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Rupert felt a strong urge to pistol whip the girl. He'd seen bad cops doing that in movies and honestly, he'd always been a little tempted to try it. That 'Uncle Grizzly Bear' line was clearly an invitation. Somehow, he managed to contain himself. Somehow, he even managed to smile pleasantly, and chuckle. "Nickname," he said to Cassandra, like it needed explanation.

"I'd gathered," she answered levelly, poking her spoon into the cup of shave ice with an almost suspicious air. Eventually, she took a taste. "Not bad," she said, sounding slightly pleased. From anyone else, that would be roaring applause. She took another bite. Rupert idly wondered if she was planning to give his cup back at some point. He hadn't actually tried the stuff yet, himself. He'd been a little... preoccupied. Speaking of which. He turned to Oceanwolf, and smiled broadly. "So, how about looking for those shoes you wanted? I've still got forty-five minutes left of my break." He would like to get away from Cassandra, now. Please. Before she had any chance to get suspicious again.

Rupert didn't know what to say to that. Even his usual angry retorts were failing him. He was just glaring at her, scrabbling for something to shoot back, when the worst possible thing happened.

Detective Cassandra Elliot walked past. And noticed him--stopped--and turned towards them. She walked over with that half-raised eyebrow of hers that always meant she was going to say, "Good afternoon, Detective," in the driest tone physically possible for her. The raised eyebrow was for Oceanwolf. If it had just been Rupert, she would have gone with her poker face. Detective Cassandra Elliot: a bleeding-heart mutant lover who didn't appreciate being saddled with a zealot by Captain Myers. She was also the most professional cop he'd ever met. If she figured out who Oceanwolf was...

"Afternoon, Detective Elliot." Rupert greeted her smoothly, shoving his anger and frustration to the back of his mind. He sounded pleasant. It was probably the first time Oceanwolf would have heard him sounding pleasant. "This is my niece, Em. Em, say hi--this is my partner, Detective Cassandra Elliot." He was even smiling pleasantly. If Cassandra knew who Oceanwolf was, they'd have to try and arrest her. She was too dangerous to let escape.

...And Rupert had just tried to pass her off as his non-existent niece. Great.

Rupert was tentatively raising a hand towards her shoulder--he wasn't sure what he was going to do with it once it got there; but she looked too distressed for him to just stand there. He was still holding the shave ice in one hand, but it was forgotten. And so were any sympathies he might have had, as soon as the words 'flesh bags' left her mouth. He shook his head slowly, letting his rising disgust show in his eyes. "Don't give me that pity trip, Oceanwolf. You know who had feelings? Those people you killed." He kept his voice down--he wasn't trying to make a scene. But his tone was vehement. "And they had families. Friends. Children, some of them. You're right--you didn't do anything wrong. You're completely damn sparkly-clean, under all the blood."

"Thanks," he said, in response to her offer to pay for his order. He felt odd about it--usually, he was the one offering to pay for things. If she wasn't a mutant, he would have insisted on paying for them both, in fact. But this conversation was awkward enough without him trying to be chivalrous. "That's... too bad," Rupert tried to sound sympathetic. Frankly, if he was a racer, he'd rather not have muties on his track, either. Who knew when they were pulling powers to win. He didn't even touch the topic of the Registration Bill--he knew where she'd stand on that, and she'd have to be brain dead to have missed his stance on the issue. "Is there any kind of mutant-only race circuit for you to--wait, what?" He took his shave ice from the counter, and held it like an idiot. "What was that last bit?" He really, really hoped he'd heard her wrong. He remembered her older sister. Sapphire. He'd been strongly hoping that Sapphire did not remember him.

((ooc: Ah! Thank you for telling me! I think it's time I re-read your profile again. )

Rupert was just about to begin ranting--he was even drawing in a breath for it--when the offer for the shave ice came. He let out the breath. And then he laughed--a surprisingly bright noise. He'd thought it once, and he'd keep on thinking it: talking to Oceanwolf was far better than talking to his therapist. "Sure." He replied. "Why not." He even left of 'the Hell' from the middle of that sentence--really, he was in a much better mood than the first time he'd spoken with the girl. "What flavor is it?" He took a step towards the shave ice cart, and grabbed an extra spoon from the counter.

When Detective Cassandra Elliot pushed open the door into the office she shared, quite unfortunately, with her partner, she was not expecting to see a large yellow post-it note stuck to the screen of her computer. The bottle of rum was a bit strange, as well. She calmly set her black handbag down under her desk, and peeled the sticky note off. The bottle of rum was largely forgotten until Detective—how he made the promotion, she would never know—Rupert Kelley came in, and said something worthy of suspicion:

“Rum? Are you going through my desk now?”

She looked up from the note as she waited for Firefox to boot up. It was Firefox: that wouldn’t take long. “Detective,” she answered levelly, “have you discussed this problem with your therapist?”

“...Is that Fusion Corp’s website? You need a password to get anywhere at that place.”

In the few months since she’d been saddled with him, a sad fact had emerged: Detective Kelley was terrible at changing subjects. Cassandra was looking at the computer screen now, the yellow post-it note stuck to her flat panel’s black frame as she typed from it onto the login box. Her eyes never went to her hands as they flicked across the keys.

“Woah!” In an abrupt dash, she suddenly had one warm and unwanted male hand on her shoulder, and another on the desk next to her keyboard. “You’re in! How did you—” She could actually feel the moment when his skills of observation caught up with the stationary post-it note on her screen. He stiffened. “Was that with the bottle?”

“Yes,” Cassandra answered simply. Fusion Corp’s files opened up before her in a cascade of options. She’d been trying to request the password to this site ever since Fusionist’s death—the FBI had been sitting on their hands, though. They had the place cracked. They simply didn’t wish to give her access. She couldn’t help but think that if a pet zealot like Rupert had requested the information, it would have been delivered in a hand basket, with complementary fruit.

She could settle for a post-it note and rum, as long as it got results.

The laboratory footage section proved to be very enlightening. Cassandra downloaded the files and set them to play in succession, as she took out a large notepad and began to scribble odd notes. Half-way through the first video, Detective Kelley had the good grace to finally remove his hands back into his own personal space. “What the hell is this?”

“I believe,” Cassandra said, flipping the pen over her fingers like a baton, “it’s something between an experiment and a torture session.” She tapped at the screen with the pen’s end. “That’s the youngest sister—Ruby Lupin, wasn’t it? And that,” another tap, another part of the screen, “would be Fusionist. It looks like they’re trying to get her to produce her electrici—”

“I know what they’re doing, Detective Elliot. Thanks.”

“Then don’t ask,” Cassandra stated simply, as the next video began playing. Again, a strange mixture of torture and science—this time focused on Rupert’s pet project, Emerald Lupin. The next video brought in the eldest sister, Sapphire Lupin. Others showed group sessions, where one sister’s pain was played off of the others, to make them complete tasks. There were mutants beside the sisters, as well—some of them she recognized from past investigations, others were just faces without names to her. Detective Kelley, blissfully, kept both his commentary and his hands to himself. When she felt she’d learned all there was to learn, without thorough study, from the videos, she went back to the main navigation for the site. Her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. “Look at this—this collar.” It had its own video; it floated in a tub of chemicals. The lab reports for its testing gave the image meaning. The collar was ringed with inward-facing spikes. Even with a casual glance at the write-ups for its usage, it was... quite significant to the Lupin sister’s cases. Those spikes packed a chemical cocktail that—she searched again for the line—made “the wearer go mad in animalistic furry”. It was quite possibly a reason for the D.A. to drop the old murder charges that Emerald had racked up. Then again, in light of her recent involvement at King Pharmaceuticals, the D.A. might not be feeling so generous. Cassandra would try contacting their office... but she didn’t think she’d necessarily have much luck. Like her request for the password to Fusion Corp’s archives, any suggestion of leniency from her was more than likely to fall on deaf ears.

“Do you think we should contact the D.A.?” Rupert asked. “That looked like a reason to drop the murder charges against them, if I’ve ever seen one.” Those precise words actually left his mouth. Cassandra swiveled her chair, silently, to look at him.

“Yes,” she finally answered. “Would you like to make the call?”

“I’ll get on it,” he said. He actually said that. And he walked over, and picked up his phone.

Cassandra was left sitting in her chair, watching his back as he dialed. The bottle of rum was at her elbow. All of the sudden, it was... tempting.

((ooc: Continued from “Letting Off Some Steam”.))

“I didn’t know you had siblings, Detective.” Cassandra Elliot stated. It was a simple enough statement. It was accented rather strongly by the picture of Oceanwolf, aka Emerald Lupin, aka his niece Em, that she casually dropped on top of his desk. It hung in the air for a moment, swaying gently down to rest like a dead leaf in front of Rupert’s hands.

Rupert didn’t bother to look at it. Instead, he asked: “What did you make of her?”

Cassandra’s eyes narrowed, the slightest bit. “She’s a wanted criminal.”

“Criminal,” Rupert repeated. “I love how you say that. ‘Criminal’. She’s a wanted mutant.”

Cassandra’s eyes narrowed, considerably more. “I’m not getting into that with you, Detective.” Her emphasis on ‘you’ was so delicate, he would have missed it if he wasn’t looking for it. “What was that, back there? You didn’t try to arrest her. You didn’t call for backup. You didn’t try to tail her—or get anyone else to tail her—to a less crowded location. You covered for her, Rupert. For a wanted criminal.”

“A wanted mutant criminal,” Rupert corrected again. He didn’t know why it made such a difference to him, all of the sudden. But that’s how everyone at the station talked: there were criminals, and there were mutant criminals. It was a damn important distinction to make. He just couldn’t remember why, at the moment. “I covered for a wanted mutant criminal,” he said slowly, lingering over the words, as if trying to taste their meaning. “A wanted mutant criminal.”

Cassandra’s eyes returned to normal, but her eyebrows came down the slightest bit. “Yes, you did. Why?”

“...How old do you suppose she was, when she committed all those murders?” If a human kid had been kidnapped, tortured... if they killed... how would we be handling this? “Never mind.” Rupert said, standing abruptly. “I’m going to go get some coffee from downstairs. Want a cup? No? Too bad.” He was out the door fast—at that speed, it wouldn’t be long until the scar through his lung had him wheezing against a wall somewhere.

Cassandra watched him go, her eyebrows lowering considerably more. Her fingers drummed the picture of Emerald on the desk. She looked down at it, an unreadable gaze on her face. “She’s seventeen now, so... pretty young.” She finally answered.

She’d report this to Captain Myers, of course. It was the only way a cop with sympathies towards mutants could survive on the force: by being perfect. But Rupert... she looked out the door that he’d left open in his wake. It could be something. Then again, it wasn’t unheard of for a zealot to get better before he got worse.