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Summary: Jill's brilliant plan to get back her stolen phone comes to fruition, with several minor complications. Very minor. Hardly worth talking about. Jill does not lose her temper again and go a bit crazy.
Date: January 11, 2012
Log Title: The Recovery
Rating: PG-13
Forest Hills High School - Queens
The halls of Forest Hills High are a throng of teenagers going to and from their classrooms, but one blonde girl doesn't seem to have anywhere to go. In truth, the hard part was getting inside without being noticed. Thankfully, a partially open window to the girls' bathroom proved an excellent entrance for a fluid mutant, bypassing nosey school security entirely. Jill loiters in the hallway, keeping an eye on the row of lockers that includes number 1743. She could have come later and simply unlocked it with the combination the boy had given her, but she has a different plan in mind. A pair of cheap reading glasses with the lenses poked out helps her impromptu disguise, a knit grey cap with ear flaps and red pom-poms pulled down as low as possible over her hologrammatic blonde hair. Nobody seems to pay her any attention, intent on their own business.
Finding himself in his previous high school for the first time in over six months Kai is feeling rather uncomfortable, not because he shouldn't be there but because of memories of this place, still he agreed to return the girl's phone. Dressed in a pair of jeans, blue converse all stars and an ice blue hoodie Kai heads down the corridor towards the locker with the phone which from the outside shows little sign of interference, not spotting Jill in the crowd of other students he starts opening the locker.
Jill's careful vigil finally pays off. She can't be 100% sure, but it definitely looks like the boy she ran into on the streets on Monday. Pushing away from her spot against the wall, she weaves through the flow of foot traffic. When she spots the number of the locker he's fiddling with, though, the girl swallows hard and waves a hand over her head to someone further down the hall, two fingers raised then crooking in Kai's direction. It's almost like she knows what she's doing, coming with backup. "Nathaniel?" she asks in a polite, conversational way, raising an exact copy of the missing phone with her other hand, thumb already on the camera button for when he turns around.
Kai freezes when the name 'Nathaniel' is said behind him, only four people no him by that name, today he's guessing it's the girl whose phone he took, he figured this would be easy but he's training made him consider other possible problems, doing his best to switch to a more southern accent he say, "Sorry hun, wrong locker yeah", while Jill may not get a picture this second, something is about to work in her favor, from down the corridor one of a group of guys calls out, "Is that Oaken?, oi Oaken what you doing back here?". Kai freezes, "Please no".
Jill grits her teeth when the boy doesn't turn around like she'd planned. She hardly got any sleep for all the overthinking she did on this and it was going so well up till now. "No, I think it's the right one," she retorts icily. "So if you'll just g-" She stops when someone else butts into her carefully planned confrontation, briefly glancing sideways at the speaker.
"It is him, lets go say hello" and with that Kai abandons the locker and runs heading down towards the gym and the locker rooms with the group of guys quickly following behind him, it appears that Kai sees Jill as the last of his worries right now and has forgotten to leave the phone in the locker.
"Hey! Get back here!" Jill takes a faltering step after Kai, but stops to check the open locker. Damn it, her phone's not there! Losing a precious few seconds, she breaks into a run to follow, whipping by a teacher. Nearly spilling his coffee, the teacher yells after all of them, "No running in the halls!" to which Jill glances back over her shoulder and replies, "It's okay, I don't even go here!" Bringing up the rear is a tall but overweight black boy, built like a refrigerator and about as fast, Jill's backup. "Sorry about this," he huffs as he passes the flustered teacher too. "Nice tie."
"Five minutes, five fucking minutes I’m in this school and they show up", Kai quickly knocks on the door of the staff room as he runs past hoping for a teacher to step out before turning a corner and ducking into the boys locker room, hopefully he can get lost amongst the lockers, Jill is little more that a thought at the back of his head right now.
"Crap crap crap," Jill repeats like an angry mantra, sneakers pounding to make up the distance she's already lost. Luckily, the other boys in pursuit of the phone thief manage to point her in the right direction, so all she has to do is follow them. Her poor, beleaguered backup is falling further and further behind, the strain of even the short run beading his forehead with sweat. Heedless of where the chase is taking her, Jill bursts into the boys' locker room on their heels, causing a few of Kai's antagonists to stop and turn to look at her in obvious confusion. "Well?!" she blurts impatiently at them. "Where'd he go?!"
The guys turn round to stare at Jill, "What do you want?", "Wrong locker room" are some of the responses before the leader gets an idea that amuses himself, "Didn't I here you say you don't go here?, are you here with Oaken?, boy's if she's here with Oaken maybe she'd like to join him?". Kai groans, he's a killer, a thief and a spy but he isn't really a bad guy and would rather Jill didn't get caught up in this, so he steps out, "Well… you could do that. yeah you could do that, of course you could, but why? Look here I am, you can throw me in the pool or in a locker or take my lunch money and I won't stop you but leave her out of this, I don't even know her".
The girl takes an involuntary step backwards, raising her hands with palms out. "I…" she tries to say but her voice falters. At Kai's sudden reappearance, she shoots him a brief but hostile look before trying to explain herself as calmly as she can. Which isn't very. "I'm… I'm not with him," Jill finally manages and stops backing away only when she runs into something very heavy and unyielding. A meaty hand claps down on her shoulder and the heavyset boy from before, still breathing hard and sweaty, says in a calm but menacing tone, "No, she's with me." He's got at least 50 pounds and three inches on even the largest of the other boys there.
Kai nods, "Listen to the very large boy, the girl's with him and I’m with me so we should all just go and get on with our lives wouldn't you say?, no harm no foul, ok?", he was not expecting Jill to have such large back-up. Thinking better of fighting with the giant the leader nods, "Ok those two can go, you however stay where you are Oaken", Kai sighs but doesn't move.
Jill starts to take another step backwards but finds the doorway still filled with a very large body. He gives her shoulder a squeeze, nodding at her and then giving a little tilt of his chin at Kai. "M-my phone…" Jill says, like she'd forgotten all about it and is surprised to bring it up again. "I want it back." Though she's trying to force conviction back into her voice, it still sounds timid, more a request than a demand.
Kai snaps his fingers, "Oh yeah!", he takes the phone out of his pocket and tosses it towards Jill, it's more useful to him back in her hands now anyways, "Told ya you get it back". The leader looks at the two again, "Didn't I just tell you to go?, leave". Kai sighs, great he's back where he was six month ago.
Almost fumbling the catch, Jill clutches her phone tightly and hugs it to her chest. Once again, she tries to turn and leave, but the huge boy won't budge, blocking the locker room door like a concrete barrier. The girl looks more nervous than ever, hissing at him, "Jerry, let's just go! We got it, let's just… just go!" But apparently Jerry isn't moving. "No," he says flatly, staring holes in the leader of the pack. Finally, he does move, but into the locker room to let the door swing shut behind him, pushing Jill gently ahead and to the side. "He's coming with *us*."
Kai looks around then points to himself, "Who? me? I’d love to but it appears I have a previous appointment with these guys, you should go", he nods towards the door sort of pleading with Jill to go. "No way, Oaken's ours, now you have one last chance to piss off fat boy".
Jill pulls at her companion's sleeve urgently. "I think we should listen to him," pleads the girl nervously. "Like, now would a good time. It's not our problem anymore." Jerry just breaks into a grin. "Fat boy?" he repeats, pleased and amused at the sound of it. He spreads his arms wide, opening up his midsection in a completely defenseless posture. "I'll give you the first punch, if you think you're *hard* enough," he taunts, putting an odd stress on the word 'hard'. Subtly, the tiny hairs on his forearms stand on end.
The leader chuckles to his mates before turning and punching, Kai winces as he guesses what's gonna happen before the other guys do. "Arrgh! fuck!", the guy clutches his hand in pain as he has essentially punched a stone wall. Kai shakes his head, "Well that looked painful". Looking back at Jerry the leader backs away, "What the fuck are you?"
"Oh shit," Jill groans. She sucks a breath through her teeth at the sound of the impact. She's not entirely sure, but there might have been a cracking noise. Jerry lowers his arms slowly like they're stiff and slightly unresponsive. "Get lost," he says, the grin never leaving his face. "Before I get my friend here to show you what *she* can do to you. It's not pretty." Not really taking the hint, Jill just stares, open-mouthed.
The leader spits on the floor before gesturing for the rest to leave, "Oaken isn't fucking worth it, we'll get him later", with that the gang leave giving those remaining dirty looks. "Well that was rather enlightening and I thank you for that but I really must be going now, nice meeting you".
"What part of 'don't draw attention to yourself' didn't you understand?!" the girl yells at the much taller and heavier boy, who suddenly seems much less intimidating and much more intimidated. "But…" Jerry starts to protest, actually looking to Kai for help. "They were going to beat him up, so I stopped them." He is marginally relieved when Jill turns her ire on the phone thief. "And you! You don't get off that easy! You have a *lot* of explaining to do." Struck by a sudden memory, she whips up her recently regained phone and thumbs the camera button. *ka-chack* goes the digitized sound of a camera shutter from the little speaker on the back. "Gotcha."
Kai looks a little worried, "So that was your phone?, I didn't know, some guy came up to me the other day looking like one of my teachers, then turned into me then looked like a guy in a coffee shop", he sighs and looks down, "I broke some of my school's rules and this guy knew, he said I had to put this phone in my old locker here or he'd report me for it, I didn't know it was yours, I was just trying to stay out of trouble, I’m sorry".
"Nuh-uh," Jill refutes flatly, scolding Kai with a waggle of her index finger. "I'm not buying it." This time, it's Jerry who tugs urgently on Jill's coat sleeve. "I think we oughta get out of here," he says in a quiet little sing-song. "Somebody's coming…" Sure enough, raised voices from out in the hallway are rapidly approaching the locker room door. "It was Oaken, I swear! Him and some other kids I don't know. They're in there right now!" Jill goes from angry and accusing to frightened and pleading in two seconds flat. "Is there another way out of here?" Yes, she is actually asking for Kai's help now.
Kai nods, "Yeah, there's a fire exit past the pool area, I’ll show you", he turns a quickly begins leading the way, "God I hate those guys", he gabs a hockey stick on the way out and stops by the door to the pool, if Jill and Jerry follow him though he'll close the doors and puts the sticks between the handles, "Come on", running past the pool he pushes open a door leading outside/
Given little in the way of other options, the two Xavier's students follow. Jerry huffs and puffs some more but manages to keep up as the suddenly barred doors start to rattle behind them. "Did they go through here? What the? Hey, it's locked!" someone on the other side incorrectly assumes. "Don't think this gets you off the hook, though," Jill is quick to add even as she benefits from the thief's advice and bursts outside into the cold air and sunshine.
Kai pushes the fire doors shut again when the other two are through, "I didn't do anything, we need to keep going", he leads them round the left side of the school and down a small alleyway, "We should be fine from this point onwards, man I’m never coming back here, I’d rather have the trouble from my school".
"Jill, you got your phone back, just let it go," Jerry advises, his pace faltering from the sudden exertion, pausing to rest against the alley wall and regain his breath. "No! I don't wanna!" the girl protests, actually stamping a foot in a childish tantrum. "I don't buy it! Even if he didn't do it, who's this guy who gave him my phone? Why'd he take it in the first place? Why even bother to give it back?!" She's shooting her angry questions at the tall black boy, her attention wandering from Kai for just a moment. But maybe just long enough of a moment…
Kai doesn't take the opportunity to escape, if he wanted to do that he could've a while back, "I can talk to your parents if you want, if you got in trouble, I don't know why that guy gave it to me but I feel really guilty about the whole thing, my school is really strict is all, I just wanted to avoid trouble but I’ll speak up if it's getting you into trouble".
"Let. It. Go," Jerry repeats slowly and forcefully, some of the intimidating giant leeching back into his tone. Jill makes a few soft, sputtering noises of protest that aren't exactly words but nonetheless aren't particularly nice. "Sorry," her companion says, putting a heavy hand on Jill's shoulder to steer her away and out of the alley. "She's a little high-strung." "I am NOT!"
Kai smiles at Jerry, "Thanks for the help and I really am sorry for any trouble caused by the guy who took that phone, I’m still in the wrong for doing my part", watching Jerry steer Jill he turns and heads down the alley.
"I know your name now!" Jill calls out as one final retort while Jerry literally drags her away by her collar, her heels sliding on the wet alley ground. "And I got your picture! This isn't over!" The tall boy sighs, "Give it up, Jill. We're already in deep enough trouble for skipping class, don't add harassment on top of everything else. And you owe me *big* for this, don't forget that. I'm talking math homework for a month here." Jill sags and lets herself be dragged along a little further before stumbling to her feet and walking dejectedly along under her own power. "Fine…" she acquiesces.
