(OOC: Continued from Katrina's Bedroom.)


“Ah!” Katrina flinched slightly. She hadn’t seen the parakeet until it had almost reached her shoulder like a little piece of the sunrise darting out to greet her. She quickly recovered, though, when she realized what it was that had landed on her.

“Chirrip!” he said, quite conversationally.

“You are so cute. I’ve never seen a pink parakeet before.” Katrina pet him gently on the head with one finger. Talking to animals seemed perfectly natural to her. She didn’t have siblings and adults were often too busy to talk to twelve-year-olds whereas Galahad and Jeeves were always willing to listen to her problems.

“You are very friendly, too. Are you lost? I’m sort of lost too. I was supposed to start going to school here, but it was attacked last night. I’m not sure where I should go now. My dad doesn’t know I’m a mutant, so I can’t go home.”

“What do you think I should do?”

Okay, point one? Calley wasn't cute--he was strikingly handsome, in a bird-like manner. And point two? He wasn't pink. Light red, yes. Pastel red, even... maybe. But not pink. Borderline pink, but definitely still red. Thank you very much, random little girl. He indignantly allowed her to pet him, but just 'cause he was planning--in three, two, one--

"CHIRRIP!"

--to express his displeasure next to her eardrums. He flew off of her shoulder, around her back, and landed on her other shoulder. With a manly, red-parakeet fluffing of his wings.

So to answer her question: he was just going to try and keep her distracted long enough for Hunter to send someone after her. Or for the police to. Whichever.

“Well,” Katrina huffed indignantly, turning to her other shoulder. “I can see that you most certainly have a strong opinion about the subject, but did you have to blast my eardrum out? I get enough of that sitting next to piccolo players in orchestra.”

Calley fluffed out his chest feathers, and started preening under one wing. The wing facing away from her, thank you. He'd never had the pleasure of sitting next to a piccolo player, but by the sound of things, he'd get along fine with one. Indignantcy was such an odd thing on a little girl. Really, she should just--

--he fluttered to her head, and leaned over and down to look into her face, upside-down, with a laughing chriii--

--lighten up. Never mind that she'd been through a thoroughly traumatic experience that was probably only going to get worse, as this registration thing went on. Resiliency was the ticket!

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Katrina responded matter-of-factly.

A SWAT team had caught sight of the girl and was closing in. One had a tranquiliser weapon read, but all the others had there very lethal rifles at the read. Closing silently from behind with all weapons levelled at the girl they wanted to make sure the tranquilizer had the best chance before resorting to lethal force. None of them felt happy about bearing down on a little girl, but she was a mutant, and they weren’t taking chances. Unfortunately for them they weren’t watching their backs either.

A team of soldiers in black ops gear stole up silently behind them, each silently drawing a knife with a dulled blade. As one they struck, silently killing the men before the girl was even aware of their presence. Sheathing there knives the majority dispersed while three approached the girl.

“Hey,” one of them said in a gentle voice, “You found my parakeet. I’ve been looking for Commodore Pink Puff for ages.” Where anyone to read the collar that Calley was wearing, which was now a bright yellow colour, it would read Commodore Pink Puff. “Say, would you like to come back with us to take Pinky here home? He seems to like you, and little girls shouldn’t be wondering around on their own at this sort of hour. What do you say?”

Well. That wasn't suspicious at all, now was it. Furthermore, this soft-spoken man of Scary Man employ was clearly and irrefutably as color blind as Doc Jimmy. Red. He was red. Thank you.

...With an air of great benevolence, Calley swooped up to perch lightly on the man's shoulder. It was all he could do to add credibility to the guy's tab. Given this lovely little team, Calley had a suspicion: Hunter did not know how to deal with children.

I believe you knew that already.

...You tryin' to say something, Slate?

Indeed.

“Little girls shouldn’t be wandering around on their own at this time of day.” Hmph, Katrina thought. It’s six o’clock in the morning and I’m in front of a school, not exactly wandering around.

Katrina narrowed her eyes at the three men, suspiciously. Like the parakeet, Pinky, had done, these three had seemed to materialize out of the morning air. She hadn’t even heard them approach. Were they mutants with the power to appear in thin air? Katrina wondered if she would suspect every new person she met to be a mutant from now on.

These men seemed a little suspicious. Well actually a lot suspicious, especially with their various weapons hanging at their sides and their military straight posture. Why did they want her to go with them? She thought back to the morning before, her mother telling her she was in danger. Maybe these men were part of the people trying to kidnap her. They didn’t succeed last night, so they were trying again, perhaps.

Yet, she was all on her own with no way to contact her parents and after last night the police seemed like an unfriendly option. Come to think of it, why had the police been attacking the mansion? Katrina’s head buzzed. It was so hard to tell who was good and who was bad.

In any case, they liked animals, which was a good point, but lots of bad people have pets. Katrina decided she would give them one chance, but if she didn’t like their answer, she would run away.

“Who are you anyway?” She asked.

Returning back to the mansion the next morning Ali flew high so that she could survey the area. It looked as if everyone was gone. That was a good thing. At least it was good that the attackers were gone, but were there any occupants left in the mansion? So far it didn't seem likely until she spotted a young girl in front of the mansion. She wasn't alone either.

Ali swooped down and landed about twenty feet to the left of the men. Were they more cops or soldiers? Who ever they were they had better keep their weapons down at their sides or else they won't be able to touch anything for a month.

"If you boys are planning on doing anything to that girl then you'll have to go through me first and I gaurantee it won't be fun or easy."

Corporal Kane smiled at her response. Considering all that had happened he wasn’t surprised that she was suspicious. He was in the process of kneeling down when a woman flew in and took a defensive stance between him and the little girl. Rising slowly to his feet he and the two other men kept their hands where they could be seen and well away form their weapons.

“I’m here to help,” he told the adult, “We don’t have enough force here to counter attack, but we can help get any who escape to a safe place. You can either try and run, but will be hunted by the police and their new robots, or you can come with us and we can take you somewhere that you and the girl will be safe.”

So they weren’t here to kidnap her, Katrina thought to herself. They were just trying to help mutants that escaped from the police attack on the mansion. It didn’t sound like very much fun to be running from the police and their “new robots” whatever those were. So, calling the police and asking for their help was definitely out of the question. Going home wasn’t really an option until after she learned to control her powers. While these men still seemed a little shady, this woman seemed to be genuinely concerned for her, so if she decided to go with the men to this so called safe place, then Katrina would go with.

The man who seemed to be in charge spoke up and mentioned getting Ali and the girl to a safe place. At the moment Ali just wanted to get the girl and herself away from the mansion. She would keep an eye on these men in their tactical outfits. Right now Ali didn't trust anyone wearing suits like that and she had a good reason for it too.

Moving closer to the girl and kneeling next to her but still facing the men Ali spoke softly. "My name is Ali. Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you. Let's go with these guys for now. At least getting away from the mansion would be a safer decision than staying. Just stick close to me ok?"

Standing back up Ali addressed the lead man. "OK we'll go with you but this better not be some kind of trick." She spoke in a very serious tone and made eye contact with each of the guys. "Where is this safe place anyways?"

Katrina narrowed her eyes at the woman who called herself Ali. "I'm not six, you know," she muttered, but Ali had already turned her attention back to the three men and Katrina wasn't sure she heard. Oh well. At least her heart seemed to be in the right place.

By the time Iris worked up the nerve to return to the Mansion, the attack was long finished. When she first arrived at the gates, on foot, and surveyed the destruction, her heart nearly stopped. What she had done was nothing compared to this. The grounds resembled a battle ground. She couldn’t see any one around at all, and the air was eerily still.

What had happened??

She backed away from the gates, and pulled her cloak close. The cover was ragged and dingy, and had a hood, effectively hiding her face and newly-dyed hair. On the surface she simply appeared to be a homeless person envying those more privileged than she. She glanced sideways, then turned aside, following the stone wall around toward the back of the grounds. Parts of the wall had been demolished, but she couldn’t imagine by what. Eventually she came across a section that had crumbled enough for her to climb over.

She found herself by what was left of the pool. She shuddered a bit in memory, and continued on toward the Mansion. For some reason she felt the need to stay in hiding, so she took a round about way to the back door.

Inside, the once beautiful Mansion was a sorry sight to see. Water pooled on the ground, and the carpeted areas squelched wetly underfoot. The floor boards were cracked, the walls scraped and marred; even the ceilings bore marks of battle. There was a sparking sound coming from somewhere. Iris paused at the threshold. As she began to move forward, the waters parted, leaving her path dry. She was very careful where she stepped; she wasn’t keen to be electrocuted because she wasn’t watching where she put her feet. She didn’t stop to take a closer look at some of the red-brown stains on the walls and floor.

The building was as quiet as a graveyard. Iris felt like a tomb raider as she made her way up to the second floor, navigating the gaping holes in the floor. She began checking rooms, but it became quickly obvious that no one was left. Even the DocProf was gone, and Tricity.

Iris pulled her cloak tighter, a chill running down her spine. Despite the calmness that the aquamarine gave her, feelings of guilt washed over her. She should have been here; maybe she could have helped. She knew deep down that she would have only been another casualty, but it didn’t stop her from feeling guilty nonetheless.

Faint sounds reached her ears. Voices. She went to the window of the room she was currently in. It overlooked the front grounds. She peeked carefully out, trying to remain unseen. She could see three men dressed in combat gear, a little girl, and a young woman. The woman looked familiar; Iris vaguely remembered seeing her during the whole Haywire incident, but she didn’t remember a name. She turned slightly and uncovered her ear, straining to catch their words without catching their attention.

Kane nodded to Ali as a man behind him gave several hand signals to the surrounding area. “I’m Corporal Kane, and we’re taking you to a facility outside of the city. You will be safe there, and your needs catered for.” Four black jeeps pulled up with space in one of the central ones of Ali, the kid and Kane.

The other two men went to mount the rear jeep as Kane lead Ali and the girl towards their ride. “So what’s your name?” Kane asked the girl in a friendly tone. She reminded him of his little sister back home. “And would you mind keeping a hold of Pinky for me? The ride might scare him a little.”