaled and slowly dribbling butter down adamantium scales. "Thank you very much. --It seems I can also spear food."
"I'll keep that in mind next time we want kabobs," Pyro smirks. He pops the top off his drink, tossing the cap toward the trash bin before resettling into his seat.
The toast wobbles on the clawpoint, sliding down the blade to balance on the finger's blunted tip. Yuriko eyes it. "It is not a constructive use," she says wistfully, and nibbles on the bread's rounded corner.
"No, wouldn't do anything for your image, either," Pyro agrees. He sips at the drink, watching her progress with the bread. "Not that we don't see each other at our worst all the time anyways."
It is difficult, eating toast around a potentially lethal stiletto extension. Yuriko accomplishes it with careful delicacy, reducing the toast to a miniature of itself before the nail retracts to let it drop. There is butter on her fingertip. She licks it clean, cat-like and finicky. "Worst?" She glances down at her bare thighs and flattens a hand across smooth skin.
"Tense nerves. Not as tight of quarters as our last place," Pyro says in way of explanation. "We get blown up regularly. Though for a bunch of 'supervillans,' I suppose it could be worse."
"What," Yuriko wonders, "makes you super-- supervillains?"
"Fox News," Pyro rolls his eyes. "Or just about anyone with an axe to grind against mutants."
"Ah." Oyama looks puzzled, but accepts the explanation at face value. She finishes off the last of her toast, dusting her fingers as she rises. "I have no such axe."
"Just knives," Pyro comments, eyeing her hands.
Perhaps the woman smiles. There is a lighter quality to her face, though the expression on it is still grave. "Yes," she says. She takes up her place and proceeds to the sink, where water quietly hisses in cleaning. "I will learn."
"There's no doubt of that," Pyro comments. "Else you wouldn't be here." He tips his chair back slightly, balancing on two legs against the table. "There's beers in the fridge. I think some other stuff in that cupboard, if you're into something harder."
"I have had sufficient food," Yuriko tells Pyro, wiping her plate, her knife, and her hands dry with a folded dishtowel before replacing each neatly back where it was found. She turns, heading towards the exit, and pauses just short of it to consider Pyro again. "Thank you," she remembers to say. "I am grateful for the rescue. My imprisonment was ... unpleasant."
"Glad I was able to do something to help. Good to meet you, Yuriko," Pyro says, lifting his bottle toward her. "Nice to have someone like you at my side."
Yuriko inclines her head -- it is an actual smile that faintly warms the pale face -- and pads silently out of the kitchen.
Far from city lights and the rumbles of civilization, the black hulk of the Brotherhood's helicopter is hunched low to the ground, the clearing it occupies surrounded on all sides by piney woods. The occasional beam of a flashlight lances across the landscape, and quiet voices murmer low conversation, but for the most part, the operation at hand is thus far a stealthy one.
Thus far. Ellen has yet to do anything to compromise it. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have yet to burst from the underbrush demanding her arrest. Dark green and grey melt into shadow swifter than does black; heavy trousers and fleece pullover are unseasonable for the dying summer, but Canadian nights can get chilly. At the moment Ellen is holding a small metal flashlight in her teeth while she uses both hands to go about the business of pitching a tent. It is not her area of expertise, and yet, she perseveres.
Pyro's long since finished his own tent duty, and he's found a a few dead branches that he's pulled over to one corner of the camp. One benefit of a pyrokinetic in the crowd--you can have a small, low-light fire that's perfectly controlled to chase away the evening chill without giving away your location. A few flicks of the wrist, and there's a nice low flame coating the branches.
Quiet for the full of the flight, and decidedly unsociable, Erik's measured stride is occasionally audible crunching from one tent to another to measure progress, and to offer assistance where it is needed. The usual grey ribbed sweater and black slacks are offset by the silver of his hair - easier to see in the darkness, particularly when Pyro's efforts come to fruition, and his attention turns aside and away from Ellen's back after the fire.
Stubbornness does eventually pay off, although the finished tent is nothing to write home about; while upright, nominally, there is something vaguely slouchy about it, distinctly at odds with the rod-straight posture of its eventual occupant as she steps away from it and removes the flashlight from her mouth. Ellen frowns and skims her light over the ground, preparatory to choosing a path to the new fire. Heat would be welcome.
Heat is always welcome, at least in Pyro's book. It doesn't take a lot of effort to keep the fire to a mimimal level, but it's kept in the corner of his eye as he drags over a stump for a seat. He nods at Ellen as she approaches. "I vote we bugger some more dome tents off somewhere before we have to do this again," he comments, glancing between their tents. "Much easier to set up."
Cold eyes turned blandly upon the slouch of Ellen's tent, Erik looks it over briefly before deeming it passable and moving to trail after her in the direction of the fire. The wind picks up as he does so, and somewhere in the surrounding shadow there is the sound of a tent collapsing, accompanied by a quiet curse.
"I was never," Ellen announces with quiet solemnity, "a camper." She glances back over her shoulder; from the tautness of her body, it is perhaps likely that she was not wholly oblivious to Magneto's presence before noting it with her eyes. Her tent trembles in the wind like a sullen child, but stays -- at least for the moment -- nominally upright. She turns ahead again and crouches in the firelight, lifting her hands to watch the glow of it against pale skin.
Pyro shifts his seat into a stable position before settling down on it. "Me either, really. Just the few times they made is at school," he says, distastefully. At Magneto's approach, Pyro pushes off his seat, silently offering it to the boss with a quick wave.
Magneto sits - a grave nod of thanks tilted in Pyro's direction pushing the movement just short of imperious despite the dignified set of his shoulders as he settles back into place on the stump. His stump. His eyes lift back up to Ellen, and it is clear that he is trying not to think too hard about this, and also that he is not succeeding.
Ellen turns her hands over, still perching in her crouch low to the ground as she warms their palms rather than their backs by the fire. "It was never a requirement for me. It was required that we pursue extracurriculars," she adds, admitting, "but I was in chess club. No tents."
"Field trips," Pyro shrugs, apparantly saying as much as he cares to on that matter. After a minute of just staring at the flames, occasionally twisting and letting them leap about, he turns his head toward Magneto. "When do you think we'll go in?"
Knees wide apart and long fingers knotted loose between them, Erik breathes out slowly into the warmth seeping in through the dark of his sweater. No effort is made to nudge into the conversation until Pyro addresses him directly, and his eyes flicker up away from the fire. "Once we have been able to determine what we are up against. They may be expecting us."
Ellen curls her legs into a fold beneath her as she falls back to sit down on the ground, letting her hands fall to her knees as she turns her head to regard Erik. "Anyone capable of keeping those three incommunicado," she says. There is probably more to this thought, but the sentence does not show any signs of concluding; she glances at Pyro instead, almost measuring.
If nothing else, his time with Magneto has shown Pyro when to know that's all the answer he's going to get. He simply nods. "Keeping the /combination/ of those three, at that," he adds.
"Dead bodies are easier kept," Erik points out cheerfully, brows knit back down at the fire. His knotted hands cross over his chest, and his arms settle into a fold. "If we see nothing in two days time, we will simply storm whatever there is to storm, and if the odds are overwhelming, we will retreat."
"Perhaps the ones that stay dead are easier kept," Ellen does not disagree, canting her head to one side as she looks up at him. She studies his profile with frowning gravity. "But then there is Yuriko Oyama."
"Not sure anything could catch Mystique off guard, and it would be hard to overcome the three of them by force," Pyro points out. "None of them are careless. Whatever we're up against, it sounds too big for just wanting to kill them."
"Precisely," Erik mutters to both commentaries, the leonine angles of his profile having very little to say about his mood and mindset. "My concern lies in the fact that they must be well aware of what they are holding to be holding it. They know the nature of the attention they are doomed to receive."
There is the barest flicker of a smile, which touches the corners of Ellen's mouth and then flitters away again. "We have been underestimated before, sir," she says, as one hand rubs idly at its opposite wrist.
Pyro smirks his agreement in the firelight, scratching at the back of his neck. "If it'sa trap, we'll spring it," he says, confidently. "They picked the wrong people to mess with."
The corner of his mouth finally tugging slightly upward, Erik turns his head to regard both recruits more directly, chest puffed out on a long-drawn breath, which is then expelled in a similar fashion. "Such optimism. Perhaps I should arrange for us to be faced with daunting uncertainty on a more regular basis."
Ellen tilts her head slightly to one side. The smile returns, in fuller force, if just as brief; her eyes glint pale blue amusement in the firelight. But she is silent.
"Well, if not me, who's gonna be the cheerful one," Pyro snarks. "Toad?" He crouches down, letting the flames leap a bit higher, in defiance of the mood. "Let 'em throw what they've got at us. We're ready."
"Yuriko sent him a present," Magneto says after a pause, the flat of his chest and the fold his arms tilting slightly back from the heat of the fire. "A little toad. A paperweight. He's probably still too busy being baffled to whine excessively."
"At least she is not making miniatures in marzipan anymore," Ellen observes with bland tolerance.
"You got a point there," Pyro says. The crouching quickly becoming uncomfortable, he pushes back to his feet, stretching out his legs. "Aussie instinct says they're alive and kickin," he concludes after a minute. "And we're never wrong."
"Mmm." A sidelong glance at Ellen is evidence of Erik's own relief at the dicontinuation of this behavior before it shifts up onto the standing Pyro, and finally, back to the fire. "There is little sense in believing otherwise at this point in time."
Ellen laces her fingers together and then turns her hands over, palms up. She follows the line of the youth's body from his feet to his face with her eyes, and lifts a brow. "Aussie instinct," she echoes, sounding out the words as though both of them are unfamiliar and ridiculous individually as opposed to merely in conjunction. "I have none such. But I also do not believe our comrades are dead."
"Think the fire's ok without me?" Pyro asks neither of them in particular. "Think I'm gonna call it a night."
Eyes washed of their color by the orange glow of the fire, Erik comments no further upon the more important of the two subjects at hand, addressing instead the fire. "Send Toad into the forest to collect dry wood on your way, and I suspect we shall be fine."
"Rest well, Pyro," Ellen says. Her gaze steadies on him for a moment longer, and then slides back to the flames.
Pyro nods at the two of them, offering a "G'night," and a gentle push at the fire before relinquishing it to natural forces. And he's off to find the Lizard...