The Outcasts

[William Talbot]

here's some OCC stories Ive been working on, there are more but they are unfinished as of yet.
Special thanks to the ladies who made up some of the membership: Kirsten Alexis and Laura for Violet, Grace, and Keira

Here's the basic info:

~ The Outcasts ~

A not so traditional five-man band

Blaze: A super strong, and fast Fire bender, gifted with sharp senses, a strong sense of right and wrong, a passion for justice, and a selfless personality, he is a born warrior, as his drive, skill work ethic and smarts make him a natural leader, his tall dark and rugged frame giving him the stereotypical hero-leader look, as he falls into the Standard Leader roll, but his powers lend him to the roll of Tanker or Big Guy.


Evolution: A quirky, quick-witted morpher who can turn into any creature she can think of, her smaller size only helps her natural ability to sneak about, and causes many to over look her in a crowd, while her golden locks and bright teal eyes enchant any who do see her, her super sharp senses make her invaluable in tracking people, and deciphering crime scenes, and while she is the youngest of the group, she is a competent fighter, thanks to teachings from Blaze and Darkbrand.


Frost: A rather distant and sullen fellow, his personality lends to his nickname, as much as his shaven head and wide ice blue eyes, his thin and lanky stature has the nimble strength and grace of a winter Olympian, and his comments and observations are always quick and to the point, and while he is good at following directions, he isn’t afraid to go against the grain if its needed, he is also one of the most powerful members, and so he shares the titular roll of big guy with Blaze.


Darkbrand: A slender but highly athletic and insanely agile pyro, her control is much better than Blaze’s but she lacks the brute force that he is able to create, both with her powers, and physically, but then her quiet, level headed, thoughtful and analytical personality is befitting her incredible natural finesse, and observations, her skill at summing up a situation in a hurry, be it a fight, or a crime scene, is one of the most highly valued strengths she brings to the team, as the Outcast’s Lancer


Ecks: At first glance, she is an almost horribly average looking girl, plain black hair and medium built figure, but at a closer glance, her most prominent features are quite unique, large silver eyes, pointed ears and ivory skin, tell of the hidden power she carries as a elfin half-breed, her enhanced physical abilities, powers of teleportation, and psychic empathy give her and her team the edge they need in the urban setting they fight most of their battles in, this Smart Girl’s otherworldly sight, and insight, as well as sources, have proven more than once to be the deciding factor in the groups adventures.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Arrival (William's intro)

Had anyone known just what kind of impact he would have, not just on the city of Palamont, but ultimately the state, the whole country, and in the end, the world, it is a sure thing that a parade would have been held in his honor, the parade of course would have been held by the good and decent people in the city of Palamont, and it would have marched along from Downtown, into Fourtuna, looped down into Kempton, and gone all the way up into Fremont, every part of Palamont, from the docks to the projects to the entertainment district and the College would have been lit up and decorated, but instead, the city just sat there, as if nothing of consequence had happened when he stepped off the train at Palamont station, in Kempton Holdings, the slight odor of heavy industry tainting the air as his road worn boots touched the asphalt streets, his tall weary stature still managing to fade into the sparse crowds, the worn leather jacket spoke of his cool tough and straightforward person, the cowboy cut blue jeans, faded, worn and broken in to fit him and him alone, clung to his long solid legs, the cuffs lightly frayed, bunched around his boots enough to hide the laces, the shirts he wore, a lightly faded burgundy tee shirt under an equally faded black button down, showed an aging that seemed older than the wearer, who also showed more age and weariness then befitted his true age, his strong slightly squared jaw cut a perfectly straight line to his picturesque cleft chin, the naturally tanned skin spoke of a native American ancestor, likely a strong alpha male who had blessed his bloodline with a powerful athletic build, and yet, the haunting, pale faded steel blue eyes spoke of a European mother, likely Irish from the hint of darkest red in his dark brown and black locks, longish, almost shaggy, and wind tossed and unkempt looking. Just barely he blended in, his total appearance one of a worn, road weary young man who had come to Palamont solely to leave.


Which, at the moment of his arrival, even he was planning on, the city was not quite to his liking, far too spread out, for such a metropolis as this, just barely a half million people in a city that covered the good twenty some square miles nestled between a chain of canyons and the coast, every now and then a whiff of salt air tinting the scent of oil, machines, buildings garbage, food and people, the details he could pick up just from the air would have staggered a normal person, but then, part of the reason he was here was because he was not normal, he wasn’t plain, he wasn’t like everyone else, and that was his curse and blessing, the sole reason he had left the last city, and the city before that, and the other countless towns and communities he had passed through on his way to nowhere, Palamont just another dot on a map he didn’t bother carrying, another place to stop, rest, maybe make a few bucks, and then leave before anything could happen.


But while that was the plan, life rarely proceeds as we plan.

How wrong the city was to not stand up and take notice of him.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Finding a Gang (Violet's Intro)

“This is Ten-eighty-eight turf Shadow, get lost!”

A pair of calm deep blue eyes slowly turned and faced a grimy, denim jacket wearing white skinned teen with a spiked blond and blue Mohawk, and a sneer that might do Al Pachino proud, the dull brown eyes the boy had where slightly blood shot and his almost constant sniffing as he glared at her told of a cocaine addiction gone past the point of return.

“I’m not a Shadow.” Her soft throaty and lightly accented voice stated calmly as she turned her head more to the side so she could look over her sleek shoulder and the tops of the round framed, faded blue sunglasses that sat on the end of her long slim central European nose.

“The hell you aren’t! I know you bitch! You’re the god dammed LEADER of the Shadows!” he shouted as he pointed a slightly crooked and filthy finger at her, his stance challenging, his eyes wild and angry at this travesty, a dirty Red Shadow, here, on Ten-eighty-eight turf! Likely recruiting if it was the leader.


The slightly older, slender raven headed girl turned calmly and faced him, her slender but well defined arms crossing over the outward curve of her nicely rounded, but slightly small chest, which was covered by a snug fitting extra short sleeved black shirt, which hugged her enough to show the slender poetry of her sleek athletic frame, yet didn’t show much of her pale even skin. Cocking her hips slightly, she reached a hand up and pulled her sun glasses off her face and looked at the grungy gang banger, as he glared hateful daggers at her.

“Not any more I’m not… I’m a Loner now, so piss off eighty-eight, you don’t want to loose a limb or break anything, you’re late for your fix.” She spoke with such poise, and even clarity, even with her pointed insult and advice, her tone was matter of fact, and almost bored as she held her glasses in between her fingers a moment longer then slid them up onto her face again and turned, knowing this was the kind of invitation the spacing out gang member was looking for.

However, turning her head, and putting her glasses on, was mostly a ploy to hide the faint lavender glow rimming her deep blue eyes, the small glint of a pistol tucked in his waistband having not been lost on her, even when he seemed to think it had been, in his altered state. Other than the health risks, the whole loosing touch with reality is what had driven Violet from drugs whenever they had been around her, and it was in the end why she was now here, out on the street, in a new city, about to face off with a rival gang member from a whole other chapter of the slowly growing Ten-eighty-eights.


“Bitch, I didn’t say you could go!” he growled as a sharp click told Violet that he had drawn on her, and was ready to shoot her in the back. If only his gun worked now, which thanks to her particular set of powers, it was about as useful as a rock about now, but the grimy banger behind her didn’t know that yet.

“Oh I’m sorry, did I sign my soul and freewill over to you today and forget about it? Just walk away… Now…” she said softly, ready for his next move as he took two steps closer and turned the gun sideways while he pointed the end at her, ready to end this, “You got two options here Shadow, you either make nice and put it out, and beg for your life on your knees like the dirty Shadow whore you are, or you get on your knees anyway and eat a few caps for your last meal… Pick bitch.”


Okay, now before anything else happens, understand that Violet, while not a callous person, was naturally a reserved personality, and that growing up on the streets as she had, was tough, both by nature, and because she had to be, and add to that, that as a girl growing up on the streets, you have only two options for survival, you either get accustomed to being used as a toy by the males on the streets, both having power, and being at the mercy of those you wield your power over, or you get tough, and detached, more so than the boys. Violet had picked the latter option. Still, no girl, no matter how tough, calm or cool, likes to be called such names, even more so when they are not true.


Holding her breath for just a few scant heartbeats, she started to walk away, and as soon as she had moved, she heard a snort and a mumbled; “Stupid bitch.” And then there was another sharp clicking as he pulled the trigger, and the gun failed to fire.

Blinking in surprise, he cleared the chamber, and tried the next bullet in line, to the exact same effect. Now totally at a loss, the boy forgot about Violet and looked at his gun, and began a clumsy field check of the gun, checking the clip, the slide, the hammer, everything he could remember that was important about a gun and how it worked.

“Idiot.” Violet said as she suddenly turned, and her hand chopped at his neck, his eyes wide as he locked his gaze on her for the split second it took for his body to register the blow, and for his sight to spark with stars, his ears to ring, and the world to go black as his brain shut down from the nerve strike that shocked his senses into overload, his knees buckling from under him, his body flopping to the street limply, the gun clattering to the pavement harmlessly.

Picking the weapon up, Violet calmly took the bullets out and held them in the palm of her hand, a burst of purple tinted flame consuming them in a few moments of pure shimmering heat, before she hit the slide release and pulled the gun apart, and then scattered the various innards across the darkened alley and street, before turning on her heel and walking away.

And several blocks down the street, high above on the rooftops, a pair of softly glowing blue eyes watched her walk away with keen interest…



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Cold Shoulder

(Keira and Marcus' intro)

Ducking behind the sputtering Air Conditioning unit provided some cover from the searchlights, and the flashing blue and red that washed the area, a pair of slivery gray eyes flashing slightly under a shortish, lightly feathered mop of straight black hair, the faint purple and blue tint to the shine, wasn’t the product of a box of highlights, but a natural genetic mutation, as where the sliver eyes and lightly pointed ears that where barely hidden under the long form pixie cut the ivory skinned girl wore, her attire somewhere between stereotypical EMO-Punk school girl, and vintage rock school girl, the uniform bought as a whole from a thrift store, the black and gray chains, matching black leather wristbands, and various rings, and other muted sliver adornments having been collected from countless places, and persons, for various prices ranging from free to a few dollars or a favor or three.


“Come out with your hands up!”

Hissing softly, the girl balled up smaller, her short thin stature letting her shrink into the shifting, fickle shadows even more, not that it would matter in about two more minuets when that other patrol car swung around the other end of the lot and illuminated her round little skirt covered backside. She really was wishing she had found the time to do laundry now, since going commando, as much fun and carefree as it was, had likely been the second biggest folly of the night for her, the first having been caught tagging the side entrance to the county courthouse with neon green and pink spray paint, the slogan “Freedom for all means FREEDOM FOR ALL Beyoches!” one of her favorites (as well as one of her only) but sadly as she was putting the final touches on the last few letters, a cop car had driven around and seen her on the stack of crates she had smuggled over and they had lit up both artist and masterpiece with all manner of lights, and threats to her freedom. Pish, freedom was why she was there in the first place! Why surrender it to a bunch of misguided lap dogs?

No the only option had been to run, and run she had, as it was a subject she was intimately familiar with, her and running being old friends since forever, the whole “Fight or Flight” argument based on biology or genetics being lost on her, after all, why hurt others, and yourself, when you can just ass haul away from a bad situation?
Unless of course you where in the mood to inflict a little pain, as an object lesion, then that was okay, right?


Gathering her thoughts, and taking a deep breath, the girl stood up ramrod straight, and then bolted like a frightened deer away at the gap between officers and cars, her slight, swimmers figure a streak of movement, the chains that hung from the hem of her skirt, looped back up to the thick black studded belt she wore just above her hipbones, the loops like the small curved membranes of a winged fairy, hanging low and catching the wind to give her flight.

But it wasn’t flight that caused her to elude her would be captors, no, it was something more, something deep inside the girl, something that drifted out from her center mass like the over flow of a pot of boiled water, only it was black and gray like smoke, and in a sudden burst of substance, the girl was gone, vanished in a cloud of smoke and ash, something like cold glowing embers scattering with a crackle like breaking or burning sticks and shattering light bulbs.


A sudden burst of smoke ash and dust exploded and dropped the girl to the rooftop of an empty warehouse across town, her breath heavy from the effort, and her eyes glowing brightly, like the headlight of a small car, they lit up the area around her until she closed them and curled up in a ball, a wave of cold hitting her for a moment as she realized that either she had pushed her power a touch too far, or that new guy she’d seen around was close by.

The crunch of feet on the ramshackle rooftop told her it was the latter…


“Dodging the cops again are we?” a soft, cool and deep voice said, a hint of fog drifting from a pair of large dark lips, a hint of coarse black stubble showing on the boys chin as he smirked at her.

“Fuck off Marcus, I didn’t ask for you’re help did I?” she shot back as she slowly unfolded herself and sat up glaring at him, the glow all but gone from her round, wide eyes.

The lanky athletic boy shrugged; “I didn’t offer it, did I Keira?” he then smiled at her knowingly, his unnaturally arctic white teeth shining in the light of a half moon that shone softly in the sky, her own eyes catching the light as well, and reflecting a blue gray color back at him, just like the eyes of a cat.

“And if you had, I would have kicked your ass to the cops, and I’d still be here.” She said with a calm finality.

“And I would be back here later, to whip yo’ ass for that kind of a stunt.” He retorted with an exasperated sneer that ended in a headshake as he moved to the edge of the roof and leaned on the low wall that was the edge, his dark brown eyes surveying the city, or what of it he could see, the layout of this burg was haphazard and scatter brained at best, but it did have its advantages.

“Look rookie, I’ve lived here my whole life, I really don’t need you’re help, its you who need mine, so shape up white girl, straighten up and fly right, learn the rules of Palamont and keep yo’r punk ass outta downtown for a while, cause five-oh’s gonna be looking for you, and whatever else you might say about the cops here, they don’t have short term memory issues.”

Keira sighed and nodded her understanding, before she turned and stood, leaning over next to Marcus, and then playfully punching his arm with a laugh; “Fine boss man, besides, Kempton’s more my speed, more fun places and stuff to see and do, and the people there are at least more sympathetic for poor outcasts like us, right?”

Marcus nodded slowly as they looked around the skyline that surrounded them, the rooftop in the southern end of downtown looked over the older industrial sections of the City, the area Keira had just mentioned, known as Kempton.
“Yeah, that’s not a bad idea in fact, cause I got a job lined up for you, right up your alley.”

Keira glanced over at the boy and arched a slightly angular, black eyebrow at him, as she slipped a stick of gum into her mouth and started to chew, the breeze catching her hair slightly and totally uncovering her face, showing the razor thin and almost snow white strip of skin that was a scar running from directly over her left eye into her hair line.

“Oh really?” she asked as she looked Marcus over, as if deciding if she should take this at face value or not, even though they both knew she would, as he had yet to steer her wrong or violate her trust.

“Yeah, it’s a job as a runner for some people in Kempton, messenger job.”

“Do I look like a UPS girl to you?” She retorted with a snort and flourish as she stood up and spun on her heel, a hand on her butt, another on the side of her head, and a heavy lop sided smirk on her pale pink lips a load of mirth in her eyes.

Marcus snorted in reply; “No you look like a reject from a female Ramone’s tribute band.”

“Hey!”

“I guess it was the lack of underwear that threw me off.” He deadpanned as a trickle of fog rose from his smooth scalp, the slightest of a twitch tugging at his lips.

“Pervert!” Keira cried as she clapped her hands down over the sides of her skirt, which while certainly NOT the standard length found at St. Rita’s where the uniform had first been worn, it wasn’t THAT short, not by a long shot.
“If you EVER had a shot at scoring with me you just blew it the fuck up Marcus!” She said hotly to him, her stance and tone showing that while she could tell he was joking, she wasn’t convinced he didn’t mean some of it anyways.

“Interesting expletive choice there Kei, you sure 'bout that?” he asked as he gave her a knowing look and stood up himself, his frame looming over hers by almost ten full inches.

She swiped at him with her small pale hand and almost caught him on the chin with her small, ring filled fist, but he danced away with a laugh; “Never figured you for much of a landscaper, but then you do defy normal logic.”

“Bastard!” She hissed at him before vanishing in a cloud of cancerous smoke, making the dark skinned boy suddenly worry that he had pushed his teasing too far, but that thought vanished just as she had when he felt a solid kick to the middle of his back, the distinct feel of a too large for a small and dainty foot army boot told him that it was indeed all in good fun.

He stumbled forward a step or three and then turned around to see her standing here with her arms crossed over her delicately curved chest, the button down shirt and jacket she wore both open some as she shot him an amused and annoyed look before strutting over to him and punching his arm again; “You cold assed sonova’bitch, you didn’t see a damm thing did you?”

“Sadly no.” He smirked back at her before he got a harder punch in the same spot, the rings she wore where not just for show or the sake of fashion, they freaking HURT when she put some English on the force behind her fist.

“Well then good, my virtue is still intact.”

“For the moment.”

She rolled her eyes at him before she turned and walked for the fire escape, calling out over her shoulder at him; “Yo, Marcus, I like the sounds of the job, but I got a coupl’a leads myself on some cash jobs, so keep me posted on that, meet up at Footy’s in two?”

“You better, I’m buyin’ th’ food.” He replied as he looked away over the edge at the sky again, as a cool breeze blew up over his face, making him smirk slightly in comfort.

“Kay’ see ya’ then.” She called out as she stopped at the ladder and then smirked over her shoulder at his back and then called out again; “Hey’ya Marcus! Lookie!”

The boy looked over his shoulder just in time to see a flash of impossibly pale ivory skin shaped and molded over small, round and firm butt cheeks that suddenly vanished in a puff of black and gray smoke and sprite like laughter that echoed across the alleys and left him blinking in slightly stunned silence, the barest of smirks at last forming on his lips, a slight smile in his eyes as they transitioned from dark brown to a palest blue white, his skin vanishing to an almost clear ice that rushed away on the chilly wind that was blowing in off the distant mountains on the far side of Fremont and downtown, flowing south from the north canyon into Kempton where he lived…



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Rescue (Grace's intro)

Her legs where lead, her lungs burned fiercely and her vision blurred, as more tears started to stream from them, her path reckless, and lost, this part of town wasn’t familiar but then most of it wasn’t, the more upscale hills and coast of Fortuna was where she was most comfortable and it was where she was also the most unhappy. Now however, she was scared, she had taken a Taxi to downtown, in hopes of getting to either the airport, or the train station, but she wasn’t aware that the airport was in Fremont, and the Train Station in Kempton, but at this point she didn’t care where either where, all she cared for was some small dark place to hide, the sound of her backpack bouncing off her back and rump the only thing she was aware of other than the throbbing in her legs as she gasped and shook, her footing suddenly half what it was only a split second ago, her center of gravity shifting as she fell headlong into an alley, crashing through a stack of cheap tin and steel trashcans with a sound that seemed loud enough to wake the dead.


“Ahhhooouuch…” She moaned as she picked herself up, panting, sweat beaded on her brow and a smear of blood running down a tear in the thigh of her jeans, her hands suddenly shaking as she reached down and wiped at the tear and felt a ripple of pain wash over her leg, her tears now flowing out of pain and fear, as she heard the footfalls of her pursuers grow louder, and closer, her teal eyes flashing in fear as she turned and tried to run, her feet catching up in the refuse that she had scattered only moments before, and it caused a stumble which let the five scruffy males behind her, grab her roughly from behind, hands grabbing her backpack, her shirt, her arm, and her long golden curls, eliciting a cry of pain from her as she was jerked backward suddenly and then thrown to the wall of the building she had tried to hide behind, and the pinned to the ground.


A tall and chubby Latin boy with greasy slicked back, black hair and a grease stained gray shirt, with baggy green cargo pants, tattoos everywhere, and cold heartless black eyes that leered at her as he leaned in close, his large stubby fingered hand twisting her head around by her hair; “Hey baby, it’s okay, you just forgot to pay your passage fees, but it’s cool, all you have to do is pay each of us and you can go back to Fortuna without any problems, okay?” his breath was rancid, smelling of rotten vegetables and booze, which made her eyes water even more, the hint of eyeliner she wore starting to smear and run down her cheek as she whimpered in reply; “H-h-how m-much is it? I-I-I, I have some money, not much, b-but will fifty dollars do?” she asked, praying that was enough to spare her from the implied horror that she had hardly ever thought of aside from hearing about it on the new, but, rape? Rape was something that happened to OTHER people, not her, she was too good for that… Wasn’t she?

The five males started to giggle and laugh at her as they slowly moved her deeper into the artificial canyon, a short skinny and bald young man with all manor of perverse terms, sayings and symbols on his arms and chest walked up next to the big fatty and grabbed her face, turning it side to side before he let go and grinned hungrily at her as he spoke, his breath even worse; “Fifty bucks? For a face like yours hell, I should pay that for YOU to come through our turf.” He said before laughing and reaching for his belt, fatty holding her down, crushing her wrists at her sides against the wall, as the others circled around, a plain looking black boy with baggy pants and a hoodie, who walked up and shoved fatty around to the side; “Yeah, fifty a pass, just to see you walk through and give us something to spill on… Hold her Ramon, Lou, watch and learn the rest, line forms behind me.” He said as he slid his pants down and worked his boxers down with them, the fatty, Ramon it seemed, pulled her shirt open, and then started to yank at her jeans, her eyes wide and mouth open as she started to whimper for mercy…


“Put that thing back, and walk away.”
An even, soft, throaty and slightly accented voice said as the indecent males moved in for the pay off, then stopped and looked back at the sleek but athletic raven headed girl, who stood at the end of the alley, and stared at them with thinly veiled disgust.

“How about you join in Shadow?” Ramon sneered as the line that had formed turned and walked towards Violet with smirks on their faces, and knifes in their hands, the rabid pack mentality driving the horny, bored and emboldened group of males to forgo any sense of civility towards the two girls.

“How about you loose that over rated dong of yours shit face.”
Another voice suddenly called out from the rooftops above them, a light haze of ash suddenly falling around them before a cloud of dust and smoke exploded between the leader and his still decent compatriots and the unknown threat at the end of the alley, the shape of yet another girl forming from the fog, her look not his first choice in style, the boots and chains and the almost monochromatic colors she was dressed in didn’t do too much for him, although the extra pale tone to her skin, and the small slight build was nice and…


Her boot shot up square between his legs, connecting hard and fast with the unprotected limb and associated anatomy, the amount of blood flow there ensured that it was more sensitive than it had been only a few short minuets ago, and due to the young mans state at the instant of impact, maximum damage was inflicted, as well as shame.

Choking on his own spit and air, the almost street rapist jerked back and fell on his butt and back so hard his head bounced off the pavement which simply scrambled his senses for that much longer, and added only that much more pain to his overloaded nervous system. Not that his assailant cared, her hand reaching for the big fat pack mate that had just realized what had happened, her ring covered fist smashing into his nose, a shower of blood and skin preceding the bellow of pain that he let loose.


“Shit!” the short bald one said as he fumbled for his piece and then drew it and fired wildly at the gothic schoolgirl that had just laid-out two of his friends, however he only got two shots off, both of them missing her and hitting one of the scrubby looking rookies that had come along with the trio for this “exaction of services” as they had called it, the promise of a fresh young girl at their collective mercy more than enough enticement to tag along.

Only now it had been the death of one of them, the other suddenly finding himself getting pummeled by the taller dark haired girl, her slim body much stronger than he would have ever guess, her fist having broken two teeth, his nose, and cracked his sternum, the world spinning around as he swung wildly, desperately before he felt a blow to his neck block out the world around him to his senses and frightened mind.


It was over before it had really even started, with one dead, one maimed, and three beat senseless, not the kind of fight she liked, but for Violet, it really didn’t matter right now, because there was a terrified girl huddled under her backpack, crying, and partially stripped of her simply yet highly fashionable clothing.


“Are you okay?” the voice said, a soft, European, with almost a French lilt to it, the light throaty tone stilled the shakes and spurred her to look up into a pair of knowing, aged, yet kind dark blue eyes, a hint of lavender in them somewhere, her face lean and slightly rounded, the long straight raven hair falling slightly in between them as she shook her head no and spoke again; “We won’t hurt you…” she said softly as she helped the girl to her feet and let her rearrange herself as Keira walked up and brushed her hands together.

“Not too bad, you really can fight.” She said with a smirk as she faced Violet, then glanced at the girl they had rescued, and nodded; “We made it in time right, she’s not damaged irreparably?” Violet looked to her and tilted her head slightly in observation; “I don’t think so… What’s your name?”

Theses two girls where not exactly two of a kind, despite both having black hair, one had long, straight locks with the barest wave to it, the other had a short crop of EMO or Secne like feathered hair, the faintest hints of color showing, but looked goth-punk in the faded schoolgirl getup. Still, they had just saved her from the unthinkable. She wanted to trust them, so she took a small leap of faith; “I’m… My name is Grace… Thank you… I owe you both big time.”

“Ehh, no big, I was looking for an excuse to beat them up anyway.” Keira replied with a shrug before she turned and waved to the others to follow; “C’mon the cops will come here sooner or later to see about the two shots the genius got off, and I still have to deliver that message on the other side of Kempton, and as I mentioned earlier, they kinda have my face plastered all over their computers right now.”

She walked to the end of the alley and then started to climb the fire escape towards the rooftop as Violet looked to Grace and nodded after Keira; “I can help you clean up, maybe get you headed back home-“

“NO!” Grace all but shouted before slapping her hands over her mouth and then clearing her throat she spoke again; “No I can’t… I can’t go back home it’s… It’s not safe for me there.”

Violet looked to her for a moment and then nodded; “Okay… Well, you can stay with me for a little I guess, at least until that cut’s dealt with.” She pointed to Grace’s leg and the small bloodstain on her thigh before Keira yelled at them from the top of the roof; “Yo ladies! Heats coming, so if you’re really chilly, stay put, otherwise, MOVE YOUR SKINNY ASSES!”

Violet closed her eyes a moment then sighed; “I would say you get used to her, but I haven’t know her long enough to tell if you do or don’t and I highly doubt you ever could… Follow me.”

Grace nodded and jogged after her, her legs still hurting, but not as much as before, and the slowly subsiding adrenalin rush he had earlier, helped some too.


Now she only hoped that she really could trust these two crazy mismatched girls as much as she needed too…




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fire and Ice

“Who’s the luggage?”

The icy tone didn’t seem angry or hateful, it just seemed… Well, somewhat naturally bored yet inquisitive, and that intrigued Violet very much, almost as much as the deep and uncomfortable cold she could feel flowing from him in waves, the chill not exactly bothering her as much as making her feel hot, in an unpleasant way, which she could honestly say she couldn’t ever remember feeling at any point in her life before this.


“Hmm?” Keira said as she stood there idly and fiddled with the slightly frayed hem of her skirt before looking up and blinking her silvery eyes at Marcus and then shrugged; “Oh yeah, frick n’ frack… Introductions,” she said as she placed her hands on her small yet rounded hips, jerking her head over her shoulder at them; “Tall dark and quiet is Violet, short, blond, sexy and scared is Grace, girl’s this dark and handsome dude is Marcus, Dude, girls, girls, dude, there, everyone happy?”


Marcus blinked slowly at Keira before looking to Violet and Grace with an appraising eye, the taller of the two was clearly built for agility and stamina, her form lean, toned, and yet utterly feminine, with gentle, graceful and for her, just right curves, right where they should be, her face wasn’t overly pretty like some of the girls he’d seen, or girls on TV or in magazines, but it was nice, slightly round with a sleek jaw and nose that framed full pale lips, and supported sharp, deep, plain blue eyes that held the kind of hidden fire he knew all to well. That and the heat she was putting out was far beyond what a normal person her size should have, in fact it was more than five big sweaty fat guys packed into a crap filled port-a-potty on a summers day.

The blond however, was a bit of a paradox, she wasn’t very tall, nor was she tiny short, she was just right in between, and while at first glance she was certainly pretty enough for anyone’s tastes, it was when he got a better look at her that he knew she was going to be some kind of trouble, because she had the sweetest face, like a little angle, with teal tinted doe shaped eyes and a tiny little chin and mouth with little rosebud lips.
Looking back to Keira, Marcus had to hide a tiny smirk at the tingle in the back of his hips, his heartbeat a tick faster.


“What’s the first thing I told you about running with me?” he asked the palest of the three girls as she went back to toying with her skirt, this time adjusting where her chains attached to her front, the clicking of spring loaded hooks into fabric belt loops her only reply for the moment.

“Keira…” Silence.

“Keira…” MORE silence.

“Elf Girl!” He groused with more frustration then he’d shown her since they had met.

“What popsicle breath?” she snapped back her eyes glowing slightly as she clicked the last chain into place and then shifted to her other side, adjusting theses with a bit more certainty and speed than before.

Marcus glowered a moment before he leaned back on the wall, of the small slightly rundown warehouse they where in, random boxes and crates scattered about in stacks and singly as well. Fixing his gaze on Keira, he waited until she looked up at him expectantly before he repeated his question; “What did I tell you about strays?”

“Dogs or cats?”

“People Keira, animals people, cars, random objects, anything of the sorts.”

She tilted her head and shrugged at him, feeling at least one pair of eyes on her back.

Marcus closed his eyes as the room cooled some, his temper being tested suddenly, and the one girl was sapping his endurance, the other, and Keira were taunting his male biology in subliminal ways he didn’t like right now.


“If there’s a problem, we can just go…” Violet at last spoke as she moved slightly in front of Grace, her arm and shoulder blocking her, somewhat from view, her own eyes steady and calm.

Marcus blinked lazily and shook his head; “No, no real problem, Keira’s just… Being difficult, the rule is that she’s to talk to me before she brings anyone or anything back to wherever we’re campen’ at the time.”

Keira shrugged as she walked up to an over turned crate and hopped up onto it and sat; “Well if you ever charged that stinking cell of yours I might could have called you and told you about the girls, now couldn’t I?” she kicked her feet back and forth, bouncing her boots off the edge of the wooden perch, as she shifted her head side to some unheard rhythm, the beat meshing with her kicking and the knocking sound that came with it.


Looking from Keira to Marcus Violet shifted slightly, squaring her shoulders some before she took a step forward and spoke with a firm yet polite tone; “That’s, um, good, but I really need some first aid supply’s, Grace hurt her leg and is bleeding, if you don’t have any, do you at least know where I can get some?”
Marcus looked back to Grace and then Violet before nodded back towards a small neat stack of cardboard boxes against the wall next to him; “There’s some basics, band-aids peroxide, gauze and tape, nothing fancy.”

“That’s fine.” Violet said before turning to Grace and giving the faintest of smiles, her lips turning slightly and her gaze softening as she side stepped to the stack of boxes and opened the top one, and found boxes of band-aids and cotton balls.

“Grace? Sit over here.” She said adjusting one of the stacks nearby to afford some privacy, due to the cut being so high up on her thigh.


Moving tentatively Grace nodded and did as instructed and sat, and tried not to move too much while Violet gently prodded and looked the mark over, then frowned; “Hmm… Grace, I need a better look at this could you… ?” she asked not so much embarrassedly, but rather respectively, uncertain if it would be awkward or not.

“Oh, sure sorry.” Grace answered after a moment, her hands moving to the button and zipper of her pants, a wiggle and shimmy slipping her pants down to her knees allowing Violet access to the … Scar…


Blinking inquisitively Violet gently ran her finger over the slightly puffy discolored mark, and Grace shifted slightly at the discomfort while tint crept up into her cheeks as the other girl pondered the lack of a wound a moment more before her dark blue eyes looked up into the younger and smaller girls teal eyes; “Grace… Are you a, um…” she asked, the question hanging in the air between them.

“I uh… I really don’t… Uh…” She stammered as she wiggled her jeans back up and fastened them in place before she looked to Violet and burst into tears, her hands flying up to hold the sides of her face as she sobbed; “He hates me! Calls me a whore’s mistake, a freak! A monster! But I’m not! I don’t like it, and I didn’t ask for it! And I can control it! I swear! But he just! He… He just…”
A powerful sob wracked her body as she curled up into a ball shrinking and vanishing into her clothing which piled into a lump on the crate she sat perched on, as a pale gray tinted turtle, tucked up and hidden in it’s shell…


“Oh… My…” Violet said with a look of utter surprise and amazement as she lifted the shirt and saw the transformed girl huddled there, tears dripping from the underside of her shell.
“Grace? Grace if you can understand me, please… Come out?”

Having only heard of shape shifters, Violet was in unknown territory here, and she was hoping that with a gentle hand and soft voice she could, both figuratively and literally, coax her out of her shell.

Slowly, Grace stuck her head out of the shell, the trails of moisture running down her scaly gray face and neck, the small slightly beady eyes, a bright glowing teal that peered out at her with fear and sorrow potent enough to tug and her normally reserved emotions, and it compelled her to reached out and gently stroke the oddly colored turtles cheek.

With eyes aglow, Grace nodded and then slowly resumed her human shape, her limbs moving to her clothes and adjusting them as she changed, until they fit again, only this time a bit loosely, to which Violet attributed to the usage of energy, and state of emotions.

"Wicked Sweet!" Keira chimed up as she hopped off her crate and bounced over with a huge excited grin on her face, her eyes shining with wonder at the sudden revelation, Marcus behind her with his head tilted slightly, but his arms still folded across his chest.

“Keira… Please.” Violet asked as she glanced over her shoulder at the other girl then back to Grace. “Are you… Grace, you are safe here, I won’t hurt you, and I doubt the others will either, now please, explain what all you where talking about, you didn’t make much sense.”

Grace looked up at Violet, after giving Keira a look that was part puzzled, part scared, and part unnerved, and then her teal tinted eyes covered with tears she sniffed and then spoke out in a tiny voice; “I’m… I… I have theses powers…” Violet nodded in understanding, her eyes clear and kind, not a single hint of judgment in them.
“I… I heal… Quickly, I can… Well one time I fell down the stairs, like they where marble steps, but I slid and fell face first all the way down, chipped my front teeth split my chin open and almost ripped my nose off… I was a mess, and hurt like I would never want to again, but… I suddenly stopped hurting, and then, after a few minuets, I passed out. When I woke up, it was like I had never fallen down ever, or had eaten at all that day.”

Grace looked from Violet to Keira, to Marcus and then back, a slightly informed look on her face as she spoke a bit louder; “And… I can turn into animals… All kinds." She looked at the others, and noted that other than Keira’s almost disturbingly over the top look of joy, they didn’t seemed fazed by her revelation, never mind that she had turned into a turtle before their very eyes only minuets ago.

“So you can shape shift? Into anything?” Keira said quickly as she moved up almost under Violet’s arm and peered at Grace with big wonder filled silver eyes, an impressed smirk on her lips.

“No… I can’t turn into machines, I’ve tried, like I tried to turn into a car, and instead I turned into a horse…” Grace replied with a small embarrassed smile, her hand moving to push her golden locks back over her ears as she shifted there under her gazes slightly, the unasked question that tugged at her lips at last spilling out; “Um… You’re not going to… Turn me in or anything are you?”

Keira exploded with laughter, almost startling Violet as she fell, flashing a generous amount of thigh and backside as she rolled over and giggled herself into a gasping fit while Marcus shook his head in exasperated amusement and at last approached his guest.

“Hardly sunshine, your not the only one here the law wants to put in a glass box, wired up like a Christmas tree; all of us are gifted one way or another, so believe me when I say that you’re safe here.”

He smiled at her, the contrast of his slightly large pure white teeth on his deep dark and full lips as they split open for him to speak; “I’m Marcus by the way, and you’ve met Keira and…” he looked to the pale skinned raven headed girl with the deep blue eyes.


“Violet…” she answered clearly, yet softly, her head nodding slightly towards him in deference, her stance perfectly neutral as she took his offered hand in her own and they shook just once, a small kind of hissing and a tiny shimmer of steam hanging in the air where their hands had touched.


“Ha, I KNEW you where a pyro!” Keira said as she picked herself up and dusted herself off with a knowing smirk at Violet’s arched eyebrow.
“I’m half Elf so I can sense power like a fat man can sense an all day buffet, and I could smell something hot about you, and it wasn’t just the legs.”

Violet’s other eyebrow joined the first as she glanced back to Marcus who was blowing on his hand. “Sorry if that hurt, I wasn’t sure as to you’re powers, and I know I’m literally very hot blooded.”

Marcus shrugged and was about to speak when Keira piqued up; “Oh he’s a tough dude, a cryo has to be to survive this place in the summertime, let me tell you.” Keira went on to playing with the rolled cuff of her shirt, her jacket now off her slender shoulders and on a crate next to where she stood, her small pale, black painted fingers dancing around the rolled up cuffs and tucking it all into a tighter roll, which showed off the sleek toned strength of her arms just enough to hint at how much stronger she might be than a normal girl, the form and arc of flesh under skin sliding about as her muscles twitched at her commands.


Grace blinked rapidly a few times at them before she realized that firstly, her mouth was hanging open, and secondly Violet had an inquisitive look on her face.
“Oh, um yeah, I’m Grace… Uh… Yeah.” She said with a mild assertion, her nerves slowly fading as she realized she was as safe as Marcus had said, and while she was still wary, she was starting to trust this strange group of people, almost on instinct.


Over the remainder of her life, she would learn to trust her instinct to guide her more and more…





~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~





Questions comments and suggestions below please!

[Violet Schultz]

LOVE it! Please post a next chapter!!!


...no, I haven't had much sugar today.

[William Talbot]

I've decided that I'll just comment here instead of posting more parts of the story as replys, so the parts will be put up in ORDER in the thread root, umkz?

[Violet Schultz]

Makes sense. Reading chronologically is a bit less confusing. xD

[William Talbot]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



The Next Piece

The blow had come without any sort of warning, none at all, and while her senses where sharper than most, it was as much as training as it was the minute advantage her genetics gave her, so whoever had gotten her, had been very careful, more careful than most people would have been even if they had thought to be.

It didn’t help ease the throbbing in her head and the ache in her limbs, nor the uniquely biting chafe one got from being bound with chains, which, even she had to admit was a smart move, given her powers would let her burn through rope in a matter of moments, which was her first instinct, as soon as she was able to lucidly put two thoughts together, a lick of lavender flame caressing the steel links for a moment, then two, then three before she stopped, and opened her deep blue eyes and looked over her shoulder at the chains.

Eighth inch thick stainless steel links bound her wrists together, a small rusting padlock holding both loops tightly to her pale flesh, which was red and raw, and starting to bleed in a few small places, the small silvery chain looped into a thicker, quarter inch thick rusting heavy chain holding her shoulders and hips loosely to the massive middle support girder in the midst of this all but forgotten warehouse.

Looking around, it took her all of three quick seconds for her heart to wrench, and her blood to run cold as she saw three people, two males, and a female, sitting around a single large wooden crate, perched on other boxes and crates, around it, a deck of playing cards dispersed between them and the makeshift table, various weapons sitting on the crate top within easy reach of each player.

The leader of the group she knew was the spiky dirty blond haired boy with the dirty green eyes, and the almost constant sneer, thanks in part to the scar that arced from his cheek, down over his upper lip, a scar she had given him.
The girl was blessed with a round, yet fit figure, and tawny brown and blond like hair, with big brown eyes to match.
The other boy, was stocky, short, and looked far to sweet to be in a gang, thanks to his cherubic features, and pale blue eyes.
Elias, Sara, and Joey.

They had been her closest, most trusted friends, and her prime generals when she had led the Shadows in Rockport, the next city to the north. They had also been the ones to overthrow her the day after she had inadvertently shown her powers to the whole gang one day after a turf war that had gone badly for them all.


Since she had walked away from Rockport, she had assumed that she was safe, telling any who questioned her, or placed her with her former gang, that she was a loner, but it seemed that her old gang had come back to haunt her, and if they all had weapons, and she was tied to a poll as it where…

They had revived an old rule she had done away with, a rule that had once helped ensure loyalty, the rule that dealt with traitors and any others who dishonored or betrayed the gang.
It was the rule that was going to end her life.


“Well, well look who’s awake!” Joey called out when he glanced over at Violet a split second before she could lower her head again and think of a way out of this.

Locking eyes with the chubby faced enforcer, Violet tried to see if there was any mercy, or understanding in his eyes, but she saw none, nor did she find any in Sara’s eyes, but the set of eyes she dared not look into, where Elias’ because she knew, she would find none, and even knowing that, it still hurt to even look at him, the boy she had first loved, as he stood and sneered at her, the scar she had given him when she had made her escape from Rockport, still ugly and slightly puffy, even in the dim light of the expansive room.

“Hello Vi. Miss us?” Elias asked as they each gathered their weapons and moved across the open space between them, the dust on the floor stirring in the pale yellow light the few exposed light sockets provided. The aura so horribly clichéd that had Violet cared to, she could have laughed at it all. And she really needed the morale boost about now.

Still, if it was fear and trembling, begging for her life, futile as it was, tears and crying, pleading and sorrow… If that is what they wanted, they would not get it. Violet had known she was going to die, one day, sooner or later, for one reasons or another, she had realized early in her life, that life, in all forms, was fragile, and finite, and that her life would not last forever, she knew this in her heart, and while she might not like it, she had accepted it and was ready for whatever came next, be it void, deity or another life, she would leave this world, with honor and dignity and pride that she had done all she could, as best she could and—

The slap jarred the mild reprieve that she had uncharacteristically fallen into, her cheek starting to sting, as the back of her head started its throbbing once more, the backs of her eyes stinging some, her face flushing slightly before she could feel her temperature rise some, her whole body feeling off kilter, and just at the outer edge of control for her, and that was slightly worrisome for her, since while she was no longer in their good graces, she hardly wanted their deaths at her hand, even if not in the most literal sense, on her conscience, since if they tortured her to the point where she lost control, she would have the best chance of surviving the resulting explosion, even if they didn’t kill her outright, she would most likely kill them, before she died from the expenditure of energy.


“Look at us!” Elias barked, his hand raised again to reinforce his command if needed, but he lowered it with a smirk as she blinked up at him and returned his glare with an equally strong yet much more controlled stoic gaze that only angered Elias even more.


“You think you’re so much better than us don’t you?” Sara sneered as she pulled up a rusted section of chain from the floor between her and Violet, this chain slightly smaller than the ones that held her wrists and ankles, at least they where comparable as far as she could guess.

Violet glanced at Sara as she wrapped the chain around her left hand and wrist casually, her brown eyes hard and cruel, as she closed her fist around a few links and then tested the weight of her newly armed fist.

Sara had never been the best fighter in the gang, her skills and personality didn’t lend to it, but she was smart enough to make any hits she did get in, count, and once more she showed off her talent for getting in a shot, her weighted steel clothed fist crashing directly into Violet’s sternum, a light cracking sound reverberating through her core as the air was ripped from her lungs, the pain little more than a pinprick at the moment, before she coughed and felt the full weight of the blow crash into her psyche like a bus hitting a cardboard box, but she didn’t get a chance to even properly register that before she felt another blow, a heartbeat after it fell, a large meaty fist smashing her face, crashing across her jaw and cheek, the sheer size of the limb covered well over half the right side of her face, the only one of them with a hand that large being Joey, who followed that up with the one-two combination he always used, his other fist connecting with Violet’s chin, her eyes now filled beyond reason with stars, her ears ringing, as she felt her knees give out and her powers flicker for a moment, a burst of heat flowing from her body before she felt the chains hold her mostly up right, her arms pulled back behind her more, a dull pain in her left shoulder starting to throb for the first time in over a year.


The loud report of a gunshot snapped her eyes open, the dull glint of Elias’ revolver as he held it in his right hand the first thing she saw, the acrid scent of spent gunpowder slowly filling her nostrils, as a trail of hot coppery blood slowly flowed from her mouth and down her chin, her lips split top and bottom, and starting to swell.


Elias leaned in and lowed his gun, the barrel still smoking slightly as he pressed it into her shoulder, directly over where a previous bullet, over two years ago, had already left a mark, right through one side, and out the other, barely grazing the joint, however, Elias held the gun sideways and angled in, to where he would hit the joint dead on if he so chose to.


Violet winced slightly, not from the heat, but more from the pressure on her already stressed joint, her weight still being held up by her wrists and waist, her ankles bound to the beam, and as such, her knees where bent at an awkward angle that did not allow her to support her weight properly. Which was all by design of course, it was the traditional way to start the execution, with some torture, and then a slow and painful process of injury to kill, until at last, either when the offending party was either too out of it to respond, or the executors where tired of it, two bullets between the eyes, and then the body was either left to hang there, or was dumped in the nearest alleyway to either rot, or hopefully be found sometime later…

“We trusted you Violet… With our life’s, with our livelihood, with everything… And you couldn’t trust us enough to tell us the truth… Couldn’t just level with us…”
He clicked the hammer back on the revolver as he leaned in, his face a bare inch from hers, the proximity allowing her to smell the cheep body spray he always used, as well as the cheep laundry soap he washed his clothes in, his scent washing over her as he hissed at her; “But then I guess that would have been too much to ask a frigg’en Mutie, huh? You couldn’t bring yourself to be honest with us normal humans huh?”

His free hand reached up and slapped her hard across the face, so hard blood sprayed from her mouth across the floor and Joey’s jeans and shoes.

Elias then whipped the shortened barrel of the gun across her face, the soft crack of cartilage telling everyone that he had broken her nose, as if the split across the middle of it that poured blood slowly, didn’t announce that fact as well.



Violet’s eyes rolled around in her head for a moment before she locked eyes with him and spat a small mouthful of blood at him and then laughed lowly; “And yet you couldn’t hardly wait to get into my pants, or fawn over me whenever we where alone, could you? God you’re hands where always so dammed rough and cold, I’m surprised I could put up with them…” The fact of that matter was that, she hadn’t cared then, not when she had been so close to him, not then, back when she had loved him.

She smirked crookedly before she spat out some more blood onto the floor, and chuckled at them all, as Elias seethed at her and re-aimed his gun at her shoulder, this time not caring how much damage he did as he pressed the muzzle to the scorch mark on her dark blue shirt and pulled the trigger…



There was only one thing that hurt more than being shot, in Violet’s option, and that was being betrayed, because while a bodily wound would heal with time, the emotional wounds, took much longer, assuming one allowed them to heal, but then, that was an assumption that was easy for an outsider to make.

An outsider would also assume that Elias was playing some form of Russian roulette, since there was only a sharp click, and not a muffled pop, still, Violet had to give her former boyfriend and lancer credit, he didn’t let the fact that a perfectly good bullet had failed to fire off, and tear apart her shoulder. But then she also was puzzled, since she had yet to fully try and tap her powers, the now mind numbing headache she had, having only been made worse by the beating thus far, she dared not use her powers as the lack of focus would have been far more dangerous than she would have like to risk, even when considering that her life was on the line, her moral compass would not let her kill her former comrades to escape, even as they slowly killed her.

Still, that was not the whole issue for Violet; the more the forefront issue for her was that she could feel some form of flame, a large one in fact, moving around the building, and based on the power of it, as well as a kind of purity in it, this was a VERY powerful kind of flame. However, with the migraine she was currently enjoying, she could not tell much else about it, and she surely could not use her own powers in any concentrated or coherent effort that would not level half the building in the process.


She ended up not having to do a thing.


With all the subtlety of an earthquake, a massive window to the side of the area, the plywood that had been put over the mostly broken window was splintered and burned up by the fire ball that crashed through a large dark silhouette with brightly glowing blue eyes following the wave of debris that flowed into the room.

Moving like a blurry shadow, the large shape with the glowing eyes raced across the open area and took Joey out with a tackle that extracted a girlish scream, as he was carried off his feet and into the darkness that ringed the area, the sounds of a very one sided scuffle lasting for but a few moments before a tall dark haired young man… Make that a VERY tall dark haired young man with glowing blue eyes stepped out of the shadows and glared at Elias and Sara, who had turned to faced the threat as a team, Sara covering Elias, standing just behind and to his left, which also let her cover Violet, not that she was currently able to lend much aid to her own rescue it seemed.

“Who the fuck are you?” Elias asked with a snarl as he pointed the gun a the new comer, not fully connecting the dots that his gun was useless, which of course Violet could tell, feeling a certain warm pulse at a frequency she recognized, because she had used the same trick before.

Will stood there, just in the light enough to be seen, to be identified as a real threat, his stance square, aggressive, and dominate.
“Me? I’m no one, but then I’m sure you thought, “no one can stop us” so here I am, to stop you… Am I right?” he said, his slightly lumpy baritone, even and almost playful, to the point that Violet was starting to question his motives, but she couldn’t argue with his effectiveness, yet…

“Well no one, you’re about to be forgotten, cause I’m going to end you, and then I’m getting back to what I was up to. So say good bye Violet!” Elias aimed right at Will’s head, and pulled the trigger, only to hear the gun click dully again, and again, and again, until he had hit all six chambers, without result.

“Sorry about that, it’s a bad habit I have.” Will said as he suddenly moved forward, with an inhuman speed, his fist connecting squarely with Elias’ face, lifting the would be executioner off his feet and sending him crashing backwards into a stack of crates, where he fell to the ground, out cold.
Sara stood there in shock before she pulled a switchblade out and flicked it open, and then in a clearly over practiced move, flipped it over in her free hand and then threw it at him.

It stuck firmly, the blade buried in his left pectoral muscle almost half way, but he barely even noticed it, or at least seemed to barely notice it, even as Sara charged in and swung her chain covered hand right at his face, and connected with what Violet knew to be just enough force to crack something, but with her being so short, and him being so tall, all that happened was him moving forward, and her bouncing off of him like he was a car rather than a person, her cry of pain as she clutched her armored hand to her chest the next clue that he was far sturdier than he looked.


Taking the chain from her hand and then looping to around her wrists and then pressing it together to stay in place, Will then moved over to Violet and knelt slightly so that he could be closer to eye level with her as he looked at the chains.

Wincing slightly, Violet watched as he carefully lifted, and then with little effort, snapped the chains free from the beam, before he carefully went about the task of freeing her, a very large, strong, and long arm catching her and helping her to her feet, at least that’s what it felt like under the worn leather sleeve of his road jacket when her hand landed in the crook of his elbow.

“Thanks… Thanks a lot…” Violet said softly as he moved back slowly, and she gathered her strength, slowly working her arms and legs around some, before she gingerly felt her head and then face, realizing she must look like all kinds of hell, what with blood covering her mouth and, one of her eyes starting to puff up, her lips slightly numb, and sticky, her nose hurting like a electrical storm in her face, a few of her teeth even felt loose, but she could hardly complain, after all she was alive, and no one had been killed thankfully, and… Hmm, he was rather handsome looking, and his eyes had stopped glowing, and begun looking her over with the practiced eye of someone who had dealt with injuries before, that was… Good… Hmm... Such a lovely shade of blue...

Wow, she felt groggy now that she was standing again, her head throbbing a half beat behind her heart as it pumped along, starting to go faster and faster for a moment before she shook her head clear and then looked to her rescuer again, a smile trying to for on her lips as she extended a lightly blood stained hand to him in thanks; “Thank you a-again… Oh hell…” Her head swam, her vision flickered and her torso ached as her knees gave way again and she felt those big strong arms grab her before she could crash to the floor, the scent of burning wood spice and earth, washing over her with an almost pleasurable amount of heat that wrapped around her and seemed to sooth her wounds.

If she only knew just how accurate that feeling really had been…


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[William Talbot]

A Start

Getting out of there, was really not a question of being able to carry her, she was only a hundred and twenty to thirty or so pounds, nothing he couldn’t handle with ease. No, the rub came in getting her out of there, without looking like he had killed her himself and was dragging her off to dump her in the river or something, and that was most certainly not what he wanted to do, or look like he was doing.

In the end, it just was easier, and faster for him to toss her over his shoulder, bundled up as if she was freezing in this early spring air, and then walk along to the hole in the wall motel he was staying in, his rent being paid out in chores, fixed items, and in having run off the start up gang that had wanted to move in and use the small motor-lodge tucked off the main highway branch in the heart of Kempton, as their base of operations.


She was healing, he knew that much and it seemed that the little boost he had given her both when she had passed out, and once they had arrived at the motel, was working, her inner flame was stronger now, but her body was still working hard to repair the damage that had been caused to her, so after a few minuets of debate, Will carefully laid the dark haired girl in the bathtub, and with the care of a surgeon, removed her top layer of clothing and then went about tending the worst of her open wounds with a damp cloth, and some ointment, as well as bits of his own powers again, his fingers carefully sealing the more glaring injuries on the outside, as she healed herself.


Once she was cleaned up, Will carefully moved her to the small twin sized bed and rested her there, her jeans, and over shirt stacked next to her boots in a chair he placed next to the bed before he sat in the lazy-boy and leaned back to doze, knowing that sooner or later she would wake up, and likely there would be some words exchanged between them, and that hopefully they would be friendly, or at the least, civil given the circumstances.

Picking up the book he had sitting in the chair, William looked for his place and quickly found it, his pale, yet steely blue eyes skimming the page for the exact paragraph he had left off on, his torso shifting lightly as he settled himself, the faintest pale blue glow rimming his eyes as he felt the variation in her powers reach out, his own reaching back, and gently holding hers in check. Which given that they where both Pyro-kinetic’s was both easier, and harder than anyone might guess, even if they had the least bit of understanding of how such evolved biological and neurological functions worked.


But back to the book, reading was one of his few outlets that was perfectly boring, socially normal, and perfectly harmless, unlike a few of his other, rarely used outlets, and given his breeding, it was also somewhat unusual to prefer it to the more natural outlets he often refused, but then he could thank his mother for all of that, as well as the deep seated streak of compassion that had compelled him to bring the girl here to recover. Speaking of which…
Glancing at her, he twisted his lips up and bent his eyebrows down for a moment in thought, his nose twitching some before flaring. She was coming up on her most fertile time of the month, and yet there was something else about her scent, which he knew was due to her powers, everything about her functioning normally, and yet in an altered state when compared to a purely human young woman her age. Everything about her spoke of fire, grace, power, and control, and as such, he couldn’t deny the attraction he had towards her, from her simple, yet poetic face, the softness of her rounded features, long graceful nose and jaw line, to the sleek, fit, and yet perfectly feminine figure, which thanks to the snugly fitting black tank-top and matching girl-briefs, which while she covered now by the oversized blanket, he had seen while he had cleaned her up he had gotten a good look at, he could picture himself ravishing her, at least, in a not so small, but well confined corner of his mind, still, he could tell she was blessed genetically, by some act of a deity, providence or chance, she was strong, much stronger than she looked, the power that flowed from the core of her being, through her bones, in her veins, and every part of her being, was soaked in this power, which was either an extension or a core part of her life-force, which meant she had incredible potential, and if what he had seen of her actions over the last two weeks where any indication, then she could be a vital part of the coming storm that was slowly growing across the city.


Looking back to his book, Will allowed himself to slowly zone out and become immersed in the pages of the story, a tale of exploration, and danger, of battle among the stars, of forging a beacon of hope and truth to stand out in the cold dark void of space, as people tried to make a new life to replace the one they had lost to injustice and greed—

“Who are you?”


Will looked up with a distracted blink to the far wall before his head swiveled to look at the bed, the girl was sitting up, her lips still slightly swollen and bruised, but the multiple splits had healed up nicely, the scabs small, and dark red, as where all the other marks, some more healed than others, likely because some of the more severe cuts and gashes, had been the first and most addressed wounds he had used his powers on to seal shut, not unlike cauterizing a wound closed, the slight difference being that as a Pyro, her flesh would not burn, just as his own was impervious to flame, however, the exact application of heat and light, healing the wound, in many cases, as if it had never been.

He looked at her as she sat up and looked at him, her eyes clear and piercing, a dark shade of blue that seemed, from this angle as the light hit them, to be almost violet hued, at least… Yes, they where so dark and yet bright, that they where positively a deep shade of violet, a tint that seemed to almost spark with that inner flame of hers, as she looked back at him, her face almost perfectly neutral, and yet her eyes curious, prying, plotting, wary, grateful and even slightly worried.


Glancing at the page number for a split second, William closed the book and set it on the arm of the chair as he sat up and looked back at her, the faint shimmer that ringed his eyes faded as he felt her pull her powers back behind a barrier of her own making, the faintest color of violet and lavender glowing in her eyes for but a heartbeat, and she shifted slowly, stiffly, before she brought her arms out from under the blanket and set them in her lap as he slid to the edge of the chair and cleared his throat.


“Ah-hemm… I’m William… And you’re?” he asked her in that resonate baritone, the tiny lump in his timber was somewhere in the lower tones of his voice, and it hinted at something primal in him, that tickled something primal in her, way deep down in the back of her mind and her pelvis, a microscopic chain of lightning wandering along the inside of her spine, her inner flame flickering at the wave of warmth, the feel of his inner flame, the purity of it, the sheer strength and volume of it, was unlike anything she had ever felt before, and he was also physically impressive, based on what she could see and remember from the rescue, he was built like the proverbial pinnacle of male strength and form, his wide shoulders now covered by a plain blue tee shirt, that was just a stitch too tight for both his and her own good, the outlines of the more prominently built musculature on his frame clearly defined under the faded garment.

Dear god, she could swoon, and that not only amused her, but also bothered her greatly, she normally never felt this strongly about someone after first impressions, and for crying out loud, she had only just gotten his name! And yet, here he was, after saving her, he had not only taken her away from her captors and danger, but had also it seemed, tended to her wounds, and given her sanctuary, and, after a quick self check, had done nothing else overtly wrong, while the minor infraction on her privacy might be something, it really wasn’t such a bid deal, despite her modesty, she also was far from ashamed of herself, be it her personality or her body or her powers.

She was just highly selective as to whom, and how much of each she revealed.


Taking him in with a long appraising look, she shifted some, and then looked to her wrists, the bruises from the chains where yellowy and faded, and would likely be gone by the end of the next day, which she figured to also be long before that, gone and back with Keira and the others. Looking back up at him she nodded slightly and replied; “Violet… Thanks again, for helping me.” Her voice was soft, and slightly raspy sounding, somewhat dry, but her light and even, almost throaty tone carried her barely there accent perfectly, not that he had trouble hearing her, in fact, he could hear her just as well as if she was whispering in his ear, even if she was across the parking lot outside.

Nodding to her in greeting, Will turned a bit more to face her head on, his eyes glancing at some of the still healing marks on her pale, almost porcelain skin, as she shifted a moment and the looked to her outer most layer of clothes stacked near by on the chair, then back at him for a moment, her right eyebrow flexing almost an almost unperceivable amount, moving up in a concert between question, mock and accusation, the singular movement of her eyebrow, and the barest tilt of her head as her eyes looked to her lap and then back at him, would have been practically comical for anyone else if they could catch it, but it was all so subtle that most people would have missed it, but he didn’t and he also didn’t miss all that the look conveyed, even if it was far more than what she wished to tell him.


After the small exchange of looks, Violet at last opened her mouth and spoke again, with a hint of irony in her voice; “I’m going to assume for a moment here, that you’re intentions where and still are decent, even if I’m not totally so, and please understand that I am grateful, but then even, I have to beg the question here; who the hell are you, and why did you help me?” her tone was even, calm and even friendly in a way, but she was being perfectly direct, and pretty blunt to the point of borderline rudeness.


It almost made William laugh at her.

Almost.

“I told you, I’m Will, as to the why, let’s just say that I know a traitor kill when I see it, unless you want to call it a hate crime, either way, they had you chained to a beam in a rundown warehouse no one else had been in for years, and it wasn’t for a surprise birthday party.” He tilted his head a moment before he stood up and stretched his arms out sideways, his height not allowing him to stretch upwards.

Walking from the lazy boy to the small sink and counter-top next to the bathroom door, he pulled a paper cup out of a plastic sleeve full, and then filled it with water. He repeated the actions again and then walked over to the bed in the corner of the small rectangle shaped room, and held a cup out to her; “Here, you sound a tad dry, and your lips are chapped, even pyro’s need water.”


Violet watched him move, not wholly satisfied with his answer, her mind remembering the last few weeks, and realizing that he had been the strange source of warmth she had been sensing for some time, shadowing her now that she thought about it a moment longer. Looking up at him, she then took the cup and drank gratefully, the water slightly cool, and not as bad as she had figured it would be, but then he had flared slightly when he had gotten the water, so maybe he had figured out a trick to filter water with his powers, something she had tried to figure out, but had never mastered, unlike other applications of her powers she had taught herself.

Once the water was gone, she looked around the room, trying to get a more complete picture of the current situation, as Will walked back to the small sink. The room was old, and a tad small, the bed was in the far corner, length wise along the long back wall, facing the door to the bathroom at the other end, a small counter-top with the small sink, and a microwave older than any electronic device she’d seen (if she had to guess, it might have been from the early to mid-eighty’s, if that) and a toaster over she was guessing had not worked since she was nine years old. The walls where painted what had been white, but now was a dull pale yellowy cream, with cheap wood paneling trimming the room. She couldn’t even guess what state the carpet had been in new, but it was now so old and compacted into a solid mass of tan, that it wasn’t even comical, how well it must have hidden the stains of whatever had happened here, time and again.

Looking back to Will, she noticed that he was observing her as well now, his faded steel blue eyes almost soft looking as they traveled her face over and over, not judging, but simply observing. She had seen eyes like that before, the old, weary, yet friendly, and non-judgmental kind, older than was fair, from too many blows, deaths, and tragedies witnessed, and even in some cases, committed. It was the face that told the tale in almost every case, and his spoke of the road, of being far from what he had once called home, of loss and more loss, and of a hardness that supported it all, and a core of kindness that was growing ever more insulated from the world.

"That’s not exactly what I meant you know.” She spoke softly as she rubbed her shoulder gingerly the light scar from a nine-millimeter that had taken a small chunk of flesh from her only a few years old, and yet had healed quite well, her eyes drifting down her slender, yet strong and toned arm to her elbow before she looked back up at him with a questioning look.


“You want to know why I saved you, as in my personal reasons, don’t you?” Will said as he leaned on the corner of the wall where the bathroom was, his arms now crossed over his chest, his powerful biceps and forearms flexing slightly as he shifted and got himself more comfortable. He ran his tongue over his teeth then parted his lips to sigh before answering her; “I saved you because… I honestly don’t know, maybe it was because I don’t like bigotry, or revenge, or maybe because I don’t think a person should be killed for something as silly as growing up and realizing that they are better than their situation, I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’ve seen too much evil in the world, and I had to do something about it."

He pushed off the wall and walked over to the bed and stood at the foot of it and looked at her, his thumbs hooking into the back pockets of his jeans. “Either way you have another chance… Don’t waste it.”

Will walked from the edge of the bed to the main door and opened it, pausing for a moment to look at her one more time. “I’m going to make a call, and give you some privacy. If you’re here when I get back, then you’re welcome to join me for lunch.”


Violet watched him as he stood there and spoke, a sudden wave of sorrow washing over her as she looked at him there, so tall and powerful looking, and yet, there was a tragic sadness about him, but she didn’t get to do a thing about it all, because he was gone, and the door was shut, leaving her alone with her clothing, and the sparse, worn fixtures of the room…



Slowly, she pulled her self from the bed and slid her long slender legs out to the floor, her feet resting on the threadbare throw rug next to the bed, her socks stuffed into the tops of her boots it seemed. She sighed softly and at last tossed the light blanket and sheet off her herself before she stood and gathered her things.

Walking to the small counter, sink and the door to the bathroom, she set her things on the counter, and then walked into the bathroom. Blue, and white, tile, paint and fixtures, just as old and faded as the rest of the room, but thankfully clean, if not worn and less stained then the rest of the room, it was in fact the nicest such private bathroom she had been in for some time.

Looking at her reflection in the mirror, which had fading edges. Violet suddenly felt a rather vain impulse to give herself a thorough check over, and she even was debating on a shower, but she didn’t have a clue as to how long Will was going to be with that call, and while she had some basic trust for him at this point, she didn’t know him well enough to guess if he was a peeping tom type or not, and normally she wouldn’t have cared because she would have just put the hurt on such a person and have been done with it, but she was in his debt, and not at full strength, and she had a gut feeling that even if she was in top form, and he wasn’t, tangling with him would be foolhardy at best and perfectly stupid at worse.

Looking at the worst of the damage, which sadly was to her face, she was however surprised and glad that the major damage was healing quite nicely, and in fact was little more than light puffy scars and marks that would be either gone or faded away to almost vanishing in a few days or so. That caused her to pause and think, did William have healing powers? It would make sense, due to her injuries being far more healed up than they normally would have been. Oh well, small favors and all.

Once she had inspected her injuries, she moved onto the rest of herself, her fingers and hand moving down her body and back up, checking everything. It was vain of her, she knew it, and in a logical sense, silly. She was a street rat, and she knew it, and no matter how pretty she might think herself, she was hardly in a position to give much thought to all of that, being pretty, wasn’t what kept you alive on the streets, being strong did, having boys hang all over you and pay attention to you was just the kind of thing that got a girl owned, so being smart was preferred, but even so, Violet could no more deny her gender then she could deny herself as a person, and as such, while she could repress much of the biological programming, she could never escape it, and for the barest of moments, as she looked at her partly uncovered figure in the mirror, her eyes went soft, and her face relaxed from its almost constant neutral fix, and for the barest of moments, she tried to smile, the corners of her mouth turning up slightly, and her eyes mimicking the action, her head tilting to the side a bare degree or two, and her hand raising up to push her hair to the side, just like the pretty girls did on TV shows when they where busy being pretty…


The moment lasted but a few seconds, however the impact, had been felt long ago.
“Beauty will only make you weak Violet… You can’t afford it… So be strong!”

And for a single heartbeat, a twelve year old girl stood looking back at her in the mirror, her violet eyes crying the last tears they would cry for years, as an older, soft yet rough hand wiped her face clean of dirt and moisture, an older, worn, battle tested woman nodding with grim brown eyes and close cropped blond hair, her face scarred and tired.


Violet blinked at the memory, chasing it back to a middle place in her mind as she let out a long weary breath, and then brushed her hair back over her ears, and started pulling her outer wear back on, cargo pants over her sleek pale legs, and snug tank top over a soft yet even snugger sports bra, a stretch, an adjustment, and a full body shake, then she was ready to face the world again…



But she wasn’t fully aware yet, that she would never again have to face it alone…

[William Talbot]

HOLY CRAP 7,091 WORDS & 70+ PARAGRAPHS!
*dies*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ignition

“Damm girl, looks like you won a fight with armored truck!”


Violet rolled her eyes lightly and suppressed an ironic smirk at Keira’s exaggerated observation, before she pulled a folding steel chair out from the beaten up folding wooden table where the others where sitting around, a trio of open pizza boxes, and a pair of large soda bottles occupied the center table, another sleeve of paper, or rather plastic red cups sat near the edge of the worn, round, wavy surface.

Reaching for the nearest open box, Violet extracted a slice of chicken and mushroom pizza, her mouth suddenly watering as her stomach quietly reminded her that it had been at least twelve hours since she had eaten, and that she was currently recovering from some significant injuries, and that while William had indeed offered to buy her some food, she had instead decided to find the others. Knowing that Marcus and Keira where watching Grace, was comforting, somewhat anyway, but that at the moment, Grace was indeed her own responsibility, as she herself had simply been tagging along with Keira, when they had found her, and while he had been understanding about the situation, Marcus had made it clear to Violet that Grace did not belong out on the street alone, something Violet was all too aware of, and yet, at the moment, Grace, unwilling to share more than the main points of her life and her past, was totally at their collective mercy, something Violet knew would not last as long as was needed if she did not own up to Grace, and help the girl learn what she needed as fast as possible.


“Ooooh, who’s the big dog daddy Vee?” Keira asked as she hopped up from her perch on a brand new shipping crate that was empty and on end. She gave the newcomer a big knowing grin as she refilled her cup with cherry flavored Dr. Pepper and then maneuvered around Grace and her chair to get closer. Hmmhm, he was a nice big chunk of eye candy for sure! And she could tell he was just full of surprises!


“That’s Will.” Violet answered simply, knowing that he would rather make the formal introductions himself, since she had already told him the bare basics about this place, and who was waiting for her here, in this old warehouse on the docks near Crasser beach in the deepest parts of south Kempton.


Will arched his eyebrow at Keira as he extended his hand to Marcus, who was also now standing, and sizing the other male up, with cool intelligent brown eyes. At the first contact Marcus could define nothing overtly strange about him, that was until he felt as searing in the bones of his hand after the third or fourth shake, which prompted him to let go as soon as Will did. Looking at his hand, he then glanced to Violet and then Keira for a moment, and then again to William, with a slight upwards nod before he spoke; “I’m Marcus… So how do ya’ know Vi?”


Will flexed his fingers a few times then stuck his hands into his jacket pockets and nodded towards her; “Let’s just say we had a mutual issue pop up, and I helped her out with her end of it.” He glanced to Violet, who gave him a short yet thankful glance before she went about pouring herself a drink, and letting the situation progress naturally, the thanks she conveyed was not small, even if the gesture she used was.


Keira inched over and as soon as Marcus gave her enough space, she practically pounced on Will, her silvery eyes shimmering as she looked up at him, her neck bent almost all the way back as she stood in front of him with her cup of soda, and her ever present schoolgirl outfit contrasting with her pale even complexion, her head tilted to the side as her smile went crooked and she then laughed out in a happy voice; “A real live WEREWOLF!” She giggled out a moment before everyone else in the room stared at her, and then William, in total and utter shock, as his cheeks went bright red, and he looked at her, almost stuttering.


Will blinked at her and opened his mouth, and then closed it, several times in fact, before he sighed and flopped his arms down at his sides and rolled his eyes at her; “Gee thanks for that you goofy fairy-elf-girl…” Moving away from her he caught the shocked, surprised, and intrigued glances from the others in the room as he paused just at the edge of the loose circle of young people, before he turned around and twitched his nose slightly before locking his gaze on Keira for a moment.

“Okay, you’re a halfling, like me, he’s a mutant, and they are both Meta’s…” He pointed at them in turn, first at Keira, then Marcus, and lastly at both Grace and Violet as he spoke, his face questioning and wary all at once; “I’m part Lycan yeah, but I’m also a Meta… Jesus this is a Phobie’s nightmare turned dream come true…” He stuffed his hands back into his back pockets as he looked around and then looked to Marcus with a hard, head tilted gaze; “Tell me frosty, just how the hell have you and this pack of monthly headaches on legs dodged the cops, the hunters, the feds and the crews around here?”


Violet arched her eyebrow openly now as she chewed her slice of pizza and looked at Will, wondering how this new turn was going to clash with her first and second impressions of him, since at the moment, he was making an assuming pompous ass of himself, despite his rather good point; just how the hell where they dodging all the heat anyways?


Keira tilted her head the other way and just watched him move and listened to that rich and steamy voice of his, her cheeks tinting just a shade at his quip and then she held her giggles tightly to the inside of her ribcage as he locked onto Marcus and fired off his questions.

“Hey!” she exclaimed sharply; “That’s sexist! Isn’t it? Girls? Back me up on that!” she looked to Grace and Violet who glanced at her, Violet shrugging as if she either didn’t know, or care what Willy the Werewolf had implied, and Grace just blushed somewhat before she lowered her head and munched on a bit of buttery crust to distract herself.
Pifft, what a heap of good that was doing…


Marcus blinked at William, and for a moment was stone faced before he tilted his head back and then smiled as he shook his head and lastly chuckled knowingly; “Listen up buddy, I’ve lived here my whole life, ain’t no body in this room qualified like I am to hide out and dodge the trouble around here, so here’s the deal wanderer, I can do it.”
'Because I'm THAT dammed good.' He didn't have to add.

Marcus gave a final nod to Will before he turned around and walked back towards the table before he paused and looked back over his shoulder at Will with an arched eyebrow; “Just why do you care anyways? You’re a drifter aren’t you? Why would you care about what happens here? I mean, why would you care about any of us?”


Will looked at Marcus, as he spoke at him over his shoulder, the tone was even and thoughtful, but the implication was still clear: “Don’t question me.”
But William simply wasn’t scared easily.

“Maybe I don’t care in the normal sense, but I recognize potential when I see it, and I think that there’s only a very few ways this could all end up, and only two of those options are preferable to the rest for everyone.” Will crossed his arms over his chest and locked eyes with Marcus for a few moments while his stare was returned.


“Oh really?” Marcus shot back as he mimicked Will’s stance and shifted somewhat to fully face the half-breed Lycan, his own eyes now a softly glowing icy blue, a soft and smooth wave of cool air emanating from him.

“And tell me smart guy, just how could this end up in some way no one would like? Please, enlighten us!” he dared as he stood up straighter, an air of danger suddenly filling the room as the two males stared each other down in a next to silent display of masculinity.


Will cocked his jaw to the side and re-sized Marcus up for a moment, only he didn’t rise to the bait, instead he sighed almost tiredly and shook his head; “C’mon Marcus, you’re smarter than this, you think you can do this alone? Sure Violet’s got the guts and the smarts to hack it, but even then she got bounced from behind. Keira? Maybe, she’s smart, but just a tad too smart for her own good--”

“Hey!” Keira objected with a frown that quickly faded as Violet and Marcus both shot her a look that told her to shut up and wait her turn.

“And the babydoll?” Will said nodding at Grace as she observed the happenings with wide teal eyes, and a curious but mildly lost expression on her face that quickly blossomed into a bright red blush at the tall dark and handsome young man's question.

Looking across the room Will pulled his arms apart and stuck his hands back into the pockets of his jeans before he spoke clearly but softly; “Look… I’ve done some wandering, plenty of it in fact… I’m clearly from out of state, so as an outsider, I don’t have all the inside info that Marcus here might have, but that also means I see things that he doesn’t, and what I see are a pair of pros trying to baby-sit a rookie and a smart-alecky moderate… By and large, a loner can get by until they can get out of town, I know it cause I’ve lived that way for years, but if you fly solo too long in the same place, they crews get to know you and your habits, and when that happens, then you get bounced.”

He gazed at Violet, not with criticism, but as if he was informing her, or re-informing her, of the cold hard truth, not that she had forgotten, the lesion having been painfully learned some seven hours ago in another warehouse on the east side of Kempton, her eyes nodded slightly, even if her head didn’t actually move.

Will then looked back to Keira and tilted his head slightly as if thinking hard about something, then spoke; “And that also happens to people who get careless and cocky about things, because they know they’re smarter than most of the others, and that makes them lazy if they get to knock around carefree without some sort of counter balance or anchor. Strangely enough, they end up dead faster than a solo act.”
His eyes where piercing and solid, without an ounce of teasing and for a moment, Keira was transfixed by how clear and warm his faded steel blues looked, but very shortly she felt herself grow uncomfortable under his gaze.

Because she knew he was right.


“And the rookie?” he said as he looked to Grace, and bit his lip a moment then whispered; “She knows… And if she doesn’t, she’ll have twenty-four hours tops before she finds out the hard way, and it’s a one in three chance that she lives through that at all…”
That of course made Grace turn slightly pale and lower her head, because she did know, all too well, certainly not first hand, but she was smart too, and she could put two and two together and get four.

The truth was, she didn’t like what four ended up being for her.


Grace looked up from her lap at Will, and then to each of the others in turn, before she coughed and then cleared her throat and spoke at last, her voice soft and small but clear; “Umm… I know I’m really not the best person to ask this here but… Well, what the hell are we meant to do?” she shifted some as she sat up, her teal eyes looking around as she spoke, fixing all assembled with an inquiring gaze, that seemed far more forceful than she was speaking and looked just as powerful, her eyes suddenly deep and intent.


Will looked to Grace and nodded with a slowly growing smile; “At last some one who’s willing to think past their own nose…” shifting his stance he looked at them all one more time then spoke with a clarity and authority that seemed to fill the room; “Easy, you wanna survive? Then Marcus is right, he’s the best person to keep you under the radar, but you’re going to need more than that, you’re going to need team work, each of you has qualities, strengths you can offer to each other, so the best way to do it is to loose the idea that your just a bunch of loners working together for some mutual benefit until you can move on, you need to start thinking like a team, and don’t hit the streets alone, ever.”


Violet looked at William for a moment and then glanced at the others, taking in the scene and digesting everything internally for a few moments before she looked back at the pyromancing Lycan with a sudden increase in respect, because while she had thought that such a thing was feasible, she had not thought that it was quite practical to suggest it, due to the overall attitude of the group, aside from Grace. And yet William had not only seen what she had seen, and known what he had known, he had the fortitude and the gall to make them listen to reason, after prodding them in the right direction, something she herself had once been capable of doing, but now doubted her own abilities in such areas, due to some not so recent history, and her most recent personal set back only six months ago…

“He’s right. Together we all have a better chance.”


Keira looked from Will, to Marcus, to Violet and then back again before she spoke; “Duh? But the thing is, like we need a clear cut leader, if this thing is to work, it can’t be run by committee, there’s too few of us, and we all have various things we bring to the table… I think it should be someone who can see them all and fit us together good and tight.” She looked back around the room, her silvery eyes blinking as she studied everyone’s faces and sensed their feelings carefully as her words sunk in.


Marcus looked around the room at hem, taking what Keira and Violet had said into account before he sighed and looked to William and groused; “Dammit all, it’s goanna come down between you me and Violet, so I’ll save us all some time n’ trouble; I’m not leading this, and I don’t want to be apart of a street gang, or a Crew, so the instant this starts to feel or act like one, I’m out, for good, y'all dig?” he fixed his gaze on Will but made sure to glance at Violet first, making his feelings clear in more than just one way.


Looking to Violet, William arched his eyebrow before turning to face Marcus but still had his eyes fixed on her; “I don’t recalling putting in for membership… I just floated the idea over because I found Violet chained to a beam getting the shit beat outta her by some former friends who didn’t like a few things about her… One in particular that she seemed to have hidden from them, but not really any of us here, the other is her business to tell if she wants… But then I’m sure we’ve all got some kind of personally historical reasons for being here and now, however the point is, if you four keep playing fast and loose like you have been, someone’s going to end up beaten, crippled or dead, because you’re not protecting each other, not like you should if you all don't wanna live past twenty.”

By the time he was done speaking he had looked at everyone for a few moments at least before he pulled his hands out of his pockets and held them at waist level and looked at them a few moments then spoke to them all; “Look… I’ll run with you all if you’d have me, but understand, if we can’t all stay under the radar, I’m gone too, because I won’t sit still while people go tearing the city apart, goin’ for my hide to get nailed to a wall.”


Violet at last spoke, her lightly accented voice soft and calm, as she addressed the others; “I don’t mind any of that, in fact I totally understand it, but you all should know going in, that I was the leader of the Shadows in Rockport before I came here… I hid the fact that I was a pyro for good reason, because the leaders that where in place before me, where all phobic’s, and I knew that I had to be in a gang that could offer the protection and safety needed, so of course…”


“You go and join the second biggest crew in Rockport.” Marcus said with a knowing shake of his head, almost as if he had been expecting such a revelation from her, although no one in the room had the slightest idea as to why, since other than maybe the way she walked or observed everything, Violet really didn’t look the part of gang member.


“They weren’t when I joined, but they where a gang that was known for their stealth and mobility, two things I had grown up having to be good at to survive.” She asserted, as she looked right back at Marcus with an almost defiant air, her chin lifted slightly as she stared him down, an emotional fire in her eyes rather than a biological flame.

“I came to New York when I was barely seven, having stowed away on a cruise ship from the south of France, after… My parents died, not wanting to be put into an orphanage, since my powers where emerging, I ran, and when I got to New York the murmurs about people of powers had just started, which, I of course didn’t fully understand, but knew it was a bad thing, so I kept to the streets, and tried to survive, lucky for me, a homeless couple took me into their protection, and doubly lucky for me, one was a former Army Ranger, a Green Beret, and the other was a former US Marine Force Recon scout. They taught me how to fight, and defend myself, as well as a few tricks and strategies for evading all kinds of people."

Violet leaned back in her chair as she looked to them all to read how they where taking it, so far, no one seemed to be judging her badly which while comforting on some level, was not exactly a guarantee that things where going to go well, or somehow not end badly.

“By the time I turned eleven, things where getting bad in New York, the gangs where exploding, with unemployment rising higher and higher, and most people where ready to blame immigrants, and not just Mexican’s either, anyone not born and raised in America was looked at as some sort of invader. After Jeff… He was the Ranger… After Jeff was gunned down by a Porto Rican street gang calling themselves the “sons of freedom” just because he had stepped in and stopped a bunch of them from harassing a food vendor who had always shown us some kindness, Betty and I knew we had to run, because more than once just before, I had been chased and called names, and attacked and beat up even, the one thing that saved me from being raped was Jeff and a friend of ours…”

Violet looked around the room one more time and decided to cut to the chase; “From there Betty and I went west, a friend of her sisters in Ohio was in town, and we hitched a ride back towards Dayton with her, however when she started asking for some sort of compensation for the ride, Betty and I became nervous, because we didn’t have very much money between us, I had a few dollars from some odd jobs and delivering messages back in New York, and Betty had some from various things she had done, but by the time we got past Philadelphia, we where broke, and had lost our ride… Betty tried to reason with the woman, but it ended up in a fight, and when the woman pulled a gun on Betty I got scared and tried something I had been experimenting with… I blocked the guns powder from burning, but my eyes glowed, the woman screamed like I had pulled her arm off and Betty was dumbstruck. Betty then got me a bus ticket, I don’t even want to think about how, and sent me off to Saint Louis.”

Unlike most French speaking people, Violet pronounced it as an American, saying “Lew-us” rather than “Lew-eese” as a French speaker would, however, her “Th” pronunciations had a just noticeable twinge of a “Z” sound her, vowel sounds, most notably the long E and I sounds, slightly more accented then the rest, all of it making her voice, and the non-dyadic cadence she used both unique, and yet perfectly understandable.

“From there, I met an old French Foreign Legion Captain who had come here after his contract was over, and had lived with his emigrated family until the tornado that his Saint Louis several years ago, killed his family. He had caught me digging in the trash behind the restaurant where he worked as a waiter, and when he heard me curse in French, it shocked him, not so much that I had cursed at twelve years old, but that my usage was so… As he put it “apt” very quickly we became friends, and before long, he had set up a kind of save haven for me in his garage, since a fifty year old French man, and a twelve year old French girl, who are not family members living under the same roof would have been suspicious, still, he taught me many things, such as basic Parkor, knife fighting, and even though I was not fond of them or people who used them, guns and how to care for them and protect yourself from them… He was in near perfect health for his age, and also was a Telepath, and under stood the problems I sometimes had controlling my powers, which thanks to puberty, where suddenly growing more and more powerful and harder and harder for me to suppress without proper training… He taught me all he could. Soon after however, he had an accident, a car had hit him at a cross walk, and he had severe damage done to his spine and more than mild brain damage, and before long, I knew that he would not be able to keep his home, so I very carefully snuck in to visit him in the hospital and he told me to and take whatever I might could use or need, and to make sure and clear out my little haven and cover my tracks. Despite my reluctance, I did so and with the money and few items I did take, I got a train ticket to Rockport, where I ended up three days later… The rest is pretty logical, I turned thirteen, the crews started trying to recruit me, I at last realized I couldn’t survive legally with out any kind of ID, and to work illegally while doable, was incredibly hazardous, hard, and risked my freedom just the same, so I joined the Shadows, and by the time I was sixteen, I had earned the right to lead, and once I was leading, I banned the drug trade, limited the usage of guns, and rebuilt that crew from the ground up… Not everyone was happy with me, and many left, from there, I picked three lieutenants out of who had stayed and where my friends… But six months ago, I was betrayed, Elias, my second, had made a deal with another gang, after one night when we had lost some turf and a hand full of members to the cops and the Sabers, because he felt that I wasn’t playing hard enough, but he had only wanted a merge and new leadership, what cinched it for him, and totally turned him and the others against me, was when the final word came in on the fate of our missing members, I punched a wall in total frustration and my powers surged from the emotion, my eyes lit up, and a burst of flame flowed through my arm, making my hit twice what it would have been, and scorching the wall… Needless to say, no one spoke to me the rest of that day or the next, and when we went to take back the turf… Elias and Sara had brought the other gang, and our rivals together… It turned from a rumble into a trap and massacre, my closest friends who had not abandoned me despite my powers, where killed, murdered really, and I was shot then beaten. Had it not been for the storekeeper across the block, I would have died, but I was rushed to the ER, and patched up, however I knew that the Cops had been looking for me… So as soon as I could walk, which was much sooner then they had figured on, not knowing about my powers, I bolted, and piggybacked on a freight train here, where I figured I could lay low for a while until something happened.”

She looked around the room at them all, as they digested her story and then one by one sat or leaned back in their places and looked to the floor before she spoke once more; “That’s my story, if you want me to lead, I will, if you want me to leave…. I will.”


Grace looked up after a few moments, and her teals eyes shimmered, rimmed with an emerald glow as she spoke; “Violet… I hope that I speak for everyone when I say, I don’t care about all of that…” she looked around the room to see if she was right, and it wasn’t until she looked to Marcus that she saw otherwise…


“Well Gracie Lou, you don’t speak for all of us…” his big brown eyes turned ice blue as he looked up at Violet and stood taking a single step forward and pointing a large black finger at her; “Lookit’ I don’t like Crew’s and I don’t like Crewmembers, no way, no how, and while you really aren’t the type, the fact remains, you where Crew, once, and forever, you’re Crew, you know how it works, it’s why the furry boy scout here had to step in and save your sleek curvy ass…” he looked to William and then back to Violet, with a half hidden, knowing smirk in his icy blue eyes, his skin prickling with icy drops of what would have been sweat for most people as he went on; “If you lead, I’m out, and you can find another map with a brain to lean on for a place to camp. And I’m sure that between Elf girl and the sexy eyed zoo, you could last a good month before you’re all either in the bottom of the river or locked up in a glass room wired for sound and sudden death… I’d say it’s nothing personal, but I have a bad history with Crew’s and their membership, but I must admit, you’ve made plenty of progress in altering my stance on the matter, just not enough for me to let you lead this crazy assed idea anywhere but jail or the morgue.”


“Oh stuff it up Marcus!” Keira stated as she cut an almost angry glance at Marcus before facing Violet and speaking; “Grace, is right, I don’t care about all of that, hell, you should hear my story some other time but, Violet, I like you, you shoot straight, and you’re tough, and you don’t dick about and screw people over, I can respect that, so even if frosty over there won’t run with you, I sure will!” she gave a determined nod and smiled before adding on; “But personally if you ask me, I think Willy might should lead, he’s the one who saw the bigger picture and told us what he saw, and anyways, it would be a nice change of pace and lessening of stress for you, huh?”


Will looked at them all as every eye landed on him and Marcus snorted; “Hell wolf man, what’s your back story? You think we should follow you?”


Glancing about for a moment, William sighed and shrugged; “Not too much to tell, born and raised in Metro Texas, my mom died when I was real little, and my dad raised me the best he could. He was a Werewolf, and my mother was a Meta-human, things where fine until we moved to some little town in south west Texas, and one day when I was fourteen, I just… Well, it was the week of the full moon and this girl I was sweet on and I where out hanging around the center of town, and these guys who where running together in a kind of poseur gang started picking on me because I was the new kid, well I shrugged it of at first, or tried to, like my dad had taught me, to protect everyone, and like… Well, one of the smaller or younger ones felt the need to start insulting my mom… Well her being dead, on the one hand, meant that nothing he could say would be even remotely true, and yet, it somehow just irked me, just enough that I retorted with a few mama jokes of my own. They didn’t like that, so someone else threw a rock at me, I dodged, they threw again and it hit the girl. That did it for me and I went no-shit, hard-core Lycan fury on them. Scared the girl so bad she fainted, and far as I know, to this day, she still doesn’t remember what happened, which is a good thing for me, because… Well of the five boys that where bullying us, only one of them made it back to the center of town… In once piece…”

Will stood there and looked at them all for a moment, flexing his jaw and trying to feel them out before he went on; “Two dead, three maimed one paralyzed from the waist down, one missing a hand and one missing an ear and his sanity… My dad vouched for me, told the sheriff I had been home helping with some odd jobs, they never figured out it was me because my dad hunted down a rabid Coyote, and then shot em’ and drug it back to town to take the blame… They all took it at face value, but I was always looked at with some suspicion since some folks had seen me with everyone that had been at the attack, and yet my dad had said otherwise, and no one could really prove contrary. Not that it mattered, six months later my dad was killed by a drunken cattle farmer who claimed to have caught my dad humping his barely adult niece visiting from the east in the back of a barn. Shot my dad square in the face with both barrels of his twelve gauge before running him over with his massive tractor pulled grass mower. Werewolf’s can recover from a whole hell of a lot, but I’ve yet to hear of anything physical coming back from that. The sad truth of the matter was it wasn’t my dad, but me the blind drunk fool had seen in back of his barn, but it wasn’t his niece I was making out with, but his daughter. I was sixteen, and as such, the county was going to care for me, and sell everything off, but with mine and my fathers rep around Fuller County, I knew that was either a death wish or just plain stupid, so I raided the house, and lit out of there, headed east, since that’s where we’d come from, but they figured on that, so after dodging them for the better part of a week, I went north, and I mean way the hell north, all the way into Canada, where I spent the next three years dodging Mounties and trouble with a fair amount of ease, but then while I don’t look for trouble, it always manages to keep close tabs on me.”

Looking around the room again, he bottom lined it for everyone; “Long n’ short of it, I’ve drifted across the better part of North America the last five years, seen both oceans and the gulf, broken outta every Mexican border jail west of El Paso and a few on our side of the line too, I’ve been banned from most of the cities and towns in western Canada and am wanted by every Phobic in the states of New Jersey, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri just for being a Werewolf and kiddo’s you had better believe that it’s not just blind fear and hatred that drive these people, they are freaking organized like Hitler’s nazi party before he took office, so the instant one of their leaders takes office anyplace on any level, we’re on the down low, hard and fast, because the instant anyone of us is made, we’re toast…”

~Elsewhere~

The Palamont Police Department, Central Headquarters:


“So let me get this straight,” A slightly tall, brown haired, cleft chinned man of slowly middling years, faint wrinkles and not a touch of gray in his hair yet, his suit simple, but nice, a dark gray that had been black when it was new, but that had been almost ten years ago, since a cops pay didn’t get all the good until you made either Inspector or Captain, which sadly, Detective Malcolm Myers was neither, at least not just yet, he had been passed over once already, and if he was understanding what his Captain was saying, he would have a solid shot at either or, if he could do what was asked of him; “You want me to look into shutting down the Crews in this city, from outside sources?” he blinked, his blue eyes where not something to write home about, as they where a plain, slightly pale blue just like almost any other plain, slightly pale or faded set of blue eyes on any number of men his age, older or younger, they where just there, his one major defining set of features being his very Scottish mildly cleft chin, slightly large, but not grossly so, nose and his almost lantern square (almost, but not really) strong jaw his mellow tenor slightly tainted by a steady bourbon habit that he neither let go, nor abused, his smoking habit having been killed off years ago for personal reasons.


“That’s the basic idea yeah.” The more than a little fat and short, (the term used out of his ear-shot was “Squat”) Captain of Detectives, one Capt. Mark Flowers, a pale, sweaty and balding man of great girth and small patience, a man who made a button down shirt look like an ill-cut circus tent duct-taped to the back end of an obese hippo with the runs.

A man who… Okay what the hell was he saying now?


“Simply put, the Chief is convinced that the local Crews are importing talent from out of town.” He said as he chomped on his unlit cigar, the new, or rather now old, city ordnance's on smoking in government and public buildings where forbidding anyone from having thing lit or even carrying any kind of lighter that wasn’t nine inches long and painted some god-awful color, Aim-n-flames they called the horrid and unreliable things, which while handy, where also just stupid looking, and hard to carry in your back pocket without implying something you might not want to imply, or in some cases, wanted to imply…


“Talent for what? And from where exactly?” Malcolm asked as he looked over the files, or rather copies of files he had already looked at, some twenty times in the last few dozen weeks, the three known Crew bosses, a new term used instead of Gang leaders, since most of the Gangs, in the old fashioned sense where now little more than nuisances since the advent of the Crews, but either way, a group was a group was a gang, was a crew, was a freaking knitting club, was a Police force was a bunch of kids playing baseball in the park… Huh?

“What was that?” Malcolm asked realizing his mind had wandered again, thanks in large part to the fact that he had yet to have his late lunch that he had been promised, and his Classic Italian on oat bread wasn’t getting any fresher, now three hours after he had picked the damm thing up.


“I said, Detective… That we’re not totally sure, but we’ve ID’d at least two wheelmen, a fixer, a snuffer and a trio of popper’s in the last month, and, look at this…” Flowers pulled a brand new, crisp folder from his inbox, and handed it to Myers who noted that it had the Rockport Police Department seal on it, rather than the Palamont PD logo, and it was stamped “Gang/Org. Crime Unit” in big red and bold letters.


“Rockport? Gang and Organized crime unit? Tha’ hell?” Malcolm asked as he leafed through it, a set of photos clipped to the main set of pages, of which there where five, a slight bit thin for such a division to have sent, the photo’s showed six young people, four males, and two females, numbers assigned to each square black and while picture, the top page of the report having the number one on it, the second being numbered two, so that one could tell what report and abbreviated biography went with which face, but after a moment, Mal realized there was no page that went with picture number three, a lean, slender young woman with dark eyes, and long almost perfectly straight dark hair, the only notes being in the lower corner of the picture, stating that she was reported to have dark blue eyes, and long black hair, but no known name as of yet.

“Who’s the mystery girl?” Myers asked as he leafed back through the other reports, skimming and connecting names, stats and wraps sheets with faces and descriptions.


“We sure as hell don’t know, but R.P.D. thinks that either she’s the leader or at least the brains behind their second or third largest Crew, an outfit called the Shadows… Er, the Red Shadows, one of the two, the Captain from their gang unit wasn’t sure himself, but here’s the kicker, she’s not been seen there in almost six months, and the last word anyone got was a jumbled mess, they don’t know if she’s still calling the shots, has been snuffed out and dumped in the river, or has left to recruit more talent or even start up a new op elsewhere.”


Detective Myers blinked up at his Captain in mild disbelief; “But Flowers… Palamont’s the closest City worth bothering with for any of that… You don’t think she’s come here to start up a new chapter do you?” Assuming that the mystery girl was indeed an underworld leader, then such a move might polarize either city, or even both, as while relatively neighborly, there was over seventy-five miles of semi-open and empty space between them, a few scattered canyons, mountains and a few not too small rivers where the only things of note aside from a mossy cliff that over looked the ocean before one got to the shear rock walled cliffs of Rockport, so named because the natural middle sized cove that formed the port, was surrounded by rocky formations that could wreck a ship instantly if it was careless.

To have the two cities linked in such a manner, by a gang of hoodlums who called themselves “Crews” to try and mask what they did everyday, from illegal street racing, to the import and export of stolen and illegal guns, drugs and even people, as well as other unlawful deeds and behavior, was a scary thought for anyone, including the girl in the picture…

~The Warehouse~

“I think that we’re all agreed.” Violet said thoughtfully as she placed her cup of soda down and looked around the room, then back to William; “The past is just that, past, we can’t undo any of it, so looking back is foolish, so instead let’s look forward…” she then took up her cup and stood, giving a slight look to Keira and Grace, who where also seated, to stand, which they did after a moments pause.

Lifting up her cup of lemon flavored cola, she saluted Will with the faintest of smiles as the others, Marcus included, since it was clear where this was going, and Will was the only one still without a drink, Violet nodded to him before toasting him; “And in looking forward, I say we follow the lead of the guy who could look forward at the big picture… Will, I don’t say this, ever, but… You’re the man, don’t screw it up.” And with that assertion she pressed the cup to her lips with the others, and they all drank the soda they had before him, after a moment Keira and Grace looking to each other and then smashing the cups under foot to giggles and smiles, Violet and Marcus shrugging and following suit as Will stared at them in shock for a few moments, and then spoke himself…

“You people are crazy, you know that right?”


Not that he really believed that of course…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I DEMAND COMMENTS TO BE POSTED HERE!
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[William Talbot]

Home Plate

“We are NOT doing that again!”

Marcus glared at Keira and Will as they all caught their breath, or rather Will and Marcus did. Keira of course, having a much faster and in some ways more efficient form of travel over running, not to say of course she couldn’t do it, she just felt that when outnumbered three to one, and everyone but your side had guns, poofing off in a cloud of dust and smoke was much better than trying to slug one’s way out of almost certain death.


“Mind NOT letting every stray crew member in a five block radius, know where the hell we are?” Will said with a slight huff and glare at the other male as Keira wandered off some and looked around to check their trail and make sure they where not being followed or snuck up on, her hand waving back at them, telling then to be quiet as she moved off and then vanished in a puff again.


“I can’t believe that happened… How did I let you talk me into that?” Marcus said as he looked to Will, the Pyro-kinetic Lycan’s hands folded behind his head, resting on his neck as he leaned on the side of the taller of the buildings that formed this particular alley.


“Hey, I’m not the one who sneezed.” Will said as he looked back at the settling cloud of dust and ash that marked where Keira had been, before looking back to the athletic dark skinned young and calmly sighing out as he let his feet move foreword, and leaned back more, closing his eyes slowly.


Marcus glared daggers at his partner, his deep brown eyes shifting to an icy blue as his skin started to fog over with his frustration, his cryogenic powers clashing sharply with the flames the other male carried deep in his slightly bulky body.

“You know,” Marcus started with a cold and annoyed tone of voice; “You’ve been a little too calm the last few weeks give’n what all we’ve had happen and have gone through.” He crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned on the wall opposite of William and kept his glare up, as the other male grew still, and settled into what anyone would logically conclude was a light nap. Not so, but even then, the one thing Marcus both enjoyed and hated to put up with from Will, was his constant teasing of everyone, which clashed distinctly with his dead serious outlook on the more important issues they faced, but for the life of him, he could not understand why the straight-shooting Lycan was so calm about everything thus far, given the number of close calls they had been having.

Will just leaned there, looking as if he was under some spell, sleeping there, totally still save for the slight rise and fall of his chest and arms, so serene and calm, it was utterly infuriating…

“Marcus.” Will said softly, his lips hardly moving as he leaned there, for all appearances dozing calmly, and yet speaking as if they where in the middle of some deep and important conversation, despite him being asleep on the wall.

“The Crews have no clue who or what we are, they’re panicking, just because we scared off some pushers and dealers, so of course we’re going to have more to dodge, but thankfully, it won’t be organized enough to matter, we just start taking turns looking out, there are five of us, and thus far most everyone in the unclaimed area’s love us, so I’m sure we’re not going to have too much trouble If we keep outta’ the established turf.”

Will shifted lightly, and sighed softly, his eyebrow arching lightly just before a soft popping noise filled with smoke and ash manifested a few steps away from them in the middle of the alleyway.

“There she is.” He said with a smirk as he opened his eyes and then looked at her with a tilted head and inquiring gaze.


“All clear, Willy dear!” She said with a big goofy smile, her hands fidgeting with her shirtsleeves, her small nimble fingers adjusting the roll of her cuffs in the endless search for the perfectly tight, and perfectly wrinkled roll, the final part of her mischievous schoolgirl look that she could never get just so.

Once she had settled her sleeves she looked back over her shoulder before facing the boys and crossing her arms over her tightly curved chest, as she reported the details of her little back tracking trip; “We lost them back at Twenty-First and Fairview, the split up worked, because most of them tried for me, and we all know how that normally turns out.” She gave a proud smile, her eyes shimmering slightly as she cocked her hips to the side and stuck out a long looking pale leg somewhat, her sneakers planted firmly on the tarmac of the alley.


“Okay Tinker bell.”

“I prefer Laura Croft!”


“Fine.” Marcus said as he looked at her and shook his head, his eyes rolling at her smirk good-naturedly, his own slight smile hinting at his lips while he stood up straighter, then checked the main street and sidewalk for activity, which of course, there was some, a few random people walking along, and cars driving down the street, going and coming to and from.

Looking back, Marcus spoke quickly; “Okay, let’s get back to the warehouse, I’m sure Violet’s worn Grace out by now, and we’ll need to start gathering what things we’ll need for when we move out.” He looked off down the street then tilted his head slightly before he waved them off; “On second thought, you two get back to the warehouse, I have something I want to check on first. See you back in an hour or less.”


Keira shrugged and turned to walk back the way they had more or less came, opting to take the round about route, Will falling in step beside her shortly afterwards, his longer stride meant he took fewer steps, to cover the same ground.

“You know, he really should be more… Following-ish-er… Something…” she said rather casually, her eyes looking off at various splashes of paint, on the brick and concrete, spray and brush and even hands the process used to mark the walls, announcing everything from true love to the number of cars stolen, to even who had last ruled this little alley.

Will just shrugged as his hands went into the pockets of his worn leather jacket, which he wore even with the warmth of a late spring day, the jacket almost like a coat of armor for him, which Keira rather liked the idea of.


“Ehh, I’m not worried, he means well, and he is the expert on the city, so I really don’t think it’s my place to try and be some big shot about it, so long as we just stick together and take care of each other, then we’ll be fine.” Will spoke with an even, but lumpy baritone that was both soothing, and inspiring. And Keira had more than once commented on how much he sounded like the old actor Vin Diesel, much to the amusement of the others.

They walked along in silence for a while, getting closer and closer at a leisurely pace, before they paused at a small intersection hidden deep within the artificial valleys the buildings made in this part of Kempton, known as Eastman Downs. Looking both ways, Will took a single step forward before Keira tackled him from the side, pushing him to one of the walls, her hands gripping his neck rather roughly, almost aggressively, or rather VERY aggressively, almost violently so, but before he could mount a defense from the sudden onslaught, he felt her small soft lips attack his, a sudden shock smashing him upside the head harder than any blow he’d felt in some time.

She was humming into his mouth as she violated it, her little bitter sweet tongue feeling about in his mouth, the effect all but totally paralyzing for him as her hands ran over his chest and arms, groping him roughly for such small appendages…

“Hmmm…. There!” She said brightly, her smile was almost nauseatingly proud and happy, her eyes glowing white as she smirked at him, and stepped back, looking him over while she giggled as he just blinked at her slack jawed and unmoving.


“Keira… What the hell?” Will at last managed once he found his voice and the air with which to use it, his eyes wide and a mixture of shock and puzzlement, along with a hint of anger.

“What the hell!” He repeated, this time as a statement rather than a question as she shrugged at him then giggled again as she spun around in place, her arms swinging out as did her skirt, a quick flash of black underwear and ivory backside taunting his more, feral instincts, which he had a sneaking suspicion that she knew it, and was doing all of this on purpose, after all, while not a full werewolf, he was part, were, and that meant he could tell things about people they might not even know themselves.

And Keira was putting out enough mating pheromones to drown a full Lycan in a swimming pool of lustful bliss. And she was only half Elf too, and those who knew, knew that few beings where more sensual then Elf’s.


“Oh get over it, it was just a kiss, I just had this over riding need to kiss you, to say I had kissed a Lycan, just because, it’s not like I want sleep with you, although I must admit, you being as big and strong as you are, you still look pretty comfy.” She winked at him and laughed as he glared back at her then slowly shook his head with a smirk.

“That’s the spirit!” she said playfully, her twirling again resumed as she danced down the alley giggling and laughing, her eyes flashing.


Will rolled his eyes and followed her down the hall, giving her enough space to dance her way home, a part of him both enjoying and envying her for how carefree she could be, as while he certainly could enjoy himself, he knew he could never be as innocently in awe of the universe as Keira was, never again.

And it saddened him greatly because of it…



~Elsewhere~


“Marcus! How ya’ been boy? I haven’t seen you ‘round here in some time? Are you staying outta’ trouble?” a thin, elderly black man with super short cut graying hair smiled a big white friendly smile as the taller more powerfully built Marcus smiled back and they greeted each other with a handshake and bro-hug, the normally reserved and slightly animated Marcus returning the smile with equal vigor.


“I’m good, and I’m staying out of it as much as I can, how about you Gramps?” Marcus looked to the older man as he scratched his full graying beard and laughed while he reached for a mop handle.

“Good to hear, Marcus, good to hear, so what brings you back to you’re old stomping grounds, getting homesick?” the older male asked as he dunked his mop back into the bucket, and swished it some in the bleach water, then went back to mopping the dark tiled floor of the urban gym.


“Yeah, that and… Joe, I need a favor.” Marcus said as he looked around at the worn, slightly dirty gym, and the aging equipment, the various old posters announcing all the major sporting events of the last sixty years, from boxing matches to car races, as well as every super bowl and world series and even a few random movie posters.


“Well then open you’re mouth and ask Marc, you know I listen good.” Joe said as he wrung the mop out and went back to cleaning the floor, his light brown eyes glancing to the younger man with a questioning gaze as he worked.


“Gramps, I need a place to crash for a while.” Marcus said as he followed the older man around the edge of the room the floor by the mats the free weights where located on, getting washed for the first time in a day or so.


“Well shoot Marc, that’s not a big deal, you can borrow my couch any time, you know that!” the older man said with a big friendly smile.


“It’s not so simple Gramps.” Marcus said as he lifted the corner of the mat so that the floor underneath could be cleaned as well.


“How’z that?” Joe said as he wiped the floor then rinsed the mop then leaned on it some, his eyebrows knit together warily at what wasn’t said.


Marcus sighed and then shook his head as he stood there under the older mans gaze, before sighing and speaking softly; “I… I need a place for me AND some friends… Four others, three girls and a guy.”


“Do-wha? Marcus, what on earth are you on about?” Joe asked as he shifted his weight and moved the mop from one hand to the other, his face filled with reproach as his eyes searched the younger man for answers.

“Three girls and another boy? You’re not… Doing anything you’re mama would hate you for are you?” Joe asked warily, unsure what exactly Marcus was implying, since there was so many things that this could mean, and he wasn’t sure if he really wanted to get into any of it just yet.


“No! Joe!” Marcus exclaimed, as he looked back over his shoulder and turned, a look of shocked surprise on his face; “Dammit, you know how I feel about that, geez…” Marcus replied with an almost hurt expression before cleared his throat and looked over his shoulder toward the back of the room where the locker rooms where; “No we just… Well, we all just kinda fell in together, I met Keira on an odd job at the mall, and she had done some oddball messenger work for a few others I know around twenty-first street, well she met Violet during a run, and they saved Grace from being raped by a pack of street Hounds, from there, William bailed out Violet from her old crew mates who wanted to send her off to her reward. From there we all started to stick close to each other for safety, but the thing is, I can’t keep us camping out in the warehouses in Kempton Holdings forever, and right now, all the good spots are about to dry up with the summer shipping boom about to hit.”


Joe blinked a few times and then shook his head in understanding; “Wow… So this isn’t some gang or something is it? Just you and some new friends trying to stay outta’ the way?”


“That’s the bottom line Gramps.” Marcus nodded as he moved back to arranging the stacks of towels on the worn old wooden shelves against the wall, an idea coming to him as he gazed around the old child hood haunt he was now assisting in cleaning.

“Hey Joe, do you have anyone working for you anymore?” he asked as he straightened the last stack on top and then turned to watch the aging former coach and athlete swipe a few times at a spot on the floor.


“No, last person I had workin’ for me up an’ quit, said the pay was better at some fancy new plastic fruity water serving place in Fremont, I took the help wanted sign down a few weeks ago cause I can’t find anyone I feel I can trust. Why?” the older black man paused in his mopping once more and leaned on the handle, his slightly wrinkled, but still toned forearms resting between the handle and his chin as he looked to Marcus for the reason behind his inquiry.


“Well… I was thinking, if you still have those empty office spaces, and rooms next to you’re storage out back…” he paused and let the idea fully develop before he pitched it to the old man; “If you let us stay there, we’ll fix it all up ourselves, and we’ll also take turn’s working here for ya’ like, mopping up, keeping an eye on things, helping out however. Make things a bit easier on you maybe?”

Marcus tilted his head slightly towards his old childhood mentor and friend, his dark brown eyes searching the weathered old face, the graying beard, and the intelligent, light brown eyes, deep with thought and consideration.


“So in other words, you all would be willing to work for your rooms?” Joe asked as he looked across the room, honestly thinking about it, and what it might entail, and or mean for him and his beloved gym.


“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s not an issue.” Marcus said, although he honestly wasn’t totally sure if everyone would be completely up for this kind of deal. Oh well, anyone who was fine with it, would play ball, and anyone who wasn’t could just keep walking on down the street, no big deal.


Joe wrinkled his forehead with a deep thinking frown as his lips pressed together tightly, his gaze off in the great beyond for a few moments before he turned and faced Marcus fully, the mop handle shifting to the side out of the way some, one hand extending out to the younger male; “So long as I ain’t feeding you bunch, I’m fine with it, when do you think you’ll need the space?”


Marcus smiled and shook the older mans hand firmly as he answered; “That’s fine with us, I’m thinking we’ll be around in the next few day’s, no sooner than day after next, and no later than the weekend, sound okay?”


“Sounds fine, but before it becomes all cozy and official like, I do wanna’ meet these kids, ya’ hear me Marc?” The older male nodded as he replied and then went back to his mopping, the last part being the area around and in front of the doors to the locker rooms, and the water fountains that hung on the wall between the doors.


“Sounds fair Joe, and thank you again.” Marcus replied as he gave a quick look around the room and then backed for the door with a wave; “Well, I’m going to go and pass on the good news to the others, I’ll be seeing ya’ Gramps!”

And with that, Marcus turned and walked out the door into the tiny covered entryway, before moving out into the street and walking back down the dusk lit sidewalk for the warehouse in the Holdings where everyone else was at this point, a tiny smile touching his lips as he considered the current situation, and realized that it wasn’t as bad as he had first thought, but that life had a way of surprising you when you made plans.

Maybe that was the one thing he really and truly liked and respected about Will, he didn’t plan out every single step he took. Hell, none of them did, so maybe that was the secret to all of their good luck? Maybe, just maybe it was that, but somehow, Marcus had a notion that it was something more, something bigger than any one of them.


But he would never truly know how right he was in that tiny little hidden hint in the back of his head…

~~~~~~~~~~~~

END OF SERIES ONE