Summary:Mikhail runs into Isis in MTown Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
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Not too far from a rundown park in M-Town is the entrance to the sewers and tunnels that run under the city. It is here that the Morlocks generally live - not the entrace, of course, but the tunnels. Morlocks - the least human-looking mutants. The ones that society tends to shun.
Isis Marik is standing in the shade of that entrance talking to a huge woman - tall and broad - with irridiscent green skin that shimmers where the light catches it. Anyone near them will feel … uneasy. Unsettled. They'll feel something is wrong - like they might have left the stove on, or worry that a loved one is ok.
Mikhail's very first visit to the mutant ghetto saw an attack by cyborgs. Since then, he's come back regularly just to check up on things and make sure they, or anyone else, hasn't returned to give the residents grief. Just wandering around with no real goal in mind, he spots Isis and starts walking toward her, frowning and glancing behind him as he approaches once he starts getting that feeling.
"And you haven't heard from Neville yet?" The feline-like mutant is asking the green-skinned woman. "It's been what?"
"Three weeks, Isis. Longer than he usually goes. I know it's not long, but it's not like him." As Mikhail draws nearer he'll see she's got webbed hands and what looks like gills on her neck. Her yellow eyes rise to watch the tall Rasputin as he comes nearer, falling silent and starting to draw back into the shadows.
Isis turns "He's a friend, Gisselle." She murmurs offering a faint smile to Mikhail as she does. "Mikhail! This is Gisselle, Gisselle…" she looks back but the woman is gone (or has she?). "I'll try to find him, Gisselle, you know I will…" the cat-woman calls into the tunnel.
"Don't feel bad, Mikhail. They don't like surfacers much…" Because Mikhail had to be totally feeling bad about the woman leaving, right? Isis moves right into Mikhails personal space and rubs her ears against his arm.
He won't know - but that's a sign of how much she trusts him.
"What are you doing here?"
"Hello Isis." Mikhail says then is about to greet the other woman when she disappears into the shadows. "I don't feel bad. Who is 'they'? A group of underground mutants?" It's the obvious conclusion based on the comment. "And one is missing?" Glancing down at Isis' head, he doesn't step away but doesn't really encourage her either. "I come by to make sure no one is causing trouble. If they do, I stop."
That's an improvement on many's reaction to Isis. Mikhail didn't growl or step back but Isis does as she senses the reserve from the man. No apology though - that's not cat-like at all. "Morlocks. You … oh right. I forgot you weren't here. Neither was I. During registration, some mutants didn't want to do that and went underground. Most of them were like Nick, not human looking. A bit like me, I guess. But they didn't register and they live down here." she gestures to the tunnels.
At least one that I know know. Neville. A were-cat. A few weeks. It's not unusual but with the video we got the other day, I'm a bit worried."
Video?
Mikhail doesn't bother asking who Nick is. Trying to get answers to everything he doesn't know takes too much time. Some things are too important to let pass however. "Video? What does it show that is worrying?" It can't be of him getting kidnapped as that would remove it from speculation and put it in fact.
Isis can be rather scattered to, in the way she delivers information. Mikhail, for the short time he's known her, seems to have worked this out. It makes it easier for her to focus though, when he keeps his questions simple.
She takes a deep breath as she collects her thoughts and the pulls out her phone. Nick had downloaded the clip for her - just in case she needed it. "This one …" she hits play.
An image of a woman, clearly filming on her own phone, comes up. She's moving through tunnels it seems. Maybe sewers. She looks scared.
"I'm uploading this to the cloud in case they get me again. Some freaks grabbed me and Derrick from our house and put us in pens. I don't know where we are right now but I think they're in the disaster zone somewhere. I got out of my holding cell but they were already experimenting on Derrick. Had him on an operating table. Something is chasing me. Like, huge effing werewolves. Everyone there looked like an animal, it was like some crazy Dr. Moreau shit. I'm hoping this tunnel leads me out and I've lost them but if I don't-" There's a scuffing sound behind her.
"Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit."
She starts running. The phone is knocked from her hand. "No no no no no! Let me gooooo!" Her screams fade into the distance before the video ends.
"We think those Werewolfs are tied the "The Pack". A group of werewolves that have boxes on their throats made from noisy metal… uh reverbium … that makes their barks and growls really, really, loud."
Watching the video on the phone, Mikhail frowns more and more the longer it plays. About halfway through, he takes the phone from Isis so he can get a closer, more direct look than with the short woman holding it up. Once it's over, he replays it so he can watch it through it again though concentrating more on the details. "What is this Pack you mention? Have you found these tunnels?" he asks once it's over and he hands the phone back.
The detail is lacking. The tunnels non-descript. Even the woman - it's not clear if she's mutant or not. It's possible but she's not a morlock or even like Isis. What is clear is that she's afraid and she's in the tunnels.
"The Pack. It's name we've given them. A group of big werewolfs. We don't know who they are. Nick, Nick Gleason - he's a werewolf who went to the Institute in the first class - says he's never seen another werewolf in most of his life and now, we've seen a few of them."
Letting Mikhail hold her phone, Isis transfers her weight between her feet "Don't mess up my flappy bird score…" she says quietly.
"They have these devices on collars made with Reverbium, which we think comes from AIM. AIM are the people who made me." Interesting thing for her to say.
"And yes, Jimmy Baxter - he works with SHIELD sort of - he thinks he's found the tunnels and we're going to go in. Find them and save them." It doesn't occur to Isis that it might be too late. Or maybe it does and she's just ignoring it - like she does many things.
"I come." Mikhail states. It's not an offer or a suggestion but a statement of fact. He will be involved. He's decided. "When you go, you call me and I will be there. If not for woman, then for others who they will not take." Experiment on was the deciding factor.
"I …" Isis blinks at Mikhail "You'll … come to help? Are you sure?" It's often like this with those from the Institute. That's something that Isis is still getting used to.
"Those collars - they emit so much noise, it crumbles walls and knocks you over. Nick is big … bigger than you, not as big Piotr now he's changed." That thought draws a sour look from the woman. "They knocked him down, after they made his ears hurt and mine a bit too." Meaning, they were emitting frequencies that were painful to canines and not quite so painful to felines. "This won't be easy."
"You can … look after yourself, can't you?"
Because all Isis knows of Mikhail is that he's a cosmonaut. Of his powers, she knows very little.
"Da, I am sure." If Mikhail wasn't, he wouldn't have said so. Rubbing his chin as he listen to Isis talk about the collars, he nods. "Then we get plugs for ears. Special ones. I meet scientist at Institute. I get him to make them. How many?" He takes Isis' question seriously and nods to her. "Da, I look after myself."
Isis might know the scientist Mikhail is thinking of, not that she's thinking about that. "Uh. Earplugs? They only really hurt Nick. Well, and me a bit. But there'll be six or seven of us going in, I think. Jimmy's doing the organising, I'm just going to meet him. But a set will need to be made for Nick's ears."
Seriously, no one wants Isis doing the organising. It will put new meaning to the saying 'herding cats'.
"They scare me, Mikhail." she finally admits. "They remind me of the place I grew up in. The things they did to me. Sometimes I get so scared, I can't fight."
"One set then." Mikhail agrees. Or maybe two, just in case they can adjust the frequencies. He likes to be prepared for the worst. "I am not scared. I am angry. You stay behind me and you will be fine. We stop them and make sure no one else is experiment."
"I should have thought of that for Nick…" Isis looks sheepish and glances up at Mikhail. "You're … a good friend." If anything, not that Isis can relate to this, he's like a big brother. Like Piotr has been to her.
"You should be scared, I think. Anger is good though - you can focus that." beat "Can I give Jimmy your number? Do you even have a phone?" She's not seen him with one and really, the most she uses her phone for is to play Flappy Bird. Nick gave it to her so he could find her - slightly more easily.
"I'm not sure I'll be able to stay behind you. I get very …" she taps her head "… they kept like a cat where I grew up. When I fight, I go to back that." Feral she means. "But I'll try."
Looking back into the tunnel and then into M-Town. "I'm hungry. Would you like to have lunch? Or are you busy?" Food. The way to Isis' heart.
"Is needed." It has nothing to do with friendship and everything to do with stopping the ones kidnapping and experimenting on mutants. "Rift… I am scared in. This? I am angry." Pulling out his phone, Mikhail taps a few times till he finds the phone's number and he shows it to Isis. "Piotr and Illyana get me one. Mine back in Russia. Battery dead by now." he adds with a certain black humor.
"It might be needed but not many would help strangers." Isis points out, handing her phone back to Mikhail so he can put his number in for her. "Your batteries dead? You need to charge it?" The joke almost goes over her head. "Oh. The one in Russia. I suppose it is. I wonder what your phone bill looks like though. Seven years, yes?" She tries to for her own joke.
"Come on, let's get lunch. Nick reloaded my credit card. Maybe I can buy him muffins this time and not drop them."
That's a whole different story.
"More." Mikhail answers simply. No need to go into it. "Da, food is good. We go get muffins, maybe salmon muffin for you?" Cat, fish, joke. "You pick place. I don't know where to eat."