[quote=@Byrd Man] "The fine people of the Law Offices of Fitzwaller, Fitzwaller, Fitzwaller, Fitzwaller, & York care about keeping their high-priced and scumbag clientele in mint condition. AS for the OPD, they like gang wars. The bad guys kill each other and they sort the facts out afterwards." DC thumbed through the files to see if he could catch anything. The victims all came from diverse backgrounds and specialties. Drug dealers. trigger men, pimps, smugglers. He thought about asking Jean for help. After all, she was supposed to be the psychic. He was just the talking, hyper-intelligent primate. Random chance was always a possibility. In this city, so much lead flew that it was bound to catch a few people who seemed connected. "Shit," DC said as something caught his eye. "I can't believe I missed it." He hopped up on to his desk and rifled through the stacks of papers to find what he wanted. "B&B Enterprises." He slapped six documents on the desk in front of him. "Same company bailed all six men out twenty-four hours before their deaths. It's a link." [/quote] "Funny thing about gang wars--all too often it's not the gangs doing the majority of the dying." It was an aside, motivated by the bitter resentment from an open, loving, hearted woman. Jean understood collatoral damage; after Scott's mistake during the Brotherhood fight, anyone who wore an "X" understood collatoral damage now. The X-Men were child killers, and President savers. Didn't it just sound like the status quo of PMCs and black ops teams? The X-Men were neither of those things. The X-Men would never, ever, become either of those things. But right now they were a young team with a long road of redemption to walk. If they stayed together, at all. At the sudden dropping of the "Shit" bomb, Jean's body moved off the desk and came to a full stand, turning to face the desk...and the talking chimp that suddenly jumped onto the desk. He was more than a talking chimp--spend five minutes with him and that was clear. Touch his mind, even in the slightest way, and it became even more incredibly clear he was more than just a talking chimp. There was intellect and cunning in there that Jean could respect, even admire...but none of that kept her lips from smiling. Or kept her right hand from sneaking into her jacket, and pulling out the overly encrypted smart phone. How does Jean not SnapChat a talking chimp jumping on his desk, and excitingly slapping down on papers in a classic "Ah ha!" moment? The short answer? She doesn't. She takes the quick video, and immediately allows SnapChat to have it. You know, for all the X-kids back at the Mansion wondering what Jean Grey was up to. Resisting the urge to step forward, take the chimp in her arms, and squeeze-hug him for being possibly the cutest thing she'd seen in months? Was difficult, but she resisted; too real was the fear of the Chimp smacking her around like a pile of papers on a desk. That, and she didn't want to make a spectacle out of him. She didn't want him to feel like she saw him like that. Which was funny, she didn't see him like that. All he had to do was look into her mind to see that. It could be hard for telepaths to do the careful dance of normal communication, playing to all those uncertainties and fears that telepaths could just breeze past because they knew better. Jean knew how she viewed the Chimp. And if he knew, really knew, she had a feeling he might even let her live if she grabbed and hugged him. But that was another day, and the Chimp was freaked out by her telepathy, not eager to see how it could change his life. So instead, her thumbs busied themselves by putting in the company name to Google Maps. "Heeey, looky there: the internet seemes to have an Opal City location for this B&B Enterprises." Green eyes illuminated in the glow of the phone's LEDs peeked over the top of the smartphone, across the desk of sudden mess to the chimp, and reflected the way the smile on her lips had slipped into a grin. "Care for a walk, my dear Detective?"