It was dark.

Dark, and cold, and as he gradually became more aware of his surroundings, Ambrose started to move. Something clanked, and he whipped his head around towards the source of the noise. And with that movement, he suddenly realized two things.

One, he seemed to be in his natural form. It was a lot more comfortable than his human form, yes, but the last thing he remembered was taking his meds as he stepped off of the plane, having just landed at JFK International Airport. That meant that he would have had to have been out for a long, long time, and what he realized next confirmed that. Because two - the clanking noise came from the thick chains spidering their way across his scales, winding about his legs and even around his neck, the ends of which were bolted tightly to the cement ground. Even when he pulled, with his more-than-just-considerable strength, they did nothing more than creak a bit.

Ambrose wasn't stupid, and he had a fairly good idea of what was going on here. Through the walls, rendered translucent by his stupid excuse for heat vision, he could see a few bright white figures patrolling the hallway. He couldn't really turn his head that much, so that was all he could see, but it was enough to confirm his suspicions about being kidnapped. He had no idea about their motives, though - whether his captors had wanted Ambrose Jaager the CEO, Jabberwocky the generic mutant hellraiser, or Jörmundgandr the Rägnarok anarchist, he hadn't the slightest clue.

Deciding that if he was here, he might as well have a little fun, Ambrose roared. Loudly. If anyone asked, he would swear that it made the ground rumble, but then again, he was never particularly known for his modesty. It did, however, clearly startle the patrolling figures, considering their sudden jerks away from his door. One of them even fell over, and he let out a little huff of amusement.

He watched as they rushed towards each other, clearly muttering among themselves to figure out what to do next. He could hear them, of course - the walls were very much like that of a sewer (in fact, he'd warrant a guess that they were in some sort of underground bunker), so not really built to be soundproof - but even if he couldn't, it was relatively obvious.

"What's this about, dearies?" Ambrose positively purred, delighting in watching their heads whip around. He could smell their fear, as faint as it was. He was getting the impression that they hadn't been looking for his monster form at all, which made this all the more irritating. "Tell me, why don't you -"

His words were interrupted by a roar of pain as electricity arced its way up the chains. Okay, that'd been unexpected. It felt like eternity but was probably more like fifteen seconds before it stopped, and he slumped onto the floor, actually vibrating the ground a bit because of sheer body mass. He swore loudly at the retreating white figures with a steady stream of Dutch and English insults, and was positive that he could smell smoke wafting up from his poor scales. Pulling again at the chains, he was disappointed to see that they were steadfast as ever.

"I hate my life," he muttered under his breath, resigning himself to laying properly on the floor. Looked like he wasn't going anywhere - and he didn't even know why he was here. To be fair, though, for whatever reason, he probably deserved it. He wasn't exactly a paradigm of morality or anything remotely like that.

A dragon. He was looking for a dragon or some kind of beast that looked like one. Sam was a little hazy on the details but scales and large usually meant a dragon. Not that he had run into a ton of them but any mutant that was large and had scales called themselves dragons. Aysac was a dragon from what he could tell. He had wings and scales that made him a dragon he guessed. In fact it had been a while since Sam had last heard from him. Sam silently wondered if Sara was still in contact with them. In fact it had been a while since Sara had been seen as well. He’d have to call her after this.

Sam walked through the night sticking to the shadows looking for a sign of a dragon, claw marks scorch marks a bad smell anything that could tip him off as to where the mutant was being held. Sam knew it was a mutant because come on, dragons aren’t real. Maybe there was a mutant back in the day that had a thing for virgins and gold but he was sure that was a mutant. Unicorns were mutants too.

Sam blacked out then came too again somewhere colder and smellier. The ice mutant produced a flask and took a long swig deeming that the reason he blacked out was because there wasn’t enough alcohol in his system. That and food. Putting the flask back in his pocket and removing snickers he started to chew almost gagging on the smell. Sam heard the roar, maybe for the second time. Maybe that was why he came down there right? Looking around Sam spotted a guy crumpled fast first into the foot high water. Bending over and flipping him over Sam checked for a pulse. He was out cold. Literally, there was still ice on his chest. Sam rolled him over so he wouldn’t drown and he looked around again. Clearly the guy was the reason he came down here.

Sam took another bite of the snickers bar and looked around. The tunnel was one directional but it was a sewer system so at some point there would be some turns or a fork in the road. Trying to swallow the snickers Sam almost gagged on the smell again. ”Why did it have to be the sewers.” Sam walked down the tunnel pushing his mutation forward and back so he could detect any heat signatures.

There was a new scent wafting its way down the hallway, and he was only really able to catch it through the sewer stench because it was accompanied by the smell of alcohol and sweet, sweet candy. He didn't recognize it, but when he squinted, he was able to see the faintest outline of a person. It took him a moment to sync up his smell and sight, because only then was he able to realize that no, the outline wasn't faint because it was far. His significantly more accurate sense of smell was saying 'somebody is right around the corner,' but his sight was saying 'somebody is literally a quarter mile away' (he was really, really farsighted). Ambrose would usually blame this sort of discrepancy on his positively nightmarish eyesight, but the intensity of the heat signature wouldn't be affected by that. So there was one other option - a mutant, and a really cold one at that.

It sounded familiar to Ambrose, but he couldn't quite put a name to whoever it might be. He was more well-versed in the Order than X-Men, so it was possible that whoever this was was an X, but Ambrose doubted it. No X-Man would wander around through the sewers, drunk, eating candy while wading through literal shit.

Ambrose craned his neck around, sweeping his head in circles to try and see if there were any guards nearby. His heat-sensitive vision wasn't picking up anything but the newcomer, so he decided to try and say something.

"Hello?" Ambrose rumbled carefully, unintentionally whacking his tail on the wall rather hard as he tried to get into a position where he could more easily see the lone figure through the wall. Dust drifted down from the ceiling as Ambrose swore, quite extensively, in Dutch, and then English. "This is absurd," he muttered. His poor tail.

The ice mutant didn’t see anything but swears and sewage but he felt a distant crash accompanied by a muffled sound. Sam looked around to the nearest wall and frowned at it. He lowered his stance and exhaled pushing out his cold further and further. The water froze further and frost coated more of the walls. Nothing.

Sam frowned, stood up and started walking down the closest tunnel continuing to push out his cold. The stumbling slowed him down but it managed to force him to look where he was going so he wouldn’t trip over anything. That was the last thing he wanted, a face full of sledge. Another corner and Sam felt the heat signature of something far off. He didn’t know what it was but it seemed pretty big. It could have been a ‘dragon’. Maybe?

Sam didn’t know if he was on the right track but it didn’t slow his stumble. Kicking up a little sewage Sam heard an echo from one of the tunnels. At first he thought it was his own echo but he hadn’t been talking. Singing yes, but that was only in his head. ”I must investigate.” Sam muttered as he tracked the cold the further he went.

Two red heat signatures started to appear closer to the large signature that continued to grow in size and color the closer he got. ”Bingo was his name-o.” Sam said as he started to move closer to the two signatures instead of the single one. If it was a captive mutant there’d be some kind of guard or explosive, something so if there were two people down here in the sewers with him then they’d most likely end up fighting him. ”Yo!!!” Sam said as he rounded a corner. It was dark but he could feel the two people at the end of the tunnel. I’m a lil lost spare some directions out of here?” Sam asked his body already coating in a dense ice under his clothes.

The two guards stationed a little ways away from Ambrose's little cell weren't particularly smart. They were skilled, yes, at what they did - in this case, shooting whatever they were told to shoot - but they didn't really do much else. Their mission in this case, however, was clear. They were supposed to guard the giant dragon and make sure that no one unauthorized tried to pay him a visit, although they really, really doubted that anyone would. It was a giant dragon. No, it hadn't been in the job description, and yes, they would rather be doing literally anything else because it was a giant dragon. But their job was to guard it, and they were getting paid for that, so they would guard the dragon.

Unfortunately, because they were severely lacking when it came to making decisions for themselves, they started firing at the figure turning the corner as soon as it spoke.

Even more unfortunately, the person they had fired upon was not the X-Man known as Cold Steel, but rather a fellow guard who'd neglected to notify them of his arrival in advance. He went down in a hail of bullets, and the two guards were sufficiently distracted to not even notice when a man coated in ice made his own appearance down the opposite end of the tunnel at almost the exact same time.

In his cell, Ambrose's head shot up at the sounds outside. He couldn't see much, the warm water dripping down the sides of the tunnels clouding his vision of anything past the tunnel immediately outside of his cell door. But where he'd previously been able to see a man who looked like he most certainly wasn't alive, he could now see a man who was most certainly an ice sculpture. The figure was so cold that it showed up as pitch black on Ambrose's vision, which was outright impossible, and especially through all of this water everywhere. Ambrose growled. Not being able to do anything was frustrating. While it would certainly bash his ego to have someone save him, he would really, really like something to burst him out right about now, because he liked being trapped even less.

”Hello?” Sam asked again this time quieter as he slowly walked up on now three figures one quickly getting colder. The gunshots still echoed the swearer system and caused Sam’s ears to pop. The ice-mancer didn’t like that one bit he had Doc heal his hearing recently and the amount of times he was near an explosion, burning buildings, gunshots, and the occasional mutant with a loudspeaker for a voice.

Sam started drunkenly running towards the three guards Sam waited to yell till he was a few feet away, ”Hey! Tinnitus is a serious thing!” Sam shouted as he slid on the ground, which coated in ice due to the large amounts of moisture. Sam slid into one of the guards knocking him off of his feet as Sam passed by grabbing the other’s foot. Sam turned and pulled hard causing them both to land on their back. ”I just got my ears fixed!” Sam yelled as he shot a few beams of ice at one of the guard pinning his limbs to the floor of the sewer then ran over to the other and landed on top of him in a full mounted position his arms around the ribs of the guard.

”So, looking for a large lizard!” Sam grabbed the guy by the collar then punched him once in the mouth as the ringing in his ears started to lessen. ”Have you seen him or her? Scales, teeth, slitted eyes.”

The smell of alcohol was getting unpleasantly strong as the black figure neared. Well. He was going to be saved by a drunkard.

...this was humiliating.

"Hey! Tinnitus is a serious thing! I just got my ears fixed!"

Ambrose squinted incredulously as the figure slid on the ground - which had grown darker, indicating cold, so he was going to guess ice? - into the two guards outside. Did his possible rescuer just try to one-liner?

Oh, no. He was starting to get the feeling that this might end up being more humiliating for the ice mutant than it would be for him.

He watched, doing his best to follow along as the fight played out in the hall. Unfortunately, he wasn't too successful. He was getting the impression that ice was getting thrown everywhere, and then that the guards were incapacitated. At least, one was - it looked like ice was pinning him down. The other had the black figure on his chest, and Ambrose heard the ice mutants next words loud and clear.

"So, looking for a large lizard!" The words were punctuated very suddenly by a cracking noise as a fist hit jawbone. Ambrose winced at the unexpected noise. He hadn't been kidding with the "loud" part. "Have you seen him or her? Scales, teeth, slitted eyes."

...huh.

It seemed somebody was looking for him. He didn't know who, of course, because he didn't even realize anyone knew he was actually missing. Panu, perhaps? No, he didn't think the boy would be so crass as to hire someone who literally got drunk on a rescue mission. Maybe it was just some random do-gooder who'd picked up chatter and decided, once he'd had some alcohol to help his decision along, to save this "lizard" and boost his own ego.

Also, seriously, lizard?

"Him," Ambrose rumbled, figuring that if he could hear the ice mutant so well, than the man could hear him too, no problem. "I'm in here."

His voice was almost curiously apathetic. He didn't exclaim like some damsel in distress, or desperately announce his presence like a proper victim of kidnapping. No, he sounded more resigned. And he was.

He'd resigned himself to getting rescued by what seemed like the worst rescuer on the planet, because hey, it worked.

Sam stared at the man he was punching in the face for a second then he heard a deep voice. ”Him.” Sam repeated as if someone told him who he was looking for and where. Sam punched the guy in the jaw once more then throw a beam of ice at his punching bag pinning him to the sewer floor. Sam made a mental note to call someone to pick them up other wise they’d drown if there was a storm if the ice didn’t thaw in time and lets be honest when has Sam’s ice let him down.

Looking around Sam found a door and smirked, ”Damn I’m good!” Sam chuckled as he pulled out his flask and took another sip. Sam went over to the door which screamed evil sewer layer and pushed it open. Ice still caked his body just in case there was a large mass of heat on the other side so that must have been the lizard or rather Dragon. ”That’s why they said dragon.” Sam said surprised that he was actually looking a dragon from some fantasy novel he fell asleep reading.

”Yo!” Sam said as he raised his hand the ice over his face started to fall away revealing his facial features and an eye-patch. ”I heard someone of your stature was being held captive.” Sam said stating what he thought was the obvious. Raising a hand Sam aimed at the nearest anchor and shot a beam of bright blue causing the base of the chain to freeze. ”How’d they get you down here?” was his first question that should probably have been the last one he asked.

"Him," the man repeated, slowly, and Ambrose resisted the urge to whack his skull into the wall. Yes. Him. Not that hard.

The man congratulated himself on something. Judging by the fact that he was now walking to the door, it was on finding it. Dear lord.

When the man entered, he was still an unnervingly dark spot in the middle of everything else, but his face grew minimally lighter as the man's arm passed in front of his face. Before he did so, though, Ambrose heard loud and clear the man's surprise at Ambrose's form. What, had his rescuer expected somebody described as "giant lizard" to not look like a dragon? A dragon literally was a giant lizard. That was the point - Ambrose took a deep breath. This whole situation was getting to him a lot more than it should've.

"Yo! I heard someone of your stature was being held captive." Ambrose had gotten that impression, yes, but he refrained from saying anything sarcastic when the man sent a burst of darkness at the chains. Ice, he'd guess, and the experimental tug he gave supported that when the frozen metal snapped easily. As he worked on separating the rest of the now-fractured metal from his limbs, the man asked a question. "How'd they get you down here?"

Oh, dammit. He hadn't even thought of that. "I'm generally smaller," he said wryly, not willing to disclose more than that. "But if you had an idea on how to get out, that'd be lovely, because there no way I'd fit through the doorway like this." He paused, midway through tearing off the mangled remains of a cuff with his teeth, to say something else. "I'm Jabberwocky, by the way," he added, voice muffled slightly by the cuff in his teeth. "I see you have yet to introduce yourself."

”Well I figured.” Sam smirked to the dragon whom was now free of the chains. The teeth were a little intimidating but he’d fought Big Bird before so anything else is not as scary. Seriously it was the bird from Sesame Street, scary stuff.

”I got a few.” Sam said nodding his head and pushing his cold powers out around the room. Ice climbed on the floor, the ceiling and the walls. The way behind him wouldn’t be big enough to house the giant reptile so the only way out was through something. The ceiling made the most sense but Sam had to make sure there wasn’t anything up there that would be destroyed in the process such as an orphanage or a hospital, that would be bad news for him and the X-Men so he had to be sure. Sam knew that much.

”Sam.” the ice mutant said to the dragon aka Jabberwocky. Trying to make a joke, ”Any relation to Jabber Jaw?” Sam asked knowing it would probably go over the mutants head. A lot of people didn’t recall the shark and his television show.

Other than the giant prehistoric creature Sam could feel a faint heat source above them. ”How long have you been down here and have you heard anything that would give us an idea as to where we are? Gonna be honest. Got lost an hour or so ago.” Sam said knowing that wasn’t what the mutant wanted to hear.

Ambrose watched as darkness started to crawl up the walls, and his ability to see outside the room grew weaker and weaker. It was disturbing, yes, but his unconventional rescuer - Sam, had he said? - seemed like he had at least some idea what he was doing. And Ambrose knew what Sam was trying to do - weaken the walls so they could bust out. Ambrose could hear the faint hum of machines chugging along above them, as he craned his neck briefly to look up, and took an experimental sniff at the air.

That was a bad idea. He broke out coughing, as much as a dragon could, repulsed by the smell of sewer and alcohol. But the faint little whiff he caught of the building above them, drifting down through pipes down below, confirmed what he thought. They were right below a power station of some sort, and the smell of ozone was almost intoxicating, even though Ambrose had barely even gotten a sniff.

Of course, Ambrose wasn't going to say a word. If they knocked out half the borough's power in a quest to free Ambrose, that was a win-win. "Any relation to Jabber Jaw?"

What? Ambrose briefly started, almost having forgotten there was someone in the room with him. But then he processed.

He gave the other mutant a blank look, never having heard of whatever Jabberjaw was before, and by Sam's silence, he was guessing that response had been expected.

"How long have you been down here and have you heard anything that would give us an idea as to where we are? Gonna be honest. Got lost an hour or so ago."

...wow. No, that was not what Ambrose wanted to hear. It was like Sam was purposefully trying to antagonize him to further humiliate Ambrose about his situation. Thankfully, this time, it worked in Ambrose's favor. He wasn't going to say "right under the important part of a power plant, where your attempt to bust me out would probably be considered an act of domestic terrorism." Obviously.

"No idea," Ambrose said, the lie perfectly executed. There wasn't a hint of deception on Ambrose's face - which, admittedly, didn't have enough muscles as of now to show much emotion at all, but that was irrelevant. "We might be underwater, though, so be careful. I can hear rather well, but I can't hear anything at all above us, which means we're either below a conveniently abandoned shipyard or the Hudson." Ambrose craned his neck to see up again, right before the encroaching ice closed off his view, and suddenly realized that he'd really miscalculated. The machines were, in fact, farther off than he initially realized, because there was a person strolling among them now, and the figure was way too small to be on ground level. Okay, maybe a floor or two up, then. That was alright - Ambrose had wings. He could bust them on his way out. Not as satisfying as letting the other mutant destroy them for him, but it still worked.

Ambrose cast Sam a sideways glance, suddenly realizing something. "Have we met before?" Ambrose asked curiously, before realizing that either way, Sam wouldn't know because it would've been as Ambrose, not Jabberwocky. "Let me rephrase. Do you do anything that would make you known to the common man?"

And yes, he was aware that he was a pretentious arse as a dragon. He couldn't help it. There was something about being a dragon that made everything else seem so.. plebeian.

There was a warm glow above him and the longer he kept trying to make things colder overhead the more it was becoming clear that wasn’t the best option. Sam looked around overhead and could feel the heat of several large machines. They looked like giant boxes so that was what he decided they were. Sam shifted his weight and looked to the dragon as he spoke. ”Not a river. Too warm.” he decided as he spoke more to himself. Sam looked back to the doorway he came through still not sure.

”Maybe?” Sam said not sure, ”Pretty sure I’d remember some one of your stature but…. I have had a few questionable nights.” Sam walked back out the door he had came in when he started the rescue and then took his hands and tried to focus the dragon coming through the walls. He wasn’t sure if they’d fit but it would help if the wall weren’t there.

Sam touched the doorframe and pushed it. His mutation activated and he formed some ice wedges at the mortar in between the bricks. ”I have an eye patch. Usually gets me noticed.” Sam said as he managed to push a brick from the doorframe. When the brick fell it shattered due to more ice wedging. ”Well Jabber, can you squeeze through if we get this wall down or do we have to go up? Some red stuff up there and I don’t like going through that. Last time I found my way in a hot liquor tank at a brewery…” Sam said as if it was a crazy story. ”Upset quite a bit of people.”

Sam grunted and pushed a few more bricks out of the wall.

"Not a river. Too warm."

Well, bleep.

Also, "I've had a few questionable nights" - what in the world was that supposed to mean? Was Sam implying that they'd had sex? Because Ambrose knew he definitely would've remembered that.

"I have an eye patch. Usually gets me noticed."

...people actually wore eyepatches?

That was irrelevant, though, and Ambrose mentally growled at himself. Think. The idea of an ice mutant with an eyepatch didn't sit well with him, for some reason, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out why.

Sam asked him if he'd be able to go through the wall. Obviously, Ambrose was going to say no.

"I don't think that's going to work," Ambrose said, dubiously and with surprising honesty. It was true, after all - the doorway was so small even a slightly large human would have trouble. Sam had gotten it to the point where Ambrose's head could fit, but it'd definitely get caught up on limbs or his stomach. "If we do try to get out this way, it'll take all night. And I don't know about you, but I'd like to get out as soon as possible."

Also, he was positively itching to destroy something. Preferably with a radius. The power plant would definitely be a good solution to that.

”You know…” Sam punched a brick with irritation causing it to crumble due to the ice wedging. Another brick followed then another. ”For someone who is getting rescued you’re big on the naysaying. Negative Nancy.” Sam grumbled then shot another beam of cold near the door frame where there were already some bricks.

”Not like they can chain you up in here again. They’re broken and I’m here now. Stop being a baby.” Sam taunted, as he kept shooting blue at the brick wall. It was good and coated in ice and the more he taunted the dragon the more irritated he hoped he got. Sam wanted the beast to eventually walk through the wall of charge it. Maybe it would help if Sam got on the other side and called him more names. ”How about you help then?” Sam asked as he turned to the giant lizard. ”It’s significantly weaker and if I can punch through the brick wall imagine what you could do.” Sam said the ice wedging continued to push the bricks out from the mortar that was holding them.

”I mean…” Sam punched another brick and a few fell in response, ”All that size just for show or do you have some performance anxiety?” Sam hit the next brick and then shot another beam of ice further down the wall.

"You know, for someone who's getting rescued, you're big on the naysaying, Negative Nancy."

...who in the world spoke like that? Also, was he being talked down to for being practical? Well, excuse him. If Ambrose hadn't been annoyed before, he definitely was now.

"Not like they can chain you up in here again. They're broken and I'm here now. Stop being a baby."

What.

Ambrose was relatively confident that "taunting the person you're trying to rescue" was not a necessary part of a rescue. He also didn't ask for Sam to come down here and rescue him, thank you very much. He'd eventually have gotten himself out. Probably.

He didn't realize, but he was shifting around now. His claws were grating into the ground, making soft grinding noises as the stone was essentially shredded. Sam continued to shoot dark beams of ice at the wall.

"How about you help then? It's significantly weaker and if I can punch through the brick wall imagine what you could do."

Ambrose couldn't help it. He preened, just a little bit. When it came to Ambrose Jaager, flattery went a long way, because he believed he was the only important thing in this world and enjoyed hearing others validate that.

Except then Sam totally ruined the moment by saying, "I mean, all that size just for show or do you have some performance anxiety?"

What.

What.

Almost instantly, Ambrose had lunged at Sam. He didn't touch the other man - which was more of an accident than anything, because he missed a little bit, but of course he wasn't going to admit that - but his muzzle was rather close to the ice mutant's face as Ambrose loomed over the pitch black form below him. He didn't notice as his tail smashed into the wall mid-leap, not quite knocking it down, but smashing a rather linear patch of brick out.

"Do you know who I am?" Ambrose growled, no longer caring about civility. So what if this wasn't the proper way to treat a rescuer; he hadn't asked to be rescued, insulted, or anything of the sort. He would've escaped eventually, obviously - inevitably, someone would have noticed - and there were less unpleasant ways of doing so. "Because if you did, you wouldn't dare speak to me like that."

...only Kaz spoke to him like that. And that was just because Kaz could thrash Ambrose, no problem. Sam? Sam didn't look like that much of a threat. Frozen water wasn't the most intimidating thing out there, to be frank. And it definitely wasn't intimidating Ambrose into not moving in his own defense.