characters. Laura Howlett, Cat Chandler, Dyson Thornwood setting. Dyson and Cat's apartment & roof warnings. A surly baby mutant description. Laura arrives in Atlantis status. Complete
She was sitting along on her bed listening to the sound of the crickets and chirps of the tree frogs outside her open window. A pair of dog tags clinked against her chest every time she moved or sat up to see what was going on outside. Most everyone else in the small cabin was already asleep with one or two talking and keeping watch out on the porch. They'd been in Canada for a few weeks now, and still Laura felt like she was missing a piece of herself. The dog tags and the old X-Men comics in her backpack were only a small reminder of what she'd been forced to leave behind.
Laying back on the bed, Laura glanced over to the picture she still kept of her and her friends back in Mexico City. Sometimes those days felt so long ago, but when she closed her eyes it still felt like only yesterday. She knew that if it hadn't been for the help and sacrifice of Gabriella and Logan that she wouldn't be able to see the stars and hear the tree frogs chirping today.
Barely closing her eyes, Laura felt a sudden but ever so slight shift in her surroundings. Her senses were always on alert, and when she opened up her eyes, she saw that she was no longer in the cabin with her friends but inside of a small but modern room that she didn't recognize. Claws out and on her feet immediately, Laura was on high alert for anyone or anything that came through the bedroom door.
Thinking she heard a voice in the next room, Laura froze and looked around frantically for a way out. She noticed that her backpack had somehow arrived with her, so she grabbed one of the straps over her shoulder and went for the window. It wasn't hard to push open, but she was sure she had made enough noise to alert the person on the other side of her bedroom door. Once the window was open, though, Laura slipped through the small space she'd made with the window and jumped onto the roof of the building next door.
She had to find her friends and figure out where she was and what was going on.
Dyson’s enhanced hearing picked up the sound in the second bedroom not long after he and Cat had walked into their new apartment. They’d moved together, planning to knock on the door and say hello, but he could hear the sounds of her opening the window.
“Dammit,” he swore, trusting Cat would follow as he opened the door and walked over to the window. Luckily, it was big enough to accommodate an adult, even if it would be a tight fit. He crawled through, stopping at the edge of the roof to glance at his girlfriend. “Think you can make it or do you need a lift?” he asked her, eyeing the other roof where their new ward had landed moments before.
They had talked about what they could say, how they could try and explain to the girl they were now guardians of why she was here. Cat as about to say something when Dyson swore, her eyes narrowed as he opened the door she followed him quickly and glanced out the window with him.
"I can make it," she told him with a small glint in her eyes. She wasn't going to say it, but he looked good when he was on a mission. "You're faster than I am, go, go get her, I'll be right behind." She instructed as she followed him. From what she'd read about Laura she also felt he might have better luck with her at first. "Really, I'll be right behind you," she added again thinking or well a little further behind.
Laura had barely landed on the adjacent roof when she heard voices coming out of the window where she’d just left. Turning back, she saw two unfamiliar faces and she sneered, almost letting out what sounded like a low growl. The man was already halfway out of the window by the time she had the chance to look around and see where she could go next. There there other rooftops, and she knew she could scale down the side of the building with her claws if she really needed to, but she also wasn’t scared. Whoever this was, she could fight.
Steeling herself, she didn’t reveal her claws just yet but stood ready with her hands up and waited to see if either of them were stupid enough to charge towards her. The woman was coming out of the window too after he’d landed on the roof several feet away from her.
Saying nothing, Laura just stared at both of them and waited to see what their next moves were. Her eyes probably looked like that of a wild animal that didn’t like feeling cornered. She had to find her friends and figure out where she was and how to get back home.
Trusting Cat would have told him if she’d needed his help across, Dyson had made the jump, easily landing on his feet after he’d cleared the distance. There were still several feet between him and the girl and he studying her for a moment, trying to decide on how he should approach this.
Chasing her across Atlantis didn’t sound that appealing, so he raised his hands in front of him in a placating gesture. “We’re not going to hurt you,” he said in English before remembering from her file that it wasn’t her first language. It wasn’t his, either, and luckily several centuries of life had taught him a few things, including her native tongue. Sólo queremos hablar, he added, still trying to placate her. She wasn’t afraid, he could smell that, but he could also smell how close she was to attacking, even if he hadn’t been able to see it in her eyes. While she wasn’t the only wild animal on this roof, he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Dyson had no intention of fighting this girl.
“Or well, food. I’m not the best cook, but I heat up some mean potstickers.” Cat said as she felt awkward making her way towards Dyson. Both Laura and Dyson were better at the whole crawling around roof things than she was.
She could at least read Dyson’s body language and some of Laura’s but she was at a huge disadvantage. “Listen, this is freaking weird, and scary, but I’m hungry, and we’ve got more than enough food to go around.” She said glancing at Dyson having no clue of what she was doing. “Or, at the very least I can make myself dinner and answer some questions…” She added over her shoulder as she felt awkward climbing back towards Laura’s window.
When the man started speaking in Spanish, Laura knew that something else was going on. He knew information about her somehow, yet she knew nothing of him or the woman with him. She still stood there unmoving, barely breathing, and watching them both with eyes like a hawk. The woman mentioned food which briefly peaked her interest but not yet enough to go back inside the room where she'd woken up. She'd just escaped one prison not all that long ago, and she wasn't going to risk getting locked up in one here.
¿Hablar acerca de qué? ¿Cómo sabes quién soy? she asked since it was clear he did know her. Why else switch to her more native language? She still hadn't yet shown her claws, but they were so close to slicing the skin of her fists.
“Who are you?” she asked this time in English since the girl hadn't spoken yet in Spanish. “How am I here?”
“My name is Dyson,” he said, switching to English, “and this is Cat.” He held his ground, not moving but ready to move if she tried to bolt. For now she seemed curious enough to listen to them, at least for a moment.
“We were brought here, just like you were. If you decide to stay, we’ll all be sharing an apartment.” He was careful with his phrasing when he suspected she wouldn’t react well to the idea that they’d been assigned to take care of her.
“You should try Cat’s potstickers,” he added a little more lightly. “They’re really good.” If they could entice her back inside, that would be better than standing here on the roof.
High school or criminal Spanish didn't really cover this kind of situation. Cat did her best not to look relieved when the conversation did, in fact, turn more towards English.
She glanced quickly to Dyson as she tried to figure out what to say. Cat had been in a lot of situations, but she felt completely out of her depth in this one.
"I have heard they are legendary," she added as she tried a soft smile.
Laura was definitely curious. Her eyes darted back and forth between the two adults as they spoke. They acted friendly and helpful enough, but that was hardly a reason to put trust in anyone from the start. Lots of people pretended to be nice when they had bad intentions. She preferred when people acted like monsters from the start no matter how monstrous they were.
“Where are my friends? Where is Rictor?” Her words were a little more forceful this time but she didn’t give any indication that she was about to strike. Laura’s friends were important to her and were basically her brothers and sisters. They protected and looked out for each other.
Laura glanced over to the window again then back to Cat and then Dyson. There was something about him that she sensed was… different. Her own senses didn’t know what to make of it, but she wasn’t going to ask outright. He’d just lie or tell her something that he thought she wanted to hear. That’s what everyone else did.
Her curiosity couldn’t help her a bit though on another question she had, looking over at Cat. “What are potstickers?”
“We don’t know,” Dyson admitted, letting sympathy color his expression. It wasn’t easy telling full grown men and women their loved ones weren’t here, let alone having to tell it to a child. He couldn’t imagine she would take it well. “Probably still where you left them, at home. You were brought here, to Atlantis, through a portal. Technically, you’re in another world now.”
Like that was going to be believable, but he had to try. As for the potstickers, he just shrugged. “I guess you’ll have to come inside if you want to find out,” he suggested in a lighter tone.
“Well, I’m going to head back in and make some, if you want some, you’re welcome to come try them,” Cat said getting the feeling that Dyson would have more luck with Laura. It wasn’t that Cat thought she’d do a bad job, it was that she was average, human, kinda boring on that front and figured Dyson probably could be more useful.
With a small smile she turned carefully and started to head back the way she came. She only glanced back once when she slipped a little bit holding out her hand to tell Dyson she was fine. She didn’t need to use words. It didn’t take her long to get back to the window and into the apartment.
Laura didn’t like his answer to either question. He didn’t know about her friends, and he wouldn’t tell her what the potstickers were even though it was obvious to her that he did know what they were. She briefly considered doing something to try to make him tell her, but she then watched Cat make her way back into the apartment after declaring she was going inside to make some. But what were they?
Once Cat was inside, Laura had a bit of a stare-off with Dyson on the roof. She didn’t say anything, and he didn’t seem to be offering anything else right in that moment either. Her eyes narrowed a bit as she considered what to do next, but without a word walked past him and then at a slight run, easily jumped through the window and back into the bedroom. Cat was nowhere to be found in the room, but she heard some noises coming from the kitchen. Dyson soon followed her back into the bedroom, but Laura wouldn’t turn around yet to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he’d lured her back inside with his vague answer to her question about the potstickers. She could have made him tell her if she really wanted to.
Laura wasn’t a big conversationalist on her best day, and this was far from being one of her best. She sat down at the counter and watched as Cat moved around the kitchen. She’d figure out what these things were eventually.