Summary:Kilkenny wants feeding in payment for information. Which brings Koa to the park. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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The Sun is setting in Central Park. Koa Turner is sitting on a bench feeding pigeons of which there is a fairly thick crowd around him. Under the bench though quite difficult to see there is a glowing blue fox spirit which Agent Turner is quite familiar with. Every so often a paw snakes out from under the bench and snatches a pigeon so fast that the others don't realize what is happening. Those pigeons do not come back out.
"You know I'm only doing this because you're a cheap date." Koa says as he tosses out bread crumbs in small amounts.
"You want information, I want dinner. I call this win-win, Agent Turner." Kilkenny says in that oh so crisp English accent again.
Koa looks skyward as if to ask if his patience will be rewarded. No answer comes from there. Though it might come from beside him.
"Are you saying that Kilkenny isn't bonded to you?" Keiko has her feet on the bench as Koa feeds the pigeons. She doesn't seem to think there's anything strange about this setup.
"And he eats? That explains your strange question the other day." Her accent is still that of a 'mutts'. Nothing distinctive but hints of a lot. "And what information did you want?"
That … might be the most she's spoken in a series of sentences since he met her.
It's Central Park, of course, so there's always a ton of people even around sunset. Amongst those flocking crods is Eve. Someone might pick up on her just by her sheer presence, of course, let alone the fact that she's a blue haired goth girl.
She stands out in a crowd no matter what, okay? She's stopped by a food cart and is presently buying herself a ridiculously huge pretzel.
"I'm right here love." Kilkenny protests from under the bench. "No I'm not bonded to him and yes I need to eat. Your pets need to eat too, they're just being fed by you instead of draining delicious pigeon essence. Mmmmm."
Koa sighs. "Kilkenny here was with a blonde haired little girl that was attacked by what certainly sounded like a Nightfall agent and a monster sort of like we ran into in Salem. She was dropped into my lap this morning before I got to work. I wanted to know what the devil he was doing with her."
"I'll answer that in a minute. Hold on…" The glowing blue fox exits from under the bench and runs over toward the pretzel vendor which is just about fifty feet away. There he stops at Eve's feet and puts on his best 'begging' face.
"What are you… oh. Look who it is Keiko." The both of them have met Eve before of course.
"And he talks to you …" Keiko all but ignores the fox under the bench. Well almost "Mine aren't really … pets, but I think you know that." she adds quietly to the most british of creatures she's ever met.
"You found one of the missing children? Are you sure?" That certainly has Keiko's attention. "And a what?" The creature she's trying not to think about too hard.
"Oh, Hi Eve." the tattooed gives a brief wave to the woman at the pretzel cart.
"Oi," says Eve.
"No. No, you can not have my pretzel," she says to the glowing blue fox. "Given the sheer number of pigeons that winked out recently, I suspect you've eaten quite well, actually." And then she tears off a chunk of pretezel and plainly eats it in front of the begging fox creature before her eyes travel towards Koa and Keiko. Can she go ANYWHERE without them turning up?! IS KEIKO FOLLOWING HER?!
Or maybe it's Koa. They're always together.
Anyway, she's turned her attention to them, now, and raised a hand in a slight wave.
Koa returns the wave before sighing and picking himself up off the bench to start walking over toward Eve and motioning for Keiko to follow.
"One of the missing children was brought to me yes. Found by someone else. Our mutual blonde friend." Friend is probably stretching things a little there. "I think she's a mutant and there might be an odd pattern there."
"Hello Eve. Kilkenny why are you bothering Eve?"
"Because she has food and because she's interesting?" The Fox mutters while he turns up the charm. Literally. Supernatural charm. It might not work on Eve, it doesn't even work on people all the time but damned if he's not going to try.
Koa sighs. "Sorry Eve. You're looking better from the last time I saw you."
Of course the last time Koa, and possibly Keiko, saw her, she was bleeding from multiple places from having been grabbed by a ginormous tentacle and then assaulted by a bunch of car sized jackals.
"Yeah, hi," says Eve. She lets out a sigh and then approaches them, ignoring Kilkenny entirely. "Why is there a glowing blue fox begging for food from me and it's nice to see both of you." More pretzel is bitten off. r
"So, missing kids, huh?"
Keiko unfolds off the bench and follows Koa, frowning at the news he imparts.
"Another mutant? That's … unusual." she says quietly, but Eve will hear it as she draws nearer "Were there any marks on the child? What happened?" She's pressing for details .
"Hi Eve, sorry I couldn't stop the other day. Koa's right. You're looking better than the last time we saw you."
"Because, love…" The fox says in a voice rather like Michael Caine's. "It's not every day you get to beg from an Elderspawn. Do you know how much energy there is in an act of kindness from someone like you? As I said, you're interesting."
Koa sighs and just gestures to the fox. That's why there's a glowing blue fox begging from her.
"Yeah, a rash of missing kids all around the city. Young ones. Most of them normal kids but… about half a dozen of them have been mutants as well." Keiko knows that bit of course, she's reviewed the files with Koa. "And it looks like it's possible that more than one group is after at least some of the kids."
Koa feels terrible for the kids of course. They don't deserve this and didn't ask for any of it. Which is why he's working as quickly as possible to put a stop to it. Which in turn is why he's been working so closely with Keiko.
"I heard something about that. If there's some manner I can help, well… you have my number on file," remarks Eve to Koa dryly. More pretzel is wolfed down. And then her eyes roll at the fox. "Go back to flirting with rabits in Zootopia, kid," she tells the fox before having another pretzel bite.
She's making a point of it, see!
"Elderspawn?" Keiko looks between Eve and Kilkenny, realisation slowly dawning.
"If it was the Nightfall who took the girl, Agent Turner, she'll be marked on the inside on her upper arm…. " rolling her sleeve up, the tattooed woman shows the smallest tattoo she has - a moon eclipsing a sun.
"They mark all of theirs like this. The girl who was taken, what her qualities?"
"Funny you should mention that, Keiko. When we took her to medical the doctors noted that very thing. From what we could gather Kilkenny had been visiting the girl regularly as kind of an imaginary friend. He helped her escape when the other critter attacked."
Kilkenny narrows his eyes. "This will call upon all my training." He says and then proceeds to run behind Keiko and try to climb up her back and onto her shoulder.
"What are you…" Koa shakes his head and looks back to Eve. "Definitely wouldn't mind another set of eyes on this. I've got forty plus missing files at the moment and only a small handful of them have been recovered. Keiko thinks we have a short window to get them all back before they're whisked away elsewhere and our chances of recovering them go steeply down."
"How new was the tattoo?" Keiko asks quietly, glancing down at Kilkenny as he makes that pronouncement "To do wha——"
"Ack!"
The fox can certainly do it but he's going to get grumped at. "I'm not feeding you and I don't think I should let you near my pets, either."
The tattooed woman nods as Koa speaks. "A couple of weeks at best. And I'm really concerned. The Nightfall doesn't usually act in cities this big. Something has changed."
At the news, Eve's expression falls.
"Also, if you don't mind," she adds, "I'd appreciate if you'd tell your glowing blue friend here to ixnay on the elderspawn bit," remarks Eve.
"I get enough death threats as it is and I'd hate to have to deal with mroe." She licks a finger, giving the fox a look before her expression twists into a distasteful grimace, as if the food had lost its taste for her at all of the horribleness. She ignores its present position and doersn't look further at it, in fact. "But, yeah. I'll help."
"Very. Within a day or two." Koa watches as Kilkenny climbs up Keiko. "Also you heard the lady, Kilkenny."
Kilkenny gets up onto Keiko's shoulder and looks Eve in the eyes… and puts on his charm again.
"So sorry about that… won't mention your extraction again." Charm. Charm. Charm.
Koa doesn't think it's going to work.
"A lot of the missing are coming from around the areas you usually work." Koa notes. "If you see or hear anything suspicious, or hear any of your clients talking about anything you think might be valuable let us know. And if you CATCH anyone actually trying the abducting…" Koa's mouth sets into a grim line and he leaves that off before looking at Keiko again.
"They were using the school, we think, yes?" Keiko can explain how Nightfall MIGHT be using the local elementaries to 'screen' for suitable candidates.
With the Fox perched on her shoulder, it's glowing tail wrapping about her neck, Keiko sighs. "And she was taken how long before that? I suspect the Nightfall have only sent one or two into the city. With it being so big, they might have trouble covering all the children they are taking."
"You certainly found something that leads to that assumption, Agent Turner. But it fits the way they operate." the tattooed woman shifts her weight as they talk. "They will use people within the cities to do their scouting and the actual abductions. The Nightfall usually only preys on smaller villages, so identifying children that fit their requirements, is easier."
"Here, they would find 'spotters', I think they're called. Have them identify who to take and a gang or similar would do the taking." What might make a suitable candidate might be interesting.
"'Nightfall'?" queries Eve. The name is not familiar to her, it would appear, and it would equally appear that Illyana didn't tell her jack before yanking her into fight a monster previously, too. "I've heard very little about it, so someone wanna break down who's behind this in the first place and who 'Nightfall' is? It sounds Cultish. Is it a cult?" She asks, giving her own blue hair a ruffle before eyeballing the fox again. It is also blue. She gives a nod of approval at the color.
That makes the fox grin a bit and it settles back on Keiko's shoulder. "Now don't get pushy, love." That is apparently directed to one of her tattoos.
"Very cultish yes. They're responsible for Keiko's magical Tattoos…" He'll let her elaborate on that if she will.
"Beyond that they're relatively new to me as well. But this is apparently how they operate, except it's usually out in the countryside in third world nations and not in the middle of New York. They've also possibly been testing out strange arcane technology in the city. I found a 'fear projector' device near the Asgardian Embassy the other day with their symbology on it. As to what they want…"
Well, Keiko can tell, if she knows. She might not. She was just a soldier.
Keiko smirks at bit at the Fox. "Glydril is telling you, I'm hers…" Interesting.
"The Nightfall took me when I was child too." She starts looking to Koa "We're marked and split into groups. Some of us become tattoo bearers, like myself. Others fighters and others Magi. Sibkos, the groupings we're placed into, have a balance of each."
There's probably more to that but the 'fear projector' has the tattooed womans face screwing up again. "We worship a god called Plokta, Agent Turner." That's news to him as well. "A god of dark and cold to begin with." That's a name that should have come up when Koa looked into Sifror and Belasco.
"Oh good. Just wonderful," says Eve.
She pinches the bridge of her nose. She's had bad experiences with cults herself. Possibly more than once if her expression is anything to go by. "Worshipping this, worshipping that," she mutters. "Sounds like they have more tricks then the usual run of the mill nutters, thoiugh, eh? Well, if you have any leads and you need a little backup, I can take care of myself. Don't know what else I can do aside from keep my eyes open." She can do that basically forever anyway,.
"I've got your number. I'll give you call if there's anything. But right now keeping those eyes open is probably the most helpful thing. We need breaks in the case or…" Well, Koa doesn't want to say it. But there it is.
And then his eyes narrow. "Plokta? Plokta isn't a god… Plokta is a Splinter Lord. Like Sifror, whose agents we have also seen. And Belasco. And… Illyana Rasputina."
The Agent actually growls a little bit. "Alright. There are entirely too many outer beings involved in this. Kilkenny get down from Keiko. I need to go back to the stacks in WAND and do some research." On Plokta and the splinter realm he rules.
"Nice to see you again Eve. I'll be in touch." Or maybe she'll be, if she finds anything.
"You might be needed, Eve. These aren't normal people in anyway."
Keiko's eyebrows at Koa's growl. "What do you mean Splinter Lord? He's our god." Oh no, Agent Turner, you're not getting out of this that easily.
Keiko waves to Eve as she trots after the SHIELD agent. "I've got questions for you."
A heavy sigh follows as Eve moves ot take a seat.
"Why am I not surprised?" The departing blue fox is given a dirty look.