These Empty Roads

[Kindle]

Nearby the sounds of a Sentinel could be heard, its thunderous footsteps echoing through abandoned streets, crunching remnants of cars and other debris below its feet. A slow curl of heat spilled into the frigid air, a pair of half open black eyes watched a patrol run by him, the black uniforms not noticing the man hiding in the alleyway, nor the mutant child clinging to him with wide, reptilian, eyes. The blonds hand rests on a thin gun at his waist, which he removes only after the footsteps have faded away.

Quietly he stands, pulling the child with him before darting across the street. The child doesn't question the movement and just follows him, as does a few others, part of a group. Quietly they moved through back streets and arrived at a door hidden behind refuse. Going between the rock entrance way he opened the thick steel doors, letting the others go before him, giving minor glares to his teammates. To a casual observer it would look like they all were wary of each other, and rather disliked the blond. They wouldn't be far off.

Shutting the door behind him, the blond lit a cigarette and hit the streets again, picking a duffle bag from the rubble as he went. To him it was better being out here, where he could be captured, than in there with the others of his kind. Sucking in on the cigarette he sighed out a noxious cloud of smoke, huffing faintly before planting it firmly in his mouth and heading into the streets.

[fqtt]

Quick, fleet footsteps against the rubble and debris strewn about the ground. Short, swift glances to the sky above where a raptor flew, soaring above the wolf, keeping an eye out for trouble. New York, once so grand and beautiful, now lay level with the horizon.

The wolf only had one thing on his mind: Food. It was hard to find out here on the wasteland... mostly what he found nowadays were rats. The rats were the only things that thrived here, besides the Sentinels. They grew fat on the remains of the dead that lay about.

Suddenly, the falcon above him let out a screech and dove towards the ground head-first. It dissapeared behind a mound of rubble, and it was hard to believe that it had not crashed there, at the rate of speed it had been falling. A moment later it rose, however, a dead rat tight in its talons. It flew over to the wolf, who had stopped, nose in the air, with its burden.

He smelled mutant. Just barely... Strong smell of human, faint smell of mutant. Whether friend or foe, he couldn't tell. It was impossible to tell.

[Kindle]

Not being able to detect other mutants, Kindle sort of just happened upon people. And if he didn't keep a sharp eye out he missed things. Like right now, he was looking for uniformed men and Sentinels. He didn't notice the falcon or the wolf until he was just about on top of them. Startled as his eyes finally rested on them his eyes narrowed. Great.

Neither seemed to be a threat however, and he relaxed more. Well, if he could manage it he was getting around them. He himself was out after food rations and medical supplies, now that he'd done his 'good deed' of the day he was rather agitated to have run into someone else. "You shouldn't eat those." He said suddenly, surprising himself. "They're New York rats, even though the cities nearly gone, they're still just as rotten."

[fqtt]

The wolf had his teeth bared and his ears flat against his head, but wasn't growling. He was wary, but didn't want to attack if it wasn't necessary. Out here, you needed to keep all the energy you could.

The falcon dropped the rat as Kindle spoke, and grew from a bird into a teenage boy. He had dark black hair and bright green eyes that rested on Kindle as he spoke. "New York rats are better than New York trash." He shrugged faintly. "There's nothing else to eat." He had three short, skinny scars underneath his left eye, and two of the same underneath his right.

[Kindle]

Kindle shrugged his slim shoulders, his eyes moving back and forth between the two. "Bullshit there isn't. Ya just gotta know where to look." His hand moved up, slowly, to pull the cigarette from his lips, letting out a stream of smoke. He pointed in a rough direction. "I can show ya, if ya want." His Boston accent placed his home much further from New York, but he seemed to have a rough idea of the city anyway.

[fqtt]

The boy's hand rested on the wolf's head, and the wolf immediately relaxed, sitting down, his keen yellow eyes on the other mutant.
"If you wouldn't mind..." His voice was naturally soft, but had a slight edge to it. "We've only been here a couple weeks." They had been chased all the way to New York from their hometown by mutant-haters, who believed that the mutant problem would be taken care of the Sentinels who dominated the city.

[Kindle]

Newcomers. Fucking wonderful. "'mon then." He grumbled, heading past the wolf, empty duffel still in one hand as he went by them. This wasn't something he had expected to do while out. Sometimes he wondered if he had any luck at all. Honestly. He always ran into either trouble or new mutants. Or the Sentinel guards there...whatever the fuck their group name was. The place he was going wasn't too far from here. A small convenience store hidden behind a flipped eighteen wheeler. walking through the shattered glass and a ripped off door, he walked into the store. Plenty of perishables and supplies here.

[fqtt]

The teenager frowned faintly as he followed after the mutant. His frustration was obvious...
The wolf kept close to the teenager as they reached the convenient store, glancing around and keeping his head low, wary for enemies. This mutant was barely a mutant at all... he could be working for the humans, leading them into a trap.
"It's okay if we take food from here...?" The teenager asked, watching the mutant. "If it's your supply, we don't want to deprive you of your food." Generosity was rare nowadays. It was hard to believe that this guy would just give them the food.

[Kindle]

"What the fuck do I care?" Kindle managed, grabbing a handful of this and that as he walked down the aisles. "We don't fuckin' need half this shit." Which, really, he wasn't sure of, but hell, he wasn't going to tell this kid not to take some. The idea of eating rats really grossed him out. Not that he wouldn't if it got down to that...but while they're was still good food..."Just take whatever the fuck you want." He muttered. Grabbing first aid kits and other such things now. He found the beer coolers rather easily, tugging a warm single can from the busted glass door.

[fqtt]

The boy, Shreveport, watched after the mutant for a moment before shrugging, looking down at the wolf. The canine's tail was wagging faintly, his nose picking out all the delicious smells of the store. He padded silently over to a rack of beef jerky and sat down, grinning at the black-haired teenager.
Shreveport shook his head and followed the wolf to the dried treats and took a pack off the shelf, opening it for him. "Thank you for this." He said, looking back to Kindle. The rats they had been eating tasted filthy. It had been a while since they had had real food.

[Kindle]

Popping the can open he drank half of it with a wince. Ugh, warm beer. Put a nice disgusting flavor to everything. Though it was better than some things. "Don't thank me." He said, very simply. No one else did after all. And really, that didn't fucking bother him. Well...not that he let show anyway. Shrugging of the thoughts he looked back at them. It was odd to find two mutants wandering the streets together, usually they ran alone, or in larger groups, four and larger really.

[fqtt]

Shreveport frowned faintly. The man might as well have insulted him... He knew the simple 'Don't thank me' that had been thrown at him hadn't been out of selflessness. He picked up a rotten apple from a small display and looked at it for a moment before setting it back down. New York, the Big Apple, was now nothing better than that real apple, rotten. They hadn't been able to find real food anywhere... and now he had shown them to it. Of course he was going to thank him. Unless the white-haired guy was hiding something.
He looked back at Kindle as he felt the mutant's gaze on him. "What?" He asked, noting the man's musing expression.
The wolf lay on the ground with the package of beef jerky between his paws, snacking happily on the tough meat.

[Kindle]

Having been caught watching them made him frown, and he shrugged faintly. "Just odd. Two mutants traveling together." Made him suspicious, if only a little bit. He sat himself on the sales counter, his half a beer next to him, and a package of slat and vinegar chips being popped open in his hands. He was hungry himself, having skipped out on lunch earlier that afternoon after a fight with some of the others.

[fqtt]

Shreveport shrugged faintly, leaning back against the counter that held a machine that had once let people serve themselves their own soft drinks. "We don't fit anywhere else. Me and Marcus... we haven't been friends long, but we might as well have been. We're both outcasts, strangers. We care for a world that doesn't care for us." He shrugged faintly. "Besides, our mutant powers aren't much. Even if we wanted to join a group, they wouldn't let us in." He was quiet for a moment, his eyes on the wolf, who wasn't paying them any attention, riveted solely to the snack at hand. "Before this all went down, all this mess with the Sentinels... we worked hard to help the people in our town. But once the machines came, it didn't matter. They forgot about everything we had done for them, and ran us out."

[Kindle]

"That's bullshit too." Kindle grumbled, taking another gulp of his beer, "There's a group that'll take you." The group he was in. I mean hell, they kept him around didn't they? He was a pain in the ass, and his mutant powers were next to nothing. "Humans are humans, they all are the same."