[center][img]http://boweryboyshistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Xavier-s_School_for_Gifted_Youngsters_01.jpg[/img][h3]|  T H E   U N C A N N Y   X - M E N  |[/h3][/center][hr]
District X, Manhattan
21st March 2005, 12:05AM

[i]District X. Freak Central. Mutant Town, USA. Urban and moral decay at its finest, this rookery, deep in the midst of Alphabet City is a stagnant reminder of the all the opportunities available to Mutantkind. It's a wonderful fucking world we live in. Zion, this is not. Hand in hand with mutant poverty has to come mutant crime. Crime speaks a different language here. Not one of rage or complacency, not greed but desperation and necessity. It thrives and mutates, like a culture on a Petri dish, altogether as unpleasant, if not quite as sticky. And still it thrives, to the dismay of many human individuals.

I protect this city. I feel its life-force ebb and flow with mine. Still... 

Sometimes I wonder why I stay.[/i]

[b]"For chrissake... Spare me the theatrics alright, kid? Did you get my sandwich?"[/b] The voice questioned.

[color=a2d39c][b]"Just trying to lighten the mood Sir..."[/b][/color] The subordinate sighs as he looks into the car, window open. Groaning and leaning in, he hands the officer in charge his meal, wrapped half-heartedly in a paper bag, the faded lights of a faded city lighting his back. Circling around to the other side, he lets himself in, lingering for a moment. 

[b]"The door?"[/b] The boy's superior questions, meal on the dashboard, leaning to see.

[color=a2d39c][b]"Right."[/b][/color] He replies absent-mindedly, looking back on his partner of sorts. [color=a2d39c][b]"Police work at it's finest, Delaney"[/b][/color] he chimes, beaming as the other begins to tear away the outer packaging. He tucks in, immediately having to wipe his moustache with his shirt sleeve. [i]Stakeouts were messy work[/i], Keller, the younger, might have added, were he not so fixated on the pig-out. Though at least this particular pig came dressed for the occasion. His suit, beige and disheveled, was worn in a way that almost betrayed its station. Form fitting, yet loose hanging at the same time, it gave thoroughly the impression that this suit was not his first choice of attire, and perhaps he was not its first owner. He wondered if a part of him yearned for his days in uniform, a sentiment not shared at all. Alas, there he was, moving to his blazer pocket for a small sachet of ketchup. The brute nudges aside his badge, finding such an item, before tearing its seal and applying it. As he devoured his pseudo-bovine meat patty, wedged between pillars of grease and meal, his 'partner' looked on in continued bemusement, if not outright disgust.

[color=a2d39c][b]"Care to look over the information now?"[/b][/color] The younger asks, inexperience dripping from his tongue like so much arsenic on his counterpart's ears.

[b]"I checked it over while you were gone... What do you take me for, an idiot?"[/b] The lack of humor in his voice causes mild alarm but flows regardless.

[color=a2d39c][b]"Ignore me, sir."[/b][/color] he pursues. Disposition non-withstanding, he respected the postion he had been afforded. He wasn't about to give this guy a reason to reassign him.

[b]"Right. Well, what do you make of it?"[/b] This question threw the inexperienced lad a little but he attempts to do the summary a justice.

[color=a2d39c][b]"Precinct were very specific. Three mutant targets, all female. All deceased. No immediate family. No obvious ties to each other. Each found bloodied and gored meters away from their places of residence; each found by a neighbour or passerby, all catching the murderer in the act. Each eyewitness testimony taken contradicts the other on nearly every account bar one pressing feature: a deformed, grey bastard, looming over the deceased, pecking at the corpses."[/b][/color] The younger takes a moment to breathe before finishing his summary. The briefest moment. To be savoured.

[b]"You understand what that means then?"[/b] He asks, hardened but solemn. His charge nods. [b]"...This mutie's eat you as soon as look at you, kid. I hope you underst--"[/b] 

The Officer continues his address for a while before his eyes turn to the boy. 

[b]"Am I boring you?"[/b] He begins petulantly. He would carry on, were it not for the vacance of expression on Keller's face. He follows the boys eye-line with his own, cautiously, slowly. His head turns, as if on a pivot, albeit one rusted and stiff as his person. Finally, he find himself staring down an adjacent alley way, and a large hooded figure hunched over. It took him a moment to realise what was going on.

He was looking over another. Tearing at them. Cleaving. They were witnessing a feast.

The two simultaneously, go for their respective door handles slowly, eyes front. They climb out, flashlights in hand and and paces steady as they close. The figure sharply turns, made aware of their presence as their beams meet his face. Unflinching, grey. Wide eyes. Bloodied mouth.

[b]"Stay right where you are."[/b] 

The figure grunts, raising himself to full height.

[b]"Put your hands on your head and face the wall."[/b]

Nothing. Stoic silence, punctuated by a sinister stench in the back alley. The two close a little distance.

[b]"Put your hands up and face the damn wall."[/b] He repeats, firmly.

The beast cocks his head a little, lowering his shoulders. Facing formward. He hunches once more, claw connecting with the cobbles deftly.

[b]"This is your last chance,[/b] He finishes, neutrally, before going to his weapon, eyes still front.

Without a second more, the beast charges forwards. He raises his claws to meet the resistance and growls. Connects with Officer with some force. Blood spurts out as The Hellhound raises his deformed head in anticipation. Delaney falls to his knees, all illusion to the contrary. He is very much deceased by the time his head makes a thud on the ground.

At that the beast leaps again, not taking a moment before scaling the wall of the nearest building. Keller aims but can't even muster the pull of a trigger. His eyes wide and watering, he stays still, the beast long gone. After a while he slumps to his knees before crawling to his fallen companion. He goes to his jacket, blood mixed with camel silk, finding the radio. 

[color=a2d39c][b]"Precinct. Come in. Come in..."[/b][/color]

His cries are drowned out by the city. It weeps.