Unsatisfying sex was like a crime. But not a legal crime, since Stephanie had no qualms with those. Nope, it was a crime against nature.

After being unceremoniously left on the dance floor by a certain sweet but incredibly confounding blonde, Stephanie buried her sorrows in a perky redhead on the dancefloor. It made sense; Steph and Raine were friends and Steph knew that screwing with that dynamic was a bad idea. Well, she knew that before the wine. Deep down, she still knew it somewhere, but it was a truth hiding in the fog of alcohol and sexual frustration.

It would be easier when she just found a way to deal with that wound-up libido. She wasted no time, quite literally-- she took her dance partner, (May, she was pretty sure?) to a staff closet for some privacy.

And the sex was good. Like, the girl put forth a marvelous effort and she was definitely attractive. On paper, it was totally serviceable coat closet sex.

Which did absolutely nothing to unwind Stephanie. She did her best to make a polite exit, thanking May for her time, which was a terrible way to say thank you to someone you just had sex with. Tonight was just an off night, and Steph should call it there and go home. That was not going to get rid of this lingering energy, though, and somehow anonymous sex was not doing the trick either. Vexed, Steph found a shiny twonie in her purse and decided to try one last option.

Finding a Syndicate hub nearby, Steph offered the coin to make a small purchase. She had not tried this yet, even after the unsettling emissary of the group offered her an invitation. Waiting anxiously, the thief breathed a sigh of relief when she was led into a backroom. She did her best impression of a less tipsy Silhouette, asking for any job that involved theft. Willow Warren inspected her curiously and asked if she was sure, but Stephanie was adamant.

And so, after discretely picking up her costume without alerting her babysitter, Silhouette was off to a mansion in the city. The city was busy, with sidewalks of people on their way to or back from exciting Saturday night plans. Lucky them. But it was fine, really. Thanks to the eclectic mix of New York’s night owls, no one was going to question some dark-haired young woman in a skin-tight bodysuit and a mask. She was clearly on her way to a costume party! Or an orgy! You never knew; New York was a hell of a city. Her true intentions had to be at least three or four guesses down the list. It’s why she felt comfortable walking amidst the crowd until she slipped away into a bush outside the fence of the mansion.


“Didja catch that hot number in the catsuit?” a male voice called out over a police radio channel.
“Like a skintight suit or like a furry?”
“Skintight, weirdo. Brunette in a mask. Wonder what party she’s heading to; my shift’s gotta end eventually.”
“Maybe something spicier than a party?”
“Manning, Davion,” an exasperated female voice sighed, “can you two be less gross on official channels?”
“Fiiine, Mays.”
“Was it a masquerade mask or some plain mask? That could be suspicious. Maybe she’s up to something?”
“Quit being a buzzkill, Harper.”


A nearby streetlamp gave Silhouette just enough light to shift, letting her slip through the bars of the fence. She kept low to the ground in the darker parts of the small lawn. What an asshole; who had a lawn in New York? He deserved to be robbed.

When she got closer to the building, lamps on either side of the main door cast enough light for Steph to shift back. She had to be careful; her victim was out for the night, but security would be around. Thankfully, no one was on the lawn and once she shifted, who was going to be paying enough attention to notice a shadow climbing the outer wall and slipping into a cracked second-story window?

They didn't even make it home. Sloppy making out up against the wall outside the club and finding just enough cover to get further. It was exhilarating. It was scandalous. It was almost... Just almost... Not quite what what she wanted or needed. Carlee was lovely, but their connection was so incredibly superficial and nearly wholly physical at this point. As soon as they were through, the smell of nearby garbage made the whole experience less exhilarating and feeling more and more like a mistake.

"Well, call me if you change your mind," wasn't the best of goodbyes. But it was so much more than Raine deserved. She stood there in a dizzy, sloppy haze as Carlee walked away.

Raine hit the wall behind her, coming away with something yucky smudged across her palm, and even more regrets. She needed... she needed to do something better. We can do better. bounced around in her head like a mockery of everything tonight. Well, there was at least one thing Raine was still kinda good at.

Up at the top of a nearby building, Raine slipped into her catsuit, shimming out of her dress and everything that reminded her of tonight and into a domino mask instead. That left her catsuit sitting a little differently than usual, but it was better to be someone else right now. She'd used the suit as an excuse to get here on time. Now she was glad she could use it to get away.

She slid her ear piece in and clicked it on to hear a low hum of radio chatter from the police. Nothing was terribly interesting so she swung her clothes home and grabbed a bottle of pre-mixed margarita. Her buzz was fading again and if there really was no action...

She drank straight from the bottle.

And then nearly choked on her huge swig when she did in fact hear something interesting. Raine reached up to roll the volume wheel up and hone her focus.

Brunette in a cat suit? Could be nothing. Or, it could be the one that got away with the small statue from the art museum. What were the odds...?

"Never tell me the odds." She quoted to herself and then took another hefty gulp and slipped on her own window sill. It was fine to just go check, right? Just looking never hurt nobody.

A tipsy Zero swung out of her apartment, forgetting that she still had her bottle of premixed margarita in hand. That was incredibly awkward when she'd wanted to throw a tether with that hand. She ended up juggling it and finding a building top to guzzle the last of it. Waste not, want not. Zero threw her tether to zoom off again, accidentally forgetting the bottle yet again. This time, she didn't have the wherewithal to catch it before it smashed against the alleyway below, near to a bit of park grass. Or. Actually. Zero amended her thoughts as she looked it over. Not exactly a park. Was that... someone's house? Or maybe a museum?

Oh. Yeah. It totally had to be a museum. She'd arrived! And had to slap her hand over her mouth to keep herself from shouting hooray about it. Oh, but then her fingers still smelled like... you know. She really should have washed her hands better. Or. At all.

Something else attracted Zero's ADD attention span. Something... moved? Squirrel! And then she devolved into barely contained laughter at her own joke. Yeah. She cracked herself up. Who needed company when she was such good?

The less-than-discreet shadow traveled along the lantern-lit outer wall, bouncing from window to window until she found an open one. Sure, it was just a crack but seriously, it was February. Whoever lived here, she said he didn't even go into this room. Rich people with houses too big to even need. Whatever it was she was stealing from him, he probably deserved it.

After slipping into what seemed like a changing room of some kind, Silhouette shifted back into her human form before she stepped away from the light of the window. Sloppy and more visible than she should be in that situation, but if you graded on a drunkenness curve, it was forgivable.

She did remember what she was here for, at least: paperwork. It was not glamorous, but it sounded like some kind of real estate conflict and she was not going to lose sleep over playing her role. She had other things to keep her from sleeping. Vivid memories of intimate dancing. The warm skin at her fingertips. The mingling scents of the dancer and the floral perfume on her exposed neck...

Shaking off very distracting thoughts, Silhouette opened the door as quietly as she could manage and slipped onto the hallway, sticking close to the walls. She had to find an office. This was business as usual.

And tonight, business as usual was still not offering the thrill she clearly needed. Maybe she just had to accept a night that started with such promise was going to end unfulfilled.

It was bigger than a squirrel. The police had not chatted about the location of her brunette (Yes. Her brunette. She wa claiming all of them that she was allowed right now.), but Zero was almost certain that the copolice had said this location. And Brunette. And Zero was seeing that a someone was walking around inside with no lights on.

If anyone ever turned lights on, it was people in a museum. Security guards had flashlights. Curators would turn lights on. But no lights? That was someone up to deeds of a nefariouciousness nature.

"I gotcha this time, sugar." Zero threw a tether and tapped her gravity toward the building before she was quite ready, resulting in Zero being yanked off her feet and landing a little bit less than on her feet. She clobbered against the brick facade with an 'oof' heard round the regretful world, and hesitated after she got to her hands and knees.

Her heart was pounding as she listened carefully for signs that she'd scared the thief.

Hearing nothing but the rushing of her own ears and finding trying to stand to be more of a tipsy chore than she expected, Raine gave up and crawled toward what appeared to be a very slightly open window and peeped just over into the darkness inside.

It could be someone changing! Her brain supplied unhelpfully. This was a museum, not a house. Except... except the stuff she saw inside was not all that museumy. Moonlight shone in a nearly perfect square across a stately desk— maybe it was someone important's desk? Like Elton John! Only a semi-circle of darkness obscured the perfect little moonlit square, a shadow cast by Zero's big fat head.

Silhouette wished she could turn the lights on. The light made her feel safe. When she was a kid, the dark always made her uncomfortable, but now that she was an adult, her power relied on the light. Jobs like this were the reason she had to keep her skills sharp, because he could not rely on her mutation.

Alcohol… well, it had a way of wearing her skills down. She walked lightly and close to the wall to prevent creaking in the hallway, but she caught her shoulder on a doorknob with a muted thud and bit down on her lip to prevent herself from swearing and gathering attention from any nearby parties. She was a world-class thief; she had to control herself!

Silhouette approached an intersection between two halls and poked her head out to check down both directions. She immediately saw a flashlight’s presence turning the corner toward her. Her heartbeat quickened and Silhouette retreated back. The presence of the light was approaching, but for all she knew, this guard was seven-feet-tall and built like a statue. She was confident in her abilities, but after a night of drinking? Sneaky was better. The wise choice was to dive into a nearby room and quietly close the door.

Looking around her to get a grasp of her surroundings, the thief realized… she was in a study! Or an office! One of those rooms only rich people tended to have in their homes. What mattered: she spotted a desk. Clearly, her amazing criminal instincts led her to the right room definitely on purpose. Unless this was the wrong office. Then she was just doing her due diligence. She would decide on a narrative later.

What mattered now was digging through drawers, and Silhouette could do that. A quick scan through found nothing beyond a small key (which she swiped), but if she was stealing something worth stealing, it would not be that easy. She checked for a locked drawer or a secret compartment in one of the drawers, but to no avail.

Trying to think outside of the box, wine gave her a dumb yet plausible idea. Getting down to her knees, she crawled into the leg-space of the desk and felt around the sides of the interior. Much to her surprise, she did find a small crease. A hidden compartment on the side! Honestly, how stupid must it have looked every time this guy got under his desk to get things from here?

She blindly pawed around for the keyhole and, conveniently, the key from the main drawer opened the lock to the hidden one. That was… just lazy, honestly. She pulled the drawer open, but it locked in place when pulled to far, which resulted in a… thump? That sounded wrong. How did she make that noise? It barely sounded like it even came from the desk, but that was the only logical answer.

Whatever! She had her prize! Carefully, watching for traps or alarms to go off, she withdrew an envelope heavy with legal papers. Pleased with herself, Silhouette shimmed, bottom-first out from under the desk. Before she made it all the way though, she noticed something.

Silhouette noticed shadows. They were her thing. She also noticed when a shadow was not hers, and a new shadow was being cast behind her.

The surprise of it made the burglar shoot up, trying to get to her feet. This promptly banged her head against the underside of the thick mahogany desk. And queue a colorful curse involving mothers and those who loved them.

Slightly dazed, but mostly panicked, Silhouette straightened out and spun around toward the window behind her. To her confusion and horror, she found herself face-to-face with Zero, silhouetted by moonlight.

Having the wherewithal to keep her voice breathy and modified, she whined, ”Do we have to?” She was having a crappy night; couldn’t the vigilante just let her off with a warning?

Probably not. Goodie Two-Shoes. Silhouette backed away from the window toward the door, sure they were not about to have polite discourse on law versus justice.

She was sure she'd seen movement. But then, the world was spinning and Zero could feel that. Zero swayed while staying completely still.

Perhaps she'd been mistaken and now she was drunk teetering on the outside of someone's private collection of boring@ss bullsh!t. Or perhaps... just maybe... was that a booty? Zero leaned closer, her nose pressing against the glass of the window and fogging her view of what was a magnificent, round, and shapely boo-tay. The club side of the piano fiasco left her with Mmm yeah back dat @ss up running very loudly through her head when she was, in fact, supposed to be stopping dat @ss instead.

Oh. Right. She was stopping a burglary right now.

Zero fumbled for the opening of the window and slid the opened from 1" to enough inches for her. A loud crack had Zero wincing on her brunette thiefy's behalf. Maybe it was the quiet sliiiiiide of window. Or maybe it was the one of Zero's legs that was already through the opening that was totally big enough for her. But somehow the thief was tipped off to her presence and whirled around to face Zero. Face to face. Like, almost nose to nose if she'd been all the way inside instead of trying to limbo her way through a window.

> ”Do we have to?”

The petulance of the question sent a thrill of giggles up through Zero and she slunk the rest of the way inside. Her feet touched down and Zero had to put her hands out to make sure she stayed upright when the universe decided it was gonna list a bit to the side.

TOtally manageable, though.

"You cooould put the stealy stuff away. And then we wouldn't have to." She smiled hopefully, feeling her domino mask edge upward from the roundness of her cheeks.

No? Not gonna happen?

Zero lunged at the thief's body... no legs... no...? Well she lunged with intent. A for effort.

Silhouette had been so preoccupied with scrambling from her hands and knees, by the time she was standing she was caught by surprise. The shadowcaster was a familiar face, which was enough of a shock. Almost as surprising was how close the vigilante managed to get. If Silhouette stumbled forward, which was a real possibility, she might have bumped noses with the masked crusader.

The way Zero was straddling the window, the thief wondered if her best bet was to try pushing the vigilante out so she could run. Unfortunately, Zero had weird gravity magic, and if she did not, Silhouette would feel guilty for pushing her out of a two-story window. That was not the way, so she carefully took a step back as Zero got her other leg into the room.

A fine leg; bless whoever designed the skintight material she was wearing, because Silhouette could see the definition of those fine-ass legs. She wondered if there was a fine-ass ass to go along with them. Had she had the chance to sneak a peek last time? Probably not; that was the problem with being the mouse to her cat! No booty-glimpsing when you’re the one being chased.

Focus. Zero said something. She was trying to talk her out of committing a crime? Preposterous! She was a crime girl! Silhouette was ready to politely decline before she realized the moonlight-framed hero was throwing herself forward at her prey.

There was not enough light to muster a good shadow, but she could catch Zero’s ankle with a shadowsnare. What did that do? Well, it definitely let Zero’s forward momentum carry her right into Silhouette’s torso, pushing her onto the nice mahogany table.

With her back hitting the surface with a thump, Silhouette fought to get her head in the game. What was her situation? She was pinned. Actually, pinned was generous. Her back was against the table with her legs dangling off the edge. Zero did not have her pinned as much as she had her body laying prone against Silhouette. It was… a lot of contact. Enough to make Silhouette shiver.

Once again. FOCUS. Trying to keep control of her situation, she did have an advantage: the thief had almost a foot of height on her nemesis, (and Zero was totally treading nemesis territory.) She tried to plant her feet on the floor, which she doubted Zero could reach, in hopes of flipping their position. She wanted to get her footing and not be the one pressed between the table and a body. Steph had to fight to get on top of her. This.

”Oh come on. This rich jackass can spare one envelope. I’m just asking for one free pass, as a treat,” she said in a low whisper, leaning toward Zero’s ear in a futile attempt not to lure more potential guard attention.

Zero was perhaps overzealous. She went for it, and usually when she went for a dive at a bad guy, the bad guy moved. Zero was no speedster. Zero often missed.

Today, she didn't.

They collided and Zero's brunette went down hard with her back against the desktop. Zero had all but tripped right on top of her since she hadn't expected it to actually work. Her face landed somewhere in the vicinity of where the zipper of Silhouette's catsuit was. Zero stopped exactly where she fell. She couldn't move even if she wanted to. Her catsuit was sticking to Silhouette's like a rubber tire against the road.

The world seemed to take a moment to collectively inhale-- Silhouette smelled like effort and skin and pleather. --before it started spinning once again.

What was she thinking? That she was soft? That she could take that zipper in her teeth and-- no! Silly was a bad guy! Zero tried to scramble up, but everywhere that her hands went was exactly not where a polite hero's hands should be. The desk shifted, or, actually the Silhouette she'd landed on shifted. And Zero was suddenly made aware of how disorienting a sudden unexpected shift in gravity was.

She fired up a tether and planted her hand against Silhouette's breastbone as Zero's back hit the desk and their positions were reversed. As if she wanted to keep that space between them. As if she wasn't already at her mercy. She panted with ehr free arm flailing and failing to find purchase on her catsuit as the woman whispered against her ear. Zero's self control was only so much.

"Oh. Well. Everyone deserves a treat every now and again." Like the tether she'd given to Silhouette. Zero kindly threw the other end of it toward the ceiling. Or, she tried for the ceiling and ended up throwing Silly's gravity toward the far wall.

And that free flailing hand? She'd found a little bit of paper to scoop up. Either the envelope or maybe something from the desktop. Either way, she had it. And Silhouette did not.

Her gin was so big.

Trying to take control was not a given with Zero. She was not just going to lay back and let a criminal flip her over without a fight. Silhouette saw a hand coming and tried to turn her head to avoid an impact, only to realize Zero made contact with her chest instead. It was not even a punch, it was just like she was pressing something against...

Oh. Oh frick. Oh fuck. Oh frack, it was one of those weird gravity things!

Sure enough, the next gesture from her rival was directed toward the wall near the door. Through the haze of her liquored-up brain, Silhouette had to act more than she could think. The envelope slipped from her grasp, but she had a higher priority-- grip. Her leg hooked around one of Zero's legs and her arm wrapped around the vigilante. Her hand sought purchase and found a pert backside to grasp just in time for the world to turn sideways.

It was not like Silhouette was being pulled; it was that familiar falling sensation. This was going to become something familiar if she kept doing this with Zero, and apparently, she had a superhero stalker. Clinging to Zero as firmly as she could, they both traveled for the wall. The way they landed was awkward, partially on Silhouette's shoulder and the rest was Raine's back. They collided against the wall with a loud slam. The impact even knocked over what looked to be a very nice vase.

That should be the focus. That was a lot of noise. Instead, there was a fit body in a skintight suit Silhouette was wrapped up in. Despite the momentary daze of landing in the wrong direction, Silhouette found her bearings enough to keep herself "atop" Zero. Well, assuming the wall was the floor. Or was the floor the wall now?

They were further from the window, so Zero's face was cast in darkness. It was close, though. There was a scent, almost familiar, but obscured by the scent of alcohol. That was probably just Silhouette. (Though did she drink a margarita tonight...?)

She had to get her head in the game, because once again, this woman had stolen her prize. Maybe to start, she could stop squeezing her nemesis' ass. Just had to... slip it out from under her. And there, her grip was now on Zero's thigh instead. Better. "You're just determined to be trouble, aren't you, girl scout? I bet that vase was expensive." Silhouette had an eye for that kind of thing, even if a vase was impractical to sneak away with.

Pressing her body against Zero's in an effort to keep her from squirming away too far, Steph's free hand felt around for the envelope Zero might still have on her. "Now instead of fighting, why don't we just take that envelope and run off together?" she asked in a whisper like they did not alert every guard on the floor with their antics. It was not as though either of them was really "meant" to be there, she thought as she felt her hands brush a paper surface.

She should have guessed that with Silly all wrapped up around her that she, too, would go where the tether demanded.

Thinking ahead was not exactly her forte at the moment. Nor was rotating freely through the air with no control except... oh wait. No. She was in control. If she was fast enough, she could stop— Zero slammed against the wall, sharing the impact with her best frenemesis.

She could have stopped that. But thinking was… slow and that was a doozy of dizzy. A vase fell. Zero felt mildly ill. And Silhouette leaned in closer.

They could run off somewhere. They could. Her willpower was fast eroding with every whisper. And Silhouette’s neck was still in reach. Zero was tempted. It would mean nothing to Silhouette, but everything to Zero to finally get in a kiss of her own. She breathed in and admitted to herself that it was so, so unfair.

Didn’t she deserve one little nibble?

As a treat?

Or, Zero could let her gravity drop as she'd meant to do before they actually impacted the wall. That was the safe call. She stopped letting her hands wander freely and dropped the gravity.

Zero landed on her feet. Then her butt. Her feet hadn't been as ready as she'd thought. She had just barely snatched the envelope. It would be so easy to not fight. So easy to sit in a spinning daze.

"No." Zero abruptly stuffed the envelope down the front of her own suit and tethered herself, throwing her gravity through Silhouette’s legs and toward the doorway. She ducked, and had to twist as she slid along the ground as she prepared to land on her feet against the doorway.

Only, the door opened and a security guard walked in flashlight first. Zero pinwheeled a bit but couldn’t avoid slide tackling through his legs

The right choice would have been to act quickly and decisively while she was in a position of strength. Being coy and flirting was always fun on the job in the rare opportunities where she could do it, but Silhouette knew the mission should come first.

Despite that logical understanding, Silhouette’s logical brain was struggling to find an opportunity for input. Zero was an intoxicant, clouding her judgement with a pleasant scent and a jawline that was just begging for a trail of kisses. Silhouette had taken sexual frustrations with her into the field before, but she was a professional. She knew how to control herself. Why now? Why was she so willing to play this dangerous game with her gravitationally-adept vigilante?

The moment was hanging there, and for a second, Silhouette was convinced she could feel Zero’s mind ready to give in and join her in her flirtatious games. That was before a sudden shift of gravity flipped the thief’s stomach as she hit the ground hard, her feet catching the initial impact before she wobbled and fell against her side. The same side that hit the wall. That probably hurt, but alcohol was doing a good job of numbing her. It did not help how queasy the sudden shift of equilibrium made her.

Zero slipped the envelope into her suit, which… well, that was another reason to hate that damn suit. (The second was for serving as the thing keeping her vigilante clothed.) After her denial of Silhouette’s advances, Zero shifted toward the door and Silhouette tried to reestablish herself.

And then the door opened. Right. Guards. Silhouette stumbled back, but Zero plummeted forward, tumbling straight toward the guard. He was not ready; the impact took him off his feet and knocked him hard back into the doorframe. He fell, slightly dazed, while Zero made it out through the door.

Silhouette could cut her losses. She could leave. Of course, she jumped forward and leapt over the guard’s body, mumbling, ”Take five, big guy, I’ve got her.” Silhouette kicked off the wall to change her momentum and take off down the hall, following Zero. She had to do this without her powers, but she would manage: it was her turn as the cat to Zero’s mouse.

She hadn't meant to take the guard out. She hadn't meant to be in the possession of stolen property. She hadn't meant to be the one being pursued by the enemy. How did Zero end up on the wrong side of this fight!?

Landing feet-first against the wall, Zero threw a new direction for her gravity which, when it hit the opposite wall of the hallway, put her in Zero G. Conditions were perfect with the tight quarters of the hallway. She pushed off from the ground with the greatest of ease, flying through the air in a dive towards the ceiling.

Her rotation was a bit much.

Zero twirled ass over teakettle and landed butt to ceiling. She skidded and bounced along, watching Silhouette hop the guard and tear after her. Zero really ought to hurry.

Or. She could have a little fun.

As a treat.

She pushed off the ceiling to glide back toward Silhouette, dropping both tethers as she got there. Her head continued to float even as gravity took proper hold of her and she clobbered into the thief, landing on top and just barely catching herself with her hands on the other woman’s shoulders. She pressed her lips against Silhouette’s, because she had the momentum and momentum was hard to stop. She’d been teased. They were there. She was in no hurry… except she really should be.

“Hey!”

OH Riiiiiiiiiight. Zero put both tethers on those shoulders, flipped the ends out to either wall, and grabbed the zipper pull on the front of Silhouette’s suit. Teasing. Pulling. Zero stumbled up to her feet. She pulled a perfectly weightless Silhouette up like it was a magic trick. Introducing, the nicely horizontal woman, everyone! What a waste of horizontality. Zero stumbled to the side-- Her balance wasn’t great at the moment. --And then she shoved. If she’d aimed right, she was shoving the taller woman right back toward the guard who’d walked in.

And that was absolutely the distraction she was using as she stumbled, fell, got back up, and tried to run toward a wall.

This was an unfair race and Zero knew it. She had her gravity tricks, but the halls were too dark for Silhouette to take advantage of, like some lame human. Thankfully, they were both on equal footing as intruders. Steph looked up Zero in her off time, but the vigilante was not part of the government approved and sanctioned X-Team Super Friends Force Go, making her just as suspect here as the thief. Actually, with the stolen envelope in her costume, Zero was somehow more questionable. It was a shame Silhouette could not think of a good way to abuse that.

After her tussle with the guard, Silhouette saw Zero land on the ceiling… less than gracefully. At least they were both having off nights. She ran toward the vigilante and could not stop her momentum when Zero suddenly pivoted back to her, colliding with the cat burglar and taking her to the ground. She had caught her. Again. Now, Zero had full control, and decided what came next.

Like a kiss. What a treat, indeed. Her lips were exceptionally soft, unlike the kiss. The forceful meeting of lips caught Silhouette by surprise, but instinct reacted before thought and she returned the kiss, oblivious to the situation outside of it. Zero tasted sweet, and there was still that familiar, intoxicating scent making it hard to think or care about thinking.

“Hey!”

Who was that?

As Silhouette barely processed the voice, Zero reacted by tugging on Silhouette’s zipper. She felt a ripple of goosebumps as more open air hit her skin until it it her: the zipper was not just being tugged down, it was being tugged up. Along with the rest of her.

Damn gravity girl. Without control, her body was sent hurtling toward a new guard as a weightless projectile moving only through momentum. Zero was off, which was rude considering everything she had just left Silhouette to deal with, internally and externally. When Silhouette heard the thud of someone hitting a wall behind her, she thought it was just good karma.

The guard, thankfully, was not expecting what he got with a full-grown woman flying through the air at him in the dark. He did the logical thing, and for Silhouette, the perfect thing. A flashlight was raised and pointed at the catsuited criminal, letting her shift into a shadow. It was risky; if he turned the light off, she’d be forcibly transformed back and knocked out.

He did not have that kind of time. As a shadow, Silhouette wrapped around his head, reforming as a person so she was sitting on his shoulders with her calves and thighs squeezing his neck. He flailed around, but she was able to get a hand on his flashlight. How did she not keep one of these with her? It seemed so obvious now.

Still clearly weightless, she realized she was losing a lot of time she could be using to catch Zero. ”Thank you for your time, sorry, gotta run!” Repositioning herself, crawling all over the guard like a monkey, she got to his back and used all four limbs to push herself off him so she could fly down the hall as quickly as possible. Her angle was poor, and she bounced off of one wall, the floor, the other wall, and the ceiling. She could only do her best to land on a shoulder, hand, or foot when possible. She would be feeling this in the morning.

Meeting a T-Junction, Silhouette looked both ways and saw Zero further along down a hall that ended in a slightly cracked sliding door. A way out?

Flicking the flashlight on, she left it on the ground when she bounced off it, flashing the light in Zero’s direction. There was a very nice and very cliche suit of armor at the junction, so Silhouette kicked off of it to change course toward Zero, knocking the suit apart with a clatter. Whatever, rich people problems. With the light shining in this direction, she was able to return to shadowform, negating the lack of gravity when she hit a wall and melded into it.

The shadow traveled along the wall, emerging when it got close enough to smack into Raine. She would have loved to say something quippy, but there was no time with Silhouette knocking Raine into a shadow cast by the new lightsource. The two entered the shadow and almost immediately emerged on the other side of the partially agar door.

There was barely any light in the room, so Silhouette almost immediately swapped back to her normal self. The return of her optimal hearing let her hear guards approaching. In a panic, realizing she was in some kind of deadend, she saw a panel with a button next to the door and slammed it. With a weighty mechanical whirring, the door closed behind them.

“What the-- where did those bitches go?”

“Check down that hall. The panic room was already closed, right?”

“Yeah. I think. Pretty sure, but hey, if they’re in there, they ain’t getting out, right?”

Oh. Oh, fuck, she did a bad.

She'd abandoned Silhouette's surprisingly reciprocal embrace to turn and run into the tender embrace of a wall.

"'Scuse me." That was a wall. She knew it was a wall, but the platitude was an automatic response hammered in by bumping through people she didn't want to be bumping through at the hospital. Not exactly tough-as-nails vigilante talk.

Things were a little mixed up at the moment.

Zero scrambled up to her feet and chose a direction and went. The more she went, the more alarmed she became. Libraries had signs, public bathrooms, and exhibit displays. Or, museums. Were they in a museum? The carpet was way too squishy nice for that.

The carpet she'd been looking at and experimentally squishing became oddly backlit as someone down the hallway shone a light her direction. Ugh. She was totally bungling this not-theft thief stopping. The problem was all this running and direction changing and sudden--

She'd gotten grabbed, the scenery changed, and Silhouette jolted upwards off of Zero at the sound of the nearby guards. A whack and a whirr later and there was finally blessed silence and darkness.

Zero let the world spin itself around for a little bit before attempting anything. It would likely stop. Sometime. Eventually. Any minute now.

"I think your knee is on my spleen." Not what she'd expected to say, but the knee was not optimally placed and it was better than panic. They were in here. Together. The guys out there wanted them out, but they also wanted the papers. The papers could stay here, but then... how would they get out?

"So we just... wait them out, right?" They wouldn't be searching for very long unless they were reeeeeallllly well paid.

With the door closed, Silhouette was finally understanding the situation she was in. A panic room, designed to lock down completely. This was the furthest thing from a way out and it was pitch-black inside. Frustrated, she flicked on the panel near the door. Lights? Door controls?

A passcode. She needed some kind of passcode to do anything, which meant she was stuck. It was lucky she had gotten over her childhood fear of the dark, but it did not ease her nerves.

The surprise of Zero's voice reminded Silhouette she was not alone in the room. It was small, but there was still plenty of space to move her knee, freeing the vigilante. "I guess. They look around the building, get back here, figure out how to unlock us, and we get arrested in some rich asshole's mansion." Annoyed, she reached out to find some purchase, pulling Zero close by her outfit. "Just had to be a pest, didn't ya, sugar? Couldn't let me turn around a shitty night here? Is this what you wanted?"