Eye See You (Spike)

[Brianna Valdyr]

"What a day."  Sighing, Brianna blew her bangs out of her face as she hopped over most of the stairs that lead up to the gym that was her second home.  She stretched to full height on her toes, feeling the strain of a solid workout - and not just the kind for physical strength.  It had been two years, and using qi was still a huge drain.  Maybe there was something to that research that was being done, after all.

It was on her way home that she felt it.  A small pressure against her back pocket before someone collided with her.  A small someone.  The kid scrambled to their feet, apologizing as she raised a brow, unphased.  He hadn't even knocked her over.

"It's fine, kid.  Don't worry about it.  Just be more careful next time, alright?"  She waved a hand to dismiss his apologies, grinning as she watched him stumble off with only a brief glance back.  He took three steps after that before Brianna realized something was off.  She patted herself down, finding said pocket empty.  Her grin disappeared, expression darkening as the little twerp ducked around a corner.

"Oh, hell no."  She bolted after the pickpocket, skidding around a corner with a full after-school special when she caught him.

[Sage Sudeki]

Was just one of those days it seemed. Sage was not busy, but he wasn't idle either. He had been spending the last few days checking on his connections, building a base for his people to supply jobs and purpose. It wasn't until kid ran passed that he woke from his thoughts while side stepping the person until he saw someone giving chase. Looking back at the runner he would activate the Seikatsugan in his left eye.

He would reduce the size of the slab of cement on the sidewalk in front of him suddenly to trip him up, and once his foot planted on the much smaller sidewalk slab he would turn his Seikatsugan off for it to instantly return to it's usual size to throw the persons steps off completely and trip them up. Spike would stick near by to see what was going on.

[Brianna Valdyr]

"Whoa!" The kid, too young to be in his teens but old enough to lose some of his baby face, yelped in surprise as he felt his footing shift, missing the pavement's normal spacing for something that might have been a gap in the pavement? A weird, wide gap that tripped them up as they stumbled forward. Their pursuer wasn't far behind, a fact they confirmed as the kid looked over his shoulder and saw the brunette catching up.

Which wasn't hard, all things considered. Brianna wove her way through the crowd, sometimes cutting alongside someone with an apology or "excuse me" as she passed. The main problem was the kid was hard to pick out with the clusters of adults blocking the way, so behind the safety of her shades, she activated her Eye of Earth. Someone else in the area had a huge spike in energy that drew her attention for half a second, but her wallet was on the line, and they weren't getting in the way, so that would have to wait. One little source of energy was moving too quickly in the opposite direction.

"Gotcha!" She reached out to snag the kid as the pavement moved back to its original size, her target launching forward face first as the ground moved beneath them.

"Hey, let me go!" The kid tried to push themself up and launch further into the crowd as her fingers brushed fabric, enough of it that Brianna gripped it, holding him in place. A couple of people looked in their direction and frowned. The sooner this was over, the better. She snorted a laugh reached out with her free hand to his arm so the kid wouldn't slip away.

"Nuh-uh. Drop the wallet, kid." When the kid only squirmed harder, she sighed and shook her head.

"Look, I'm not going to hurt you." She shifted to face him, painfully aware that the more noise they made, the worse it looked. Holding out her free hand, she continued, grip steady but not tight. "Come on, you can do better than snitching pockets, right?"

"What do you know? Freak!" Brianna's gaze and posture remained steady, ignoring the insult for the most part. There was no way he'd know anything. After another moment, the struggle stopped, the two staring each other down before Brianna's wallet returned to her hand. She nodded with a sound of satisfaction, immediately checking to make sure that everything was still there.

"Much better. You've got good stealth skills, kid." She slipped her wallet into a front pocket, instead, but the kid was gone before her fingers touched the fabric.

"And pay attention in school!" she shouted over the crowd. She hadn't expected to sound so generic, but oh well. Not like anyone she knew was listening.

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SPOILER: Click to show

Zero Ability: Aura Sight – When activated, Brianna can see the energy of the natural world and those in it, as well as their compared strengths. This gives her a general idea without exact numbers, and anything lacking even basic life energy appears as a blank void or blot in her vision. (+17 PER, +17 ENG)

[Sage Sudeki]

Spike got the jist of the situation pretty quickly. He'd wander over once the action was over and give a polite wave.

"Hello again. Maybe we should quickly move away from this area and talk."

Spike would make a gesture seemingly suggesting a direction for them to go, however also broad enough to reference all the on-lookers.

[Brianna Valdyr]

Brianna looked over as a somewhat familiar face greeted her with a wave, remembering him from Cabal. Among other things.

"Long time, no see." Nodding, Brianna got the hint fairly quickly. It was hard not to, and it had been a bit of a scene. So much for a quiet city that only fell apart because of metas. Not that they wouldn't blame her for it if they knew.

She'll head in the general direction he pointed out, away from curious eyes.

[Sage Sudeki]

Once out of prying eyes and a few turns he'd look back to make sure they weren't being followed before leading into a cafe or something to sit down and talk in a booth.

"Sorry about that. I could of stopped the kid, but I wasn't one hundred percent sure what was happening so I shifted the sidewalk to trip him up."

[Brianna Valdyr]

"S'all right. I got him just fine on my own." She shrugged at the apology. "It's just a kid." She preferred having her ID and money to eat, however. She sighed with a small shake of her head, glancing over her shoulder as she did so.

"So what's on your mind?"

[Sage Sudeki]

Sage would shrug.

"At the moment it was just making sure you got out of that situation alright. All the looky-loo's were a bit worrying at first."

He'd place his hands on the table before smirking.

"Other than that, just been focusing on solutions to the obvious."

He'd give a general gesture again to just everything.

[Brianna Valdyr]

"Thanks for the thought, then." Brianna figured she'd have to be careful on the way home tonight as it was. People would be curious, and frankly, she wasn't interested in them making stuff up about her harming a kid to fuel their fires. She'd be fine, but...well. Others might not be.

"Tell me about it." She snorted and glanced around with a sigh and a shake of her head. "We've been here two years already, and still nothing. At least more people seem to be settling in."

[Sage Sudeki]

Giving a small sigh at her words he would nod along.

"This world at least isn't so different from the way things I know work. I was able to find a lot of... Issues to settle. One primary one being this place. My plan however, is... Fragile in a way."

His eyes shifted to the other patrons. He'd then look back at Brianna.

"Plus I still don't know all of our enemies."

[Brianna Valdyr]

"Issues, huh?" She raised a brow, but otherwise let it go for now. "This place could be a lot worse, yeah. I couldn't tell the name of these states or whatever else outside the city, but I get what you mean." She cocked her head for him to follow her further away from the busybodies that were in the area.

"I think it's safe to guess most people are, in some way. Even if it's just because they're scared of the unknown." She shrugged it off, pretending it didn't bother her. Back home, things were different, but back home wasn't going to do them any good where they were.

"Well, Mr. Mysterious, there's supposed to be a park a few blocks down if you want to talk about your...fragility."

[Sage Sudeki]

He'd follow along and at the mention of his fragility and mystery he would mock pain in his chest.

"I am you see, so easily wounded."

He'd chuckle before nodding.

"You can call me Spike."

[Brianna Valdyr]

"Clearly." Brianna smirked with a chuckle, walking backwards for a few steps as she faced him long enough for their introduction.

"Name's Brianna. Nice to meet you." She couldn't remember if they'd introduced themselves before or not, the memory hazy. So why not just do it again?

Turning back around, she would lead the way again. Last thing she needed to do was back into someone.

[Sage Sudeki]

Spike would follow and remain quiet. He had a lot of problems to think about, but he also needed to ask people important questions.

[Brianna Valdyr]

It was easy enough to find the park in question. Brianna glanced over the area to see how busy it was, and avoiding the area with a couple and kids near the playground.

"So you've been dealing with issues with this." She gestured to teh city with a wave of her hand as invitation to continue.