Brotherhood Beatdown II: Bobby/Laurie

[Bobby Drake]

It’s days like this that Bobby sometimes wishes he smoked.

It’s not the smoking itself, which he is actually far happier to avoid, especially given what it would do to his endurance. What he envies is the built-in excuse for walking outside on rainy days like this one without calling attention to himself.

When people ask, which they sometimes do, he just says he enjoys the rain. The real answer has more to do with how much easier it is to create ice on days like this, the feeling that the world isn’t putting up any resistance… but that’s too complicated to explain.

Of course, either answer would be a cop-out today, when the real reason he’s walking around the unlit back lot of a book store in the rain is because of the book-signing he’d walked in on and promptly walked right back out of.

Of course, it’s not that Bobby is unaware of how popular Creed and his so-called “Friends of Humanity” are, or that their new book, The End of Humanity?, has spent the last two weeks on the national best-seller list. He just hadn’t expected them all to show up here, tonight, when he’d just been browsing for a wedding gift. He doesn’t want to be reminded of it tonight, and he certainly doesn’t want to mill around a book-store filled with the sorts of pea-brains who want a signed copy.

What he ought to have done is gotten back in the car and gone back home, but damned if he was going to let these bigots chase him off – or, well, at least not any further off than this empty lot behind the building. He has to retain some dignity tonight.

[Primer]

[[sorry this got so long. I was lazy beast and never did any establishing characterization stuff for Primer so a good bit of it is in here hehe.]]

Sean needs this mission. Since Magneto’s death (still a mystery, probably destined to remain so, though he tries to steer the rumors in the Brotherhood towards X-men involvement without letting it get out of hand) life has devolved into petty little chores. He’s overseeing the repairs and renovations of the Brotherhood HQ/lair/whatever they’re calling it into something much more hospitable. Terrorism, after all, does not require one to live in squalor while performing it, and he and Sheridan at least have ample wealth at their disposal. More bathrooms, an updated gym, a pool for brothers aquatically inclined and general repapering and painting as well as plastering, and roofing repairs. It’s necessary but tedious, time consuming, and minute, the sort of thing he used to have people for. But when you’re the boss of more than your own corporate entity you need to be involved, have fingers in all the pies, or things spin out of control far too fast. The Brotherhood is thriving and successful but every day, completely without sentiment, he wishes Magneto back to life.

Then there’s bomb Bobby dropped on him during one of their sessions- Laurie Collins, pheromone control. Sixteen years old, sixteen years since Gail left. It makes perfect sense now. He’d always thought he’d feel more in control of the situation if he only knew why and how Gail had escaped, had almost convinced himself he didn’t care, had even possibly, unconsciously, let it happen because he was tired of her. But ever since this revelation he’s had dreams- his mother shooting at him at a book signing, Gail grown taller than the skyscrapers smiling pityingly at him like she had the first day they’d met at Stanford when his bag had split open in front of her, his father crying and crying while his face swelled up from the pressure of a noose in which he hung and swayed and swayed above… he’d gone down to Wall Street and taken two day traders with heels high and, as he’d later delighted in finding out, sharp as daggers, and it hadn’t helped, it hadn’t put anything right. He’d sat outside Gail’s house but her blinds were always closed and when she went to work through an enclosed garage the doors were always locked.

He’d only wondered in a peripheral way about the girl who must be his daughter- what would she look like, if she was like him why she was at Xavier’s, why she hadn’t cut ties with her human mother yet. He thinks she’s probably biding her time when he thinks of her at all. He thinks she doesn’t know she has other options. His daughter, his genes have won out, he’s proven stronger than Gail in the end, and she’s never escaped this last part of him. That is what he tells himself when he remembers to.

But today is about action, not thought, today is what he needs. One simple, synchronized, spurt of violence against a boy who’d, after all, earned a little attention what with all his helpful confessions.

And here he is, Bobby Drake, on again off again unstable X-man, standing alone outside Creed’s book signing which they’d been watching as a matter of course anyway, not expecting to find their quarry in the one place where even should someone hear the scuffle they’ll be more apt to cut off their own nose then help him. He signals his team and flips the voice distortion switch on his mask.

“Hello, Icicle.” he uses one of the names Bobby’s said John will tease him with and the eerie warped voice bounces off the walls of the alley, rebounding back towards Bobby from all sides. “They let you out by yourself these days?” he sends out his best pheromone approximation of pathetic, of submission and fear, in a short, concentrated burst as he laughs derisively from where he’s hidden in an alcove. With embarrassment and fear it’s always best to let the subject fill in the blanks on their own- they always do it admirably.

His team should be closing in even as he finishes speaking and he leans languidly against the wall to watch the show.

[Bobby Drake]

> " Hello, Icicle They let you out by yourself these days? "

Bobby whirls around at the words, trying to locate a source. What the – He doesn’t see anyone, though; he can’t even tell where the sounds are coming from. There are lots of heat-signatures in the immediate area, but none of them particularly stands out.

Nevertheless, the nickname, snide remarks and derisive laughter do seem familiar, despite the strangely distorted, echoing voice. Hesitantly, he calls out: "John, is that you? What are you…" then trails off as Primer’s pheromones flood his bloodstream with an emotional cocktail of humiliation and anxiety he hasn’t felt since his first public outing as a mutant, years ago.

No, don’t be ridiculous… what would John be doing at a Friends of Humanity book-signing? Then again, what am I doing here? Of course, I’m not really at the book-signing, but what if somebody saw me – what if someone thinks I am? What if my parents – or, worse, what if Storm – no, no that’s crazy, if anything she’d think I was keeping an eye on the thing. Wouldn’t she? Maybe that’s why she hasn’t offered me my old spot back yet, maybe she thinks I’m secretly some kind of double-agent or just unreliable or something… no, no, that’s stupid… I may not be bright, but I’m loyal, she must know that… well, except for that whole business with John last year, I lied to her for weeks… well, not really lied, but… consorting with the enemy, and stuff. Except he wasn’t really the enemy, was he? I dunno, maybe he was; maybe he fooled me about that too? No, no, that’s crazy… I mean, isn’t it? Sure, I thought he was sincere, but what if he’s just been leading me on… leading all of us on? What if he’s some kind of mutant-hating double-agent, or something? Or maybe…

As Bobby fearfully contemplates these issues, a heat-pattern he’d previously dismissed as a large stray dog in a nearby alley moves quickly along shadowy alcoves and rubble-strewn passages to close the distance between them. Distracted by his own private demons, he fails to pay any attention to it, or notice its unusual directness. It tugs briefly at his attention when it appears in the dim lighting: not a dog, but a charging wolf.

Even then, he wastes a key moment second-guessing himself rather than acting, agonizing over a number of possible responses. Freeze the animal, or throw up an ice-wall in its path? What if it’s all a setup, designed to “out” him as a mutant, the way he was at that baseball game? What if – and of course by then it’s too late, and the beast strikes.

Ordinarily, the way this wolf hurls itself against him with fangs closed and claws mostly withdrawn, using nothing but its mass and the strength of its limbs, would strike Bobby as odd. In his current distracted state, it merely strikes him, hard and fast, leaving nothing but a few relatively shallow – though bloody – scratches on his arm as it hurls him to the ground, before it ducks away into the shadows.

His head hits asphalt and the world goes blurry… and in some ways that’s a blessing, as it gets him out of his head enough for his training to kick in. He rolls to his feet and shifts into ice-form without thinking about it, scrambling for the nearest wall to put his back against, scanning around for new threats… and all at once his head seems to clear.

What in the hell was that?!? The wolf had gone after him like it was trained to harass rather than kill, and the on-and-off emotional fugue he’d been in made no sense at all – if it hadn’t felt so completely natural, he’d think it was a psychic attack of some kind. Which it might be… Hell, could this be some kind of Institute test? Rasputin has sneaky TP like that, or maybe Jake and Josh using Cerebro, or Laurie’s pheromones… the wolf could be that animal shape-shifter girl, that could have been John’s voice behind a modulator…?

His half-panicked theorizing cuts off as a wolf-shaped heat signature reappears, traveling fast and soundlessly along a ledge three stories above him. OK, I don’t care who you are, I’m done being helpless prey. He waits impatiently for it to leap off its support before encasing it in a sphere of ice, stepping aside lightly to let the ice/wolf combination hit the ground.

Unfortunately, he pays too much attention to it as it does so, and not enough to the possibility of a third attacker…

[Primer]

[[Okay moving this along, sorry if I didn’t wait long enough for you Morgan but I assumed something had come up and you said we could go on if we really wished to. You’re obviously still perfectly welcome to jump in any time the fight’s still ongoing as are any other BH members.]]

Acquiring Rahne, Primer decides as he lounges casually against the wall and slips on a pair of black leather gloves, has been one of his better moves as de facto leader of the Brotherhood. Remodeling the bathrooms is, of course, up there as well as Magneto had evidently prized classic atmosphere over comfort. Yet watching Rahne toying with her prey is a pleasure, a much needed relaxation, and then there’s the thrill of knowing that he’s harnessed this creature who had once killed without thought, who aptly describes herself as a hunter and a slayer. Under the crimson mask with its holographic expressions wheeling from tortured ecstasy to silent screams his flesh and blood face is smiling. His gloved fingers twitch with each movement of the wolf as if he is directing a symphony.

Thud. She hits the ground encased in ice and his hands still. Yet it’s barely a second until Marrow is moving, one of her bones whistling silently through the air towards Drake as she slips into position on the fire-escape above him, ready to engage directly once she’s disoriented her quarry.

“Cover her.”

Jamie Madrox, next to her on the fire escape where he‘s been waiting, nods and closes his eyes, concentrating, until he’s forced to spring on to the roof to make room for the ever multiplying Madrii clones who spread out over the roof, down the fire escape and into the shadows of the alley, into every human-sized crevice or alcove.

“That should be sufficient.”

The clones aren’t attacking, yet, just tempting distractions for the boy and his little heat-sense trick while Marrow does her work. He feels a bit of an investment in Drake, having heard his deepest secrets for months, and today will be a major repayment for endless sessions hearing about the boy’s soap-inspired love affair with Allerdyce. He raises his voice and calls out to Bob,

“This is what the X-men have to offer? A little boy afraid of spiders, the untouchable girl who’d let you walk over her all day long for a smile, the firebug who can’t decide who he wants to fuck and who he wants to kill, any manner of school teachers who have to ask children for help and…” he lets the smile creep into his voice, “Robert Alvin Drake. You’re here because they need you, the boy who wanted to grow up to be Cyclops and lead the X-men, have adventures, the little boy who cowers and cries but at night dreams of them all tied up, of giving in to something sick, how very heroic.” He laughs, keeping an eye on Rahne, waiting for her to recover. “They’ll get along without you.”

[Sherridan Kaine]

Rain. Of all the things that could happen while Sherridan Kaine is making an appearance at a posh party and then later on dispatching on urgent business, of which he was informed by a pre-ordered telephone call which was very convincing, the worst is the rain. It is not for the getting-wet part of the rain, but rather the puddle part of it. Showers and rain he has long since dealt with, but puddles...ugh...those are absolutely hideous.

Natural...it's all natural...I'm semi-feline, true, but the rest is bloody homo superior! So why the hell am I not capable of dealing with a puddle?! I need to kill something...and I need to kill something fast...

He keeps himself steady on the wall however, amazed at how the boy is preoccupied with Rhane (Rain and Rhane in a dark alley...can it get any worse? The canine scent is against her will, but even more so against all of Ferus' kindness) that he seems not to notice him. Odd boy...is he the one Primer has been treating? By the sound of Primer's words, he is.

>“Cover her.”

Sherridan does not manage to think up a proper way of covering someone without killing the endangering party when the Madrii clones appear and swarm the place. Alright so there is something worse than the smell of wet dog. It is the smell of a wet human who does not seem to care much for showers...repeated over and over and over and over again, and then combined with the smell of wet dog. His eyes dart quickly to Primer, and then he looks back down at the boy. Perhaps just a little reflex-stimulus shall be enough? The clones are horrid.

Despite the fact that he had an Armani suit on before he left the banquet, he has managed to change into black jeans, a black tank top, and black fur (the last having taking the least amount of time), and also succeeded in wrapping several chains so tightly around his forearms that there is no room for movement, and therefore no sound. But now, he unwraps a small portion of the chain, and lets it slide off his left forearm, and then fall onto the ground with quite a loud splash and jangle. Naturally, Sherridan darts off to the side of his previous place, and then gathers all his strength into his arms, legs, and tail, ready to jump at the slightest hint of attack.

So...cat-and-mouse is still fun, despite the Madrii...

[Bobby Drake]

Bobby stares, a little incredulous, as the wolf shifts into humanoid form and starts breaking out of its ice-prison. OK, that’d be a “yes” on the shapeshifter. That can’t be Mystique, though.. can it?

He doesn’t have much time to contemplate the question before a blood-warm missile comes flying at him from nowhere; fortunately, it does little more than chip pieces off his shoulder. What the hell – bone??? It takes him a moment to make the connection – John’s Brotherhood debriefings had mentioned a woman who threw bone blades around, the same one who attacked Josh at Baker Mansion – and with it comes flashes from what remains the worst night of his life. Oh, crap. That means it’s the Brotherhood after me… no, not again. No way… I won’t go through that again!

He decides to retreat, then – whether an act of cowardice or tactical wisdom he doesn’t know and right now doesn’t care – but it’s too late… all at once there’s an army surrounding him. Madrox, of course… which isn’t so bad, actually; for all his duplicating he’s still just a normal guy; if Bobby can get lost in the crowd of him, maybe…? He suits action to plan and barrels towards the nearest cluster of Madrii, but they flow out of his way with an incredibly creepy degree of coordination. Right, stupid… they’re not a mob, they’re all one mind, and –

A pair of smaller bone-missiles hit him in the neck before he even sees them coming interrupting his thought-processes. They don’t hurt, exactly, but the first one creating a small crack that the second wedges open, and the effect leaves him dazed and disoriented. Where the hell is she? It’s like she knows exactly what my thermal range is! The Madrii close in when he stumbles, and only the reflexes honed by countless hours of combat-simulation training lets Bobby put an ice-wall up in time to stop them – or at least slow them down, since they’re apparently armed with some kind of heavy ice-pick-like weapons. They knew they were coming after me, he realizes with a sick feeling.

The sick feeling gets worse when that modulated voice starts in again, and he’s distracted, pulled back into his own head again by the naming of all his private demons, things he’s practically never told anybody, humiliating things (plus the puzzling comment about spiders, which makes no sense at all to Bobby)… Fuck, they really do have a telepath…?

He doesn’t notice Rahne breaking out of her bonds. A second later he’s surprised when the Madrii bring down his protective dome, but he reacts anyway, continuing his previous plan, launching himself straight into the crowd of Madrii. This time they try to stop him, but he doesn’t slow down – they’re just duplicates, after all, no better than Danger Room sims, and the nearest two shatter into pieces as he barrels into them. Two more try and fail to get a grip on his slippery body; a third manages the grip and loses a hand to instant frostbite. Several more slip on icy ground as they try to bar his path; a couple manage to clip him with their weapons but not heavily enough to worry about.

Bobby’s still not sure where Marrow is, but apparently she no longer has an angle of attack on him in the crowd, and Bobby’s beginning to think he might make it out of this when four clawed, furred limbs drop on him from above, at the end of a long, graceful leap he simply didn’t notice in the press of attackers. What the? He tries to freeze Rahne again, but she doesn’t stay still long enough to let him; her forepaws wrap around his neck just long enough to swing her weight around, and all at once he’s flying through the air.

That’s when the missiles hit, from a completely different direction this time, three of them striking his right knee in a cascading spray of ice-chips… and when he tries to land on his feet he realizes his right leg isn’t listening to him anymore. Fuck! They’re really gonna – and Rahne’s on top of him again, her fangs slavering. He manages to drive an icy fist straight into her solar plexus, following it up with a wave of semi-paralyzing cold before a furred clawed backhand sends him back to the ground with a hole the size of a golf-ball in his jaw.

[Laurie Collins]

Oh, lovely… Laurie thinks with a sort of defeated sarcasm, standing just inside the entrance to Barnes&Noble and staring disbelievingly at the table a few feet away from her. Sitting at the center of the table with assistants and companions spread out in chairs on either side like some bizarre modern rendition of The Last Supper is Greyson Creed, leader of the Friends of Humanity. The rather unassuming looking man is drinking from a bottle of water someone’s just handed him and joking casually with a stylishly dressed woman who is setting up a display of his book- a thick hardcover with a slick looking jacket depicting a much-publicized photograph from the Times Square riot, the words ‘The End of Humanity?’ emblazoned in red over the scene. It’s an image that still has enough resonance to make Laurie flinch and now it seems to be visible everywhere she turns.

Tonight’s just not the night for book-buying after all she decides, starting to edge back towards the entrance with exaggerated caution, as though any loud noise will out her as a mutant. Her escape plan is quickly foiled, however, by a crowd of noisy college-age boys who are pushing forward through the door as she tries to back out of it and she finds herself caught up in their crowd and swept towards the table as they debate the merits of Creed’s new book. By the time she’s disentangled herself, calmed down a bit, and reassured herself that she hasn’t leaked any pheromones the book signing has begun and the store is ringing with a royal din as the audience calls out questions and praise to Creed who is egging them on. There’s no going back to the main entrance without passing through that crowd now and she dithers a bit before realizing, with a relieved sigh, that she’s standing by the fire exit which doesn’t look like one of those alarmed ones, luckily. She presses tentatively against it and the heavy door grudgingly opens into a slit small enough for her to slip herself through out into the alley behind the store.

A second later the sounds of a skirmish send her scrambling into the small recess where the door is set back into the wall and she stands frozen with equal parts fear and disbelief as she watches Bob, fully encased in ice, take a run at a small army of identical men. What on earth… then he’s through the clones and there’s a second when she’s sure he’s out of it and away despite how very beat up he looks but then the wolf comes-

“No!” she’s halfway towards the struggling pair before she even realizes she’s running or yelling, fear pheromones bursting instinctively from her as she bears down on them wondering wildly what she’ll do if this doesn’t work, if she’s too late…

“What are you doing?”

The modulated voice rings out so close to Laurie that she can’t help but break her stride, stumbling sideways away from it and coming up hard against the wall before whirling towards the sound. As she does she notices something strange, the clones have snapped back to one man who’s been running from the fight along with a girl in her late teens but they suddenly pull up looking as confused as Laurie feels. Why aren’t they scared? I’m still emitting, there’s no wind and they’re not wearing anything that could be a filter- and then, as the owner of the voice starts to step out of the shadows, it clicks- he’s here.

For an instant everything seems to slow down as her world narrows to the figure beginning to take shape, the adrenaline fueled hammering of her heart, the scrabbling for purchase of her fingers on the alley wall behind her, searching for a way out…

“We’re done here, get out!”

Time snaps back to normal as he disappears down another branch of the alley and with him go the man and girl and hopefully the wolf. Remembering that last member of the attack group tears her mind from what she’s just become unable to deny and she spins around, launching herself awkwardly through the last few paces towards him only to hang back rather uselessly, not knowing what to do now, and calling, “Bob?” in a quiet, slightly hysterical voice.

[Bobby Drake]

Rahne is on him before he’s even fully hit the ground, and while her claws don’t do much more than scratch relatively harmless gouges in his body, the jackhammer force driving them leaves a growing pattern of cracks and holes. He strikes back with waves of cold, the pounding too disorienting for him to focus on anything more effective, but between her fur insulation and her near-berserker focus it doesn’t even slow her down. Not to mention the slow poison of Primer’s voice echoing in the back of his mind, distracting him, making him second-guess his every move… and the constant worry about what’s next, where the next attack will come from, who else is involved in this ambush.

A strike to his head gets past his guard and cleaves half his face off, a disturbing – not to say disgusting – effect that Bobby himself is fortunately unaware of, except to note that his vision blurs. (Later, he’ll think to wonder how it is he could see at all, with one eye missing and another cracked in two. Still later, he’ll think to wonder how he can ever see in his ice-form, with both eyes replaced by lumps of ice. By then, though, he’ll have other things on his mind.)

He’s vaguely aware of a familiar voice Laurie? What’s she doing here? and all at once the attack is over, the Brotherhood fleeing, and there’s nobody in the alley except for Laurie calling his name fearfully. Which is funny, really, that she’s frightened now, after single-handedly chasing away a horde that had come within a few minutes of reducing Bobby’s body to rubble.

"Yeah, I’m here." His voice is strange, fluctuating in pitch and tone, but coherent. (Later, he’ll think to wonder how he could speak with half his jaw missing, and still later how he can ever speak in ice-form, without lungs or larynx or tongue or lips. For now, though, he has other things on his mind.)

"Be careful, they might come back once your whammy fades… we’ve gotta get outta here. Can you drive?"

[Sherridan Kaine]

Annoyed, but not overly so, Sherridan crawls down swiftly, picks his chain up, and then goes over the top of the building, still unnoticed. It is simply not fun with the brotherhood anymore. He needs to discuss things with Primer, but that will wait when the other actually has a free moment from all the works on the Brotherhood hideout. I might as well start playing my own game here... and that idea sparks a new one. Only two people have seen him, and he is not so sure that the arachnophobia boy really would recognize him, considering the stress he was under.

He puts his long legs to good use, getting to the place where he'd changed clothes in a matter of seconds, and then changes with surprising speed, putting on a trench coat and pair of gloves over the suit, and thus completely hiding any traces of being a mutant. He had to shave for the banquet, but the smooth face is now welcome for what he intends to do. The slitted eyes are a problem, but it is extremely dark outside thanks to the rain. Even as he was on the rooftop he had called his driver, and the man, ever so perfectly effective, was already waiting for him by this time.

He walks out of the building, a run-down pub of a sort, enters the car and tells the driver to stop at the alleyway where Bob and Laurie are. The limo does as instructed, and Sherridan tells the driver to wait there.

Giving a brisk, worried tone to his footsteps, Sherridan hurries into the alley, saving up half of his attention to avoid the puddles of water, and starts with the act of a worried citizen who was just passing by and just happened to hear some noise.

"Oh my God! What happened here? Are you guys alright? Do you need some help? I saw those people run off, and it seemed like it was an attack of some sort..." he calls out, standing at a relatively safe distance to let the assumption that he has not, as of yet, seen Bobby's ice form remain an active possibility.

((If this spoils anyone's plans, just tell me ;D))

[Laurie Collins]

"Yeah, I’m here."

Laurie gets her first good look at him and can’t help the sharp gasp that rises up in her throat, though luckily she manages not to actually scream. Half his face is gone, how is he even talking with half his face gone ohmyGod…

“Y-you…” she stammers, crouching down next to him and looking rather discouragingly terrified, unable to finish asking if he’s alright both because she’s incredibly freaked out now that the acting-without-thinking portion of tonight’s festivities are over and because the answer is obviously no.

"Be careful, they might come back once your whammy fades… we’ve gotta get outta here. Can you drive?"

“I-I um…” she stammers, still rather stuck on how terrible he looks and trying to convince herself that he isn’t dying because even if his voice is weird he doesn’t sound like he’s in pain and he can’t be because…no nerves…right? But then how is he talking? Or seeing? She shakes her head quickly and swallows hard before gathering herself to answer, “I can’t, no, and I don’t even have a cell phone and if they do come back my pheromones won’t even work anymore because he has pheromones too and I think they cancel mine out and can you even walk to a car?” she babbles out, so caught up in her frantic assesment of the situation that she doesn’t notice Sherridan approaching until his voice sounds out from behind her.

"Oh my God! What happened here? Are you guys alright? Do you need some help? I saw those people run off, and it seemed like it was an attack of some sort..."

Laurie jumps about a foot and scrambles to her feet, trying to block as much of Bob’s obviously mutant form from view as possible and taking several silent moments to make sure she’s not actually going to explode with the way her heart is pounding during which her mind trips frantically through all the possibilities here. He could be one of the attackers come back, or he could be just some passer-by…but even then he’s probably passing by from the book signing and he’ll flip out if he knows we’re mutants and I can’t draw attention to Bob by asking what to do and his voice his still all weird we need someone from the Inst-oh! That‘s an idea…

“U-um, we’ll be okay, uh, I think I just…do you have a phone I can use? Please?” she manages to stammer out, taking a cautious step forward and extending her hand hopefully.

[Sherridan Kaine]

>“U-um, we’ll be okay, uh, I think I just…do you have a phone I can use? Please?”

Alright, so the girl does not manage to quite persuasively pass on the fact that the world is really going swell. He can hear it in her voice, and his night vision is more than enough to show him what had happened to the boy, as if he does not already know. He makes a move to take his cell phone out, and actually drops it by true, genuine accident. How very convenient.

Sherridan moves down quickly, but not as quickly as he can, for that would single him out as faster than human, and grabs the cell phone. Like an expert actor, he is not going to just look at the boy while he is down. Instead, he raises the phone to her as he gets up, and lets his eyes slip by the other kind of accident onto the desecrated ice form that is Robert Drake.

His hand stops in mid-air as his eyes widen from exaggerated surprise that actually did come in a small dose, inspired by the knowledge of just how effective Rhane could be. He converts all of his following moves into a single worried-human response.

"Oh my God!" he yells at first, pushing the phone into Laurie's hands (a rather expensive one, and one that has absolutely no hint towards his belonging within the Brotherhood, which has pretty much remained a secret from most of anyone, thanks to his ability to change fur color and change between ruthless assassin and brilliant, rich businessman so well). He scolds himself for making room for doubt whether he was there for the book signing or not, but some things are nature, and so was the cat's love for playing with prey.

He rushes over to Bob, and looks him over, moving with his hands towards the body, and then stopping upon feeling the cold. "He looks badly hurt! You can't take him to a hospital like this..." he pauses for a moment, to signify thought, a process of coming up with an idea that is really already formed, and then continues, snapping his fingers. "I know, help me take him to my limo, the driver's waiting outside the alleyway. I think it will be faster if we drive him to wherever you wish to go right now, rather than wait for someone..." naturally, throughout all of his sentences, the sound of a spoiled rich guy with loads of commodities and luxury in life, so used to them that he takes them for granted is woven, subtly trying to add to the impression that there is no way this simple human could possibly be a mutant who has participated in the group attack from a few minutes ago. The expensive clothes and perfectly well-shaped (or at least it is hinted that it is like that when he is not in the rain) golden blond hair help. They help allot. And so does the absence of a visible tail.

[Bobby Drake]

Bobby tries to take stock of his situation as Laurie approaches.

He’s pretty sure he’s taken more damage in this little escapade than he ever has before, even when fighting the Juggernaut (which seems absurd on the face of it, except of course with Jugs he’d gone in with a plan and some backup, whereas here he’d been ambushed and half-defeated before he’d hardly gotten started… hell, if Laurie hadn’t scared off the goon squad he’d be dead, assuming he can die in this form, a theory he’s not excited about testing).

His body, surprisingly, is still mostly intact… no missing limbs or anything… but he can feel the network of cracks and shear-planes and cleavage points running through it. A loud shout would probably reduce him to rubble at this point, and judging from the gasp that rises in Laurie’s throat he’s fairly sure he looks every bit as bad as he feels. (Fortunately for him, Bobby’s vision is sufficiently impaired that he can’t make out the expression on her face in the dark and rain.)

> " Be careful, they might come back once your whammy fades… we’ve gotta get outta here. Can you drive?""
> " I can’t, no, and I don’t even have a cell phone and if they do come back my pheromones won’t even work anymore because he has pheromones too and I think they cancel mine out and can you even walk to a car?"

’He has pheromones too’? Bobby isn’t quite sure what Laurie’s talking about, but there’s no mistaking the anxiety in her voice, and he suspects it isn’t entirely due to his appearance. Apparently Laurie knows something about one of the Brotherhood members, and Bobby makes a mental note to ask her about it later, but it’s not his priority at the moment. He’s about to explain that his right leg seems to be out of commission temporarily but he should be able to reach the car all right, when they’re both interrupted by a strange voice.

> "Are you guys alright? Do you need some help? I saw those people run off, and it seemed like it was an attack of some sort.. "
> " U-um, we’ll be okay, uh, I think I just…do you have a phone I can use? Please? "
> " He looks badly hurt! You can't take him to a hospital like this... I know, help me take him to my limo, the driver's waiting outside the alleyway. I think it will be faster if we drive him to wherever you wish to go right now, rather than wait for someone... "

There’s something familiar about the man, but Bobby can’t put his finger on what it is. Far more importantly, there’s something weird about the whole situation: a complete stranger offering a wounded mutant a limo ride outside a Friends of Humanity gathering, mere minutes after a Brotherhood ambush? That’s… well, “suspicious” is a mild way of putting it. Is Laurie putting some kind of friendliness whammy on this guy? She seems just as surprised by the offer as he is, granted, but maybe all the stress is making her lose control of her pheromones? More likely this guy’s an FoH backer looking to screw us over… or maybe a cop, or an undercover SHIELD agent, or something like that?

Bobby’s not at all sure, but it’s not the most immediate problem. No matter what, they’re going to have to call in to let the Institute know he’s been attacked… it might not be an isolated incident, after all. Come to think of it, wasn’t Toby ambushed a while back, too?

He props himself up on his good knee, wincing as the cracks in his leg and hip widen under the strain, and does his best to get his voice under control. "That’s… um… very kind, sir, but it won’t be necessary. I know this looks bad, but really I’ll be OK in just a few minutes." Which he hopes is true; he’s developed somewhat more confidence in his ability to handle this sort of injury after reattaching his leg Juggernaut broke off, but his current damage is a lot more systemic. Still… if I can’t repair it, it’s not like anybody else is gonna be much help, I guess.

He tries to think of something more encouraging to say, but nothing comes to mind, so he settles for gesturing to the phone Laurie’s now holding, encouraging her to make the call.

[Laurie Collins]

Laurie starts to edge away nervously as the man approaches but skitters back again, frowning slightly, as he makes as if to start poking at Bob. She opens her mouth to object but he’s already pulled his hands back and is babbling on, sounding like nothing more than a flighty city boy out on the town.

" He looks badly hurt! You can't take him to a hospital like this... I know, help me take him to my limo, the driver's waiting outside the alleyway. I think it will be faster if we drive him to wherever you wish to go right now, rather than wait for someone... "

It seems like a very kind offer but the first thing you learn as a teenage girl in the modern world is to have no truck with strange men who come up to you in alleyways and offer you rides in their car, no matter what the situation, and Laurie can practically hear her mother listing all the ways she will kill her if she ever accepts such an offer. But Bob is really badly hurt and we’re behind a mutant hating gathering point, if one of them decides they want a cigarette or something… Yet there’s still something weird about this that she can’t quite put her finger on. Maybe it’s because of all the years she’s spent watching people, analyzing their every action for signs that they’ve been affected by her, but something about this man just seems…off… maybe he’s just a little too graceful, a little too quick, maybe she’s just on edge from the attack, but it’s making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end in the classic horror cliché which counts for something right? Maybe I should scare him or make him sleep or something…but if he is just some guy I can’t attack him and if he’s really trying to hurt us that would just provoke him I guess..

"That’s… um… very kind, sir, but it won’t be necessary. I know this looks bad, but really I’ll be OK in just a few minutes."

She gives Bob a relieved look as he props himself up and manages to speak in a fairly normal tone, then jumps as more fissures appear in his already crumbling body. “Don’t do that!” she whispers giving him her best reproving look, before catching his nod towards the phone she’s actually forgotten she has. “Oh! Right, um, I’ll just make that call now and then I can give you back your phone and, um, he heals himself like this so actually thanks but it’s better if we stay here… but we probably shouldn’t draw attention to ourselves so, really, thank you, but you should probably move your limo please?” she babbles out, hoping she hasn’t been rude but for once not having the energy to care all that much with all the other worries swirling around in her brain. The thought that soon she’ll have someone calm and adult from the Institute telling her what to do is immensely soothing and she dials their emergency number with a speed Zip might have envied. The second the rings stop, before the person on the other end can so much as say hello, Laurie’s started babbling out their current situation, giving their codenames and basic situation all in one breath while sliding nervous sideways looks at their potential good Samaritan.

[Sherridan Kaine]

> "That’s… um… very kind, sir, but it won’t be necessary. I know this looks bad, but really I’ll be OK in just a few minutes."

He makes himself look as if he has been convinced that this statement is probably true, and acts perfectly the role of someone slightly disbelieving what he hears, but deciding to go with it anyway.

> “Oh! Right, um, I’ll just make that call now and then I can give you back your phone and, um, he heals himself like this so actually thanks but it’s better if we stay here… but we probably shouldn’t draw attention to ourselves so, really, thank you, but you should probably move your limo please?”

He nods slowly, getting up at the same time, and looks around to the bookstore, as if noticing it for the first time in his entire life. "Alright...but I do not think that this is a highly safe place for you to wait whomever you are calling. I entered the bookstore to get a few new books, you know- for those boring hours in the night, and found that there was a whole mob of those who support that Friends Of Humanity faction. Apparently Creed has published a book..." he says, letting his own distaste pour into his words to enhance the act. "I decided to go out a bit before I lost my temper. You know, I really always wished I could be a mutant...thought it would be cool- to have powers and save the day and all that. I guess it's not all they make it seem when you're a teenager, eh?" he says, getting lost in his own memories, those of a different life, a different path he might have taken had his parents lived.

He snaps back to attention quickly, and looks at them with a slight bit of wonder. "What were you doing here in the first place? This does not seem to be a likely mutant hideout, especially at this time."

[Bobby Drake]

> " I do not think that this is a highly safe place for you to wait whomever you are calling."

Bobby actually laughs at that, or at least tries to… it comes out more as a wheezing cracking sound. "Yeah… thanks for pointing that out. Though after that beating, I’m guessing I won’t consider this area “safe” any time soon. The irony is, the gang who came after me weren’t related to Creed’s gang of bigots at all: they were a gang of mutant bigots. Their problem isn’t that I’m a mutant, it’s that I’m not mutant enough for them. Crazy world, huh?"

He’s been trying to fix the cleavage-planes running through his ice-form as he speaks, or at least stop them from spreading further under stress, but he can’t quite figure out how… it isn’t like filling a hole in his body, it’s more like knitting two halves of his body back together. Or, rather, thirty or forty segments of it. It seems like he ought to be able to do it, but thus far nothing he’s tried has worked. Maybe I need Hank or Reed to take a look at this?

In the meantime he slides himself towards his car, laying an ice-slick on the asphalt and pulling himself along it with his mostly-intact arm. After a moment, he realizes there’s an easier way, and starts building up the ice underneath and behind him into a ramp that slowly pushes him forward. Once he gets the hang of it he speeds up, sliding towards the car without damaging his body further.

> " I really always wished I could be a mutant...thought it would be cool- to have powers and save the day and all that. I guess it's not all they make it seem when you're a teenager, eh? "

Not that this guy seems that far out of his teens, come to that. And here I thought it was Warren who got all the attractive X-Fans crawling out of the woodwork to talk to him. I guess I’m coming up in the world, at that. "Well, there’s some of that, sure. Did you read about the attack on Congress last year? I was involved in stopping that, and I’ll admit, it was a rush." The ice-ramp beneath him becomes a pillar near his car, supporting him in something that resembles a standing position. " But it’s like being a firefighter or something… there’s always the chance of getting hurt. The Alcatraz incident last year, with the Golden Gate Bridge and all that… well, I was there, helping protect the place. A bunch of my friends were, too, and not all of them came back. So, yeah, it’s not like the comics… or, well, not like the ones I read, anyway. "

He’s not entirely sure why he’s even talking to this guy, let alone telling him his resume, except it’s nice to talk to a normal human who’s willing to listen to what it’s really like. Who knows, maybe this guy will go back and tell his country-club friends about the mutant he met the other day, who seemed like such a reasonable guy... Warren keeps harping on that, the PR angle.

> " What were you doing here in the first place? This does not seem to be a likely mutant hideout, especially at this time."

That gets another laugh. "‘Mutant hideout’… I like that. Sounds all secret-agenty, doesn’t it? Reality isn’t nearly so interesting; I was shopping for books. Or I had been, before I ran into the crowd in there; that’s when I came out here. Guess I should’ve just gone home. " He really wishes Laurie knew how to drive; he’s getting nervous waiting for the Institute injured-mutant-pickup-truck to show up, and finally he decides to risk driving it himself.

"Anyway... thanks for the use of your phone, and for stopping. It’s nice to be reminded that not everybody out there is one of those assholes." He jerks his head in the direction of the bookstore while he gingerly fishes the car-keys out of his pocket, and manages to get the driver’s side door open without much trouble. “I’m, um, well, I can’t really tell you my name, but they call me Iceman… I know, not terribly original, but I didn’t come up with it. Anyway… nice meeting you."