Issue 1 Downtime

The curly haired woman sitting in the Rose and Crown was talking on her phone. Anyone passing by the table could hear her or anyone else with exceptionally good hearing. She wasn't alone, a couple of burly looking guys were sharing the table with her. In fact, there seemed to be an exceptional number of visitors to the Crown tonight.

"I'm glad you find this funny, mother. I certainly don't."

...Pause...

"No, I'm not going to give up and come home. I haven't concluded my business yet."

((Open))

Stephanie sat at the bar still in her work clothes from a shift at the coffee shop just down the street. It had been a long day and she figured a stiff drink and a bit of food might just help erase it.

At the moment the crowds weren't helping things.

The woman looked over at the bar, "Mother, I have to go."

She thumbed her phone off, "Irritating bitch." She got up and walked over to the bar, though her companions did not follow her. "Rum and cola," she said to the bartender. She leaned against the bar next to Stephanie. She was on the short, athletic side with shoulder-length curly black hair and dark green eyes.

Stephanie shifted on her barstool to give the woman some more room, but didn't otherwise look up from her own drink and the game show on one of the TVs above the bar.

The bartender handed the woman her drink. "Parents," she snorted. "Can't live with them, can't do without their money." She sipped her drink.

((Still open))

"At least you've got 'em...and the bartender makes the drinks pretty stiff, so here you'll at least stretch your dolla--pound rather," Stephanie smirked.

"You one of the yanks that goes to the university?" Her tone seemed mostly curious. She seemed really nice and polite. And, as only someone with Steph's senses could pick out, she was wearing the most interesting perfume.

"I am," she smiled faintly, though the woman's perfume was rather distracting.

Truth be told she rather wanted to growl at the woman, but she suppressed the urge.

"I hear the inmates run the asylum up there... no offense. Just what I hear." The perfume began to get more distracting. She really was a lovely woman.

"Just rumors," she smiled. "It's a pretty normal place all things considered," she lied.

Her wild side wanted to get the hell out of here, and away from the woman...but she was so pleasant...

"Good to hear. Honestly, I thought about applying since it seemed like a good school, but the backgrounds of some of the faculty were... well... a little troublesome and my parents put the nix on that idea." She was right, of course, some members of the faculty and staff had pasts that were... well, the term 'checkered' was probably being polite.

"Oh it's not so bad..." she said hesitantly.

Her wolf was desperately trying to tell her to leave but something about the girl just made her want to stay and chat.

Connor walked in from the back room, tapping the morning shift bartender on the shoulder as he passed behind him. "Anything I need to know, mate?" he asked mechanically as he took a survey of the room.

"Bunch of light drinking freeloaders in here tonight," he said to Connor, looking around the room. "But they all look like tough customers so I'll be damned if I try to kick 'em out."

****

"Really? As soon as my parents found out that some of the staff had actual criminal records, they pulled the plugs on my plans right quick." Were the pasts of the staff keeping students from coming? That wasn't good.

"There's also a former Avenger and multiple world-renowned Ph.D's on faculty," she said, though her heart just wasn't in it.

"And one of your major security folks was a thug for the Brotherhood of Mutants. Maybe still is. My parents have a lot of resources, but you can't ever know anything 100%," she said. It all sounded plausible.

"Can't make everyone happy, right luv?" Connor said as he started drying a glass off the wash rack.

"I...suppose..." She said hesitantly, her wilder half screaming just to get out of this woman's presence.

"I try, but you're right," she said to Connor. That brief moment of distraction gave Stephanie some breathing room, leaving the door open for her less wild half to listen to the wilder side.

Steph's eyes shifted to a feral yellow and she felt her teeth lengthening into fangs behind her lips.

"I need to be going..." she said quietly not really looking at the woman as she dug in her purse, throwing a large bill onto the counter hastily in Connor's direction.

The woman seemed surprised at her abrupt attempt at departure and one of the out-of-towners stepped up towards the bar, ostensibly to get another drink, but having the effect of boxing Stephanie in.

Stephanie tried to physically force her way past in the most polite way possible, by turning more sideway and trying to slip through the crowd through whichever person was going to yield first.

"Excuse me," she all but growled as she stared down at the ground to avoid showing off her increasingly feral features.

"Oy, let the lady through, mate," Connor said, 'casually,' favoring the man with that tough-guy 'so... going to make me make you?' smile as he went to refill the drink.

The guy saw Connor's smile and raised him a 'yeah, I think I will' smirk. "Leaving so early, beautiful?" He said to Stephanie in a distinct German accent, "Let me buy you another drink."

For her part, the curly haired woman leaned against the bar to watch the proceedings.

Just get out of here, just get out of here, get out of here she's a teep and she's screwing with us and we hate that...

Stephanie looked the man in the face, her features becoming increasingly feral as her agitation increased. Her wolffish yellow eyes burned at the man, and she growled.

"I asked nicely before. I won't again. I need to be going. Please. Get out. Of my way."

"Mm, sorry, mate, but how're you going to buy a lady a drink when your money's no good here?" Connor asked, still casually, as he walked around the bar, still holding the pint mug by the handle. "See, this is where the lady goes home to her bloke like she wants, and where you sod off like I want."

The woman said something so quiet that only Stephanie could hear it, "Smokescreen."

"My money's just as good here as anywhere else and my fists are even better," he said, before taking a swing at Connor.

The words puzzled Steph into inaction for the second it took the man to take a swing at Connor. She fought back the urge to shred her clothes and shift in the middle of the bar, and instead let out a swift kick to the back of the man's knee to buckle it without causing permanent damage.

One thing Connor knew very well was how to take a punch. The man's fist took his face to the side like you'd expect, but the man would find that it was like punching a wooden door. Connor smirked back at him. "I know girls 'at hit harder 'n that, mate." Then he lunged at the man to headbutt him.

The hit to his knee sent him straight into Connor's headbutt and the man collapsed in pain. Chairs scraped as the three people who'd been sitting at the man's table stood and advanced on Steph and Connor.

"Don't think I'm going to be able to have a drink with ya today, luv, got some house cleaning to do," Connor said idly to Steph. "Might as well bugger off. Going to get a bit boring." He watched the men advancing with a 'well, if we HAVE to...' expression.

Stephanie stood her ground, muscles rippling and straining against her work outfit.

"How about all of you sit down while we call the police on the man who assaulted this gentleman and me, and get on with our evening, hrmmm?"

"Yeah, just- wait, police? Are you daft?" Connor hissed this last part at Steph.

"Shut up, they don't know that," she hissed back.

One of the group looked hard at Steph and then whispered to the guy in the middle, "Mutant."

The guy in the middle frowned, reached into his pocket and pulled out some folded bills, holding them out towards Connor, "Look, sorry about this asshole. He's had a few too many you know. We'll just get him out of here. Sorry about all this." His accent was hard to play, but might have had hints of Scandinavian in it.

Steph nodded, replying cooly, "Thank you."

As two of the three helped their buddy up, his sleeves rode up, giving a brief glimpse of a tattoo on one forearm. It was a circle with a skull. The skull was supported by a series of... tentacles maybe? In the brief glimpse it was hard to tell.

The "leader" tossed the sizable "tip" to Connor, "Again, sorry about the mess." And he moved to start helping their friend out of the building.

Steph made a mental note of the tattoo with as much detail as she could muster, nodding in response to the leader's words and watching them as they headed for the exit.