This is an awful idea.

Cafas had been examining the grain of the door for over a minute, knuckles poised to knock, hovering indecisively in the air. His hesitation was written across his face, though it might have been mistaken for fear, especially if anyone had been there to read his eyes.

Borderline suicidal.

Who's idea had it been? Probably his. It was bad enough to be one of his. Who the heck walked into Sanctuary and visited its most notorious resident? Unannounced, uninvited, unwelcome. He was an X-man after all, and she... Well, what was there to say? her reputation spoke for itself. His jeans and motorcycle leathers would do nothing.

There are easier ways to die.

Their brief meetings previously did little to instil hope. Even her friendship with literally the most morally upstanding person he'd ever know did little to settle the adrenaline forcing his pupils wide open. No, if he was honest this was likely the most dangerous house call he'd ever been part of, and Cafas had kicked down the doors of drug lords.

Oh just do it you coward.

He knocked a casually urgent knocked, breath holding in his chest a good long while. It all came out in a rush the second she appeared.

"You can't marry Simon. We can't be related. I know you don't care what I think, but seriously, it'd ruin everything for everyone involved."

It was a lot less than he'd thought he'd had to say. Still with half his breath held Cafas was left hovering in the doorway, ready to run and defend himself in equal measure. There she was, every law enforcer's nightmare standing so beautifully before him.

Isabel Duskmoor.

Someone knocking on her door wasn't exactly unexpected anymore. Hell, someone barging into her room without even bothering to knock wasn't all that out of the ordinary now, either. What was unusual was the visitor being anyone other than Zephyr.

Isabel heaved a sigh when she heard the knock and debated how long she'd be able to continue lounging on her bed before a swift gust of wind would knock her onto the floor to prod her into moving faster. She wasn't so sure she wanted to give him the satisfaction, and so with another sigh she got up and went to the door.

"What is it this-" she began irritably as she opened the door, only to be met by an unexpected voice rapidly talk-shouting at her before the door was even fully open. She stood there a moment, trying to absorb what was happening and what had been said.

"What the hell do you think you're doing here," she demanded, her temper flaring and her face reddening once the shock had died down and everything had begun to sink in. How dare an X show up at her door and start ordering her around? Even the leaders of the X-Nerds seemed to know better than to dare bother her where she lived. Cafas was obviously dumber than he looked.

"And what the hell are you talking about? No one is marrying anyone, ever. I dunno where you're getting your info, but you'd better get yourself a new rat." The very idea of marrying Zephyr made her bristle. It was beyond absurd. They could barely occupy the same room with any kind of civility unless they were drinking.

She didn't know who was spreading such horrible ideas, but if she ever found them she'd make sure they never spread any gossip again. Maybe she'd maim Cafas first to send a message and see if that stopped the flow of nonsense.

It took a lot to make Cafas scared. He'd been an X-man for years, he'd been homeless, he'd been in more fights than he could remember, with worse odds than he had any right to have lived through. He trained daily with and without weapons, could lift competitively if he ever had mind to, and had an easy grace in movement that spoke of reflex and coordination his bulk would seem to make impossible. All of this is to say, there was good reason he didn't startle easily.

It should tell you something about Isabel then, that when she bore down on him all scowls and sharp words, Cafas flinched and took a reflexive step back.

>>"What the hell do you think you're doing here, and what the hell are you talking about? No one is marrying anyone, ever. I dunno where you're getting your info, but you'd better get yourself a new rat."

The X-man took a steadying breath and came back to a casual stance, hoping he could deescalate the situation through body language alone. He knew from hard experience that he didn't exactly have a way with words. At least not in any way likely to appease the woman in front of him. In another life, Cafas could have seen himself smitten with Isabel. Not because of the obvious reasons either. Instead, it was the way she seemed to radiate an easy power and menace. It was a confidence that may well have overshadowed his own.

"I'm... I'm genuinely not sure what I'm doing here. You're not dating Simon? Huh, Maya was pretty confident. I thought something must have changed since I spoke to Simon. I hope you'll forgive me for trusting Maya over her brother." Cafas shrugged with well feigned casualness, though under his false calm his entire body was tensed for Isabel to take a swing, his eyes occasionally flickering down to her hands.

"Plus, you know, you're buying stuff on his card. That's kinda a coupl-ish thing. What do I owe you for that anyway?"

Ghost. She should have figured. At this rate the whole Mansion would be buzzing about a ceremony that wasn't ever going to happen and from there it was only a matter of time before it got onto social media. She'd dealt with relationship gossip before, but she wasn't so sure she'd be able to bounce back as quickly as she'd like from something like marriage rumors. Painting her as some kind of domestic that had settled down and lost her edge would cause all kinds of problems and with the promise in place it would be a lot harder to re-establish her reputation as a cold-blooded murderer.

Her and Zephyr had been relatively careful about how often they were seen together, too. It was a lot harder to figure out who was pulling the strings in their more violent missions that way, which was probably more for his benefit than anything else. But she hadn't ever considered that spending too much time around the young man could spark other kinds of unsavory speculations. This was about as bad as she could imagine it could possibly get.

"Do I seem like the kind of person that would be doing something like dating?" she spat back, taking some satisfaction from seeing him flinch so easily. He was nervous, and rightfully so. She had home field advantage here and tricks up her sleeve she was sure he would never have considered. This boy was way out of his element.

Isabel crossed her arms and heaved an aggravated sigh, debating whether or not she should slam the door in the X's face. She was going to have to have a talk with Ghost. Apparently denial and insisting on what a jerk Zephyr was hadn't quite gotten the message across. "I dunno what put that idea in her head," no idea whatsoever because absolutely nothing had happened at any point in time between the three of them, "but me and Zephyr aren't any kind of anything. We live in the same building, that's it." That definitely wasn't her fault, either.

"But since the three of you are all so chatty with each other, maybe go talk to the two of them instead. I don't have time for this." It was curious that Zephyr and Cafas were speaking with each other at all, nevermind that they were discussing personal relationships or the lack thereof. That seemed like something she'd have to bring up at some point. If he was spending time with the X's it could spell out trouble for her.

"As for the card, I stole it." She just barely resisted adding a 'duh!'. Honestly, like anyone in their right mind would trust her with their bank account. Like anyone in their right mind would think money was of any interest to her in the first place. She'd been stealing nearly everything she owned or wanted for years. "The guy's a jerk and a major pain in my ass. Seems only fair I get some compensation for the aggravation."

>>"Do I seem like the kind of person that would be doing something like dating?"

Cafas sized up the resource at hand rather than annoy her more by answering a rhetorical question. There was the typical wiring in the walls, nails, screws, lots of tiny points of metal he couldn't focus on all at once. He also couldn't do much with them besides use them as bullets. Honestly, he'd been hoping for more, but the two largest sources of metal were the door handles and the bed springs in Isabel's mattress. Those were trailed by what he assumed were the underwires in Isabel's bra drawer in a far third. Not ideal.

Huh, that's titanium cable. Neat.

>>"I dunno what put that idea in her head, but me and Zephyr aren't any kind of anything. We live in the same building, that's it. But since the three of you are all so chatty with each other, maybe go talk to the two of them instead. I don't have time for this."

Cafas nodded and filed the information away as now having come from both supposed partners. It seemed Maya's wishful thinking was starting to affect him as well. He didn't know about chatty though, and he was certain Isabel was anything but short on time. Something about the way the bed springs had moved before she came to the door. He arched an eyebrow and flicked his eyes towards the bed tellingly. "Right, short on time are you?"

>>"As for the card, I stole it. The guy's a jerk and a major pain in my ass. Seems only fair I get some compensation for the aggravation."

Despite his nerves, a smirk spread across Cafas' face. It wouldn't do to antagonise Isabel, but really, she had to know how that sounded in context. "That's uh, between you and him, though I could offer advice." There was a chuckle not too far from his voice. Nothing like a lewd joke to put a guy at ease. Relatively speaking. "However I'll pass on talking to the Brit. We're not exactly best mates. He's a little... Caustic and arrogant works I guess, for my taste," Muscular shoulders offered an apologetic shrug, though by the sounds of it Isabel wouldn't mind, "though I suppose dating Calley is evidence against that"

"So, how's that other job? I pulled out after that big project went belly up, but I'm still happy to offer support where I can. Probably best if you invite me in to discuss it though."

Her lip curled over the X's snide remarks. Over time she'd found that a number of people tended to fall back on humor when they were uncomfortable or felt threatened. It was an annoying habit, and one that Cafas seemed to have developed as well. She wasn't so sure what good the defense mechanism did for anyone. It just made her want to stab him even more.

"Short on time to waste on someone like you, yeah," she replied, leveling a glare at his sarcastic tone. Lounging around and doing nothing was time infinitely more well spent than wasting it on some half-wt intruder.

She bristled again at his crude implications, her face going a little redder, but chose to let it go rather than contest it. If dealing with Zephyr had taught her anything it was that adamant denial of something confusingly enough often lead people to believe the opposite of what was being said. That, and going down that particular path would only end in bloodshed. She could feel it in her gradually boiling temper.

Even if she was tempted to dispute his nonsense, hearing Calley's name thrown out so causally effectively distracted her. She definitely wasn't going to comment on that, but the degrees of separation between Cafas and herself were getting uncomfortably smaller. The following mention of Ragnarok was a welcome distraction.

"Like hell you're getting any closer to my room," she replied, taking a half a step forward away from her door and into the open space he'd left when he'd stepped back during their initial greeting. "And turns out I don't really need your interference after all. Jaager disappeared and they still seem to be shuffling around to try and fill his spot. Not a whole lot of talk about destroying the world now that he's gone. The place is actually a pretty good fit for me now that it's smaller-scale. Bombings, petty crimes, general chaos. Not a bad replacement for the Order."

"People like him." Cafas rolled his eyes, more amused than offended. It was kind of fun, in all honesty. Isabel rose to bait better than anyone Cafas knew. It would likely be uglier once she got a good handle on what he was sensitive about, but she hadn't so he was happy to take a few shots in the conversation. Not that he lost the air of a compressed spring pretending to be a slinky, but he did allow himself some joy with the nerves.

>>"Like hell you're getting any closer to my room,"

The X-man matched Isabel's step back, but this time it wasn't fear, though that was certainly present. Rather, he knew he had the advantage in reach and was determined to keep it if things turned ugly. He'd have to start turning to go much further, but he'd deal with that when he came to it. "Suit yourself." Cafas shrugged as Isabel continued. If the bone manipulator didn't care about keeping her cover, why should he?

>>"And turns out I don't really need your interference after all..."

Not a great deal of new information, but it was good to know that the power vacuum hadn't been filled. With any luck it would trigger a total collapse. "What, not taking the reins yourself?" The confusion in Cafas' voice and expression were genuine, "The Order doesn't seem to have taught you much. You and I both know Ragnarok is a pathetic shadow of the Order, which ran all of Brooklyn before it seemed to go rudderless and, well, look around." Cafas turned a slow circle, arms held outstretched, but never took his eyes from Isabel. He shrugged at her like this was too obvious for her to miss.

"You think Ragnarok stands a chance where the Order failed? Because they don't. God, are you all smoke and no fire? You have a genuine opportunity to seize power and enforce your agenda and you're content with mindless violence." He was disappointed. Why was he disappointed? Deeply, genuinely disappointed? "I took you for more than the tits and mayhem your public image presents. Actually, I know you're more than that." Cafas' temper flared as he realised why he was disappointed, and his voice lost all its faux calm, creeping louder, "If you put your damn mind to it those ****ing robotic hate crimes wouldn't be stomping around, mutant children wouldn't be growing up afraid of being murdered, the X-men would be a relic of the past!" To not be needed, the sweetest reward he could imagine, "But no; By all means; Randomly kill and destroy, you self indulgent child, and sneer your little insults at the people who haven't lost their conviction. You obviously have no time for us."

He almost walked away. Almost. He knew better than to take his eyes off Isabel though, especially after something like that.

The tangent Cafas started off on in light of the information about Ragnarok was unexpected. Isabel was taken aback by the sudden outburst, though she recovered relatively quickly. She wasn't going to let some pissy intruder push her around on her own doorstep.

"Of course it's not as good as the Order. You're gonna have a hard tome finding anything as good as we were, but it's better than nothing," she shot back, her arms falling to her sides and her hands balling into fists against as her temper flared. Did he really think she was putting the two factions on equal footing? Sure, the two of them operated in a relatively similar fashion, but the Order had its workings down to an art even with the numerous power shifts. Ragnarok was floundering and it had only just established itself. She had her own disappointment to contend with, but unless something better came along she'd stay aboard the sinking ship and take advantage of what little it gave her n way of freedom to exercise her bloodlust.

It appeared that she'd managed to hit a nerve somehow and Cafas seemed to be doing his best to return the favor. He certainly knew how to pick his words and get under her skin. And how dare he? How dare he show up in her home outside her door and fling insults in her face, to rub salt in he wounds?

She pulled her arm back, the bones in her hands hardening, stepped forward to add momentum and threw a punch. With any luck she'd land a blow like a sledgehammer, aimed squarely at his nose.

"You think I haven't though about running things around here? That I don't wanna try and dig up what's left of the Order and pick up where we left off?" she spat, very nearly shaking with the effort to control the rage he was stirring up." "But I'm not the leader type. I'm a soldier and I'm content with being pointed in the right direction to put my skills to use."

As much as she sometimes wished otherwise, Isabel just wasn't a strategist and she didn't posses the right kind of temperament necessary for a successful leader. It was easier to move up the ranks as a fighter and she was content earning her place in a group on the frontlines rather than behind the scenes.

"And don't you dare blame those robots on me. I know better than anyone what those monsters can do and I'm not in any hurry to deal with them again. That's on you," she continued, pointing a finger at him and just barely resisting the urge to jab him with it. "You and the other X's are the ones in bed with the cops. You're the ones with an in. Instead of sitting on your spandexed asses and playing along in the name of some delusion of equality, use that influence to do something about those mutant killers. Cuz when all of them eventually go rogue large scale, and they will whether it's a malfunction or they're acting on orders, then you're the ones that are gonna be responsible."

"At least I'm honest about being happy with murder and mayhem. You're the ones that're gonna have to live with lying to yourselves about working for the greater good, or whatever other bull you're trying to sell to keep that hero complex intact."

Cafas spent far too much of his life training and fighting. He wasn't about to let himself get hit by a punch he knew had to be coming. His body reacted on instinct, recognising the motion before it could completely register. He swayed a fractional amount, shifting his head out of the path of the blow, resisting the urge and desire to counter. He took a step back to make up for Issie's step forward, rotating to avoid the wall.

The adrenaline hit his system like a wave. The space grew brighter, louder, sharper. Time felt like it slowed. All for a single punch. Huh.

He'd really expected a bigger fight from the bone-babe. Instead it was back to ranting. It was kind of hard to imagine Duskmoor as a mass murderer while she stood in her pyjamas, all red in the face, yelling at him in a corridor. It all seemed so awfully mundane. Maybe that was why she seemed to handle people so easily, she'd be easy to underestimate. He'd just come into the situation prepared.

>>"...or whatever other bull you're trying to sell to keep that hero complex intact."

"WE ARE HEROES! There is no complex! We're heroes, we save people and put ourselves in mortal danger! Then people see it, and they treat mutants better for it! What the hell have your rampages brought us? Oh, right! Those robots! That's what! You and your short sighted friends just made people scared!" Cafas' hands found their way into a guard as the man subconsciously bounced on the balls of his feet. "You know where fear gets you? Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering, to violence." If he hadn't needed his hands in defensive posture he would have jabbed Isabel squarely in the sternum.

"To f***ing mutant targeting robots being casually accepted by society. So spare me your deflection Isabel, we might not have been able to stop them releasing those things, but it was you that made them want those things in the first place!" Which honestly, he wasn't sure how she'd managed to ignore. Cafas took a steadying breath and reined in his temper. He hadn't come for a fight, and he had no interest in explaining to Maya that he'd killed her little project. "God if your little pack of psychopaths had just worked with us! Sure we wouldn't have let you kill people all the time, but we'd have been unstoppable all the same."

She'd missed. That was disappointing, but not altogether unexpected. She supposed it only made sense that the X-Nerd would at least have some basic reflexes if they let him join the spandex club. Still, it would have been really satisfying to feel his bone and cartilage shatter. What a shame.

"They should be scared," she replied, turning to follow Cafas' dodge and keep him in front of her while planting a hand against the nearest wall to make it seem like she was catching her balance after the miss. Zephyr had been routinely making her feed splinters of bone into the walls of the Sanctuary for weeks. If there was every any trouble, she'd have the upper hand. "We're the ones that have been afraid way longer than they have and turnabout is far play. Those bots are just another method to try and kill us, just like they've always been trying to kill us. Seems only fair to me that we even things out."

She wasn't about to fall for his bait and take any responsibility for those metal monstrosities. The people in charge of creating and releasing those things would have used any reason to justify doing so. Things like Stalkers didn't just happen. They were planned ahead of time and those in power bided their time and waited for an opportunity to let them loose. The Order being the scapegoat just meant the faction was doing what they had set out to do.

"I'm not interested in being unstoppable if it means rubbing elbows with the same people that want us dead or worse. I think I'll keep doing things my way. And I suggest you run along back home before you're the next casualty on my list."

Isabel's stance was awfully casual for a woman that had just tried to punch him in the face. Cafas had always known Isabel was cracked, but that was a heck of a mood swing. More of a mood spike, if anything. Actually, he didn't want to think about spikes at that moment. It was bad enough he was having to live the reality of an increasingly aggressive Duskmoor and increasingly out of control mouth, he didn't need to speculate on top of it. The X-man took a half step to keep out of Isabel's reach, keeping her in his. She knew what was happening, he could see as much, but it wasn't going to stop him trying to maintain that particular advantage.

Speculation got us here.

But there she was, with her stupid mouth, and her petty threats she couldn't hope to follow through on, and her completely missing his point. No that wasn't fair, her mouth was not the stupid part of her. "You should try using your bone powers to make your skull less dense..." Cafas took a deep breath, trying to pull his bile back down. "We wouldn't have to work with those people if you'd worked with us." he growled through gritted teeth, as if it were the most painfully obvious thing.

"And turn around is stupid." He continued, working his jaw loose. He really needed to talk to his therapist about anger management. "You are familiar, I assume, with the saying an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. It's pretty correct in my experience, and I have plenty." Too much to think about. New York's crime families still flinched whenever the Judge and Executioner were mentioned. "Hence why I'm not going to kill you. I'm just going to cross my fingers that you one day open your eyes and realise you've been damning us all. You've come to us once already, we'll be here when you realise you need us next time too."

As we always are. Even when they've tried to kill us in the past. Still there for them.

Isabel straightened back up, hand still on the wall as she watched Cafas skirt round her. The boy was smart enough to try and keep her at some distance, but ultimately it wasn't going to help him. He could dance around all her wanted, but all the maneuvering in the world wasn't going to help him escape an assault from all sides.

She scowled again at his petty insults and wondered why she was friends with Ghost again for about the hundredth time. It was largely the wispy woman's fault that Isabel hadn't skewered the spandex jockey on sight. Nothing good ever came from making friends whose moral compasses clashed with her own. Playing nice with the goodies was far more trouble than it was worth and her current situation only proved that point. Things were so much easier when murder was an option.

"Still not interested, and you're not gonna change my mind," she replied, feeling the comforting familiarity of the bone shards under her fingers and resisting the urge to shift any of them, not wanting to give herself away quite yet. "I have no interest in working with you and I never will. I think I'd rather do the blind thing."

"And I told you to leave. You're not welcome here and you're getting on my last nerve," she continued, taking another step forward, knowing he'd take one back. Her defenses were staring to spread over her skin, readying for a fight. He didn't seem like the kind of person to back down without one, dense as he was. "You don't, and I've got not problem putting you out the door in pieces, Ghost be damned."

Then she went ahead and shifted the bone lining the walls, the splinters branching out and connecting to each other before pushing out of the walls, hundreds of needle-like spikes pointing in Cafas' direction.

At least Isabel had lived up to expectations, even if he'd been hopeful that she would at least agree to some kind of lasting truce. Actually, he'd held that silly little hope that Ghost had imparted in him that Isabel might turn out to be a decent person with just a little prompting. He hadn't really realised he'd been harbouring that. Apparently an improved moral code was not the only thing he'd picked up.

That girl, I swear...

Cafas opened his mouth to make a snappy comment in return, eyes fixed on the forward threat. It was only his years of fighting experience that saved him from being skewered by the sudden movements in his peripheral vision. Hot pain lanced into his trailing arm and leg, an indeterminate number of bone spines tearing through leather, denim, and ultimately him. Momentum carried him off the unexpected shards of bone.

"You gotta work on your one liners." Cafas backed away, now wary of the walls as well as Isabel. In his head he was trying to pinpoint her against all the metal around him. There just wasn't enough on her. He'd have to guess. "For instance: Time to spring into action!" A circle of wall blew out, showering the corridor in plaster. several object flew through behind the first, though with far more control. Embedded into the opposite wall was every spring from Isabel's bed. Concentrating, he melted them, brought them together, and shaped them into a steel shield. He grabbed it out of the air.

Good, didn't hit her.

"Now, are you very sure you wanna do this?" She seemed sure. The blood in his boot and on his free hand said she was sure. Still, he had to give her the option. "Because I'm not dying today, I promise you that." He could have used a weapon, he wasn't willing to put the energy into it. Better to be fast an unarmed than slow with a blade.

Seeing the X-Nerd recoil in pain from the nearest wall was satisfying. She could see his blood decorating the tips of a number of her spines. The sight of it made her grin. Isabel hadn't gotten over her love of spilling blood and a good fight, try as Zephyr might to curb her enthusiasm for violence. She had rules to follow now but seeing as the two of them were tucked safely away in the Sanctuary, rather than out in public somewhere, she could indulge a little.

The wall exploding was a surprise. She ducked and threw an arm across her face to keep they debris out of her eyes as it settled. "That's my wall!" It was going to be such an inconvenience to have to fix that. The mattress and sheets even more so. "And my bed!" It was like he was begging her to skewer him.

A shield certainly wasn't going to do him any good. At least not on any side it wasn't currently covering. Did he honestly think that piece of tin would do anything for the sections of wall behind him? Or her ability to manipulate her weaponry to strike from above or below? He certainly was showing an impressive capacity for underestimating her.

"I'll do whatever I want, especially in my own damn home," she spat back, the numerous spines inching closer to her target. Still, there was the issue of Ghost if she found out. Though it wasn't her Isabel was concerned about so much as her brother. She was sure Zephyr would come down on her pretty hard if she upset Ghost by murdering her current fling.

"This is on you, tin for brains," she continued, getting aggravated with his stubborn refusal to leave. "I told you to back off. I gave you more than one chance to leave in one piece. That's much more than I give most people. You stupid X's never know when to quit." The spines crowded a little closer, goading him. She'd let him make the first move, either aggressively or as a means of escape. She wasn't stupid. Playing the self defense card was the easiest way to duck any responsibility.

Wow that really did sting. Thoughts of Calley sprang to mind unbidden, and Cafas had to push them aside to save himself some embarrassment. Guy had really been fond of clawing. Or, maybe it wasn't deliberate...

That is the opposite of suppressing the thought.

He cleared his head and inched further away from the dripping spines. They really were starting to crowd him. Still, there was no move by Isabel towards any escalation. Just more complaining and threats she couldn't hope to actually fulfil. He stared her down for a moment before he got really sick of the closing spikes. Wordlessly, he too the shield and slammed it through at shoulder height. The bone was stronger than expected, but in his frustration he'd been willing to over commit to the motion. He retracted the shield and sighed, a hint of laughter under it.

She hesitating because she's scared or because she needs an excuse?

"I think we're both waiting for the same excuse Isabel..." He said, backing up the corridor to find a patch clear of spikes. Really, he didn't want to fight her. He wanted Ghost to make her good. That would be far less painful overall. Less destructive too. "And you don't have a home. Hence homeless shelter. No home, no real purpose, and no stomach for violence any more by the look of things. I'll catch you later, calendar girl." Cafas kept backing away, still ready to react. He had no idea how far along the corridor she could make more spines.