The New York scene had been quiet lately. All three Factions had been gone for months, and had come back tired--since January, there seemed to be an unofficial ceasefire as everyone got their naps in. Calley had sat that particular bit of community service out. If he was going to run a mutant rights blood drive, he'd do it in his own backyard. That was a pretty big 'if.' Unfortunately, his sense of local charity meant that he'd missed out on quality bonding time with his charming new baddie team. More importantly, with his charming new baddie leader. Calley placed great importance on leaders.

He'd rather not.

At three o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon, Red Lobster was full of sedate music, relaxed staff, and empty tables. The traditional lobster tank next to the hostess' stand bubbled away as its inmates crawled slowly over one another in their chilled rectangle. The lunch rush was long past, and happy hour didn't start until five. The lone waitress working the shift was alternating between chatting with the kitchen staff and patrolling her little section of the restaurant: the booths by the front windows. Calley was deposited in one of them, and given a menu and cheddar biscuits.

Leaders really hadn't done him much good in life. They really hadn't.

There was the Kabal's former Leader, of course. 'Nough said. Then there was Tricity, who he'd seen more as a straight up spy than he had as a spy in X-Trainee guise. Neena, who was maybe more of a stern aunt figure, and who was still busy out west. Cold Steel, who was more of a frat boy figure in his mind than a leader, and who was prone to making benevolent decisions Calley himself wouldn't have made. Like inviting him back in the Mansion. He'd take advantage of those decisions, sure, but he didn't support them. And now he had Lori. A rather unknown element, all things considered. She seemed intriguing, judging by their single lone meeting which had utterly lacked individual conversation. Yeah. Ditching now might be the best idea; it wasn't like some of the older Order members wanted him there, and it wasn't like the newer ones would miss him. The Sanctuary was a lot like the Mansion: people wandered off all the time. It was probably a mutant thing.

What was he supposed to do then, though? Finish high school, like Katrina kept telling him too? Yeah. That'd only take a few years. After that, what? Go on to college with his stellar academic record, and continue diligently pursuing his love of education? Get a job, so he could earn all that money he'd spend in his high-profile life of catting and toading? Apologize to Sam and ask for a place on the team again?

Calley had a slight snerk on his face as he ordered a scallop pasta.

Yeeeeeah. He wasn't exactly X-material, and he wasn't exactly college-and-career ready. The problem was, he wasn't really fit for the Order, either. Case in point: that charming day when the other Orderlings had still been off in Romania to play, and Calley had gotten beaten up by a girl in sneakers. A girl who needed to write memos to herself to remember her own name.

He slid a little lower in his seat, his head thumping against the vinyl backing. Yeah. For all his Mondragon Labs whale bombing and King Pharmaceuticals X-Men mauling, he really wasn't doing so good with this whole 'becoming a stronger person' thing.

For the record, he could totally take Sneakers Girl, with her lame mutation. In fact, if she were here right now, he would. Definitely. Calley mauled a biscuit as he waited on his pasta. The lobster tank bubbled. The door opened, with a ringing bell.

Round two.

Out of all the niche, locally owned, hole-in-the-wall awesome places, the front desk girl picked Red Lobster for her birthday lunch. Seriously? Red Lobster?

"I don't remember it being very good. The biscuits, yeah, but the actual food is nothing memorable."

"That doesn't mean a lot coming from you." That was Mortimer from accounting. He could breathe underwater so agreeing to a Red Lobster visit was slightly obscene in Noel's opinion.

"Har. Har. My notes say so, it's proof enough for me."

"Well, my mom always let me pick for my birthday and I pick Red Lobster. It's all about the biscuits, don't ya know?" That was Monday, Wednesday, Friday front desk girl.

The hostess was apparently also the waitress and she was taking her dear sweet time dropping off some biscuits for... "Hurk!" Noel did her best to dive-not-so-obviously behind the lobster tank. Through the bubbles and the dawdling crustaceans she saw him. Girl-name. Why hadn't she taken a picture of him before? She should have notes on him... at her house.

Eyes narrowed as her coworkers turned in a painfully obvious way to check out the sudden Red Lobster threat. Seeing no obvious threat and since Noel seemed to enjoy her view of the lobsters they turned to the hostess

"Uh... Three for a table, please?"

"And a lobster" Noel hissed.

"What?"

Noel cleared her throat and sort of squatted as naturally as was possible. "I would like to bring a live lobster to the table. Please." Because there was someone who needed one dropped down his shirt. Because he owed her a shirt. And he deserved a few claw marks of his own.

>> "Hurk!"

Calley blinked, sitting up straight again. Across the room at the reception desk, a couple was staring his way. Or… not his way. They were just casting paranoid looks around, like they expected to see something. What, where they expecting their parents to pop out of booth number three? They seemed kind of old for that fear. Maybe their boss, then. Though actually, only the guy was fairly old. The girl wasn't.

Eww.

Calley turned back to his biscuits. So good, so few, but for as long as he laid claim to this table: so many free refills. He politely did-not-stare as the waitress helped them select a lobster from the tank. He knew that's why the tank was there: he'd just never seen it done. He resisted the lure of looking towards the wet splashy noises, and looked out the window as the waitress escorted them to a booth near his.

"You do have to pay for that, you know," the waitress said dubiously. "We can't just… plop it back in when you're done."

In retrospect, Calley should have looked.

Old Spiney, she called him. He was going to be glorious even dripping wet as he was.

The waitress didn't look happy about tonging the biggest, stabbiest looking lobster in the tank. Or maybe it was the maddened gleam in Noel's eye that the waitress did not trust. Noel held her lobster high, the Lion King of lobsters. This lobster, nay, this magnificent soldier of fortune was Payback. Capital P.

"It's well worth the money." It'd be more worth it to put it on girl-name's tab. But either way, girl-name was getting it. front desk and underwater-breathing co-workers slid into their seats bamboozled by Noel's abrupt change in behavior. Had she forgotten to be sane?

Noel scooted into her side of the booth on her knees. This was a vital part of the plan. It gave her an optimal path for delivery. She knee-walked in right behind girl-name. His neck, so close. The moist lobster approached at top crustacean velocity. A last minute hook of the collar and the lobsterbomb was delivered between shirt and skin.

Milliseconds too late she realized some flaws in her plan:

Flaw one. No predetermined escape. In fact, quite the opposite. She was obligated to stay and eat overly buttered food in honor of front-desk-girl's birthday. Noel turned around, sat and picked up her menu. Lobster did sound good.

Flaw two. She had left the lobster's claws rubber banded. Drat. Well next time she stuffed a lobster down a stranger's shirt she would remember to cut the rubber bands to optimize the revenge factor.

The tank had been foodless and crowded. His lesser brethren should have given their lives to sustain him, in this situation: it was his right as the largest to turn his claws on them. His agile pincher claw would be longer and faster than theirs; his heavy crushing claw an easy squeeze away from piercing their inferior shells. Yet they were protected, maddeningly, but some manner of force field. It was blue. It wrapped around his claws, and held them shut even against his superior strength. The lobster was angry. His excellent exoskeleton measured an exceptional twenty-four inches. The muscular meat beneath weighed in at a titanic nine pounds. He had stalked the oceans for over two decades, felling any oyster, crab, shrimp, or sea sponge to run afoul of his path. Never before had his claws failed him. He would be free of the Blue Bands, put on him by the Pale Fish: this was certain. He would be free, with patience and strength.

He was climbing his way to the top of his younger clansmens' backs when the Silver Beak descended. At first he was unconcerned. In deference to his strength and size, the vertically swimming fish had always before turned its thin jaws upon weaker lobsters. That it chose him this time was due to his own arrogant failings: he had let his guard down for a moment. Sensing his weakness, it had decided at last to taste of a true lobster. He fought valiantly: his claws rose in threat; his eight legs showed his fierce agility. Alas, it was not enough. It gripped him and rose, like an otter with its prey, upwards: that dread, unnatural direction.

All smell was cut off from his antennae. He was left with only sight and the pressure on his carapace. This grip changed, but did not slacken. His gills burned as they filtered oxygen from the Not-Wet.

Finally, finally he was released onto ground. Slopping, near-vertical ground. Moving ground. The ground of something alive: his eyes confirmed that he was on a Pale Fish of the Not-Wet, one of the creatures responsible for the Blue Bands. His gills still burned. He could neither smell nor see the water from which he had been taken, or the ocean from which he had been kidnapped.

If he was to die here, he would die like an Animalia Arthropoda Crustacea Malacostraca Decapoda Astacidea Nephropidae Homarus americanus. The lobster went down Calley's shirt fighting.

Calley's resulting yelp was in direct proportion with the noble lobster's spirit. So was the speed with which he tumbled out of the booth, and lobster-danced the two foot crustacean out of his shirt. Its descent to the floor was slowed by the claw marks its eight legs inflicted on Calley's pants as it went down.

"What--you." There were no other words to be had. The multi-shifter grabbed the mighty lobster off of the floor, and thrust it at Sneaker Girl's face as she innocently perused her menu. "You… you… why?" He elegantly accused.

The lobster recognized now that the Pale Fish were mighty foes. Yet he was mightier still. He would prove it to them, with the same incontrovertible proof he supplied to the foolish younger lobsters who hunted in his territory. With a mighty squeeze of the urinary muscles in his head, the lobster vacated his bladders on the Pale Fish in front of him. The twin streams shot outwards, soaking their target in the fierce scent of his indomitable spirit.

The yelp was lyrical. The dance? Well, it was no waltz.

She looked up from her menu to see large, saucer eyes of her office mates. And claws.

Noel looked left at the spiny giant she'd left as a present in girl-name's shirt and then past the warrior crustacean to the kid. "I guess this makes us ev--" She didn't even want to know what liquid a lobster could be expelling from it's body, especially since most of it went right onto her upper lip and bounced directly into her open mouth.

It started in her chest, but probably showed first in the way her whit knuckles were crumpling the menu. Anger. Boiling rage simmered down into a cold, hard stone. It clinched her stomach and bored out of her eyes down into the depths of girl-name's lobster wielding soul.

The first blow? Whatever leaked into her mouth came back out, directed toward girl-name. The second blow? A knee felt appropriate right about now.

There was no good way to launch one's self out of a seated position in a booth. The table tipped the wrong way, the courtesy mood-lighting candle plopped into Gill's lap. (D'oh! Mortimer. Nobody called the water-breather Gill to his face.) There was shrieking from the far side of the table.

Calley didn't know what the lobster was spitting/shooting/catastrophically oozing, but once it started, he aimed it. A two-foot lobster was not much different than a super soaker. It just waved its righteous claws more. Calley had a gleeful flashback to muggy Jersey summers and proper neighborhood water brawls.

Then he had lobster juices and girl spit burning his eyes, and he was graciously catching a launched lady knee, in a manly fashion. Someone smelled like they were on fire. Calley was in pain.

"You, madam," he spoke through his teeth, as he struggled to disentangle himself from any remaining arms or knee caps, "are a b*tch."

Calley did the unwise thing. He drew back his fist, and tried to return the favor from last time.

The lobster raised its claws from the carpeting, triumphant in the ensuing chaos.

She took her compliment in stride. Front desk girl was throwing water on Gill (and subsequently, Noel's leg). Ice water from the pitcher was enough to draw her attention. She turned back toward girl-name in time to notice that he was not very successfully pinned. Lobsters ran free across the carpet.

Noel lunged forward to grab at that lobster... right about the same time a boy fist with a girl name mades its way forward.

Her vision prickled in from red. The lights of Red Lobster had never seemed bright before, but they no longer felt ambient. Her cheek felt hot and smashed. Her brain was fuzzy on the exact details. Something wriggled under her hand.

A sweep of her forearm. She aimed toward girl-name's neck. She wanted to pin him. She wanted to look him in the eyes. The escaping lobster was grabbed up. If she had her way, the rubber bands were coming off.

He hit her. His fist connected with her face. Her head went back. He hit her.

It felt good.

Then they both went down again. Ladies on top. Like many things in Calley's life, this could have been more sexy than it was. His flailing may or may not have gotten a knee into her stomach before there was an arm pressed against his throat. His adam's apple wibbled. Eye contact was not made, though. And she may or may not have had time to unsheathe the lobster.

Eye contact was not made because Calley's face was suddenly covered in cat. Sinatra, the large ginger tom, did not look pleased.

Then it was not looking pleased in the direction of her scalp.

The legs were sacrificed in favor of the head. Her stomach regretted the decision. Her lungs did too a bit, but she wanted to see him. She wanted to... not have her eyes clawed out by a cat.

She backed her pinning weight away. Where had the cat come from? Cat summoner? Too late now. The lobster bands were off and he was already on his way.

Lobster, meet cat. With force. Move cat, move.

She was sitting on girl-name now, her hold gone in favor of getting more force. The Lobster was deposited with the first blow. She pulled her fist back intending for a KO.

Master Sinatra's mighty pounce collided with punched lobster mid-air. They tumbled to the side, in a fierce battle of fur, claws, and exoskeletons.

This was entirely disorienting for the boy on the ground. He tried to get up an arm to block the incoming fist, but it was like watching the replay of a fight in slow mo. He'd seen this before. The outcome was already certain.

His nose made a noise it shouldn't as her fist came down from on high. The spitting cat next to them wobbled suddenly to its side. The lobster proceeded to prove to its whiskers and ear who was prettier.

Calley's vision faded to unsexy black.

A classic one, two and he was a limp bundle of girl-name. At the same time, the cat was occupied. Her knuckles were sore but it was worth it. This one was definitely trouble.

Still sitting astride the kid, Noel leaned down to her ankle pouch and unzipped it. The map sprang out, too scrunched from the way she'd shoved it in last time. That wasn't really what she wanted anyway. Beneath the key mold and the stubby pencil was a subdermal tracker and a manual lancet.

She hopped off, shoved the kid over and peeled the medically sealed subdermal tracker.

A nervous laugh made Noel glance over her shoulder. Front desk girl was wiping her upper brow.

"And they said I'd never get to see active duty action."

Lancet loaded, Noel positioned the subdermal tracker at the base of the neck off to one side. Between the shoulder blades was better, but she wasn't about to strip him.

Too bad the cat couldn't be tagged also. Noel only had one emergency kit.

"So you-you just leave him?"

"It's like field biology. Catch and release." He caught her right hook, she'd release the bill to him.

"I think i've lost my appetite."

Before or after you realized you were a borderline cannibal? Is what noel wanted to ask Gill, but she let him be. Rolled girl-name over. Paid for the lobster in cash and left the rest for him to clean up. Were her knuckles bleeding? Hmm.

"How about Thai food instead?"

((ooc: Continued for Calley in The Loser's Corner.

Continued for Noel somewhere. She forgot.))