And the other people at the Mansion wondered why humans hated mutants.

It was a dark and gloomy night. The spring wind rustled McGrease King wrappers along the sidewalks. The nineteen year old had been minding his own business; he was fairly well dressed, fairly clean-cut, and very typical. An Italian Jersey boy blended easily with the crowds of New York City. He was minding his own business when he passed the movie theatre; a show had just let out, apparently. He flowed easily with the crowd. He pretty much had no plans for the night; he’d gone window-shopping for clothes, but mehed. The Mansion’s spare clothes had been serving him pretty well. Now, he was just on his long, winding way back.

The ice cold drenching from above hadn’t been in his nightly plans. Seriously?

“Ha! Got ‘em!”

“Hahaha!”

There were four kids on the rooftop. One of them had feathers. One of them was glowing crimson. Another was a water manipulator. And the last one fell over laughing too quickly for Calley to get a good look.

The water manipulator raised his arms, and bought another torrent of water down on the crowd below. Girlfriends squealed and ran. Boyfriends postured and ran. Grumbles went up about calling the police and damn mutant punks. Calley stood there, looking like a wet cat even in human form.

A third downpour. “Ha! Stupid humans.”

Seriously?

“Hey, not going to run, human?” The feathered one called down. Ah. That would be Calley they were talking too. “We can do worse than that.”

“Can I ask what you had against my nice non-soaked night?” Calley asked upwards. A reasonable question.

“Can I ask what you’ve got against our existence, human?” The crimson one spat down with self-righteous vehemence.

...Seriously?

Calley shook his head. “You guys are idio—”

And that’s when the crimson one threw a lightning bolt at him. Literally: Zeus-style. He formed it in his hand, and hurled it.

Calley had time to give a facial twitch and a leap backwards. The sidewalk exploded. “You guys are idiots,” he finished, “because I’m a freaking mutant too.” And unlike them, he wasn’t actively showing that Darwin cried every time a Mutant Supremacist tried to terrorize the human population without even checking whether the people were human.

Meh, and meh again. Calley didn’t have any plans for the night, did he? And he’d been meaning to get in more combat practice.

Long story short: that’s how a very large Bengal tiger came hurling off of the rooftop on the other side of the building, its fur soaking wet and singed. Look out below. And be thankful that stunned cats don’t land on their sharply clawed feet.

Another resume and application turned in and another shake of the head for no jobs available. Bear decided it was time to head home, to wherever home was... He took a shortcut down an alley, looking for something, who knows, the shortcut? Leading nowhere. As he was walking, he heard a few loud crashes and looked up to see a fairly large, crispy, Bengal tiger falling straight towards him. Hoping he had enough time to react Bear leapt forward only to leap under the body of the tiger. Damn misjudging distance and direction. With a thud, Bear hit the pavement, his body agonizing with pain before the pain slowly began to fade away into strength. Bear planted his hands on the pavement and pushed up hard before jerking his back, knocking the tiger off.

"What the heck?" Bear looked up at the rooftop to see 3 boys laughing and grinning at the fallen tiger. "You think it's funny to send animals off the roof?!"

"It's not really an animal dumbass! It's a mutant!" The water elemental grinned before the three boys spun on their heels and walked off across the roof, out of sight for Bear.

"A freak eh?" Bear growled to himself, the mutants are fighting each other as much as they fight humans? That's a great society to try to be a part of isnt it? Bear cocked back his foot and looked at the tiger before letting out a well aimed kick, hoping to startle the tiger back to consciousness. "Get up..."

Kicking a tiger: not a well-planned way of rousing it. Ever heard ‘let sleeping tigers lie’? ‘Cause apparently this guy’s foot hadn’t. And if that appendage couldn’t move quickly, it was about to get a set of disoriented jaws clamping down on it.

Baby blue tiger eyes blearily blinked at the man standing above him. Blinked, and widened. Ah. This was a man; not a punk mutant teenager in serious need of a lesson teachin’. If he had caught the guy’s leg, now would be the time he’d apologetically spit it back out. Either way, he’d be scrambling to his paws—his rather large paws—and ducking his head. His rather large head. It was hard for a tiger to look contrite, actually.

“Err, sorry about that. They were kind of attacking a crowd on the other side of the building just ‘cause they thought everyone was a human. I think everybody’s run by now, though... Err, I didn’t hurt you, did I?” There seemed to be a hazily fogged memory of air, air, air, soft landing, kick. The ‘soft landing’ might be a reason for the ‘kick’, come to think of it. “Err, I know a good doctor?” The tiger offered. His own singed fur should probably check with the DocProf before the night was out, actually, though he didn’t think he was in serious trouble just now.

Bear growls lightly to himself, looking down at the tiger, not really afraid of it for some stupid reason. "No I'm not hurt... Yet..." Bear sighs, one of the biggest downfalls to his ability... He can survive a car slamming into him, until his adrenaline wears off.... "Who are you? What are you?" Bear knew he shouldnt have asked the 'what' part but at this point he didnt really care.

Why do kids find it so fun to torment people, and why do people think it's ok to take it... Why is it ok for Bear to take the torment? Why doesnt he do something about it like he should? A lifelong struggle with torment and all he does is wait for it to happen and wait for it to be over. The one time he stood up for himself back home, he almost go killed for it. The second time, Bear looks to his stitched and bandaged shoulder, a knife wound.

"I think I'll be ok without a doctor... I know a few people that can help me if I really need it... Now... If you dont mind, I'm trying to find somewhere to live or work or SOMETHING. Gah this town really sucks sometimes... Hey, you know of anything like that?" Bear looks down at the tiger. "And are you always stuck in that form? A talking tiger... Or do you look human usually?"

“I, Sir,” the Bengal drew its head up proudly, standing at its full height—a fair bit over waist level, on this man; “am Calley, delinquent mutant fighter extraordinaire, protector of the peace, taker-on of unwise four-on-one battles, he whose fur currently smells alarmingly burned.” Making it sound dramatic took some of the sting out of the fact he’d just been hurled off of a rooftop by punk kids. The fact that he was a punk kid himself didn’t much help his pride, either. “May I ask who you are?”

>> "I think I'll be ok without a doctor... I know a few people that can help me if I really need it... Now... If you dont mind, I'm trying to find somewhere to live or work or SOMETHING. Gah this town really sucks sometimes... Hey, you know of anything like that?"

The tiger sat back on its volumous haunches, and began to groom the lengths of its forepaws with long strokes of its tongue. Poor fur. “If you were a mutant, it’d be pretty easy—you could just come with me back to the Mansion. Free room, free board, jobs if you want ‘em.” He was making the same exact mistake the punks had: he was assuming he was talking to a human. It was a fairly common mistake for a mutant to make, actually. Especially when one of their kind had no visible mutations. No matter what the news made it seem like, sometimes, Homo sapiens still outnumbered Homo superior in this city by a very wide margin. “I know a human-friendly bookstore that is hiring, though, for the job thing, as long as you don’t mind a mutant boss. The owner is a friend of mine. She’s trying to make the store a Switzerland between all the zealot and mutant factions.” And more power to her, though he fully intended to start lurking around in case she got shot at. Again.

>> "And are you always stuck in that form? A talking tiger... Or do you look human usually?"

He switched to grooming at one of his shoulders. Poor, poor fur. He was not supposed to have a black stripe there. “I can look human, but, err, if I switched back now, I’d be rather...” A delicate tiger cough. “Naked.” He flicked an ear, pausing in mid-groom as if suddenly realizing something. He was a tiger. In the middle of a New York street. A bit conspicuous, much?

A moment later, too quickly for normal eyes to catch, the tiger was gone. In its place, somewhat less dramatically, sat a small white cat with black spots here and there, just out of its kittenhood. “I could probably look less like an Animal Control hazard, though. That might be good.”

Bear looked on at the now cat curiously, "Aye, less like an Animal Control Hazard indeed.... You're... Just a little cat now..." Bear laughs lightly to himself, shaking his head and now realizing he's seen it all, or so he thinks. A human friendly book store? That means that this Calley thinks that I'm a human? Oh this is too good to be true. And now to the question of who he was, the question he pushed to the back of his mind the moment it was asked, how does one respond to something like that when they dont want to be known?

"I'm...." He pauses a moment, trying to think of something when suddenly a name pops into his head, his nickname his co-worker back home gave him. "Bear, call me Bear..." A triumphant grin stretches across his face, the perfect Alias to use with anyone but Aris. Why do they need to know his real name anyways? It's not like it's super important.

"So... This friend of yours with the human friendly book store, is there any way I could meet with her to possibly get a job interview? That'd be great, I'm looking for just about anything right now... And as for the place to stay, I think I'll pass on the Mansion of yours... I'd rather just find an apartment, I've got some money saved, just not enough to last..." Bear smiles lightly, turning and leaning up against the wall, a slight cringe coming from him at the feel of his ribs pressing together, the wound still fresh from recent activity.

The cat only managed to look more regal as the man laughed down at it. Being a cat, and thus royal to begin with, this made it about thirteen and a half pounds of solid confidence. In a silken fur package.

“Bear, eh?” The little cat got to its feet, deciding not to question the hesitation and the sudden large grin that accompanied that naming. It wasn’t like most people gave their real names when he asked, anyway. Granted, most people he asked were mutants, and giving out their codename instead. Could you blame a human for hiding his name and social security number from a formerly sky-dwelling tiger, though? Calley really couldn’t. “Good name,” he replied instead. “Solid.”

>> "So... This friend of yours with the human friendly book store, is there any way I could meet with her to possibly get a job interview? That'd be great, I'm looking for just about anything right now... And as for the place to stay, I think I'll pass on the Mansion of yours...”

The little cat rubbed itself lightly against the man’s leg; if they guy didn’t move, that was. A slight purr hinted that now was the appropriate time to pet him. “All roads lead to the Mansion, I fear—I can introduce you to her there, tomorrow. Either that, or you could actually go to the store. But, err, I’ve never been there myself, so I’m not sure of the address. The name is Full Circle, though. It’s been in the news—the place the anti-mutant riot took place a few weeks ago? The girl who got shot is the new owner. You could probably look it up pretty easily.”

>> I'd rather just find an apartment, I've got some money saved, just not enough to last..."

If the man hadn’t started petting him by now, more demanding leg-twining would commence. If the man had started petting him by now, there was a rule that he should be aware of: no petting was ever enough. Therefore, more demanding leg-twining would, indeed, commence. “What have you been doing, hitting up hotels? That’s like opening your wallet and dumping it on the streets, in New York.” Insert demanding ‘merrack!’ here. Yes, form-shifting might have some influence on his personality. A bit. At the least, it certainly changed his views on having a strange man’s hands all over his body. “I’ve actually got an apartment near here, if you want to crash for the night. We can hit up the bookstore thing tomorrow. Or, of course,” if the guy was trying to avoid all this leg-twining, he’d better be pretty nimble; “you can keep on dumping your cash. I can give you the Mansion address, if you want, and you can drop by tomorrow and I’ll introduce you to the owner.”

Bear looked down at the little cat guy thing with a look of disbelief, it was actually rubbing up against him. He took a step back to avoid the cat and the cat continued to rub up against him, purring commencing, Bear let out a sigh and just stood there. "I think I'll uh... Look up the address, I mean... Why would I go to this Mansion of yours? I doubt I'd be super welcome, I mean it's a place for mutants right?" Welcome, more like 'I doubt I'd be comfortable surrounded by freaks.'

"But as for that apartment of yours..." Bear lifts his leg up and takes a step back, turning away from the wall and trying to stop the cat from pawing at his legs. "I guess I could take you up on that... I actually havent been in town long and spent last night out on the street and in the hospital... So I havent had to spend any money at all really, aside from the obvious need for food and drink."

Bear felt like he was dancing with the cat who was begging with all he had to get pets, his legs were moving all over the place until he eventually lost his balance and fell flat on his butt. At this moment his adrenaline level was back to normal after the falling tiger incident and his body suddenly felt sore again. Lucky for the cat guy thing, Bear could no longer escape his wrath of needing pets. "Ok ok god..." Bear reached out a hand and began petting the cat, not really having a choice in the matter anymore. Defeat, such a bitter thing to taste, especially when you're defeated by what now is simply, none other than, a cat... Oh the bitter bitter defeat.

"So, I guess I stay at your place... Just for the night... Then find a place of my own tomorrow after you introduce me to your friend... Preferably not at this mansion of yours... I dont think it'd be right, me going there..." Bear wanted to avoid the mansion at all costs very obviously, not knowing what to expect at such a place where a cat thing, that was far too nice, dwelled. All Bear could imagine was people coming to the door when he walked in, trays full of cookies with huge smiles on their faces. And a pitcher of Kool-Aid somewhere in the corner, Red, to be particular.

If the man wanted big red Kool-Aid pitchers, particularly of the wall-crashing variety, he should look up Abyss at the Sanctuary. Oooooh yeah.

Victory: a foregone conclusion, for a feline. The little tomcat purred with great satisfaction as the fallen man finally realized the wisdom in petting him. When it came to cats, the world’s greatest wisdom came in obeying them. And when it came to cat tangos, it was best to just give in, and let the cat lead.

“No prob,” the little tom said, attempting to hop into the lap of his conquered prey. Some manner of holding him to the pavement would be necessary, if the guy aimed to stop him. “I can give her a call from my apartment, and set up a meeting. And probably get the store address, while I’m at it.” It was quite clear that Bear wanted to avoid the Mansion; Calley couldn’t blame him. A school full of pubescent mutants really wasn’t the safest or sanest place for a human to visit.

“So what’s this about a hospital? What’d you get into?” It might be a weird way of phrasing it; he was implying that the guy had done something to get himself hospitalized, not that he’d been in any kind of accident. Given the people Calley was used to talking to, though... yeeeeeah. It wasn’t as weird of a phrasing as it should be.

“The apartment is that way.” The cat gave a little flick of its tail, down the street. “About three blocks.” The serene manner in which he refrained from walking that way made one thing very clear: the little tom was expecting to be carried. Purr.

Bear put his arms up as the cat jumped into his lap, knowing there was no beating a cat when it came to things such as this. He just gave in, not wanting to, nor being really willing to, he did anyways. "That'd be cool Calley, now... Really, why you gotta hop into my lap like this?" Bear sighed as he looked down at the cat, still petting it reluctantly as he asked the question about the hospital. His mind raced, trying to figure out if he'd find out he was a mutant if he explained the fight to him. After a little deliberation, he realized just leaving a few things out would help him to not get found out.

"Well, I was walking down the street with a friend of mine and we got mugged..." Bear paused, glancing at his left shoulder and at the unstitched wound on the same side. "I got stabbed in the process of defending myself and my friend helped me to the hospital. We had a few issues there before I got stitched up then we just left... That's basically about it... Not much else to it really.." Bear sighed, looking up at the sky, his body aching from the fall.

"Down that way huh?" Bear moved to stand up and the cat placed his paws on his stomach, almost forcing him to stay down. "What?" Bear looked down at him before realizing what was going on and letting out a groan then a sigh. "Fine..." Bear scoops the cat up in his arms and stands up, heading down the alley towards where the cat pointed prior to him not being able to stand up. "I have to stop somewhere really quick... Gotta get my stuff... Actually, I guess it can stay in the locker until I get an apartment of my own..." Bear continues trekking down the alleys and along the sidewalk, heading the direction he's supposed to to get to where he needs to be to get some much needed rest. 36 hours of being awake does tend to take a toll on ones body even if they're secretly a mutant.

>> “Really, why you gotta hop into my lap like this?"

A purr and a tail swish were all the answer that earned. Steady blue eyes seemed to smugly smile at the man. “Merrow,” the little tomcat demanded of the hand that was ever so reluctantly petting it. But petting, it was. This hand, right here? This was a trainable hand.

A mugging. The cat’s purr rose and fell in a laughing wave. “Congratulations; you’re a true New Yorker now. Where were you from, before this?” He might be wrong, but the lack of apartment and mugging usually hinted at fresh mea—that is to say, a new citizen for their lovely Big Apple. The fact that this was a human that didn’t run from obvious mutants falling on him from rooftops was a pretty big hint, too. New York’s mutant population wasn’t doing so hot in the press right now, thank-you-Sanctuary-residents and punk-rooftop-teenage-gangs. Mostly Sanctuary residents. The biannual largely unprovoked human slaughters was getting a little tiresome, for those who at least liked to have a little reasoning behind their death counts. Personally, Calley preferred not to have a death count at all.

>> "Down that way huh? ...What? Fine..."

Purr, purr. Indeed: this one was highly trainable. The good thing about training humans? You didn’t even need to give them treats. They were so smart, they didn’t need them to learn. Heh. A small white body with black spots here and there warmly curled up in the man’s arms. His own throne, for the walk back to his apartment.

“You want to go nab your stuff? No prob, on this end. A little extra walking doesn’t bother me.” Large baby blue eyes blinked up from the man’s arms. Nope. Extra walking didn’t bother him in the least. They could do a lap around the city, and he dared say he wouldn’t even be winded. Heh. “Otherwise...” A curving arc of his tail briefly pointed the tip in the right direction again. It was rather a nice apartment. Clearly, carrying him there was a small price to pay for the privilege of sharing it for the night.

And perhaps the man would be so kind as to pour some of that delicious generic food into the little cat’s food dish, as well. And re-fill the water bowl, of course. Fortunately for Bear, the litter box had been cleaned yesterday. There were some dishes he’d been too lazy to do, though...

Bear continues walking the streets, headed the right direction, hopefully as the cat asks yet another question of him. "Yeah I guess so... Well I'm from Vancouver, Canada... Took a bus and got here just yesterday... Got mugged my first night, great place this is..." Bear scoffs lightly at his words and laughs. He continues walking, carrying and petting this cat that was formerly a Tiger that was formerly a young man. Oh what a life he leads, nothing but weirdness as soon as he got to New York.

"Yeah of course it doesnt bother you, you're not the one doing the walking...." Bear grumbles lightly under his breath, his trench coat swaying back and forth as he walks through the street. "So... Dont you think people will find it a little weird, me talking to a cat? Oh wait, that's right... This is the United States, New York to be more specific... I guess crazy is the norm here right?" Bear sighs lightly, continuing his trek, following the direction the tail pointed.

Bear wasnt used to the US yet, he rather preferred it back home, nothing like having a boring day full of all kinds of exciting nothingness. Oh the night he would be having if he were back home... He'd come home from a long day working at the gas station with all kinds of normal customers coming in just to get gas or a soda and snack, then leaving, maybe coming back for change. Oh such a great uneventful day he would be having, maybe a mountain dew or beer in hand when he gets back, or even a pizza box. He'd come home, sit down at his computer and turn on COD4 or BF2 or something like that... Kick some butt online and end up passing out late in the night only to get up the next day and repeat the process.

“This is a New York nighttime, and you’re a tall man in a long trench coat,” the cat tilted its chin upwards to point out. And to point out that the under-chin area was an excellent place for petting fingers to rove. “If you carried around cats and talked to them more, you’d probably get mugged less.” This was probably true.

In due time, they came to his apartment. It might have been a little more upscale than one would usually think of a tiger-cat-boy as possessing. For starters, it was a rather pricey Central Park facing unit. For another, its door opened into a decently sized kitchen, then a spacious white-carpeted living room; the single bedroom was off to the right, along with the full-bath-and-shower bathroom. The things that usually struck people—or would strike them, if Calley regularly had people over—were, first and foremost, the simplified luxury of the place. This was the apartment of someone who had enough money to be comfortable, but wasn’t rubbing it into anyone’s face. Working for the Kabal for the past two years would do that to a teen’s bank account. The second thing: the sparseness of the place. There was barely anything to show that Calley lived here. There were a bare minimum of dishes in the kitchen; most of these were sitting in the sink, waiting to be washed. The food was largely frozen and microwavable. There was one piece of furniture in the living room: a large white couch that matched the carpet, and had clearly come pre-furnished. The TV had been bought by his last roommate; it had been awhile since he’d seen Sonya. She’d left after he, err, threatened to kill her. To his credit, he’d been trying to spare her from an even worse death at the time, and hadn’t actually gone through with it.

The only touches of personality to the place were the cat dishes on the floor next to the kitchen cabinets, and the large stuffed tiger sitting in one corner of the living room floor, covered in cat hair. Another purchase from Sonya; his Christmas present. In the bedroom closet were a handful of dress clothes that he might or might not have stolen from a lawyer a couple years back. It was to those that the little cat gravitated after they entered. He leapt lightly down from the man’s arms, landing perfectly upon the black and white tiled kitchen floor.

“Wait out here, would you? I’m going to go slip into something a little more bipedal.” With black-tipped tail held imperiously high, the little cat slipped around the corner and through the crack in his bedroom door.

A few minutes later, a brown-haired Italian teenager with baby blue eyes emerged, buttoning up his black dress shirt. Khaki slacks fit him comfortably well, if a bit too long.

“So, here’s that human-me I mentioned,” he said, a bit nervously. He was always a bit more nervous, outside of a cat form. He stretched his arms out sheepishly to the side. “Tada.” Only now was he noticing how much bigger than him Bear was. Heh. At least the guy really didn’t seem to have a problem with mutants...

The long walk continued for what seemed like forever, after a while the two got to an apartment complex and moved through it until they got to the apartment of his feline acquaintance. After entering, Bear's eyes roamed the apartment, taking in all the various aspects of it, the cat lived quite nice for a Boy-Cat-Thing. Bear's eyes continue to roam the area before the cat jumps out of his arms with ease and walks off all snobby cat style, not that he was being snobby, just everyone knows cats are simply snobby. "Yeah of course... Bipedal... Ok..."

Bear moved around the kitchen and living room almost uncomfortably, not really feeling right being in someone elses house whom he barely even knew. After a few minutes a young man dressed rather nicely emerges from the bedroom where the cat disappeared. "I guess you werent lying when you said you were naked outside of your tiger or cat or whatever form... Makes sense then why you didnt change back... But I think you also didnt change back cuz you were too lazy to walk all the way here..." Bear smirks lightly, partially joking and partially serious about what he said.

"So... Nice place you got here." Oh how cliche it was to say something like that... BUT! This was a rather nice place the young man was living in. Bear felt himself being sized up a bit and laughed lightly, realizing how much larger he STILL was compared to Calley. "Uhm... Well.." Bear looks around the apartment slowly, glancing over at the couch and moving almost uneasily towards it before having a seat, trying to relax a bit after the past couple of days. In the light of the apartment, it was probably obvious to see the utter exhaustion in the face of Bear who was still awake after his bus ride into New York just the other day.

>> "I guess you werent lying when you said you were naked outside of your tiger or cat or whatever form... Makes sense then why you didnt change back... But I think you also didnt change back cuz you were too lazy to walk all the way here..."

The teenager’s lips quirked into a little smirk, quite reminiscent of the cat’s attitude. “Heh. I can neither confirm nor deny the truth of that statement. But hey, better to carry the cat then me, eh?” And better to carry the little white cat with black spots here and there than some of his other cat forms; there were several rather large ones he could have just as easily worn. Really, he’d been quite considerate of the man. All things considered.

>> "So... Nice place you got here."

“Thanks!” Calley replied with that I’m-accepting-a-compliment false cheer. He wasn’t exactly immune to how awkward this was, now that both of them stopped to think about it. Yeah. Nothing like inviting a strange trench-coated man with stab wounds into his apartment. Riiiight...

>> "Uhm... Well.."

“Yeah...” Calley added on to those nice filler words. As Bear took a seat on the couch, Calley took a seat on his stuffed tiger on the floor. Urk. Inappropriate seating option. He hopped back up, and leaned against the wall. He crossed his arms, just to have something to do with them. “So, ah... you can take the bed. In the bedroom.” Just in case that wasn’t clear, apparently. Did he always sound this stupid when he was biped? Yeah. Yeah, he was afraid that he did. “Err, don’t feel bad about kicking me out or anything, either. I usually sleep, ah...” A simple point downwards, to the fur-covered tiger doll. A blush slowly, slowly crept up his cheeks. Yeaaaah....