Tses was supposed to be behaving. That was her promise to the giant cockroach, at least. No attacking fellow mutants. Point made, point taken, and up to a certain level, somewhat maintained. But Tses was a mischievous spirit, and trouble always seemed to brew close by. Somewhere mid-January, that brewing started taking effect.

On a rather slow and uneventful day, Tses found herself alone, and on one of her favorite rooftops. It had a nice view of the street below, and she had a great record of explosion to coffee cup ratio. As mechanical as New Yorkers were, you'd think they'd learn to look up and watch for falling explosives after a about the third day of scalding liquid splattering their suit. But ever the optimistic sorts, they kept walking her way, cup in hand, eyes focused on their commute. It was like shooting ducks. Three, two, pluuunk.

BOOM!

And keeping her promise, she made sure to only pick on the humans. That was, until one of the New Yorkers decided to look up, and in a panicked swat, the orb went flying, right into a small cluster of people. Tses ducked under the ledge as it went off, startling New Yorkers and earning a squeal or two in distress. Obviously, someone was exploding things.

Couldn't be her, right?

The first explosion was echoed by a second one across the street, less than a second later.

Kaitlyn had seen the green… whatever-the-hell-it-was, before it blew up in those people’s faces. She also noticed someone throwing it off the roof.

Not wanting to be the only one on her side of the street still standing, she hit the ground. Don’t mind me, I’m just some kid. Granted, it was a little bit later than everyone else; anyone watching her would have noticed that she fell over on purpose.

One of the women near the first blast was really old. She must have fallen over and broken something, judging by all that wailing. Someone was calling 911. Some other people were giving Kaitlyn the stink eye, like all of this was her fault. She got to her feet and cast a meaningful look at the rooftop across the street. Didn’t they see the green whatever-it-was get thrown off there? It wasn’t her fault! Honest!

Not like that would matter to anyone. One of the members of her newly-formed fan club muttered to the guy calling 911. He joined them in giving Kaitlyn the stink eye. When she turned around, she realized that her fan club had an even greater following on her side of the street. She decided to take her chances on the other side and ran across, barely avoiding several cars along the way.

As the explosion caused a bit more chaos than intended, Tses decided now was the time to make her exit. Hoping two roofs over, moving down a fire escape, she took the last step at a hop and paused to catch her breathe. A few cars were honking. What on earth did that little explosive do?

Shaking her head, she dusted off her clothes and started around the corner. While much of the foot traffic was being delayed by the old woman, New York was still a busy place and enough people were heading the opposite direction. Easy enough to mingle and get away before any authorities showed up. Easy so long as anyone didn't see her leaving, that was...

This side of the street was even worse. Which was funny, because none of these injuries were her fault. Not ‘ha ha’ funny, but more of a ‘isn’t that kind of ironic please don’t kill me’ kind of funny.

She tried to walk away like nothing happened. Or at least like everything that happened was somebody else’s problem, and she didn’t care. Standard New York City apathy, you know. For a split second, she noticed a blonde woman jumping between rooftops. Was that the person who started this whole mess?

Kaitlyn didn’t have a lot of time to think about that. A large hand clamped down on her shoulder. “Where do you –“

She drove her elbow into his groin, then tried to pull away, just like Lenna taught her. The stranger held on. So she grabbed his wrist and screamed. “Let go!” Her shouting masked the nasty sound that the bones in a human hand make when they crack. Hopefully, nobody else would realize that she had done anything supernatural to his hand until she was long gone. And she would be long gone soon, with how she was dodging and weaving through all the foot traffic as she made her escape.

Kaitlyn looked back to see if anyone was following her, meaning she didn’t see the blond woman standing right in front of her. She started looking forward again just in time to get a face full of boob.

“Sorry!” She was about to keep running, but she stopped. This was the woman from the roof! Kaitlyn just sort of stood there for a moment, staring at her with a dumb look on her face.

There was a slight commotion behind Tses, and as much as she wanted to keep walking and pretend nothing was happening, at this point that would have attracted even more attention to herself. So, like any curious New Yorker, she turned around, and was immediately assaulted in the chest by someones face. What the he--

>>"Sorry"

Tses glared, and the kid just stared which just made the whole situation even worse. What, what was she looking at? Behind them she could steal here the commotion. There wasn't time for this. "Get lost kid." She snapped and started moving again.

Kaitlyn decided to confront her. She walked next to the blonde and started talking.

“So! Was that green explodey thing some kinda accident? Or did you just wanna take a crap on someone’s day?”

Speaking of having a crappy day, she pulled her hood up over her head. That might make her harder to pick out of a crowd. Maybe. Possibly. It was worth a try.

Tses was hoping she could just leave and that would be the end of it, but no, the little brat just followed her and then she had to go and try to connect her with the 'green explodey thing'. Although she seemed somewhat skittish to be confronting Tses about the whole manner. Almost as if she thought the cops were after her. Whatever. Tses glanced over her shoulder where the cops were gathered, a few civilians pointing down the street their direction. She turned around a corner in hopes of loosing the drama.

"What does it matter to you? Not my fault that guy has like cat-like reflexes and threw the things. Besides, I'm not the one they looked mad at. What did you do?" She said, squinting at her follower. Guilty. She definitely looked some sort of guilty.

Kaitlyn looked straight ahead. She didn’t acknowledge anything that was going on behind her; that would draw attention to her, or give someone behind her a good look at her face.

“I didn’t do anything. Your power set mine off and it made another explosion. They’re blaming me for the whole thing 'cause they don’t know any better. By the way: I can blow stuff up, and you didn’t answer my question.”

The implication here was that Kaitlyn could blow her up, and she would like an answer to that simple question.

Tses slowly looked at the kid, which was probably the last thing she wanted. As the sentence clicked in Tses' mind a snort of laughter escaped her mouth, and she couldn't suppress the grin that crossed her face. "You can blow things up, huh? Well, that's always a fun power. Although you shouldn't go exploding things just on reflex. Coffee golf is one thing. Not surprised they're irritated at you for just exploding in general."

She put her hands behind her head and rolled her eyes slightly, slowly looking back over her shoulder. The more the kid seemed to cower, the more amused Tses was. "You never had to hide from an angry mob before or something? That was the first thing I learned when I started blowing things up." Tses said casually.

“I’m trying to hide in the crowd. You aren’t helping.” For someone who wanted to act like she understood Kaitlyn’s situation, she wasn’t being very discreet. Or very understanding and accepting of the fact that Kaitlyn could completely lose control of her powers.

“What the hell is coffee golf?”

Tses finally let out a sigh. The kid was certainly taking the fun out of her day, but if what she was claiming really happened, Tses was at least somewhat responsible for the trouble, and she had promised not to injure fellow mutants. She let some of her snarky attitude slide and held up a hand. A tiny green orb was in it. "Think of this as a golf ball. Coffee cup is a hole in one. With a bit more--" The orb dissipated in a faint 'poof' into the air, and she shrugged.

"Apparently harmless until you explode it next to another exploder. If you want to blend in, first thing you have to do is stop acting guilty. Your shoulders are too tense and you're trying too hard to blend in. New Yorkers are curious. If crap is going down they're going to look." Tses said in advice, adjusting the arm bands. A police car wined past and Tses followed it momentarily with her gaze like the rest of the crowd.

At a different time, Kaitlyn might have thought coffee golf was hilarious. As it was, Kaitlyn was too busy trying not to look at the cop car.

“My shoulders are too tense?” The girl slumped dramatically. “Is this better? Shoulders relaxed enough?” Once she felt like she had made her point about how silly of a criticism that was, she resumed walking normally, only more naturally this time, without her shoulders being so tense.

“Besides, I’m not guilty, I’m scared. A guy I don’t know just tried to grab me. Plus, stuff was exploding around me for no reason. Scary stuff, you know.” Kaitlyn didn’t sound particularly scared.

Tses shrugged slightly and turned another corner. The sounds of chaos were starting to fade away and the New York foot traffic was keeping it's steady and unrelenting pace. She wondered if this was what she was like when she was younger. Not that she was exactly old now, but she had more years under her belt. "Psh, being scared is for kids. Someone touches you and you don't want them to, plenty of spots you can hit 'em to get away. And stuff is always exploding around me. Don't see me making a fuss about it."

She passed one of the street vendors, casually sneaking one of the patron's wallets as she went past. No one in line caught wind of what happened, but a few more yards and she was fishing out bills and tossing the rest in the trash. Another day in the neighborhood. "Key to getting away with things in this city is to not let it bother you. Unless people start shooting. Guns are always license to panic a little." She added as an afterthought. Her shoulder gave a twinge of pain slightly in memory of the last time she got shot.

“…I wasn’t actually scared,” Kaitlyn said, agitated. “I was just telling you how I was trying to act.”

A few moments later, she leaned in and spoke more softly: “Do people actually leave their wallets sticking out of their back pockets like that?” Kaitlyn knew from experience that she sucked at picking pockets, but even she might have had a chance at that wallet. It was practically asking to get stolen.

“Is it cool if I follow you a bit more? Maybe they’ll think we’re cousins or something.” She was clearly running around by herself back there; cops would be looking for an unsupervised kid, if they went looking.

Not actually scared. Right. Tses was never good at reading kids, and this just reminded her of why she avoided them. She shrugged again. Not that it mattered to her in the end. The kid could be scared if she wanted, although not scared at least gave her points in Tses' book. Cowards were useless; that was street code. Keep up, or get cut loose. That was what her mentor taught her when she was younger anyway.

Then there was a spark of hope. Tses chuckled about the remark about the wallet, and flashed a slight smile. "You'd be surprised if you know where to look. People leave them on counters, drop them on the ground, leave them on the seats of their cars... In a city like this you can always count on someone being careless." It was always nice when someone didn't harp on her to return the money. She stole it fair and square anyway.

The spark of interest vanished as the shadow continued to linger... "Cousins... Sure, if that's what you want to go with... Up to you but no promises trouble is going to go away. I sort of make my living on breaking rules, and I ain't stopping to keep your rap sheet clean kid." She remarked. she gave the girl another look. "Then again, something tells me your rap sheet has already had a few dents put in it..."