2012-11-28 Wardengate

The message was as simple as can be: 'I know about the Wardens' on top, followed by a mug shot of a beaten and bloodied Riptide, aka Wiz Whirl of the Wardens. Beneath that, the address of a small deli in Queens, a date, and a time.
The restaurant is crammed in between a shoe store and a bodega, not far from a few apartment buildings. It's been around for a good thirty years, with a local reputation for the quality of its slaw; it's also lucky to seat ten, maybe twelve customers if they're willing to squeeze in a little. On this particular afternoon, though Logan is the only customer, having arrived a good hour before the appointed time and staked out a table beside the window. A beaten up brown bomber jacket has been thrown over his black sweater, and a pair of ancient blue jeans completes the ensemble. His tangled black hair is rather badly matted today, as if he's still recovering from the worst case of helmet hair ever; he's also got what looks like a couple days worth of facial growth going.
The paranoia from the whole Wardens invesitagions had just been fading when Eddie got the message. The sudden message combined with the picture brought it back though. That didn't stop him from coming out today though. Arriving fifteen minutes before he's supposed to be there, Eddie takes up a little hiding space across the street from the diner so he can at least try to make sure he's not walking into a trap or something like that. Since he can't spot anything like ninja waiting to jump out and grab him, the teen heads for the door when the time to arrive comes. Dressed in jeans and a t-shirt sporting an S-shield, he's just a bit nervous as he enters. Looking around, he shifts his backpack a little and heads over to where Logan's sitting. "Um...hi."
By the time Eddie decides to step inside, there's a chocolate egg cream waiting on his side of the table; Logan's got a bottle of beer in front of him, and the cap is only just hitting the table when the teen enters.
"Yeah," he offers in reply to Eddie's greeting after picking his head up to stare at him for a couple of seconds. He gestures broadly to the seat across from him then, bottle in hand. "Sit; we got a couple things to discuss and not a lotta time t' discuss 'em in." After a sip, he adds, "Hope y' don't mind chocolate," as an afterthought."
Eddie's not much to stare at. He's short and looks about as threatening as a soggy kitten. He glances at the egg cream in slight surprise, squinting at it a moment to both try to figure out what it is and if its safe to drink. Sitting down, Eddie nods. "Not a lot of t-time?" he asks. "Oh um, no, I don't mind chocolate at all."
Rather than answer immediately, Logan just reaches into his coat to retrieve what looks to be a low end smart phone, sets it on the table, and slides it part of the way towards Eddie; his fingers remain pressed against the screen for now, though.
"I'd give my right arm t' be two places at once right now," he ruefully replies. "World's a hell of a place right now." He pauses to take a lengthy pull from his beer, and exhales heavily when he goes to set the bottle down. His eyes - weary as they are - don't /quite/ make it back to Eddie's, but he at least keeps his attention focused in the teen's general direction.
"Everything you know about the Wardens, /I/ need t' know; in return, this little gadget here--" He scoots the phone an inch closer "--has all the dirt on who they really are. What they've been gettin' up to in their down time." The man's eyes quickly flick up and down the young hero's frame - he's actually a couple inches taller than Logan himself, but that's hardly uncommon; there's really no disguising how very /young/ his possible source is, and once his inspection is complete, the hairy man clucks his tongue and shakes head a little.
"'s a whole new world now, I'll tell you what," he muses as he settles back to watch and wait.
Eddie's eyes flick to the smart phone, glancing at it curiously. He doesn't try to reach for it yet though. "I know the feeling," Eddie murmurs. He's got missing mutants upstate to look for, missing kids in the city to investigate, and more. He considers a moment before taking a sip of the egg cream. He shrugs slightly at the comment about the state of the world, watching the older man curiously.
Eddie stays quiet as he thinks things over. "You're...going after them then?" he asks, picking up his backpack and opening it up. "I g-g-got as much information as I could. Kind of thought they might actually come after me," strangely he doesn't seem that scared by the thought. "But I went and looked up places and people reports about them mentioned," he takes a folder out of his bag and sets it on the table. It's got copies of all the notes and information he collected during his investigations. Newspaper clippings, witness statements, and the like. "All the incidents they were reported to have stopped...none of it happened. None of the people that the news and their sites say they saved n-never even heard of them before. They didn't even exist for as long as they claim. They're complete fakes," he says, setting the folder down on the table and sliding it so that it's next to the phone.
The old man sends the phone skating across the table with a flick of his finger, then takes the liberty of dragging the folder to himself to start perusing what Eddie's collected. Logan's gift consists of a collection of eyewitness accounts and interviews with members of the city's underground mutant community, as well as from a few mutant and human supremacists, and even criminals. The information all focuses on a group of murderers known as the Marauders, the perpetrators of a killing spree that ravaged New York's homeless mutants a few years ago. It's also augmented with a few notes - presumably written by Logan himself - on the capabilities of a number of Marauders - particularly Riptide and Vertigo - culled from a mixture of personal experience and more nosing around.
"They're holdin' someone very, very important hostage," he lowly says as he sifts through clippings. "Blackmailin' 'im. Usin' 'im to whip people up into a frenzy--get everyone's heads twisted all up 'till the country's callin' for mutant blood." Logan lifts his eyes to the youngster's for a moment, and as they narrow, he finishes, "That call gets loud enough, I don't think I gotta tell you what'd happen--an' I don't think you want me t' paint you a picture of how it'd /go/. Nobody wins."
Eddie scoops up the phone and after a moment or two of figuring it out, he starts looking through the notes. He knows some of the mutants that got spoken to. Of course when he gets to the part about the Marauders, Eddie tenses. That's another group he really wants to see taken down and in jail.
Glancing back up, Eddie frowns. "The sentator?" he guesses. It's the only person he can think of that wasn't already causing trouble. He jumps slightly when Logan meets his eyes, not expecting it. "No...I don't need the picture," he murmurs. "The hostage n-n-needs to be rescued and they need to be stopped."
"And this right here" Logan lifts the folder, waggles it up and down a little, then draws it back to conceal it beneath his coat "is gonna help, I reckon; me and mine, we never got a shot at tracin' their steps. Anything we can use to get a sense of what they're doin', it's valuable."
With that, he tips his head and the beer bottle back; within a matter of seconds, the bottle is empty, and the wee man is sliding out of the booth, one hand settling against his jacket to keep the folder secure.
"You did good, kid," he offers with a low, sincere voice and a small nod. "Anything from that phone ends up on the internet, and I'll have to find you."
As he says this last bit, his tone rapidly cools and his eyes narrow a little--/just/ enough to make sure that Eddie grasps the gravity of his words.
"Stay outta trouble." A hand covered in a veritable thicket of black hair is extended down to the boy. "You hear anything else about the Wardens - or you run across any other interesting news - there's a number programmed into that phone; use it."
Eddie perks up a bit when he's told the work he did will help. He's been a little worried that he didn't find anything useful. The speed at which the beer is drained doesn't faze the teen in the least. After seeing Thor and the Warriors Three drink, he could call that 'slow'. He watches Logan leave the booth, smiling a bit when told he did good. He immediately tries to shrink down into his seat a bit when told that last bit. He nods quickly, knowing not to put the info up.
"I would b-but trouble likes me too much," Eddie tries to joke as he shakes the offered hand. "Yessir. I'll k-keep looking into things and let you know if I find anything else."
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