Xaviers!

"Sounds good to me." Laura says, stretching her arms and shoulders while rolling her neck with a crack.

"Hey, you boys looking for somebody?" she asks loudly, stepping into the hallway.

Tereza steps out of the elevator. "The one left without an unconscious Yakuza buys a round," she whispers to the other two. From here, Yukio would be able to see the ice spreading across her back in a furry pattern before it starts spreading down her arms.

The two men perk up, starting down the hallway towards the three. They exchange a few words in Japanese before one of them switches to English.

"This doesn't have to concern you," he says to Laura.

"True, but you don't have to shake down people either, so I figure that evens out."

"And more to the point, you're kind of in our way," Tereza adds, stepping up next to Laura.

"Now boys," Yukio says with a winning smile, "You know Tyger doesn't want you anywhere near Hightown."

"Well Tyger isn't here, is she?" The nearer man asks.

"You really think she isn't going to find out?" Yukio chides.

"To hell with this," the farther man mutters, reaching for something in his jacket.

The ice wraps around Tereza's body and down into her hand. She flicks her hand and a whip of flexible ice lashes out towards the man's hand, trying to entangle his wrist. "Guess we do get to have some fun then."

The man yelps as his arm is grabbed, struggling with the tendril. His partner frowns and advances on Laura and Yukio.

Laura breaks into a sprint down the hall. When she gets close to the goons she leans into the run a bit more and just straight up runs her shoulder into the guy's stomach. Even with her metal-coated bones she probably weighs less than the guy, but she also doesn't particularly care about such things as hurting herself or dislocating a joint like most people and slams into him like a human cannonball.

Tereza yanks the man's hand with the whip, stronger than she at first appears. The ice around his hand begins to expand as Tereza continues to try to wrench him forward.

Clearly having not recognized the metal-boned sparkplug that ends up charging him, the man goes sprawling against the hallway wall with a meaty thud, aiming a knee at Laura's gut.

The ensnared man meanwhile decides to lean into where he's getting yanked, swinging a haymaker at Tereza.

Yukio circles around, looking for an opening impatiently.

Tereza sort of expects him to try something, but she's a little slow in getting out of the way of the haymaker and it rocks her sideways a step. She comes back upright with a grinning snarl and her eyes yellow. "Thanks," she says as she goes to return the favor.

Neither healing factor nor metal bones keep you from having the air knocked out of you, so X-23 staggers at least momentarily. Angry tenacity however let's her push through anyway and she retorts with a headbutt.

Being headbutted by a metal skull hurts, and this sends Laura's assailant reeling. He tumbles back and slowly slides down the wall.

Yukio wastes no time, rolling Laura's assailant over and producing zip-ties from... well, that's an interesting question for later. She's quick about restraining his hands and feet.

Tereza's blow connects with the man's jaw and has him spitting blood.

"Crazy bitch," he swears, trying to reach out and grab her.

"Oh you have no idea," she says, spiking the temperature around her down as she leans into the grab, sinking freshly grown claws into his suit. "Is it cold in here? Or is it just me?"

"Well, we got one to ask questions..." Laura shrugs with a smirk. If Tereza was actually going to tear into the guy she'd probably intervene, but as it is it makes for good intimidation.

The man lets go of Tereza as if scalded, windmilling his arms as he pulls back.

Which probably wasn't a smart idea after Tereza already got her claws into him.

Tereza strengthens her grip, using the suit to reverse his momentum, pulling her knee up as he yanks the man back towards her. Stomach, groin, she doesn't much care where she makes contact. At least she seems to be attempting to incapacitate rather than kill.

The man doubles over, and as before Yukio quickly wrangles him around to tie his hands and feet.

"You're both stronger than you look. See that laundry chute?" She cants her head down the hallway.

Tereza glances in that direction, "Yeah. Want us to dump the trash?"

"I'll tell Tyger's people where to pick 'em up."

Tereza reaches down so she can drag the guy that Yukio is tieing up. "Sure thing. Never dumped someone down a laundry chute before."

"I wouldn't put it on anyone's bucket list, but it's pretty satisfying," she says as she gets out her phone.

It does take a bit of effort, but Tereza dumps the guy down the laundry chute with Laura's help before returning to Yukio. "We still good here or do we need to go elsewhere?"

"Depends on how long you really wanna bend my ear for. I'm probably going to have to move on pretty soon, if people already know where I'm staying."

"Depends on what you know about her," Tereza says.

"Sweetie, I could tell you her pants size if that's your thing," she says as she tucks her phone away and swipes her card in the door, stepping into the room.

"We'll start with 'do you know how to get in touch with her' then." Tereza follows her, looking around as she does so.

"That's a tricky prospect. She keeps a few post office boxes under assumed names. Usually shuffles them every six months. Pretty active on the dark web, but she goes to ground often."

"I imagine she's gone to ground with recent activities. How far back do the two of you go?"

The room looks rather like it's trying to be a fancy hotel room. It's what a poor person would think a fancy hotel room should look like, with several needless flourishes. It'd probably impress the average tourist that found themselves a little too far from the nicer part of the city.

"Depends on your definition of 'go,' really."

"First ran into her when she was still working for the Russian government. Wasn't a friendly encounter."

"Looked me up again after she told her handlers to pound sand. Most of her contacts weren't friendly anymore, and she needed help getting back on her feet."

"I can certainly get behind telling the Russians to pound sand, snow, or whatever terrain feature suits. She ever mention the 'programs'?"

"Plural is right. Whole lot of 'em in Russia in the Cold War days, and not all of 'em wound down all timely-like when the Soviet Union collapsed."

"The two big ones were the Black Widow project, which was successful, and the Omega project, which either wasn't successful or was too successful depending on who you ask."

"Your mom... well, she kind of straddles the line between those two."

"And I'm the result of trying to recreate her apparently. I'm not entirely sure what the rest of the program I was in was intended to do." She sighs, "So, is she someone worth knowing?" It's easy to see as she asks that question just how afraid she is of being disappointed by the answer.

"When I first met her, she was trying to kill me. Now? I'd trust her with my life."

"...it's funny how many people fit that description with me."

"Long list or short list?" Tereza says, brightening a little.

"Maybe not that long a list, but a lot of my closer friends started out wanting to kill me."

"Funny how that works out. If you do see her, do me a favor and tell her that her youngest daughter is looking for her and just wants to talk."

"I'll see what I can do. I'm guessing you'll be at that school of yours?"

Neither of them had mentioned the school.