1858/Coffee and Kidnappings

Coffee and Kidnappings
Date of Scene:	26 May 2020
Location:	Mel's Roadside Diner
Synopsis:	Bobby asks JP and Lorna to come out to the diner not far from the Mansion to get coffee and just get out of the stress for a few minutes to eat greasy food and talk about what's going on. He warns JP about mutants being taken, and they discuss the possibilities of what might be going on.
Cast of Characters:	Bobby Drake, Jean-Paul Beaubier, Lorna Dane

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Bobby Drake has posed:
Things at the Mansion have been a bit hectic, what with people suddenly vanishing, which Bobby only recently heard had happened at all since he'd been out taking a couple of days on walkabout now that he's graduated and has had no more classes. So, to get away from all the stress there and take a break, he'd texted JP to see if he wanted to get that coffee and told him that some of his friends were missing, and maybe they could use his help. He'd also invited Lorna to come along, to meet his friend JP and get away from Scott and his disapproving face for a hot minute.

And so it is that he's staked a claim to a booth toward the back of the diner, away from what few other patrons are around on a Tuesday afternoon, and has acquired a cup of coffee for the moment, but no food. He's in a pair of comfortable jeans and dark blue chucks along with a pale blue henley, and has settled back into a corner of the booth comfortably.

Jean-Paul Beaubier has posed:
Jean-Paul strides into the diner, removing his sunglasses and perching them ontop of his head. He's dressed in his version of casual, which means a black, button-up, silk shirt with the sleeves carefully rolled up to his elbows and a pair of gray trousers, with a pair of black leather loafers to complete the look. At least he doesn't make a fuss about being in a diner, he jus takes a quick look around, zeroes in on Bobby and makes his way right over to that booth.

"Afternoon. I hope the coffee here is as strong as it smells." He smirks slightly as he slides into the booth. "And the bacon better be greasy, shame that some roadside diners try to be healthy."

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna had run out to the bathroom, dropping her stuff on a chair by Bobby as she'd entered and quickly exited. The break was a welcome one, but also carried a 'You're going out? I'm coming with you, no, we're doing the buddy system' level of demand from the magnokinetic. Too many people, powerful, well trained people had gone missing recently. And it put the green haired woman on edge. Having been trapped inside on comm duty for the past several hours had done //nothing// to fight the rising panic for the young Queen so when Bobby had wanted to go out, she had jumped.

The young woman had gone full on into punk territory too in terms of dress. A clear sign that she wanted people to stay back and just how truly she was on edge with her anger. She'd donned heavy eyeliner, and a pair of ripped jeans that matched her shirt, which was loaded up with pins and metal rivets that she'd aggressively magnetized while stuck on comm duty.

She came back, steel toed boots walking lightly on the floor as she plopped into a seat. A glance was spared for Jean-Paul, and she offered a small smile despite her worry and anger. She eyed him once, critically, and then promptly turned her gaze to the others in the small diner. "Hi."

Bobby Drake has posed:
"I'm pretty sure there is nothing in this diner that ever remotely got close to healthy except maybe the bananas in the banana splits," Bobby comments as JP slides into the booth. "And yeah, the coffee's good and strong. Not enough to stand the spoon straight up in it, but good enough. How you been?"

Bobby wasn't entirely reckless. He'd planned on being out with both Lorna and Jean-Paul. There was no way he could just sit in the Mansion doing nothing for any more hours on end. It was making him stir crazy. When Lorna comes back and drops into the seat next to him, Bobby leans over and shoulder-bumps her, despite all the rivets and spikey bits. "Lorna, this is Jean-Paul. Jean-Paul, this is Lorna. JP and I stopped some crazy shadow creature things from terrorizing the zoo several months back, and he has a fine appreciation for art." His lips quirk into an amused smile. "Lorna's one of my best friends. We've known each other a while." The conversation is kept pitched low, but there's no one immediately around them or paying attention to them to care about what they're talking about.

Jean-Paul Beaubier has posed:
"Good, I need some strong coffee." Jean-Paul settles into the booth, arm laid across the back as he gets comfortable. The appearance of Lorna gets an appraising glance and a nod of greeting, with a small smile thrown in for niceness' sake.

"Yes, well, shadow creatures ruined my afternoon, couldn't let them just muck about." The art comment has him smirking at Bobby however, along with a slow shake of his head. "Nice to meet you." He offers to Lorna, holding his hand out for a polite shake.

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna glanced briefly back to Bobby as he shoulder bumped her lightly, and her expression momentarily warmed to something legitimately friendly. "You've put up with my brand of crazy for years, yes. It's a miracle." She drawled, and smirked slightly, before her gaze swung up as some poor innocent human entered the diner and she stared daggers at their entrance.

Protective? Overly so.

But nonetheless she didn't let her guard down even a moment, despite the fact that no one was actively an apparent threat. A flicker of green eyes had her gaze returning to Jean-Paul and she inclined her head in his direction. "I can appreciate that. Nice to meet you, too." She murmured, glancing down at his hand and then accepting it over the table to shake.

Bobby Drake has posed:
"You're my kind of crazy," Bobby tells Lorna with a sidelong grin then notices her tensing when the door opens. He almost says something, but then doesn't. It's a tense time. She's justified.

There's a pause as their server makes his way over to their table to take their orders. Bobby orders himself some mozzarella sticks and a plate of chicken fingers with honey mustard and bbq sauce to dip in -- fried things -- all the fried things. He also orders himself a cherry coke and waits while the others put in their own orders before he settles back into the booth.

"So, speaking of ruining afternoons, a bunch of our friends went missing, and I was wondering if you'd heard anything about mutants going missing recently," Bobby says to Jean-Paul. "Everyone's been on high alert." He then glances over at Lorna, "Have we heard anything new at all since this morning?" Since he'd been with some of the students, trying to just keep the mood around them as light as possible so as to take their minds off things.

Jean-Paul Beaubier has posed:
Jean-Paul gives Lorna's hand one firm shake before he's back to lounging in the booth. The glare towards the entrance is enough to make him turn his head just a bit to get a look in that direction, though he disregards the person entering fairly quickly. "Coffee with milk, toast, 2 eggs over easy, side of bacon." No, he didn't even look at the menu, but it's a diner, some things are simply universal.

Though once they have privacy, Bobby's inquiry has his brows drawing down. He gives a shake of his head. "No, but my old team doesn't share information with me freely anymore, and I'm kind of isolated and keeping my head down as it is. Sorry.."

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna once more flashed Bobby the hints of a true smile, even as she sat straight in her seat and continuously looked more distracted than anything. The firm shake was met with a half-hearted one of her own. Jean-Paul wasn't where her attention was, and even more so, neither was most of the Diner. Her senses remained stretched out far about them, and it came across as dismissive at best unfortunately.

The waiter was glanced over, and she placed an order with more fried foods and chocolate than was healthy.. but she wanted comfort food. Even the diner food reminded her of the last night out with Hank and Piotr.. and now Hank was missing. Her guilt flickered to life and stole her breath momentarily, and she glanced back to Jean-Paul as he spoke. She didn't know what team he'd been part of.. but figured Bobby must.

"No. We don't have anything new. Unless you've seen another green haired woman about besides me."

Bobby Drake has posed:
"It's not a good idea to be isolated these days," Bobby says. With all of the Purifier business going on and everything else. "Things are getting more and more.. tense." To put it lightly. He then asks Jean-Paul, "Have you considered getting back in touch with them? Or.. maybe finding a new team?" There's a bit of concern there. "Laying low is good but.. that also means you don't have people who know if something happens to you, either."

He's no psychic, but he knows very well what Lorna's going through right now, and he says quietly. "We're going to find him." Hank is his friend, too. They'd only been hanging out not that long ago. He shakes his head, "No, not recently. The campus had a couple, but I'm guessing we're not looking for a random college student."

Jean-Paul Beaubier has posed:
Jean-Paul purses his lips thoughtfully. "Well.. Isolated is a relative term. I'm still running between business meetings and such, I'm just not talking to many in the community if you know what I mean." He taps his fingers on the table top, looking between Lorna and Bobby. "No, I'm not going back to my old team, if a new opportunity came along.." He pauses for a moment, thinking. "I supposed it would depend on how I got along with them." One corner of his mouth quirks into a smirk.

He watches Lorna for a moment, his expression going quizzical for just a second, then sighs and shrugs. "But if you need help, team or not, I'm not far off, and even if I am I can get most places quick enough."

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna glanced back to Bobby, arching a green eyebrow upward but not commenting on how 'tense' things were these days. Barely. Which is when her chocolate milkshake arrived. She occupied herself with shove a straw in and stirring as she sipped and kept her attention mostly focused beyond.

Bobby's quiet reassurance earned a glance and a sigh, but otherwise Lorna kept her hyperfocus. Talk of teams or no teams didn't draw her back for a long moment, not until Jean-Paul offered help where he could. "We don't know if they were observing us and who we spent time with. We're not sure how they figured out how a friend was a mutant for example.." She pursed her lips together. "And these people used powers. So we're looking a multiple people at least.."

Bobby Drake has posed:
Bobby Drake nods to Jean-Paul, apparently knowing what he means. He lifts his cup of coffee and takes a sip from it as both he and Lorna talk. "Right now we're looking for a woman with green hair, maybe powered, from what I understand, attractive, potentially used as bait to lure people in." He slumps a bit in his seat. "I wish we had more to go on than just that. It's a huge area." He rubs a bit at his face, looking momentarily tired. Usually Bobby would be the one trying to make light of things, or bringing some sort of levity to the situation, but it's been a lot in a short amount of time, and even he's starting to wear a bit of worry. "Do you think whoever it is has tech that can do it? I mean.. it's bound to be out there somewhere."

Jean-Paul Beaubier has posed:
"A woman with green hair? Well, that's only about ten percent of the art college campuses.." Jean-Paul says as he picks up his coffee for a sip. He nods happily. "Now that is some high-octane coffee." He takes another sip before setting it back down, his expression going a bit more serious. "Is it jut mutants, or are other powered beings going missing as well?" He looks out the window, peering at the going-ons in the parking lot. "I'll keep my ears open and let you know if I hear anything, but as I said, I'm not currently moving in those circles, you'd hear before I do most likely."

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna exhaled a breath, and fought the urge to rub her temples as she felt the edges of a brain freeze come on as she sipped too quickly at her milkshake. A grimace and she pulled her senses back to the immediate area. She sat back in her seat, and considered. "It's possible Bobby, but it sounds like reports are of powered people attacking.. Not necessarily tech, thought it's possible we missed that." She grimaced and tapped her feet against the tile of the floor.

"And we know that it includes teleportation." She hmm'ed and sighed.

"Just mutants. Not even a pattern in visible mutations or not. They were all trained, and should be able to take care of themselves."

Bobby Drake has posed:
"Which means that whoever was able to get to them must have had some way to either get past their abilities and training, weaken them, know what their weaknesses were, or have some means of getting around their powers because there were no huge explosions or big fights as far as I know, which means that it happened either too quickly for them to react or..." Bobby trails off, not really sure where he was going with that after that. "I don't know."

Their food arrives and is set out on the table, a festival of fried things, chocolate, and JP's breakfast foods that practically fills the table. Bobby grabs one of the mozzarella sticks and wiggles it in JP's direction, "Yeah.. that's what I was thinking.. like.. huge city, there's lots of people with dyed hair. If we had some kind of a photograph or video footage or anything, that would help more as far as narrowing it down." He then nods and says, "I figured we might hear first but, also figured you should know what's going on, just in case."

Jean-Paul Beaubier has posed:
Jean-Paul goes quiet as the server comes by to drop off their food. He picks up a piece of bacon and squints slightly in Bobby's direction. "Sounds like ambush tactics. Any speedsters or psychics taken? Those are a little harder to get a drop on. If so they might have something that can conceal their presence, which.. well.. that's not somethingI want to think about too much." He wrinkles his nose.

"Thanks for the heads-up, though. I'll keep my guard up just in case. Though I'm not sure I'd be high on anyone's list of people to snatch, at least not locally." He shakes his head, chomping down on his bacon.

Lorna Dane has posed:
"Or.." Lorna trailed off as the waiter arrived and set a basket of fries, onion rings and a burger in front of her. She paused long enough to up end the ketchup over her basket and start gnawing away on the food in front of her. After a pause she cleared her throat and continued her train of thought.

"They have someone that manipulated either their appearance or what others saw. They could get the jump on people if they thought they knew them, right? Lure them away to another location. Or even more so, appear like a cop or something. People wouldn't comment on that." She murmured and exhaled a breath.

"Could be magic. Could be an illusion." She made a face and glanced to Jean-Paul.

"They took my friend that's a telepath. She's not out. Not a visible mutant. She's well trained. I don't know how they got the jump on her unless it was with extreme stealth or they had pretty strong telepathic defenses. We can't find her or anyone else with our own scans."

Bobby Drake has posed:
"That ship off Genosha had tech that could mask what was inside it from us. It's possible that they've got them somewhere that's using similar tech to hide them. Or.. someone's powers to do that." Bobby rubs his face with one hand and shakes his head, "I don't know. There's just too many unknowns. We need a clue, some kind of breadcrumb to lead us to more." He takes a few bites of his food as he looks thoughtful, nodding to Jean-Paul and then nodding in Lorna's direction when she explains that one of the people who was taken was a telepath. "Yeah, we don't know who is on their radar or not or why, either. So, everyone being alert isn't a bad thing right now." He gives a slight shrug of his shoulders, then.

"I wish I had some abilities that were actually helpful in this particular situation but.. I just.. don't," Bobby says with a slight shake of his head. "This is so not my area of expertise."

Jean-Paul Beaubier has posed:
Picking up a piece of toast and stabbing his egg yolkd with it, Jean-Paul focuses on his food for a few minutes, just listening to the back and forth of information between Lorna and Bobby for a moment, looking thoughtful. "No one was taken wearing a tracking device? I know those can be jammed, but there must be something someone has that can leve a tag on people you can follow. Only problem is you would need to make sure everyone had one since you can't predict who will go next."

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna sighed heavily, reaching up to rub her temples. "Almost all of them have access to our comms, but none of them called in. We have to assume that there was a jamming device or powers that blocked it. Too many people were taken that not one of them had a chance to call in.." She stabbed her fries into the ketchup and grimaced as Bobby spoke of tech from the Magistrates.

"It's possible, but if the Magistrates were taking mutants again, I'd suspect they'd take ones already broken in the mutate bonding process. Not ones that never went through that." She murmured and as Bobby spoke of feeling useless... she reached out to squeeze his shoulder.