[Hyena]

Jack was a unwelcome sight for any person walking down the street. They probably thought he was a vagrant anyways – and who was Hyena to correct them when it was essentially true? He was... he was serving as a distraction from the Brotherhood's true purpose. It would do no good if the pack's lair was discovered by the pathetic little humans, so Jack was perfectly content to sit on the front stoop of the building and be a distraction. Except that was not how Jack thought. Though the passing commentary about “pathetic little humans” was true at any instance of Jack's life, he was much more concerned about getting his fix of his addiction than any thoughts of “protecting the pack”.

It was both fortunate and unfortunate that he had these... issues with addiction. The fortunate part was obviously the pleasure Jack received from his recreational hunting and the more human half of his thoughts reminded him that if it was not for Gregor and his damn cigarettes Jack would be halfway across the world with a stampede at his tail for trying to pick at the herd. An animal and/or a human stampede, mind you. As the only predatory man in the city, Nyangao was often blamed. And he was often at fault. The life of a mutant, he'd come to understand, was to be blamed for things that were not your fault. Yet. The word was always “yet” for Hyena, since once he was blamed for something, Jack generally made a point to make himself worthy of it.

He had to get his fun somewhere, and when humans practically presented him an opportunity to cause a little chaos, Jack was more than willing to get his hands dirty.

Jack remembered this one woman as he lit up a cigarette, one of the few addictions that distracted the bloodlust fairly well, and chuckled to himself. Sure, she was right. He would die early on in life, but it wouldn't be from... was it cancer? That was the word, right? Jack rarely bothered with human ailments. If he was going to die, he was far more likely to be shot down in battle than coughing up bits of his lungs. Her outlook of death had also come much sooner than she expected, so Hyena was satisfied. Requesting God's favor didn't help you very much when you were countered with a psychopath, it seemed.

He shifted his weight on the step, propping his arms on his legs and hunching over as he stared down the street. Everything was tinted a brown-grey color due to the sunglasses he wore, but that never stopped Jack from watching life around him. He squinted at a few birds landing on the street a ways down the road before turning back to staring at the building in front of him. Boring. His eyes still itched in memory of the other day, but as Jack was holding a lit cigarette, he felt it would be silly to attempt to scratch them. Instead, he contented himself with removing his shoes and tossing them onto the stoop behind him. The only reason he wore the damn things was that New York held a lot of glass and metal shards in the dirt and pavement, and Jack had learned the hard way to avoid those. Besides, they made him look more human, and if there was one thing Jack knew how to use, it was the disguise of humanity.

Shoes and shirt and these God-forsaken sunglasses were necessary to keep Jack looking and acting like a human. He was already prone to wearing pants, so that wasn't an issue, and usually the belt attracted a lot less attention than the knife. But it was his tendencies in expressions and the noises Jack made that usually gave him away. To prove his point, Jack chuckled in a way that was partially human and partially hyena at the thought. Humans were so fun to play with.

[Siryn]

Terry's dietary habits were...questionable at best.

In all honesty, anyone observing what foods she generally gravitated towards and her methods for both procuring and/or preparing them would have been able to make some guesses as to the slant her childhood had taken. 'Motherless' was a given, as was 'boarding school education with meals provided'. Maybe 'stranded in New York City at the age of sixteen because your mutant criminal father went to jail leaving you a penniless, green card lacking, homeless teenager with no domestic skills whatsoever' was a tad too specific to pick up on, but the gist was there. Cooking and Terry did not mix.

And neither did healthy eating, in all honesty. The redhead disdained most vegetables, was only passingly interested in fruits and had no real concept of calories or additives or nutritional requirements (vitamins were just medication, as far as she was concerned and this, boys and girls, is why you shouldn't drop out of school and skip out on all of those vital science and home ec lessons that you need to absorb to be a passingly competent human being.) No, sugar made her happy, as did anything in a pretty package that appealed to her avaristic nature, and if it required as little preparation as possible than even better.

So it was hardly surprising that, without the influence of anyone specifically tasked to look after her (read: cook for her) Terry had spent the New York chapter of her life subsisting on convenience store food and take out, and that certainly hadn't changed just because she'd happened to join a terrorist organisation when she was unaware of the existence of the first half of that label. She hadn't magically learned how to cook and gauge her own nutritional and calorific requirements overnight, simply because she was now living in a rather fancy brownstone, and only the fact that she now lived with Malcolm Murphies saved her from having the unhealthiest diet of all of them.

It meant that, due to the contents of the paper bag Terry was currently carrying, there was an element of a jaunty, decidedly satisfied swagger to the way she walked as she returned home, hips swaying happily from side to side. The bag had all of her favourite things in - booze, smokes, some sort of neon-coloured candy assortment that promised to turn her tongue interesting and alien shades. Plus jerky, which she loved an unreasonable amount - a good thing when that item alone was probably responsible for most of her dietary protein in any given week that didn't come in hamburger form.

So she was happy. Girlishly, unhurriedly happy. Of course that was when she approached the stoop of her new home and saw just who was sitting there.

Her reactions were automatic, her reptilian hindbrain going into overdrive as her suddenly nerveless fingers spasmed and the bag slipped from her grasp. Flimsy brown paper tore, Jack Daniels spilled all over her pretty, strappy sandals, and Terry didn't even care because she was staring at the man sitting on the step with wide, unbelieving eyes. And it suddenly didn't matter that months had stretched out between now and when she'd first met this man, this monster, because he'd almost killed her. Now he was here, here, and maybe it was broad daylight now rather than a dark alley, but Terry's mind was still working in one, long silent scream.

Last time, an actual scream may have helped to save her life. But now, in this moment, she was paralysed.

(So much for that good mood.)

[Hyena]

His own weight was bearing down on his elbows, and in turn, his elbows were bearing down on his legs. Pointless information as it may be, the purpose of that statement was to remark that Jack was getting uncomfortable in this position, as his weight was digging two elbow-sized patches in his knees and that was doing absolutely nothing for him. He was not in a bad mood today, so the shifting of position to something more suitable was not accompanied by his usual growl of frustration at life and the universe, but instead simple acknowledgement of a need. Jack could be human sometimes. Just sometimes.

Most of the time, Jack was inclined toward a mixture of the two – animal and human – but there was no doubt that his mind was contaminated with the worst of both worlds at any given moment. The need to fight and defend what was his mixed with the undoubtably human cruelty and anger. This led to a destructive chaos in the making when Jack was feeling prone to slaughter, but fortunately, he was mellowed out at this moment.

That was good for Siryn, as she rounded the corner and attracted Hyena's full attention by dropping her bag and breaking the contents. Jack was already spacing out, simply staring at the building opposite and thinking of absolutely nothing, but the noise and the girl who stopped suddenly in front of him attracted his attention very nicely. Red hair and pale skin were tinted brown; however, that did not stop Jack from recognizing his favorite panya. (To tell the truth, everyone was his favorite mouse, but we're not going to split hairs over the psychopath.)

A slow grin crept across Hyena's face, with the air of insanity very obvious. The only good things about this venture was that Jack was not in a killing mood and, though his insanity never faded, he was leaning toward playing with his food, but not hungry. So instead he just locked eyes with the woman who he once attempted to murder (with the stupid mutants interrupting him and keeping him from being completely successful), his gaze muted by his sunglasses, and nonchalantly continued smoking. Society had taught him that sometimes it was much more entertaining to let the prey react first, just out of entertainment. This was proving to be the case in point.

The look of fear on the woman's face was enough to send Hyena chuckling after he had watched for a moment, and since his glasses were hiding his eyes, Jack had no reason to attempt to stare down the woman any more. He really was mellowed out if he was going to allow an escaped prey stand in front of him with no reaction. Of course, Hyena did not remember the warning that the Brotherhood had gotten new members while he was away, so poor Siryn was still listed in his mind as not-Pack, and therefore subject to torment. So it was with a chuckle he continued about his own business, letting the girl decide what she was going to do next.

[Siryn]

Fairly obviously, the grin wasn't helping things.

It was as if Terry was paralysed, her fear a physical weight upon her scrawny body even as her heart thundered within her ears like the drums of war. Even if she wasn't aware of the mechanics of it, her body was preparing for the choice between the fight or flight, flooding itself with adrenalin, shunting blood away from non-essential areas to those that might aid in survival. For Terry, that meant that her throat suddenly ached like an open wound, her every instinct seeming to scream that, well, screaming was the only course here.

Memories washed over her, through her. Stark images, fear from so long ago that nonetheless cut like a knife still in its renewed freshness, the remembered sensation of being hopelessly, physically outclassed by someone with violence in their hearts. Terry had been in real fear for her life that night, hampered by terror and a long dress and a complete lack of any sort of combat experience. Only luck and the arrival of two other mutants had salvaged her existence and even then she had been haunted by the unnamed man in her dreams.

He was why she'd gotten a dog. He was part of the reason being alone when those in her life had deserted her had suddenly become unbearable. He had contributed to her being here, a part of the Brotherhood, and now he was here as well, blocking her way into her home.

The fear didn't go away when he noticed her. In fact, it spiked initially, tasting like old copper on her tongue where her teeth dug sharply into her lower lip, but she barely noticed the small pain. But when he made no move to approach her, didn't even get up...that was when Terry was able to regain at least some of her faculties. Fear still swam heavily in her veins, thick like a drug, but that initial shocked sense of being frozen faded a little. Just enough for her mind to start racing.

So there was a man on her front doorstep, a man who'd tried to kill her. That was bad. That was a lot like the first time he'd surprised her into that dark alleyway. But that was it, wasn't it, the fact that it was daylight now. Bathed in sunlight, on a public street, Terry found she could breathe just a little easier by reminding herself that she wasn't entirely alone here.

Speaking of not being alone...

She cursed lowly under her breath and shifted her weight nervously from foot to foot even as she fumbled for her phone, refusing to look away from the man who was blocking her way into her home. It took a few tries to type properly, fingers stumbling on the screen, but it didn't take long before she'd sent a text message to someone who might actually be able to help her. At worst, he could offer her advice, or release her from having to try not to betray the nature of their home by using her powers in public to defend herself. At best, maybe he'd come outside and actually physically help her make the man go away.

Of course, that was altogether too much to hope for because, a few texts later, Terry's green eyes opened wide and it was automatic to spit out an exasperated, infuriated curse. "Shite!" she hissed when Quicksilver essentially told her that the man who'd tried to kill her was a part of her new family. More frantic texting and, okay, perhaps she'd been more flippant in her conversation with her superior than was probably appropriate, but in truth Terry was pissed. Pissed that she hadn't known this before she'd joined, pissed that no one had told her since, pissed that it had come to light in a way that had left her terrified and vulnerable in public.

But, according to Quicksilver, this man obeyed rules. Certain rules, anyway. And it was only anger, irritation and that irrational trust she had in the silver-haired man that had her walking towards the steps. It was half defiant and half with false bravado that she moved, scowling and with clenched fists even as her eyes flickered between affront and trepidation. Halfway there her phone vibrated again and she snorted at the text she read, even before she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, making herself stop in front of the man who'd tried to kill her months ago.

"Hyena," she said and, okay, her voice was tight but she was surprised by how it didn't shake. Focussing on her outrage seemed to be the safest way to go about this and, sometimes, it was easy to be brave when you weren't that imaginative to start with. So Terry tilted her chin defiantly and tried to look tough even as she stared down at him. "Quicksilver says yer ta let me past."

...not that she was hiding behind their superior's name or anything.

[Hyena]

It was luck that was with the girl today. Luck or some sort of divine power that led Jack to dismiss her presence as coincidence and go back to what he was doing. That entailed minding his own business, but he had to admit it was hard not to watch the girl from behind his glasses. Oh, yes, he had been away from the Brotherhood for far longer than he had originally intended, but these sort of things happened when you were a homicidal maniac with a desire to avoid being arrested. That meant avoiding the police, and it was a tricky business when you did not have reliable transportation or any sort of safe payment method other than stolen cash.

Apparently, in his absence, the Brotherhood had decided to hire this mousey woman to come play with the big boys. Hardly a replacement for the missing in action Hyena, but Jack distinctly remembered the last time he met the red-haired girl. He remembered that she had managed to set his ears ringing for hours on end. That had not been a very good night for Hyena. Pepper-sprayed. Shot in the arm. Burst (or nearly burst) eardrums. Eventually all the pain had just run together, and it did not make for a pleasant memory of the girl, even though she was only responsible for one of the three misadventures.

A short growl jumped up in his throat at the memory, but Jack sufficiently distracted himself, dragging at the cigarette once again and seeking his vengeance in a haze of smoke blown towards the girl. She was playing with her cellular phone. Hyena snorted. The fear in her eyes was obviously not enough to hinder her, and her courage was likely aided by Jack's disinterest in attempting to rip out her throat once again. The advent of technology was useful, Hyena had to admit, but the day Jack chose to use mobile communications without being prompted by one of the Alphas was the day the world would end.

Besides, the mental image of Jack text messaging was akin to a gorilla trying to write a letter with a calligraphy pen. Unnatural, really. He would be content with the old-fashioned way of delivering messages, and though Jack preferred the word of mouth, his handwriting was surprisingly neat once he was forced to use it. Growing up sheltered with nothing to do except read and write had it's perks, and it was entertaining how so many years of disuse proved fruitless to destroy such old habits.

If Jack's ears had been less human, they would have perked up at the sudden curse, but since this was impossible, the man contented himself with a continued stare toward the girl. After a few moments of continued texting, Hyena was still staring, but he was much less amused that someone or something else was attracting this prey's attention. It was a fallacy of his nature that Jack liked, no, loved attention. He was perfectly happy to sit on the sidelines and watch the Brotherhood play their game, as long as he knew that part of one of the other member's focus (Genome and now Siryn) was devoted to keeping track of him. But since there were only two players in this little exchange between he and the red-headed girl who was currently letting her groceries leak out onto the sidewalk, Jack felt ignored.

Thus the continued staring. He realized that since the girl had reacted so negatively to him that her attention had to be partially tuned into what he was doing, because, hell, if Jack was a normal person and was confronted with someone who had tried to murder him, he would have been worried. But Jack was not normal, so my example is moot. However, this girl was pretty normal, it seemed, because even though she switched from texting to approaching Hyena with a bit of courage, there was still fear in her eyes.

Jack was not stupid. He grinned as the girl approached him, and when his name was called out in conjunction with one of the Brotherhood Beta's names, he understood what the whole cellular device thing had been about. Disappointing? Maybe, but Hyena was not in the right mood to really care. Later, when this girl inevitably pissed him off, Jack would care. Jack would fume, and he would want to destroy someone, but this girl would not be allowed, and that would do nothing to calm him down.

But for now, Hyena simply went back to staring at the opposite building, the constant growl in his throat falling to silence as he flicked the ash off his cigarette before gesturing behind him to the front door. ”Not stopping you.” Jack really was not. He was simply watching her again, which in his mind was just as good as messing with her intentionally. Which he could also do and would do. Grinning, Jack tipped down his glasses and eyed the girl again. Oh, he loved this kind of fun.


(For reference, without character rewrite details.)

[Siryn]

Should she have trusted Quicksilver's opinion of the man, the one that said he wouldn't hurt her? Or should she have gone with her firsthand experience with this maniac?

Her gut said the latter. Mainly because her gut remembered his hot breath, the sheer strength of his body when it had threatened to over-power his own. Her gut remembered knives and the thundering of her own heart and the sudden, conscious realisation of her own fragile mortality.

But her gut was also why she trusted Quicksilver's word because she owed her presence here to him. More than that, her head asked what the point was in wasting effort recruiting her only to then get her killed by an existing member? It also reminded her of what had changed between now and then. Then she had been no one, a stranger, a woman alone in a dark alley, slim and vulnerable and hopelessly breakable.

Now, though, she belonged to this man's organisation. So Terry could only pray that Quicksilver was right and this so-called Hyena would respect that.

So it wasn't necessarily trust that injected some nervous defiance into the way she looked at the smoking man, that had a lot more to do with a frenetic sort of fire that burnt at the heart of the redhead no matter who'd tried to kill her or who was her superior. That much even being the lowest ranked member of the Brotherhood could not quell. So she was scared, yes, because the body may have been incapable of remembering pain, but it remembered fear, that was for certain. And yet she was here, wasn't she? Because it wasn't as if she could turn tail and run. Not if this man was Brotherhood.

She had to face him at some point that meant, and now was as good as any she supposed. (Besides, being irrationally and inappropriately annoyed at the loss of her groceries helped muster up some courage, or at least the sort born out of indignation.)

She wanted to growl a little (a response she probably didn't realise was ironic considering just who it was sitting in front of her) and glared automatically at him. It probably wasn't effective or indeed wise, but it was more pleasant (comparatively) to be annoyed than fearful.

"Takin' up all that space? Yer nae exactly makin' it easy." Her voice was acerbic, a sharp edge that probably represented nervousness channelled into snappishness, because a woman's brain was practically a transducer when it came to taking one emotion and channelling it into another. He had a point though and, taking a breath, Terry walked past him, determined not to skirt too widely around him and show further fear, let him win...

...but a thought occurred to her and, instead of just letting herself in like a sensible person, she whirled on the spot, hair moving like flame around her face as she stared accusingly down at him again. "Are ye still doin' it?" she demanded. "Just attackin' strangers in the dark like some kind of animal?"

She had to know. Because while she'd escaped, others...it didn't bear thinking about.

[Hyena]

Sometimes, Jack wished that he did not have to wear his sunglasses. It was not that he wanted to use his intimidation freely. No, that would only weaken its effects in the long run. He just wanted this red-headed mouse to see the utterly human and sarcastic look on his face at her statements. Who did she think he was? Her own history would prove as an example that Jack was not any kind of benefactor in the least capacity. Even if this mouse could not understand that information, Jack seriously doubted that Quicksilver told her anything contrary to this idea. Everyone at the Brotherhood understood how Hyena operated, because it was simplistic and animalistic and fucking easy to remember. Don’t piss him off, and if he’s being threatening, bring up the fact that he’s part of the Brotherhood. Simple enough.

The girl did not know anything about him, apparently, even though he had to assume that her one prior run in should have told her the majority of the facts that she needed to know. He was not supposed to make things easy for her. The only thing Jack owed to the girl (or to the Brotherhood) was his duty and promise that he would avoid intentionally hurting other members. Catseye was the obvious exception to this rule, as she was in direct competition with Hyena. Even though you could ask Jack to be human, you could not take the animal out of him, and both he and the Cat knew better than to kill each other. Maiming was another thing entirely.

So, with a quiet chuckle, Jack replied, turning his eyes to the puddle under the girl’s broken groceries after he spoke, looking at the mess in mere boredom. ”Not my problem.” If this girl could not hold her own passing Hyena - a Hyena restrained by a promise, at that - on the front step of the Brotherhood, she was doomed to fail from the start. It did not help that Jack was quietly planning something, either. He did not have to be helpful, and he could not be violent, but that did not mean he could not be cruel and have a little fun, right?

He was slightly taken aback by the girl’s next set of questions, and Hyena briefly entertained the idea of merely ignoring the woman, but that was traded for a more sarcastic (and human) route. ”You’re right.” Jack said, a note of sadness in his voice. Remembering, some dramatic human thing he had seen on a television programme, Hyena held up a hand in an attempt to harness some of the “innocence” the media had displayed. ”I’ve seen the error of my ways, and I’ve changed my spots. Stripes. Your choice.” Jack shrugged indifferently, a grin on his scarred face. ”If I’m lying to you, may God smite me where I stand and send me straight into hellfire.” He was pulling old memories out now, appealing to the human half of the woman.

If she believed him, she was dumber than she looked. Hyena laughed aloud this time, cruel and inhuman, before rubbing at his face and continuing onward. ”Whoop, look’s like your God is not here, stupid human.* Guess I’ll just have to go back to being Hyena.” Once again, the glasses were in his way for a very pointed look toward the girl. His name was Hyena. Fucking Hyena Jack Nyangao, Jack Hyena. Of course he was an animal, and he was damn well proud of it. He had no friends, and his only “companions” were the Brotherhood, the pack, so who but strangers was he supposed to target?

Snorting, Jack returned to his cigarette, lamenting how the supposedly most intelligent species in the world could be so dumb.

* Jack is mostly unaware of other religions (ignoring various indigenous religions), and due to his upbringing and the prominence of Christianity at the location of his first true introduction to modern human society, he is under the impression that almost all humans are Christian.

[Siryn]

It was foolish to turn back, she knew that much. Pietro said he was safe, but Terry had experienced the proof that he was not, had felt his hot breath and the strength of his body, had seen the wicked glitter of his knives. The body did not remember pain, but it could recall that it had happened and just the sight of this man, this Hyena was enough to bring those recollections back.

And she was to share a home with this man. Sleep on the same floor as him. Eat in the same room as him. The world had a really fucked up sense of humour, she was realising, and Terry was actually appalled that she hadn't realised that he was here until now.

But outside of a dark alley, in the broad light of day, it was easier to be self-righteously angry than afraid and thinking she was about to die. Terry had always been a reckless, dynamic, emotional creature and level-headedness was hardly her forte. She always had to feel something, have an emotion to bolster the force of her personality and now was just one of those examples.

This time, she would not be afraid. She would not be weak. And the only way Terry knew how to do that was to focus on being angry instead. The only problem was that such emotions tended to drown out what little common sense she had to start with.

Hence why she was still engaging the 'animal' and not getting particularly satisfying results.

She scowled at him, thinking she looked more ferocious than she actually was. She even went so far as to plant her hands on her skinny hips, jutting her chin in a belligerent and outraged fashion, as if that somehow made her an intimidating presence. But his mockery aggravated her and, curiously, made her far more defensive of her religion than she'd ever been in her life in spite of being an absent-minded Catholic at the best of times.

"But why?" Here, she perhaps betrayed some of her misconceptions about the group for which she had found herself working. "How does attackin' humans - or people ye just think are humans - help in any way? Why have ye nae been hunted down for what ye do yet? How come the police are nae bangin' on this place's doors to come and get ye?"

She'd thought she'd understood the purpose of the Brotherhood. Apparently not.

[Hyena]

Jack was getting tired of this game. It was cat and mouse, predator and prey, and this prey was pushing his limits. Hyena had the patience of the saint, strange as it may seem, but this was a very particular patience, a patience applied to one thing and one thing only. Waiting for a mistake to be made. It was the patience of a predator who would lie in wait and smell the sweat of his prey on the wind and lie in wait for hours if needed until his prey took one step too close. Most humans did that to Jack. They were used to a passive society, a society of prey, a herd who was uninterested in attacking each other in ways that needed real defense. Not Hyena, not people like Hyena (though he could hardly be called a person, now could he?).

This girl, this woman in front of him was gloating to him, showing that the mouse could prance about in front of the lion with no issues. She was part of the Brotherhood - Jack had to remind himself of this several times during the duration of the conversation. His emotions on the subject were fairly obvious, grimaces formed around his cigarette as the woman continued flapping her lips with bleating sounds of dissent, but Jack ignored them. Or at least he tried.

The man known as Hyena was unconcerned with the woman, uninterested in the woman as prey right now, even without the label of “Pack”. He was simply not in the mood, and all Jack really wanted to do was sit in silence and watch the people pass by, watch the greying sky above the buildings, be at peace with this tumultuous city and remember the open lands and the trees instead of stop signs and cars for once. And smoke his damn cigarettes, but apparently that was too much for the man to ask. Jack very rarely left the world alone, instead choosing to pick at the heard in a constant effort of cruelty rather than survival, but this woman was determined to wake him back up and bring him out of the calm he was enjoying.

Why did he attack humans? Same reason why Jack attacked anything - food, boredom, that cruelty instilled in him by humans so long ago, anger, rage, ruthless destruction, fear, delicious fear. A whole range of emotions and reasoning, and the woman could pick any one of them and it would be true. Why hadn’t he been hunted down and captured and made to pay for his “crimes”? He had been. Scars showed that Jack had taken punishment, and the hunter was always hunted by those he offended. Why had they humans not killed him by now? Because, fortunately, Jack knew how to clean up after himself and the only things he left behind could not be linked to the mutant. The only things that could like Hyena to the crimes were in his stomach (or his refrigerator, take your pick).

The squeaking of this mouse was getting to be too much and Jack was finished playing games. He would not hurt her, no. The Pack was the Pack, but those lesser still needed to understand submission, to keep from barking and nipping at the feet of those who could rip out their throats with little effort. Hyena finished off his current cigarette, snuffing it out on the steps of the Brotherhood before glancing down the street to see if there were any people around. Someone was just rounding the corner walking away, but that was of no interest to Jack. He turned his eyes, his sunglasses up at the woman, and then rose to his feet in a quick motion, giving her no time to react as the mutant reached deep into his center and let out the largest roar he could muster, animalistic and human and loud. It didn’t stop there, as there was a hate in Jack’s eyes, though they were hiding behind his glasses, and his fists were clenched in an effort to keep from attacking the woman.

If she stayed, there would be no reason to not rip her throat out, and Hyena hardly thought that she could get a message out to Quicksilver before he did so. He remembered the sounds she could make, his broken eardrums, but those would heal - a torn jugular, not so much.

[Siryn]

He didn't hurt her.

No, he didn't cross the line drawn in the line by those who had crafted the Brotherhood. He did not lay a single finger on her to cause her physical harm. Not like before, when--.

No, she didn't like to think of that, remembering the pain and the paralysing fear and the growing, sucking, engulfing panic that this was it, this was how her story ended, this was her staring into death and it looked like him. Terry had had nightmares about that night for months afterwards. She'd even got a dog because of him. He had changed her, made her warier, made her less sure of her safety in the world that was New York City when you were young and female and a mutant and alone.

He had hurt her then. He was not hurting her now. But, dammit, even if her mind knew he wasn't allowed to do so, her body didn't. There was something more primal at play, a fundamental concept of living things in this world. Her reptilian hind brain reacted even when her more human one did not and when the man moved, the man who screamed predator to that basic, wild part of her evolutionary history, she could not help but react as prey. Just a little.

Then he roared.

She'd already been startled, wrong-footed, her anger turning to fear in an instant. It was like her sustaining warmth turned to ice between one heartbeat and the next and she flinched, pupils blowing up wide and shot in her green eyes. The noise terrified some mindless part of her, the part that wanted to turn and run, to flee. In that moment, he was a predator and she was a prey animal and the tie between them was as old as life itself.

But she was not an animal and instinct only lasted so long. And even if he'd frightened her into a yelp, a high-pitched noise of pure fear, that morphed back into a far more human sort of anger when she realised what he was doing. It was a threat, a reminder of how he certainly could have hurt her if only he was allowed and she was certain that, in a physical fight, he would win. But this wasn't a physical fight and he wasn't allowed to hurt her and, right now, he had just startled a noise out of her that was a weapon she had and he did not.

So, even as he roared, her scared cry morphed down into something more defiant, for all that there was a shit load of fear in the noise as well. It was angry and scared and, more than that, it was loud. And she didn't care if she was going to get in trouble for using her voice like this on the Brotherhood's doorstep, but she had no words right now, had almost forgotten how to talk in fact.

Screaming was instinct and she wasn't even sure whether it was a fear noise or a challenge. Either way, it was loud and high, and, yeah, if the door at her back hadn't been closed and therefore was not an easy escape route when she was reacting as primally as this, maybe she would have just run.

But her body said this was her only possible response right now.

(...mutants be cray cray.)

[Hyena]

Hyena considered it. He considered how it would feel to give up these rules he lived by, abandon the pack, take the red-haired girl's life into his hands and tear it apart. Oh, how unfortunate she would be, and her blood would stain the concrete for years to come, leaked down into the far cracks with a sense of damnable finality. He considered how she would feel, this ending of a pure and innocent life, spared once, then taken on an idle whim, as if some God was laughing above. It was the fear, though, that pushed him to the edge. The fear in the back of the panya's eyes, such a sweet fear, such a tasty fear, and Jack wanted it, Hyena wanted it. But no, no, he couldn't. It would be bad, very bad, and he would be in trouble with the Alphas.

But, if Jack had hackles, they'd be raised. If Jack had ears, they'd be flat against his head. A maw or a tail, everything switching from rage to hesitation to fear. This primal want was good, so good, but it was bad, it was punishable. Hyena couldn't. He was frustrated and annoyed and almost scared at the back of his mind, so he roared. It was the only expression he had. Jack could have spoken, but human words were pointless when a mouse stared down a lion and said, "no" with every fiber in her body, and then, and then, the lion was held by a stupid rule and then the mouse dared him more. What was his choice? Surely not run. Not apologize. And Jack could not ignore her.

The yelp was a familiar thing, but an old wound was opened by that memory of the same piercing pain he felt now. Hyena was still frustrated and angry and tired of all these humans, and now he was hurt. The ringing in his ears was both a pain and a distraction, and though he couldn't hear it, Jack knew he was still roaring, pain changing the noise to a higher pitched sound. As soon as Hyena could shake off the imbalance and the strange taste in the back of his mouth, lurched forward, unceremoniously pinning the woman against the wall and slamming the outside of his forearm against her throat.

"Stop."

That was a command and a plea, and Jack fought to keep his head and his balance, panting and growling quietly between unrestrained whines. This was too much for him to handle too much for him to sort. He was both human and animal, and those parts of Hyena rarely clashed, but now they did, human side desperately clinging to orders and a pack and animal side wanting nothing more than to tear this woman limb from limb and leave pieces of her on the doorstep like a pet cat to show exactly what Hyena thought of the Brotherhood rules. He growled again, feeling the rumbling in his throat for all that he couldn't hear, but he let the woman go. Jack leaned over a few steps away from her, hands on his knees to keep his balance, eyes shut at the pain and the anger, and his growl became louder, deeper, before he cut it short. "Leave. Now. While you still can. Next time, you won't get another chance."

All he wanted was to be left alone. Was that too much to ask?

[Siryn]

She was hurting him. Her voice, the way it screeched and soared and hit frequencies that human ears could not hear, but could be hurt by all the same, that was hurting him. And being able to hurt someone gave you power over them.

...it wasn't actually all that reassuring.

Terry was still mostly responding out of fear, her scream more instinctive and angry than a controlled war cry. It was the noise of a cornered animal determined to protect itself even when flight would have been the preferred option. Her body thrummed with tension and sound, as if the scream was doing more to hold her up than her own skeleton. It was as if her voice vibrated through those bones and, by Terry's side, her hands closed into fists. Hard enough that her nails - long and painted a foolishly, girlishly bright shade of green - dug into her palms until the blood welled up, sharp and salty.

His yell cut off sooner than her scream. But the first was because he'd chosen to do so. The latter was because, again, his arm slammed into her throat and she once again experienced the terror that was having his body pressed far too close to hers. Even her vocal cords couldn't work when compressed that much and her chest heaved ineffectively as she tried to drag air in through what little space her airways had left in them.

"Stop," he said. "Stop," he said before he moved away and left her go, newly and familiarly hurting and scared. "Leave," he told her and, really, Terry wasn't going to worry about pride or dominance now, not when fear had flooded through her when he'd been so close that she could smell him.

If he was done proving that he could hurt her too, she wasn't going to hang around any longer.

Terry fled, leaving her groceries behind, leaving her pride behind, and the door slammed in her wake as she dashed into the house that was not a home, heart beating so fast and hard that black spots swam in front of her vision. And he lived here too. Maybe on the same floor as her. Maybe in the room next to hers.

No, Terry would not be sleeping tonight.