Isabel was stone still, crouching down close to the concrete floor of the train station right at the edge of the platform, the tips of her cream colored shoes just touching the inner ledge of the yellow strip before the harsh drop onto the train tracks. Her brow knit in concentration as she stared down at the dirty tracks below, her gaze flitting from here to there at any sign of movement. A small sigh of irritation escaped her as a bit of paper drifted by the tracks, attracting her attention for a brief moment before it wandered away again to seek the real prize. She wished the wind would stop shifting bits of debris around. It was terribly distracting. It was bad enough that people were brushing past her as if they didn't see her. They'd nearly pushed her down onto the tracks a few times, after which she planted her hands firmly on the ground, her fingers curling over the platform's edge in an attempt to find a halfway decent grip and hopefully help prevent her from toppling over. As more bits of trash were picked up and pushed about by a stronger gust of wind, the young mutant's eyes left the rocks and steel below and looked up and down the tunnel to her left. Grumbling a bit, she stood and moved back as another train pulled unto the station and screeched noisily to a halt. Isabel waited impatiently as passengers climbed on and off the large tube of mobile metal. She simply crossed her arms and glowered unhappily at those that continued to brush past her as she waited for all the sets of double doors to close once more. Once the doorways were securely shut once again and the train had pulled out of the station, she retook her place on the platform ledge, her fingers wrapping around the concrete and her eyes roaming over the tracks once more.

She had been thinking on a few things the past couple of days, which is what had lead to this little field trip of hers. Normally she wouldn't enter such a crowded area voluntarily, and in a rather passive manner on top of it. Today she wasn't out to wreak havoc. At least not on the human civilization. Today she was looking for rats. She was looking to conduct a little experiment once she finally caught at least one of the little vermin. She knew the subways here usually overrun with the somewhat large rodents, it was just a matter of finding them. She'd seen them running around on the tracks the few times she'd actually visited the subway for one reason or another. But, as luck would have it, the day she actually set out looking for them they all seem to have grown shy of the people thumping around above them. All in all it was probably healthier for the small bags of fur that they seemed determined to remain out of Isabel's sights today. What she had planned for them wasn't exactly pleasant. And while she wasn't big on messing with animals, she figured no one would miss a couple of rats. She probably would have tried snagging a few pigeons as well, but they could fly and she didn't feel like trying to shoot any of them down and risk killing them in the process. She wanted her little test dummies to be alive while she attempted to prove a theory. A small movement off to the right caught her attention immediately, causing her to lean a little further out across the pit, her eyes wide and staring at the dark spot on the ground. A small burrow for the vermin to hide in when the trains came rattling through? She could only hope. Her sights remained riveted on the spot.

Her theory was simple. She was a bone manipulator, able to bend her own skeletal structure in just about any manner she could imagine. The bones of others couldn't be all that much different, could they? If she could so easily manipulate her own bones, what was stopping her from doing the same to others? She'd thought on this for a short while before deciding that she wanted to put it to the test. While it was so very tempting to grab some poor schmuck off the street and have a little fun with his innards, she'd finally determined that it would be far too much of a hassle. Oh, she didn't much mind the mess it would make, or the fact that his or her family would start to miss them. But people just wriggled around so much. And there was very little chance of her being able to concentrate if they were screaming bloody murder, as they undoubtedly would. And while she never turned down a little game of tag with the local authorities, she wasn't in much of a mood for their little games today. She wanted to find an answer to this simple question that had been buzzing around in her brain. She simply wasn't in the mood for distractions, which is why she glared so vehemently at the trains that pulled in and out as well as the passengers they loaded and unloaded. They were interrupting her research! Or, in the least, the inevitable capture that would lead to her amateur science experiment. And so for a third after a train had passed, she took up her crouched position once more, making an effort to prevent herself from emptying the station of its annoying human visitors. They were seriously asking for it as well. Especially the last hefty male that trundled by her, bumping roughly into her and making it necessary for her to quickly lean back at a harsh angle to prevent herself from pitching forward. Spitefully she slashed at the large briefcase he was carrying, the small spine protruding from her fingertip quickly disappearing once more as the case's handle and lock were damaged enough to cause it to snap open, spilling its contents everywhere. Stupid human.

Eying the contents of the spilled briefcase, which the large man was quickly trying to shuffle back into place, she snatched up a small package of crackers that had skipped to a stop closer to her. The idiot was too dismayed about the few papers that had fallen down onto the tracks to notice her anyways. Tearing open the package and crushing two of the four crackers in her hand, she threw the mangled mess of what was to be a snack down after his papers, watching the crumbs bounce over the small rocks and strips of steel. Every trap needed some bait. It had just taken the young girl a moment to think of that factor. Leaning forward once more, the package of remaining crackers crushed between the concrete and one of her hands as she steadied herself, she watched the lower level intently yet again. And finally! With jerky, halting movements of caution, one fat rat at last slithered its way into sight, first inspecting the papers that had settled into its domain before moving on the greedily snatch up the tidbits that had been dropped for it. Isabel wasted no time. The moment that fat furry body halted, she launched down into the pit after it. Reaching out a hand to snatch the startled vermin, she increased the length of her fingers by growing a couple inches of long, thin bone spines from each of her fingertips. The tips of each bone slammed into the ground around the rat, trapping it in a roughly cage-like enclosure beneath her hand. She couldn't help but grin devilishly at the dismayed squeaks of the creature now in her clutches, as well as the few faces that had been curious enough to peer after her, wondering what it was she was doing.

Two less crushed crackers and three more greedy rats later, she headed off toward Central Park, intent on finding the answers she sought.

Isabel's rather foul mood from the train station seemed to have made a one eighty, a smile blossoming across her features as she strolled into Central Park and went about the task of finding an unoccupied bench to act as her lab table. Swinging carelessly in her hand was the four rats she'd snatched up off the subway tracks, the squirming rodents trapped in a grotesque cage-like structure constructed from the bones from her fingers and hand, each of the bones curving around the lump of bodies, sharp angles sticking out here and there where one bone met another, each merging seamlessly into a base at the bottom and a top with a ring that her grip wrapped around. She never had torn apart an animal before, and as such their frantic squeaks of alarm had at first unnerved her, almost convincing her to release them and find a different group of subjects, but the insistence of the cries had slowly been drowned out to background noise. Besides, she reasoned with herself, she'd fought Emerald a while back and she had turned into a wolf at one point. At that time Isabel didn't even hesitate to tear into her. And rats were no different. A little dumber and much dirtier, but an all around pest in the city that no one would miss. And what were a few vermin is she managed the expand the range of her mutation? If her theory proved to be true, she'd be just that much more powerful and threatening to the citizens of New York City. And if she could manipulate the bones of others, she'd be an even greater help to her family in the Order, the thought of which pleased her very much. She always liked being able to help them out, even if she was just on cop duty for the most part. Being able to control their skeleton would just make any process that much easier. And so much more fun.

A few moment later she came across the vacant bench she'd been seeking, casually making her way over to it and kneeling down on the ground in front of it, dropping the bone cage in the thin planks of wood, watching as the sudden thump caused the rats' squeaks to rise in anxiousness for a moment and their nervous movement to kick back up. Pressing her fingers to the makeshift cage two of the bars spread apart with a quick snap of movement. Quickly so as not to let them scatter, she wrapped her free hand securely around one of the furry bodies inside and pulled it away from the others, the cage bars quickly snapping back to where they'd originally been. Any stares or odd looks she might have gotten from any of the numerous other civilians out strolling along her pathway were ignored all together, her focus reserved solely for the rats in her possession, the young mutant figuring she'd need all of her concentration to kick this potential development into action. Nothing was ever easy the first time and she didn't expect this to be any exception. Pressing the wriggling body down against the wood of the bench with one hand, her other hand went to work tacking the rat's limbs down nice and securely. With her thumb and pointer finger, she pressed their tips against the bench on either side of the rodent's fore paw, a small, barbed spike of bone smoothly embedding itself into the wooden structure. Easily she raised the digits the slightest bit and then brought them together, as if pinching something off. The spikes of bone continued to grow from the fingertips until the digits touched, where they broke away from the skin and merged together, creating a sort of cuff locking the rat's limb to the bench. Continuing around to the other three paws, the tail, and the neck she did the same. Only once she was sure it couldn't wriggle away did she raise her hand away from its struggling body.

Moving the cage off to the side where it would be out of the way, she examined her tacked down test dummy, briefly contemplating how to start. She'd made sure to stick it down on its stomach so it's spine would be at her disposal, as well as most bones that were attached to it. However, that also made it a little more difficult, as the creatures back was so much more fragile than her normal playmates'. One wrong move and she'd be sticking down another rat in its place. She only had four after all that frustration back in the subway, and so she didn't want to waste them as she did with her humans. Running her pointer finger down the matted fur growing from its back, she quickly familiarized herself with all the little bumps and dips in what she could feel of the spine and the ribs beneath its skin, finding herself a point to work with. Locating where its shoulder blades should be, as well as one of the more prominent rises in a spinal bone by the base of the neck, she paused. A small pick of bone not much larger than a toothpick slowly extended from her finger, the tip of which she circled around its skin for a moment to be sure she'd pinpointed that spinal bone as a target before she plunged it into the rat's flesh. She made sure not the allow the spine to penetrate too deeply in fear of accidentally severing its spinal cord and wasting the thing as a subject. She wasn't sure if dead and dying bone would cooperate as well for her as still living bone would. The small thunk that she felt as one bone hit another made her grin, completely ignoring the startled shriek and harsh jerk from the animal. It would most likely be dead by the end of the session anyways, no real need to worry about maiming it, and thus there was no need to be painfully careful. Just cautious enough not to kill it right away.

Her grin had by now faded into a slight frown, her brow furrowed in concentration as she stared down at her tool of choice and its point of entry in the fat body. She wanted the bones to move, willed them to do so, waited for something to shift under her grip. Her frown deepened a bit as she pressed down on the spinal bone a little harder, demanding that it shift beneath her influence. But still nothing happened. She tried shifting the point, shaping it to better fit around the small bone to contact it from several angles, brought the points together again and attempted to bully the bone into responding with a little mild abuse. Nothing. Not even the slightest twitch resulted from her attempts. Frustrated she ripped the implement from the rat's skin, cutting a short gash in its flesh in doing so. For a moment she sat back on the ground, crossing her arms and glaring at the small creature as she pouted childishly in the face of her failure. Stupid rat. Maybe she really did need a human as a test after all. Maybe the rat's bone structure was too different. She considered just killing the rats and leaving out of nothing but spite for wasting her time in having to catch them to find out they were useless. Scooting a little closer to the bench, she rested her chin on the wooden seat and jabbed the little spine into the rat's ribs, hoping her first attempt was just a fluke. Once again she wriggled the tip around, poked and prodded, ordered the skeletal structure to change under her grip. And still nothing. And of course being the spoiled brat she was, she abhorred failing at anything, especially something she was supposed to be naturally good at. She was slipping past pouting into tantrum mode. Roughly she snatched the rat up off the bench, only bothering to loosen the band around its neck, letting her restraints pull and break its other limbs as she lifted it into the air, not knowing yet if she was going to just crush it or toss it away from her.

That's when something happened. Apparently the tip of her finger had slipped into the bloody mess of a gash in the small mammal's back, the small spike having retracted, leaving nothing but skin to touch the creature's exposed bone. Stopping in her tracks as she was about to toss the dirty little creature to the ground, she instead brought it up in front of her, the thing still wriggling defiantly, though the protests were weaker than they had originally been. Turning her hand so its back was in her line of sight, as well as the finger pressed into the wound, she simply stared at it for a moment, her previously angry expression melting away into a blank mask. Curiously she wiggled her finger a bit, digging it a little deeper under the furry skin of the creature to rest snugly against its spinal column. Lightly pressing down she once again willed the boned beneath her touch to move. At first there was nothing, but with the return of her mild irritation, a twitch was felt beneath her grip. One of her eyebrows rose in response, her head tilting slightly to the side as she regarded this new development. A bit more effort put into the next attempt, as well as a clearer mental vision of what she wanted the bones to so caused each to spike suddenly out of the rat's skin, several red-tinged points poking up through the grey fur. Her irritation and anger definitely helped the process along, that much she had noticed, but with a bit of concentration she could still pull it off. She also apparently needed skin contact with the bone. That could prove to be annoying in the future, but at least she now knew her theory had been correct. Briefly she tried moving other bits and pieces of the animal's skeleton, but found she could only do so through direct contact. Also potentially problematic, but her excitement and pride in her newly discovered abilities outweighed any prospect of future irritation. After a few more minutes of experimenting with the rat's innards, particularly its skull, she tossed the lifeless body off into the bushes and moved on to the next vermin. She had three left, after all. And why let them go to waste?