PI LOG: The Game of Reclamation -- Kyrie, Rogue, and Remy-As-GM
Peace, even seemingly bought, can never last long. From New Orleans comes a force wanting back what is hers, and she leaves a splodygirl and an angry Mississippi mudflower to discover the evidence of her passage.
Remy's Apartment -- Greenwood Properties
Being a lazy git appears to agree with the splodygirl - the tanned girl leaping up the steps towards Remy's apartment bears little resemblance to the grumpy, slow-moving girl who had left it. Rest, relaxation, and a diet rich in lots of the things that halp make joints and bones strong and supple has worked wonders on her. Her hair is tied back , spilling past her shoulders in a thick mass of ringlets, her skin is a deep, even tan - and she's grinning like a kid as she skids to a stop outside the Cajun's door, pounding on it with one fist. "A'ight, LeBeau - get yer lazy ass outta bed! I ain't standin' out here all day!"
From the sounds--that is, the relative silence--within the apartment, there's not a single Cajun in there interested in getting his lazy ass out of bed. No response from Remy; not a groan or a mutter or the should-have-been-most-likely goodnatured string of Cajun profanity. Just the apartment, and after a few moments the sound of Jolie whining lazily.
Kyrie waits a few minutes longer, her grin slowly fading - not into concern just yet, but into a resigned 'Suppose I should have known' look. Tossing her rucksack to the ground, she starts digging through pockets - looking for keys she hasn't needed in a long, long time. With any luck, the Cajun hasn't changed his locks since she was a resident. "Hang on pup - don't piss on the floor, or he'll find a way to blame it on me." she mutters at the door, still mostly good-naturedly.
Remy hasn't changed the locks. Most people who would want to break into his home wouldn't be dissuaded by the lack of a key anyway, so the idea is a bit moot. The sound of Kyrie's voice a second time sets Jolie to barking; it's a much throatier sound, now, as she's almost completely full grown.
The apartment is exactly the way Kyrie left it, except in the way that it isn't at all. Remy has never been a neat freak, but he's always been more neat than this--almost everything is scattered over the floor, his comics in disarray under the bookcase and over the ground, his poor fern finally past repair as it lays, half-eaten by the dog and in a shattered pot in the kitchen doorway. It looks like hell ripped through the place on whirlwind wings. Jolie tries to jump up onto Kyrie the moment she walks in the door, eager for a friendly face and possibly hands that might *feed* her. Remy's bedroom door is closed, but there's something fastened to it that's hard to make out from the front door.
The door swings itself shut behind Ky as she comes to a stop just inside - the humor slowly draining out of her face. Absently, she picks up the pup, ignoring the sloppy face-licking and the excited yaps - all the while turning slowly in place. A more familiar look is settling in on Kyrie's face the longer she looks - a chilly, emotionless mask that hides the worry beneath it effectively. Alright - first order or business - feed the pup. That way she's out of the way. She'll worry about the mess later - even though it offends her sensibilities on a near primitive level. Ky puts Jolie down - and is heading for the kitchen and the dog food when she catches a look at the door to Remy's bedroom. "Right then," she mutters under her breath. "Feed the dog - check the door. Get ahold of Rogue."
There are scratches on the kitchen counter where Jolie tried to get to her food but found she couldn't quite reach--the bag of food is set back from the edge of the counter probably for that very reason, along with a big stainless steel bowl that has 'Jolie' etched in one side, and a little schedule written on paper. It's even the same piece of paper that was there before. It's clear, however, that at least one meal has been missed, perhaps even more, despite the little note written on the bottom of the schedule from Kurt to Remy. Once the food has been set down, Jolie will transfer her attention to it entirely...which leaves Kyrie free to examine the door.
What is pinned to it is pinned by a slender dagger; the splodygirl will likely know it is well weighted for throwing. It is also clean, no blood or any other sort of stains on it. It holds up both a note that reads, simply, 'game, set, match.' and a necklace. The chain is still fastened in one place, and broken in another, and the smooth black stone has been abused enough to string hairline fractures through its surface, but the long silver-dipped feather is immaculate.
The note is glanced at and then ignored - it will do Ky little good to examine what she cannot read. The dagger gets a bit more scrutiny, as does the necklace and the feather. Frowning at both, Ky walks back out to the living room, digging her phone out of her rucksack. She'd had all of these numbers stored in her phone so she wouldn't have to try and memorize them - it hadn't occured to her that she'd be making calls like these. Not at the time. Shoving stuff on the couch until she makes a clean spot, Kyrie settles in the corner, note, necklace and knife balanced on one knee as the phone dials out Rogue's number. With the phone tucked up between ear and shoulder, it leaves her hands free to dig through the rucksack for her weapons - and they're checked, one after another. Loaded? Yup. Loaded? Yup. Loaded? Nope - okay, get the bullets - there.
Rogue picks up after a couple of rings, with an easy, pleasant, "Yo."
"Rogue?" There's a beat. Ky is trying to formulate a question, but it takes her a moment to rearrange her words so that they make sense. "It's Ky. I'm at Remy's - you seen him lately?"
"Huh?" It takes Rogue a moment to parse the question. "Nah, not since we got back from New Orleans a couple days back. What's up, sugah?"
"Wish you could tell me." Ky's voice has gone from being surprised back to being tight and worried. "Doesn't look like *he's* made it back to his place, is all. The apartment is trashed, Jolie was acting like she's been starved - and I found some stuff pinned t'his door with a dagger that's too damned nice to belong to somebody that doesn't know how to use one. I can't read the note. Maybe you better get your ass over here."
"*Shit!*" That definitely got a reaction from Rogue. "Ah'm on my way." And then comes the loud clatter of the phone being slapped down into its cradle, and the line goes dead.
Turning her own phone off, Kyrie leans forward to set the items collected from Remy's door onto the coffeetable, before going back to her weapons check. It had been habit that had her packing these for what was supposed to be a pleasant reunion - maybe a barbecue, maybe a barhop - before she got back onto the Kate and sailed out again. Now it's starting to look like she might need them - and Kate might need to sit in the harbor a little longer than planned.
Rogue doesn't quite create a sonic boom as she streaks her way across the skies over the city - but maybe she pushes it a little. It's only a matter of minutes before she drops down into a landing on the fire escape and yanks open the window to climb in. "Kyrie, s'me!"
Lowering her gun, Kyrie sets it on her knees - she's stripped back down to her tank top - a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt tossed carelessly onto the back of the couch. Strapping herself into her holsters, she nods towards the coffeetable. "Note is there. Hopefully it'll mean more to you than to me."
Rogue doesn't waste any time snatching up the note. She scans the words written on it, then tosses it aside, scowling darkly. "Maybe." Her voice is tight. "What about th'dagger?"
Kyrie pauses in strapping on her belly band, leaning over to pick the knife up. "Balanced for throwing," she explains. "And it ain't cheap - now you *might* get a knife balanced this good by accident, but - look.. this is professional grade metal. I'm not spotting any marks on it - if they're there - they're something I wouldn't recognize. A knife of this quality isn't bought by an amateur - the people who sell these wouldn't even bother hauling them out to *show* an amateur. And the people who own these kind of knives don't leave them lying around on a whim. They were makin' a point. Question is - what kinda point - and who? I was hopin' you might have an idea."
The moment Rogue gets a look at the dagger, her face goes hard and very cold. "Oh, yeah," she says grimly. "Ah got a clue. That *bitch.*" Lips curling into a snarl, she turns sharply away to lash out with a fist and leave a hole punched in the drywall of the nearest wall. "That crazy-ass Cajun *gutter rat!*"
Kyrie watches Rogue silently, giving the woman a minute to get herself back under control before she speaks. "Well then," she says slowly. "I'm going to assume you know where you can find the gutter rat." The knife is slid home into a sheath strapped to Kyrie's thigh - taking the place of one of her own blades. "This is too good a knife to be lost. I think it's time we return it to its rightful owner - don't you?"
"You keep it," Rogue snaps. "I'ma break her neck with my own two hands." Her breath hisses through her teeth in frustration, and she turns back to face Kyrie. "She mighta tried t'get him back t'New Orleans. Ah ain't sure. Th'girl's an assassin, Kyrie - one of 'em outta th'guild in New Orleans. Her name's Belladonna."
Kyrie's breath hisses in between her teeth. She's been around - and in the right kind of circles - long enough to know about New Orlean's guild - even if she doesn't know Belladonna by name. "That so." She says slowly, before she lifts dark eyes up to Rogue's face, considering and assessing. "That changes a few things, Rogue." Ky isn't leaving room for argument - but at the moment, she's hoping Rogue is too pissed to give her one. "This isn't a job for pansy-ass hero crap. Those people are going to be looking to kill anybody that gets in their way. You want to snap her god-damned neck yourself - I'll leave her to you - but the rest of it, we do *my* way. We take 'em down hard, we don't try and save lives - and we get the *damned* job done."
"Last Ah checked," Rogue answers after a brief silence, "they ain't got shit that'll do shit t'me. An' right now, th'only thing Ah give a damn about is gettin' Remy outta her hands." That, one supposes, could count as an agreement.
Kyrie will take it as such - she hasn't much choice, after all. "That being the case - we need t'stop by the Kate. I got a few things I'm gonna need to pick up before we head out."
"Fine," Rogue says crisply. "But Ah wish Ah knew how long it's been since she grabbed him. Ah *think* she'd head back t'home turf, but Ah don't know where t'start lookin'."
"Well.." Kyrie leaves her rucksack where it sits - she's got everything out of it she needs. Once they get to Kate, she'll load up on explosives, and sling the case with her sniper rifle over one shoulder. Just in case. "I don't know nobody *in* N'Orleans - but I know some people what know some people. I'll start the network humming, see what dirt I can dig up on where these people go to ground."
Rogue nods and turns away towards the window. "You do that, honey. I'm gonna do a little checkin' 'round town while you gear up - how 'bout we meet back here when we're both set?"
"Sounds good to me. Meet you here." It doesn't take Ky long to outfit herself as she needs to - or as close as she's able to come to that, with the time she has. She makes it back to the apartment a little ahead of Rogue, and spends the time she's got going through things a little more thoroughly - looking for anything that might give her a clue as to which way to go. Now and again her phone rings - one of her contacts checking in with her - and with each call, Ky's voice grows a bit shorter, and her face goes grimmer. Things are not looking good.
Finis!
Remy's Apartment -- Greenwood Properties
Being a lazy git appears to agree with the splodygirl - the tanned girl leaping up the steps towards Remy's apartment bears little resemblance to the grumpy, slow-moving girl who had left it. Rest, relaxation, and a diet rich in lots of the things that halp make joints and bones strong and supple has worked wonders on her. Her hair is tied back , spilling past her shoulders in a thick mass of ringlets, her skin is a deep, even tan - and she's grinning like a kid as she skids to a stop outside the Cajun's door, pounding on it with one fist. "A'ight, LeBeau - get yer lazy ass outta bed! I ain't standin' out here all day!"
From the sounds--that is, the relative silence--within the apartment, there's not a single Cajun in there interested in getting his lazy ass out of bed. No response from Remy; not a groan or a mutter or the should-have-been-most-likely goodnatured string of Cajun profanity. Just the apartment, and after a few moments the sound of Jolie whining lazily.
Kyrie waits a few minutes longer, her grin slowly fading - not into concern just yet, but into a resigned 'Suppose I should have known' look. Tossing her rucksack to the ground, she starts digging through pockets - looking for keys she hasn't needed in a long, long time. With any luck, the Cajun hasn't changed his locks since she was a resident. "Hang on pup - don't piss on the floor, or he'll find a way to blame it on me." she mutters at the door, still mostly good-naturedly.
Remy hasn't changed the locks. Most people who would want to break into his home wouldn't be dissuaded by the lack of a key anyway, so the idea is a bit moot. The sound of Kyrie's voice a second time sets Jolie to barking; it's a much throatier sound, now, as she's almost completely full grown.
The apartment is exactly the way Kyrie left it, except in the way that it isn't at all. Remy has never been a neat freak, but he's always been more neat than this--almost everything is scattered over the floor, his comics in disarray under the bookcase and over the ground, his poor fern finally past repair as it lays, half-eaten by the dog and in a shattered pot in the kitchen doorway. It looks like hell ripped through the place on whirlwind wings. Jolie tries to jump up onto Kyrie the moment she walks in the door, eager for a friendly face and possibly hands that might *feed* her. Remy's bedroom door is closed, but there's something fastened to it that's hard to make out from the front door.
The door swings itself shut behind Ky as she comes to a stop just inside - the humor slowly draining out of her face. Absently, she picks up the pup, ignoring the sloppy face-licking and the excited yaps - all the while turning slowly in place. A more familiar look is settling in on Kyrie's face the longer she looks - a chilly, emotionless mask that hides the worry beneath it effectively. Alright - first order or business - feed the pup. That way she's out of the way. She'll worry about the mess later - even though it offends her sensibilities on a near primitive level. Ky puts Jolie down - and is heading for the kitchen and the dog food when she catches a look at the door to Remy's bedroom. "Right then," she mutters under her breath. "Feed the dog - check the door. Get ahold of Rogue."
There are scratches on the kitchen counter where Jolie tried to get to her food but found she couldn't quite reach--the bag of food is set back from the edge of the counter probably for that very reason, along with a big stainless steel bowl that has 'Jolie' etched in one side, and a little schedule written on paper. It's even the same piece of paper that was there before. It's clear, however, that at least one meal has been missed, perhaps even more, despite the little note written on the bottom of the schedule from Kurt to Remy. Once the food has been set down, Jolie will transfer her attention to it entirely...which leaves Kyrie free to examine the door.
What is pinned to it is pinned by a slender dagger; the splodygirl will likely know it is well weighted for throwing. It is also clean, no blood or any other sort of stains on it. It holds up both a note that reads, simply, 'game, set, match.' and a necklace. The chain is still fastened in one place, and broken in another, and the smooth black stone has been abused enough to string hairline fractures through its surface, but the long silver-dipped feather is immaculate.
The note is glanced at and then ignored - it will do Ky little good to examine what she cannot read. The dagger gets a bit more scrutiny, as does the necklace and the feather. Frowning at both, Ky walks back out to the living room, digging her phone out of her rucksack. She'd had all of these numbers stored in her phone so she wouldn't have to try and memorize them - it hadn't occured to her that she'd be making calls like these. Not at the time. Shoving stuff on the couch until she makes a clean spot, Kyrie settles in the corner, note, necklace and knife balanced on one knee as the phone dials out Rogue's number. With the phone tucked up between ear and shoulder, it leaves her hands free to dig through the rucksack for her weapons - and they're checked, one after another. Loaded? Yup. Loaded? Yup. Loaded? Nope - okay, get the bullets - there.
Rogue picks up after a couple of rings, with an easy, pleasant, "Yo."
"Rogue?" There's a beat. Ky is trying to formulate a question, but it takes her a moment to rearrange her words so that they make sense. "It's Ky. I'm at Remy's - you seen him lately?"
"Huh?" It takes Rogue a moment to parse the question. "Nah, not since we got back from New Orleans a couple days back. What's up, sugah?"
"Wish you could tell me." Ky's voice has gone from being surprised back to being tight and worried. "Doesn't look like *he's* made it back to his place, is all. The apartment is trashed, Jolie was acting like she's been starved - and I found some stuff pinned t'his door with a dagger that's too damned nice to belong to somebody that doesn't know how to use one. I can't read the note. Maybe you better get your ass over here."
"*Shit!*" That definitely got a reaction from Rogue. "Ah'm on my way." And then comes the loud clatter of the phone being slapped down into its cradle, and the line goes dead.
Turning her own phone off, Kyrie leans forward to set the items collected from Remy's door onto the coffeetable, before going back to her weapons check. It had been habit that had her packing these for what was supposed to be a pleasant reunion - maybe a barbecue, maybe a barhop - before she got back onto the Kate and sailed out again. Now it's starting to look like she might need them - and Kate might need to sit in the harbor a little longer than planned.
Rogue doesn't quite create a sonic boom as she streaks her way across the skies over the city - but maybe she pushes it a little. It's only a matter of minutes before she drops down into a landing on the fire escape and yanks open the window to climb in. "Kyrie, s'me!"
Lowering her gun, Kyrie sets it on her knees - she's stripped back down to her tank top - a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt tossed carelessly onto the back of the couch. Strapping herself into her holsters, she nods towards the coffeetable. "Note is there. Hopefully it'll mean more to you than to me."
Rogue doesn't waste any time snatching up the note. She scans the words written on it, then tosses it aside, scowling darkly. "Maybe." Her voice is tight. "What about th'dagger?"
Kyrie pauses in strapping on her belly band, leaning over to pick the knife up. "Balanced for throwing," she explains. "And it ain't cheap - now you *might* get a knife balanced this good by accident, but - look.. this is professional grade metal. I'm not spotting any marks on it - if they're there - they're something I wouldn't recognize. A knife of this quality isn't bought by an amateur - the people who sell these wouldn't even bother hauling them out to *show* an amateur. And the people who own these kind of knives don't leave them lying around on a whim. They were makin' a point. Question is - what kinda point - and who? I was hopin' you might have an idea."
The moment Rogue gets a look at the dagger, her face goes hard and very cold. "Oh, yeah," she says grimly. "Ah got a clue. That *bitch.*" Lips curling into a snarl, she turns sharply away to lash out with a fist and leave a hole punched in the drywall of the nearest wall. "That crazy-ass Cajun *gutter rat!*"
Kyrie watches Rogue silently, giving the woman a minute to get herself back under control before she speaks. "Well then," she says slowly. "I'm going to assume you know where you can find the gutter rat." The knife is slid home into a sheath strapped to Kyrie's thigh - taking the place of one of her own blades. "This is too good a knife to be lost. I think it's time we return it to its rightful owner - don't you?"
"You keep it," Rogue snaps. "I'ma break her neck with my own two hands." Her breath hisses through her teeth in frustration, and she turns back to face Kyrie. "She mighta tried t'get him back t'New Orleans. Ah ain't sure. Th'girl's an assassin, Kyrie - one of 'em outta th'guild in New Orleans. Her name's Belladonna."
Kyrie's breath hisses in between her teeth. She's been around - and in the right kind of circles - long enough to know about New Orlean's guild - even if she doesn't know Belladonna by name. "That so." She says slowly, before she lifts dark eyes up to Rogue's face, considering and assessing. "That changes a few things, Rogue." Ky isn't leaving room for argument - but at the moment, she's hoping Rogue is too pissed to give her one. "This isn't a job for pansy-ass hero crap. Those people are going to be looking to kill anybody that gets in their way. You want to snap her god-damned neck yourself - I'll leave her to you - but the rest of it, we do *my* way. We take 'em down hard, we don't try and save lives - and we get the *damned* job done."
"Last Ah checked," Rogue answers after a brief silence, "they ain't got shit that'll do shit t'me. An' right now, th'only thing Ah give a damn about is gettin' Remy outta her hands." That, one supposes, could count as an agreement.
Kyrie will take it as such - she hasn't much choice, after all. "That being the case - we need t'stop by the Kate. I got a few things I'm gonna need to pick up before we head out."
"Fine," Rogue says crisply. "But Ah wish Ah knew how long it's been since she grabbed him. Ah *think* she'd head back t'home turf, but Ah don't know where t'start lookin'."
"Well.." Kyrie leaves her rucksack where it sits - she's got everything out of it she needs. Once they get to Kate, she'll load up on explosives, and sling the case with her sniper rifle over one shoulder. Just in case. "I don't know nobody *in* N'Orleans - but I know some people what know some people. I'll start the network humming, see what dirt I can dig up on where these people go to ground."
Rogue nods and turns away towards the window. "You do that, honey. I'm gonna do a little checkin' 'round town while you gear up - how 'bout we meet back here when we're both set?"
"Sounds good to me. Meet you here." It doesn't take Ky long to outfit herself as she needs to - or as close as she's able to come to that, with the time she has. She makes it back to the apartment a little ahead of Rogue, and spends the time she's got going through things a little more thoroughly - looking for anything that might give her a clue as to which way to go. Now and again her phone rings - one of her contacts checking in with her - and with each call, Ky's voice grows a bit shorter, and her face goes grimmer. Things are not looking good.
Finis!