A Touch of Nostalgia [Open]

[Kayla Chetwood-Elicott]

Thread Starter Song

High up on the rooftop of a ten story building, overlooking the streets and the nearby police station, sat a tight-suit, dark-leather clad, black masquerade half-mask wearing, auburn haired woman, with her knee-length dark boot up on the bottom of a low railing. Bathed in moonlight and thoroughly whipped by cool night wind, her dark locks fluttered about her shoulders and struck her face, their flurry of motion in stark contrast to the static distance in the Catwoman impersonator’s eyes. Various pouches were hung to her tough belt along with a metallic-looking, coiled chord.

Down below, a row of police cars appeared from the law enforcing building and rushed into a flock of traffic, their sirens blazing and shrieking. Their red lights were too far away to reflect in her eyes. Kayla took hold of the top portion of the railing, watching them speed through the streets. She had been fleeing from the police for almost a year now, and the urgency of her pursuers was dimming, but sirens still made her heart squeeze in an extra beat. Sometimes she still couldn’t believe how great a turn her life had taken after the framing of her father and the personal family tragedy that ensued. Once, she had been a respected member of the CIA, a shadow of law, a claw of justice and now – she looked at her dark gloved palm – she was a “cat burglar”, a title she had adopted from the famed comic-book character that she felt distinctly in tune with – Selina Kyle.

Kayla’s lips curled into a minimal, mirthless smile. It was silly of her, perhaps, to link herself to a comic-book character, but it was the only thing of her former life that she enjoyed to hang on to. As a child, she had been an avid consumer of the genre, but she had never fancied herself the villain. Her smile dropped. There was nothing worth saving about this world and there would be no Batman to draw her from her descent into darkness and right her path. The world was a cruel and selfish place and whoever thought different had never felt true, biting injustice from those who thought themselves righteous. Laws existed to protect the powerful and rich, while the rest were left to waste away.

Kayla’s eyes narrowed. She had learned this the hard way. Letting slip a soft sigh, she traced a gloved finger across the metal railing. There was no bitterness to support her spite today, just emptiness, and she was delaying the moment she’d head west, to break into that arrogant magnate’s estate and see what stolen treasures could be found in his quarters.

[Shina Ochi]

Shina was in the city for the first time in a while. Her parents had agreed to let her go out on her own for a bit while they were on a date. She had no intentions to stay around and watch them get all lovey-dovey, so Shina took her twenty bucks and got the heck out of the restaurant. The first place she went was to the comics store to pick up a few issues. She got a couple X-Men and left. She went all around town and on her way back, she saw a large row of police cars going her way. The blinking lights were too much for her, and she stood to the side. Realizing that she would have to go past the police station on her way back to her parents, Shina trudged on. The station had looked menacing in the early evening light, so Shina could only imagine what it would look like in the moonlight.

Shina came to the station, and it looked more menacing than it had. The bleak gray stone gargoyles looked down at her with evil gazes. Red brick walls behind them framed an evil air the gargoyles already gave off. The finishing touch to its creepiness was the man in the lab coat. On the lab coat Shina could barely make out the letters DNCS. Shina was scared stiff. If the man finds out I'm a mutant, there goes my life, she thought despairingly. Shina was careful to stay in the shadows on the other side of the street, so as not to be seen, but there was not much shadow to be found. Crap, she thought, I'm gonna have to run for it across this little patch of light back into the shadows. If they see me, I'll be in the DNCS for sure. Ready, set, run! Shina was yelling in her head, telling her legs to move as fast as possible. She ran across the open patch, and wasn't seen. At least, she didn't think she was.

She went inside the nearest building, which was locked. Shina used the kinetic energy from her quick run to make a small blast to move the lock so she could go in the building. She found the stairwell and sprinted up to the roof as fast as she could. The ten flights of stairs were a little tiring to run up, but she made do for as long as she could. She opened the door the roof with another blast since it was locked. The air outside was cold to her, and she shivered somewhat loudly. Shina heard the faint sound of a person by the railing of the roof.
"Who's there" Shina called into the darkness, seeing the silhouette in the darkness as her eyes slowly adjusted to the low amount of light.

[Kayla Chetwood-Elicott]

The night wore on and the sirens died away in the distance. Kayla’s eyes moved away from the street and rose up to meet the silver moon. The space next to her was briefly filled by a memory of someone who had once been and still was, in some ways, dear to her. How many nights like this had she been on rooftops with Leonard? The shared companionship was such that didn’t require words to fill the silence, thus, if she kept her eyes on the sky she could pretend he was beside her now and they were just waiting for orders on how to proceed. Wind continued messing up her hair and she lost the empty feeling to have it replaced with nostalgia. The phantom of thought beside her was looking at the sky also, his hands lightly on the railing and eyes shining. Kayla produced a smile that was filled with irony and her eyes moistened.

Even in her daydreams he was looking for someone else in the sky although she was always right beside him.

Kayla closed her eyes against the unshed tears and the vision vanished. When she opened them again, the emotion had been replaced with stoicism. That was when the distant sound of footsteps and the following bang that marked the forced opening of the locked door behind her happened. Instantly, she crouched down and dashed away from view, concealing herself behind a rectangular chimney, or at least it looked like one. She pressed her back to the hard concrete and narrowed her eyes. Could someone have followed her? The response came early, under the form of an anxious inquiry from what sounded like... a young girl? The night was full of surprises, as usual.

With a poke on the side of her masquerade mask, she received night-vision lenses over her eyes. She was done admiring the moonlight. A look back to the intruder confirmed it was a young girl. Kayla rose from her position and came to stand on a wide base, one hand on her hip. “Whaddaya think you’re doing? Bursting through doors like that.” Her tone was sharp and accusing and for a moment she just stared at the girl, sizing her up. Experience kept Kayla from approaching the younger female. She knew not to go by appearances. “You shouldn’t be doing that so close to the police station, little girl. Someone might think you’re a law breaker of some sort and be near enough to catch you.” The end of Kayla’s words were laced with teasing.

[Shina Ochi]

Shina saw the person in the moonlight. It was a woman, and had called out to her. "Um, I'm, uh," Shina was stammering. Should she tell this woman what she was up to? "I'm hiding from the DNCS man in front of the police station." The words had sped from Shina's mouth without control. She studied the woman in front of her. The woman looked to be in her mid-twenties, and had a sort of mask on. With a black jumpsuit and boots, she looked like Catwoman a bit.

Knowing not to believe this woman, since she looked like a thief, Shina continued. "I broke into this building to hide, nothing else. I'm not going to do anything if you don't." The moon was nice that night, Shina thought to herself. "Are you a thief? You sorta look like one to me, wearing all that black," Shina said. She saw the woman in a position to approach slowly, like Shina was a threat to her.

The cloud covering the moon moved, and Shina could see the woman more clearly now. One look showed her that the woman had auburn hair, which would be a better identifing feature if Shina saw her again. The woman was wearing night vision goggles of a sort, so Shina couldn't see her eyes at all. A small bit of fear found its way to Shina that this woman might be a threat to her, but Shina pushed it away. "Anyway, what are you doing here?"

[Kayla Chetwood-Elicott]

The girl’s reply threw her entirely. All the teasing was sapped from her and when she spoke next, it was completely serious and warning. “Don’t go talking about that out loud, girl. What’re you? Some kind of mutant? How do you even know about the DNCS?” Maybe her parents had told her, though the general public was in the dark when it came to the mutant-associated facility. “And if you’re hiding, how about hiding more quietly?” She looked towards the door the girl had forced open. “Someone probably heard that. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’re making their way up here as we speak.”

When she was offered a truce to some war that didn’t even exist, Kayla tilted her head. “I’m not doing anything,” she pointed out, lifting her hands and dropping them on her hips. Perhaps she should be? The implied potential threat, coming from the girl, made Kayla a little anxious. The little one was either stupid or powerful, to offer such statements. Kayla stopped quite a distance away from Shina, maintaining a careful amount of space between them. When she was assumed to be a thief, she had to laugh. The moment her mirth quieted, she looked back to the smaller female. “Do you always ask strange women on dark roofs if they’re thieves?” A smile was left in her tone. “And if I was, shouldn’t you be a little more concerned to be up here with me?”

Kayla thrust a hand in her hair and threw it back, but the messy auburn locks just cascades back to their original position. The newest question was simple. Kayla pointed a thumb back, towards the moon and the general scenery behind the railing. “Enjoying the view.” The answer was, in all honesty, perfectly true. She wasn’t supposed to still be here, she had business to attend to.

At that very moment, a man came up the stairs, dressed in pajamas. He looked to Shina and then to Kayla and asked, though his sleepiness. “What? Why is the door open? You two shouldn’t be up her-“ Something very quick and small zipped through the air and caught him in the neck and he grew quiet and stiff and toppled over, face-first against the concrete. Kayla had blown something out of a cylinder taken from her pouch at him. If Shina were to check, she would find he was unconscious but definitely alive and breathing normally. “Well, I told you someone must have noticed,” Kayla told her and shrugged.

“Anyway...” She considered the girl again. “Was that man you are hiding from following you or something?”

[Shina Ochi]

"Well, I, uh," Shina was at a loss for words again. Once again, she was having trouble deciding whether to tell or not. "I found out about the DNCS from my parents. They both used to work in the government." Shina confused herself a little, just for saying that to the woman. Now came the hard part. "Um, I'm sorta, kinda a mutant. And I can use the kinetic energy created from movement to blast stuff. That's how I got up here in the first place. But I only can absorb the energy from around me." She was pacing around the rooftop, when the man burst in. A small dart was seen by Shina hitting his neck. "What-what was that?" Shina asked confused.

Her phone rang abruptly a second after Shina asked her question. "Crap, it's my parents, so I gotta take this." She flipped open her phone, and answered it. A brief conversation happened, and Shina closed it and put it back in her pocket. "They say I'm supposed to go to their friends 24-hour coffee shop while they're going to a movie. I got plenty of time until I get picked up." A sigh of relief found its way through her lips, and she continued pacing. "Yes, I do ask most of the strange women I meet on rooftops if they are thieves. But from the way you asked that following question, you're implying that you are a thief. But I'm not that concerned about being up here with you since you are a thief. Probably because I could seriously injure you and make it away safely. But I won't since you're treating me like I'm not a threat anymore, so I'm not worried." Her words were spoke with a joking tone.

"So anyway, do you have to steal something at this building or nearby? Though from what I saw of this building it looked like mostly offices and executive apartments. I wouldn't report you if you told me, since that would lead to an explanation of what I was doing here, and my inability to provide one would lead to a investigation of me, and I would end up in the DNCS for sure. Not to mention my brothers likely from the investigation of me that would happen. So no, there is no way I would report you." Shina had just said a mouthful of words that sounded more like a report than a 'I won't do something' kind of thing.

"That man I was hiding from was kinda doing something, if using checkups at a doctors office to find new test subjects from outside the city area counts. And believe me, it took a lot of my black clothes and jumping off buildings to get away from him. But that started over a year ago almost. So he's had his revenge in for me anytime he can figure out who I am." Shina had pretty much given away every bit of information she had to a thief whose name she didn't even know. "Not to sound weird or anything, but are you by any chance a comic fan since you look like Catwoman."

[Kayla Chetwood-Elicott]

Kayla had no idea why this girl had decided to share her life story, pretty much, with her, but the woman had no intention of returning the favor. Her answer to Shina’s curiosity about the sedative dart had been a brief smile. She had walked over to the collapsed administrator of the building and retrieved it from his sleeping frame, tucking it neatly in a pouch on her belt. While the young girl took a phone call from her parents, Kayla considered the situation and her eyes darted about the general roof and eventually settled on the right moon. She had always loved gazing at its silvery form.

While Shina was pacing, Kayla remained where she was now, one dark booted foot on each side of the unconscious man underneath her, the door that led into the bowels of the building behind her. The joking tone was a waste on her, and while she might have cared about being reported, for it could ruin her plans for the night, she was aware that the reporting in itself could draw attention to the girl. There were ways around that, of course, but it was apparent, if the girl’s words could be trusted, that she knew of none. The thought that Shina could injure her was noted, however, and that marked a cue of making yourself scarce if you knew what’s best for you. As far as Kayla was concerned, any mutant was a threat, whether it was because of their powers or because they were beacons that called out to governmental agents.

When Shina asked if she was a comic-book fan, Kayla couldn’t contain the burst of laughter that assaulted her. That was by far the last conversation she wanted to have with a young stranger, stranded on a random rooftop, in the middle of the night. The auburn-haired woman tilted her head and her tone was somewhat sweet. “And how do you think Catwoman would answer that question, hm?” Very purposefully, she pointed a finger straight at the moon. “See that?” She asked pointedly, keeping her finger and arm perfectly straight.

The moment Shina turned to look, or even if she didn’t turn to look, Kayla twisted around quietly and disappeared into the building, her pace coming quick down the stairs. The thief had no desire or interest for random chats with young girls. Just in case, she would abandon her thoughts of thievery tonight and instead go straight into her eternal hiding. If she remembered correctly, there was delicious ice cream waiting for her at “home.” It would do to console her from failing to go through with the theft tonight.