"Coming apart at the Seams"

It was her first day in her new job, her first in New York, and it was not going well. Victoria was a bit at a loss as to why, but the senior store clerk, a woman in her mid-thirties who went by the name Helena, had taken an instant dislike to her and seemed hell bent on making her life a misery and so far it seemed to have been working. It hadn't helped that business had been slow and as a consequence the senior was brooding on her commission, or lack thereof and had too much time to think of unpleasant jobs to get Victoria to do. Not for the first time since arriving in the city two weeks previously she found herself wondering what had possessed her to leave the relative safety of Castine. Anonymity seemed too high a price for her current situation.

Victoria sighed as she narrowly missed the eye of Helena by ducking behind a rack of dresses. She turned rapidly and launched herself down the aisle between the racks, intending to get to the far end before Helena could catch up with her but instead collided heavily with a pretty, dark haired woman. If it had ended there the incident might have escaped the attention of Helena, but, unfortunately for Victoria it did not. Being light she bounced off the woman and cannoned into one of the racks of dresses. For what seemed like an eternity she clung to the rail before the entire ensemble, rack, dresses and trainee store clerk went crashing to the ground, the latter letting out a strangled shriek.

"What the....?" Helena exclaimed as the sound of a loud crash came from behind a rack of dresses, the same rack she had just seen the new girl duck behind.

Helena slammed a drawer closed and stormed over to the aisle, taking in the pile of crumpled, now shop-soiled clothing on the floor, the pair of legs sticking out from beneath the pile and the young woman standing in the aisle. Victoria wasn't the only one having a bad day and the sight of yet more profit disappearing was the last straw.

"What the blazes is going on here?" She spoke loudly, almost shouting, her face red with anger. She glared down at the legs sticking out from the pile.

To emphasise her point Helena kicked the sole of Victoria's shoe. She hadn't intended it to be hard but she was frustrated and angry and as a consequence there was more force behind it than even she had intended.

Victoria had managed to hold herself together as she fell, had even managed to hold herself together when the clothes and rack had fallen on her, but the impact of Helena's angry foot hitting her shoe was too much and she went to pieces.

For most people, the phrase 'going to pieces' was a figurative term used to describe a emotional condition rather than a physical one. In Victoria's case it was very much a physical description. One moment there was a pair of legs encased in stockings and shoes sticking out from the pile of clothes, the next the stockings collapsed in on themselves, the shoes fell over with a soft thump, barely audible and the pile of clothes sunk in on itself.

For a moment nothing happened and then a flesh-toned mist seeped out of the pile of clothes, hanging formlessly immediately above the clothing and extending up to about waist high. A few more seconds passed and the mist seemed to draw in on itself, slowly, almost indiscernibly at first but with gathering momentum until suddenly a naked girl appeared on top of the clothes, her weight completing the damage to the dresses.

"Victoria! What sort of sick joke is this? Get your things and get out! You're sacked!" Helena used anger to cover her confusion and fear.

It took a few moments for Victoria's thought processes to resume, one of the side effects of her curse and she completely missed Helena's command.

"I said get out!" Helena shrieked. "Freaking mutant." she added as an afterthought. She rebalanced herself and drew her foot back in preparation to kick the girl. It was bad enough that the girl was incompetent; the fact that she was a scumbag mutant was inexcusable.

It was a beautiful day down in down town New York, the sun was shining and there was hustle and bustle going on, and Tris with her favorite credit card companion (graciously provided by the Kabal), was walking toward a crowed street of boutiques looking to bring alittle more materialist pleasure into her life.

That’s right- Tris was on a shopping spree, and no one, mad, mutant, or mortal had better get in her way…..or there might just be explosive consequences.

There was to be sure, a glint in her eyes and a certain jauntiness to her step as she entered a chic little store that had top that would look just so cute on her hanging in the window- true the place looked alittle expensive, but thanks to Kabal connections and wages for doing stuff she loved to do, that wasn’t really a problem right now.

She wandered the racks for a time, happy to peruse the fashionable apparel choices, until something caught her eye- a dress, well a rack of dresses really, all beautifully made and significantly unusually enough to hold her interest.
….come to think of it, she never did get a dress to replace that one that was ruined on her first date with Venus.
Tris hurried towards the rack- really hoping they had something cool in her size.
Tris also noticed a shop clerk altering her course to intercept Tris, a plastered smile on her face, plainly hoping to sell her something ….or everything, whatever she could get away with.
Tris quickened her step to reach the rack first, a race of sorts, the goal of no consequence, but just because she could.

Well, that was the plan, but instead she was knocked off balance by someone running full pelt into her.
Tris, long months of power practice and training courses designed by lab techs with rather deadly tastes allowed her body to react in a tense muscles and keeping balance kinda way, not a accidentally blowing up the cash register by surprise way- which was nice.

Tris twisted her head to glare at the girl;
“Hey! Watch it!”
she snapped automatically while performing a good impression of an immovable wall, and her unknown but light assailant, seemed to rebound off her body and, in a marvelous display of inept acrobatics, careened the few steps to the dress rack, desperately clung on to the stable metal before this equipment too was pulled off balance by the extra weight, and manage to knock the rack of dresses and herself into a inelegant and jumbled pile on the floor to the accompaniment of decidedly loud crashing and banging.

Tris cringed at the scene and her feelings of annoyance at the intrusion lessened at the sight of some stockinged legs sticking out from under a large and probably uncomfortable rack of dresses.

Before anyone could do anything to aid the situation…..it got worse.
The girl’s boss by the looks of it, stamped over in an incredible huff, and started doing what bosses do best- yelling at people.

Tris’s sympathies, tended towards the under dog of most situations, couldn’t help feeling bad for the poor, accident prone kid, and felt inclined to intervening and telling the boss type lady to calm down.
But she didn’t get a break in which to butt in, the boss lady going on so, till finally, she actually kicked the poor girl while she was down in a literal sense.

Tris’s indignation turned to incredulous surprise as the jolt rendered the prone form of the girl even more indistinct.
Tris raised an eyebrow at what she was witnessing- the girl faded, or dissolved or something, the clothes that had held flesh now sinking limply to the ground, the only sound the muted ‘thumps’ as shoes which no longer held feet slipped to the floor.
The girl had disappeared- now that was some trick. Tris was smiling broadly, enjoying the show and the absolute shock of the people around her, thoroughly impressed with the girls unusual escape route.

…..but then a mist appeared, flesh colored and gathering density…..and then the girl reappeared, on top of her clothes, but not in fact wearing anything.

Tris bit her lip to keep a chuckle at bay, oh the poor thing.
Others however, did not find the situation so amusing.

"Victoria! What sort of sick joke is this? Get your things and get out! You're sacked!" Helena used anger to cover her confusion and fear.

The girl however did not respond to this exclamation quick enough, dazed as she seemed to be.

"I said get out!"Helena shrieked. "Freaking mutant." she added as an afterthought. She rebalanced herself and drew her foot back in preparation to kick the girl. It was bad enough that the girl was incompetent; the fact that she was a scumbag mutant was inexcusable.

Tris’s eye’s glittered dangerously as the anger that was the source of her destructive nature reared briefly- freak, she really didn’t like that word.
She glared at the boss lady, who’s eyes still seemed to be popping out of her head at what had just happened. She noticed the shocked and angry women was about to open her mouth again, no doubt to release another wave of insults upon the helpless girl.

Okay, now it was time for Tris to intervene.
She raised her hands, concentrating hard on the image of an iceberg (imagery, Tris had found, helped call and control her less reliable power), and with a flick of her fingers, the entire shop was frozen…..or atleast the molecules of each individual in the place were moving at an extremely diminished rate, which achieved the same effect.

She stepped up beside the immobile irate boss lady, looking down at this newly discovered mutant, and with another wave of her hand and an internal command, released the bewildered girl from the immobile state of the rest of the room.
“Now that was a cool power.”
She said approvingly as an introductory comment.
“What, are you like a teleporter or something?”
her tone turning curious while offering a hand to help the girl up.

Lying curled up on the pile of clothes, conciousness returned slowly, as it always did, and, as was always the case it took a moment for Victoria to remember who she was and what she had been doing.

“Now that was a cool power.”

It was the young woman Victoria had run into, or at least she thought it was, not having had a good look at her, being more preoccupied with other things, such as falling over.

There was a tone of approval in the young woman's comment which had Victoria frowning. It was not the reaction that she was used to; usually it was fear and loathing, as it had been from Helena or a gentle 'Oh Victoria' in admonishment from her parents.

“What, are you like a teleporter or something?”

She wasn't sure what the woman meant by teleporter so Victoria shook her head as the woman reached out her hand but it was only when she reached out her own and saw her bare arm that she realised that she was naked. With an embarrassed shriek she went to grab one of the items of clothing but it wouldn't move. It was like it was frozen in place. Victoria drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around herself. It wasn't completely effective but it at least gave her some feeling of modesty.

Victoria looked around her in bewilderment at the frozen audience, her chief tormentor among them and then at the clothes. Although she hadn't been aware of what Helena had said it dawned on her that she had just lost her job. Tears began to well up in her eyes.

Tris's questioning into the girls abilities however proved fruitless for the moment as she got no answer other than a confused shake of the head.
The girl still (understandably) seemingly rather out of it.
Still, she had enough sense to reach out a hand, mimicking Tris's gesture to make the task of helping the girl of the floor easier.

But awareness it seemed, while sometimes a blessing, could also be construed a curse as well, as with a shriek, the girl having realized she was naked as the day she was born, the girl working with remarkable alacrity for one so dazed to reach beneath her and grab an article of clothing with which to cover herself.
....or that was the plan.
But Tris's freezing power had enveloped the entire store, that included the people and the thing as well, and so the girl might as weil be tugging on the floor in the hope that it would cloth her for all the good it would do until Tris allowed things back to normal.

Abandoning this plan, the girl suddenly contracted in on herself faster than a tortoise into its shell, maybe trying to preserve her sense of modesty that way..... from this position she took in the frozen scene around her, her face looking distinctly like one of Tris's sisters had just before she was about to bawl her eyes out.

Tris's expression has shifted through amusement at the actions of the bemused slight figure, then apologetic when frozen cloth failed to yield to the girls hand, and then to sympathy- Tris remembering her own frantic and stressful begins with her powers...not fun at all.

She crouched down, her eyes and tone gentle, her statement matter of fact, trying to distract the girl from the tears;
"So I'm guessing this isn't your best day ever huh?"

"No." Victoria agreed, her voice barely above a whisper. The tears were held in abeyance for now, the distraction having been largely successful. She looked at the young woman for a moment and then looked around again, taking in the frozen people. Victoria looked down at the clothing and reached out a hand tentatively, prodding the cloth. It really was frozen but didn't seem cold.

Beginning to feel a little more comfortable, Victoria carefully rolled herself upright but kept her arms wrapped around herself.

"What has happened here? She asked, the nature of the tableau having finally got through though not how it had been achieved.

"Why is everything stopped? Can they see me? Are they stuck like that" The questions came tumbling out.

Tris couldn’t help a chuckle escaping her lips at the sudden change from ‘count down to panic attack’ to ‘quick question curiosity’ as the flow of queries tumbled out of the girl, the unclothed thing looking around her in a more aware fashion.
Tris, attempting, against the torrent of information, to summarise the questions and come up with an appropriate response to a girl who clearly had not had the mutant 101 lecture yet.

“Ummm,” Started out Tris, rather eloquently, “I guess you could call this whole freezing situation one of my little party tricks…….it’s abit hard to explain…..”
She said, trailing off and giving an airy wave of her hand to brush off a deeper discussion of the imitate working of her powers until she knew the girl alittle better.
“Suffice to say, the end result is frozen people…..and stuff…..and no, they can’t see you…..and no they aren’t stuck like that, they are only there as long as I can hold ‘em unfortunately- which isn’t very long.”
She grimaced, bringing both hands up to massage her temples lightly against the niggling’s of a soon to be headache if she kept this up much longer.
But since Tris had always been one to push her luck, she ignored the headachy warning, bring a hand down, clicking her figures at the floor and concentrating (Hunter had been trying to cure her linking hand gestures with power usage for ages, yet she still preferred it this way), the clothes on the floor were suddenly free of her freeze and acting like cloth again, not stiff boards of wood, yet the people still stood frozen.
“So, since we have a time limit here, you might wanna get your stuff so we can go.”
She finished, hinting strongly in her desire to easy the niggling in her mind.

Tris was surprised but her surprise was nothing compared to Victoria's own when she realised how quickly she had turned around from being about to cry to being interested in what was going on. She had no more than a moment to consider the why of it and she could only put it down to the fact that this young woman had been understanding and that she clearly had some ability that had.... Victoria looked around again.... frozen everyone.

The explanations Tris gave struck a chord though she felt a little inadequate, Tris' ability seeming so more much more useful when compared to her own.. ability? Could she call it that now when she had always thought of it purely as a curse? What use did it have, other than to cause her embarrassment and lose her job?

She would have explored the idea further but now that Tris had alerted her to it she could see that what Tris was doing was not without cost. When Tris released the clothes she responded immediately, burrowing under the pile of shop clothes for her own, but she turned her back, and although she was putting on a some semblance show of bravado her face had turned bright red. She concentrated on finding her blouse, cardigan and skirt, being easier to find than her undergarments while fighting a degree of panic that was causing her to take longer. It was only after she had seen the corner of her skirt and pulled it out that she realised that if she had been a little more careful she would have got the two garments together. Signalling her frustration with herself with a sigh, Victoria put the skirt on and recovered her blouse and cardigan.

"Close enough." Victoria said having put enough clothing on to be decent though not enough to be comfortable. She was still clearly embarrassed, particularly as it was looking like she would have to face her, effectively, ex-boss unless Tris could hang on a little longer. Her embarrassment increased when she realised that Helena would find her two most intimate garments among the shop clothes and the knowledge that she wouldn't have to face the woman after she made that discovery didn't really help.

Victoria started moving to the counter, looking over her shoulder as she said, "Just getting my handbag but anytime you want to...." she stopped speaking, not sure what word to use though she continued to move toward the counter. She nearly bumped into it, having been focused more on what she was trying to say to Tris than where she was going but she managed to dodge around the end collecting only a smallish bruise on her thigh as she passed.

Tris grinned as the sight of her new friend getting herself together, this time in a more metaphorical way as she got on with the immediate task of finding clothes, borrowing into the stack beneath her and coming up with something socially acceptable.

"Close enough." Was the girls critical assessment of herself, seeming to match her move to Tris's, wanting to be away from here as well.

And then she was moving, the girl hurrying to gather her things,
"Just getting my handbag but anytime you want to...."

Tris smiled again, relieved this time- she was slightly disappointed that she was so eager to stop a chance to stimulate her powers, but honestly she wanted a day off, not a headache.
"Thanks,"
she told the girl,
"Well, if you are ready, we'll go live in three.......two.......one......"
And with that she released the hold her power had on the shop with the feeling of a sprinter at the the end of a long race- it was good to give her metaphorical muscles a rest after they had been working so hard for her.

....and with a suddenness of transition that was breathtaking, time and molecules snapped back into their correct positions, leaving those others that had peoples the store awake and staring as where the girl had been when they had last been aware.

Victoria grabbed her handbag, thankful that it was closed as it came awkwardly off the shelf under the counter. Having to retrieve the contents would have used up time she didn't feel she had. As it was she was only just in a position to see the effects of the young woman releasing her hold.

"Well, if you are ready, we'll go live in three.......two.......one......"

Even with the countdown and sufficient intelligence to have worked out some of the consequences of what was about to happen it was still a shock when sound and movement suddenly returned. The resumed sound of Helena's anger along with the babble from the other people in the shop hit her and she realised just how peaceful it had been.

Helena's shock when she discovered her anger had no target would have almost been worth the rest of the aggravation but Victoria was not in a position to see the woman's face. Nevertheless Victoria was very glad that she was now behind everyone, all other eyes being focused on the spot where she had been.

Helena quickly recovered and, recognising that a potential sale might be slipping away forced a smile on to her face and addressed the young woman in front of her, oblivious to that fact that she was another 'freaking mutant'.

"My apologies, ma'am. Very hard to find good staff these days. I hope my clumsy ex-assistant has not inconvenienced you."

Tris suppressed a giggle as the unnatural quiet she had created returned to normal and was able to view the various expressions of confusion of the small crowd that had stood, unaware, for the previous few minutes as they realized the source of their consternation now vanished- no expression more priceless than that of the manager of the store who had, till so recently been happily yelling at her lowly assistant.

She did, it had to be noted, seem to possess the true instincts about customer service and possibility of commission, as, quickly recovering once their was no longer any visible wrongdoer to yell at, turn her smiling face and simpering attention to Tris, and the possibility of her money.


~"My apologies, ma'am. Very hard to find good staff these days. I hope my clumsy ex-assistant has not inconvenienced you." She stressed the 'ex' very heavily.~

Tris's returning gaze was, to say the least, rather cool, she still remembering with resounding clarity, the 'mutant freak' comments when the manager was addressing the girl.

"Not at all."
Said Tris as she gracefully inclined her head, her voice steely but polite, even if there did seem to be a slight edge to her words.
"However, I find myself depressed that I will not, as planned be buying some of these marvelous pieces of clothing I have seen in your store...."
Tris stepped closer to the women, invading her personal space, and in a hissing whisper continued;
"As I refuse to give patronage to those with such views that speak of bigotry and specieism."
She then stepped away, turning and walking so she was very near the door, before turning back to the manager, and, with a dangerous glitter in her eyes added one final piece of advice for the room in general;
"Oh, and just so we we all clear on this, some talented people, unlike the poor soul you were dealing before, get rather touchy about being called a freaking mutant......just something to think about...."
She waved her hand vaguely in the direction of the room, her annoyance, in tandem with her combustion ability to work on all the lights the roof held.
There was a sharp BANG, and a BLAST of light before the room was plunged into darkness, gasps of horror and tickling glass the only sounds.
"Anyway."
said Tris, her voice falsely bright, yet rather smug at the way her trick had worked- blasting stuff was always easier and way more fun than freezing.
"I really must be going, and you look like you will be busy........ Have a lovely day ladies."
And she pulled open the door, and disappeared from the shop in, lets face it, a rather spectacularly dramatic fashion.

Helena was flabbergasted by the woman's attitude. She was not used to such, as she considered it, cheek from someone she assessed as being not even in her twenties. And as for sticking up for the freakin' mutant!

"Now listen here, youn......"

Her words were cut short by a bang and a flash as the lights exploded and the shop, a back of building unit and thus not a beneficiary of light from windows, was plunged into darkness.

Anything further she might have said was drowned out in a babble of noise from the others in the shop, first of fright, then of annoyance and finally of concern when people began to realise that the emergency lighting, designed to work in the event of a power failure wasn't going to come on automatically.

Helena meanwhile, had heard Victoria's earlier comment and had an idea where she was. With knowledge of the layout of the shop she was able to make her way fairly quickly toward the counter.

"Where are you, you little wretch. You are going to pay for the damage. Just wait 'till I get my hands on you!"

It was unfortunate end to and unfortunate morning, Tris exiting with such a bang. Had she had a little bit of warning, Victoria would have had a good chance of keeping it together but the flash and the bang were at least as much a surprise to her as it was to the rest of the people in the shop. The outcome was inevitable.

For the second time in as many minutes Victoria went all to pieces. One moment she was starting to walk away from the counter and toward the short corridor that led to the door onto the street, the next she had disassociated into her component molecules, her solids subliming and her liquids evaporating into a gas that rapidly issued from the collar and sleeves of her blouse and from every other gap in her clothing. Within a few brief seconds her clothes slumped to the floor.

This time Victoria was not so fortunate. On the counter was a fan, on medium speed, and it blew Victoria gently away. Spread out over a larger area of the shop it took Victoria somewhat longer coalesce and, in direct proportion, longer to return to full consciousness. It started almost imperceptibly at the centre. A slow increase in the density of the gas cloud that accelerated exponentially, the shape formless at first but rapidly gaining a recognisable shape until all of a sudden there was a small naked woman lying in foetal position. In the dark it went unnoticed.

It got worse. As cognisance returned, Victoria could hear Helena thumping and cursing over near the counter where her clothes were. She knew there was no way she could get to them without running into Helena. It was the last straw and Victoria burst into tears, a small ball of misery on the floor of the shop.

(OOC: Thanks for giving me permission to join in!)

Walking through the streets of New York, Luke Jacobs had a mission... nothing dangerous or exciting really but a mission none the less. While Luke was still CFO for "Jacobs and Jacobs", his secretary, Miss Langstan had been a wonder. Extremely skilled and pleasant to work with she had been one of the few high points while working there and even beyond that she had accepted him without prejudice after the mutant registration law went into effect. While it was true that Luke had stepped down from his position in order to protect the company, Miss Langstan still received gifts for Secretaries Day, her Birthday, as well as Christmas. Her birthday, on September 30th was coming up fast so Luke had to find her something nice.

Turning into a random store the blind man had tapped his way in, his cane slowly swinging back and forth to make sure that there were no obstructions.

"Welcome sir! Is there anything I can help you find?" One saleswoman spoke up from his left as she quickly approached. "I'm looking for something nice for a young woman... my former secretary." Luke spoke quietly as he turned his head in the general direction of the approaching figure. Obviously she had no idea that he could sense where she was but that wasn't important, "Perhapse you can give me some suggestions?"

"Of course. Right this way." The woman replied, her voice dripping with obvious enthusiasm. Taking his arm gently the woman began to lead him to another part of the store when suddenly a crash and commotion could be heard. "Someone is having a bad day." He observed softly.

"No need to worry about that... one of our more clumsy employees." The woman replied, doing her best to focus on the sale, "Now this is made from the finest Egyptian Silk... any woman would be thrilled to add this to her collection.

Reaching out a hand Luke gently touched the fabric, focusing his senses on the shape of the garment. "Um... perhapse you misheard me. I'm looking for something to give my former secretary." The man said as he quickly realized this had to be either lingerie or clubwear of some type, "Not my girlfriend or lover."

Right then the world froze... although Luke didn't realize it. When everything began to move again he had no idea anything had happened or was happening, at least until the explosions came from above.

With a shriek the saleswoman dove to the side, taking cover from the glass that was now raining down. Ducking his head and placing an arm over his neck Luke stood still, his senses quickly expanding as he reached into the world around him... something was happening and there was no way it could have been an accident.

"Why aren't the emergency lights on? What's going on?" The saleswoman murmured from where she was hiding underneath the lingerie racks. Moving away from her Luke began to slowly make his way through the aisles, his hearing picking up something that he knew wasn't right... a woman crying. While there were plenty of people shocked and worried it was the only voice he could hear that was literally crying.

Slipping through the darkened aisles of clothes Luke deftly moved around the different impediments in his path... a mannequin hear, an extra rack there. With his sonar senses none of it even slowed his progress. Finally as he stepped around one rack of clothes Luke stopped, focusing on the figure that was curled up in a ball at his feet. Slowly crouched down, Luke did his best to seem safe and non-threatening. Something was obviously bothering the poor girl... perhapse just fear but something was off in her shape... suddenly Luke knew what it was. The woman was wearing no clothes so where normally flowing garments would hide a person's shape from his senses, this woman was obviously in the nude.

"Excuse me ma'am." Luke spoke, his voice soft so that noone but the woman would be able to hear, "Is there anything I can do for you... any way I can help?" The blind man knew without a question his voice would startle the woman but hopefully the cane he held out in front of himself, as well as the dark sunglasses would reassure her that this at least was one person that would be staring at her apparent vulnerability.

Victoria heard the footsteps approach and so the sound of the man's voice, although a little surprised was, thankfully, not startled enough to go to pieces for a third time; that would have been too much. However, even in Victoria's confused state she could tell he was much too close for comfort.

"Probably leering at me." Would have been the thought if she had been thinking anything like rationally, though the echo of such a thought helped heighten her discomfort. She couldn't see the glasses or cane and so was unaware of the man's blindness.

She wanted to get away from him, despite his kind tone, but to move meant to expose herself and even though it was almost fully dark, the small amount of light seeping in through the door not enough to do more than take the edge off the darkness in a limited area, Victoria felt exposed and vulnerable.

Victoria was disoriented, not sure where she was in relationship to the counter though she had, from the grumbling and banging coming from Helena a rough idea as to its direction. She was beginning to be able to think and though hiccups had combined with the sobs to add to her misery the kind tone of the offer of assistance eventually seeped through.

"M...m...my.... clothes. Th.... th.... they will.... be on.... the.... floor some..... where near the counter but...." she said between hiccups and sobs, though as she spoke they began, mercifully to subside. "The witc... the woman over.... by the counter is my ex-boss. She.... is not very.... p..p...pleased with.... m...me. P... perhaps you could distract her.... for me."

Meanwhile, the witch in question, having failed to find Victoria, felt something soft under foot and irritably kicked it. A keen amateur soccer player, Helena's aim was true and her foot found Victoria's blouse and cardigan. The cardigan had just been over Victoria's shoulders and as a consequence it separated from the blouse and it was only the latter than became lost among the clothes hanging on a rack where it would stay until some lighting was restored, just another soft lump indistinguishable from the other soft lumps around it.

The remainder of her diminishing inventory of clothing, comprising cardigan, skirt, shoes and handbag were still largely together, only having been slightly dispersed by Helena's foot swinging through them.

"How in the world did her clothes end up all the way over there?" Luke wondered to himself although he didn't voice the question for the moment.

"I can distract her but better yet just wait here." The blind man replied to her question in a gentle voice, "I'm used to finding things in darkness so I can collect your clothes and then get back here to you. Just try to calm yourself a little bit and I'll be right back."

Turning away, Luke slipped back out to the aisle way, the same way he had come, slowly swinging his cane back and forth.

"So now, if I can just distract the old crone over there and recover the clothes I'll be doing quite well." He thought to himself as he made his way over towards the woman that even a normal blind person could have located without any trouble.

"Excuse me ma'am." Luke said in his most pleasant voice as he walked over to the register, "Perhapse you could be of assistance."

"What?!" The woman almost barked as she spun around to see an obvious customer standing at the counter, "Oh... my appologies sir. As you can see we're having some difficulties."

"I'm afraid I can't see your problems and I would appreciate you treating me with at least some courtesy!" Luke replied, his back stiffening and voice chilling slightly as he pretended to be outraged, "Or perhapse I should get down the street to your competitor!"

"Forgive me sir." Helena replied, obviously chagrined and momentarily put in her place as she walked over to stand behind the counter. "How can I help you today?"

"My girlfriend has been bugging me for some new lingerie... why I will never know since I can't see anything but as it is her birthday coming up I decided to splurge on her." Luke replied, his voice still somewhat chilly, "As I don't have time to wander throughout the store I would like you to go pick out three of your sexiest garments in a size six. If I approve of the fabric I'll be buying them, no matter how much they cost. Also a bottle of your finest perfume."

"Yes sir!" The woman replied, her voice gaining respect as she considered the large commision she might soon be receiving, "If you will wait right here I'll bring back some of our finest selections for you to look over."

"Hurry up... I have an appointment at 'Wiki and Wiki' law firm to sign our next contract so I don't have all day."

"Right away sir!" Helena replied as she hurried away, for the moment forgetting about her concerns with the darkened store.

As she walked away Luke hid a smile. "That went even better than I hoped." He thought to himself, "Now to collect her garments and help the young lady get out of here."

Slowly walking around the counter, Luke focused his sonar perception down towards the floor... in just a few moments he walked up to the lumps that were obviously clothing. Slowly kneeling the man scooped up first a skirt and cardigan, then one shoe and off to the side the other. Apparently the last shoe had been kicked by someone at one point or another. Then the piece de resistance... one ladies handbag sitting almost right up against the counter.

"I'm almost done sir!" A voice called across the store somewhat shrilly, "I'll be right over"

"Don't be all day about it!" Luke barked back before turning and once again dissapearing into the racks of clothing. Allowing his senses to expand once more he realized that the young woman did not seem to be sobbing as much now... other than the odd sniffle or hiccup she seemed to have regained some of her calm. Stopping a few feet away Luke slowly knelt down once again, holding the bundle of clothing out with his right hand while he maintained a grip on the cane with his left.

"Was this all of it miss?" The blind masked asked, his voice soft and considerate, "It was all I could find together in one place."

Victoria was only peripherally aware of the man talking to Helena and of her response but she had herself sufficiently together that she was able to respond immediately on his return. It also had got through to her that he seemed to be able to move unhindered by the darkness. It was something to ask him about later and she endeavoured to make a mental note to do so.

"Yes, thank you." She said, in response to his question and having taken the garments from the man. It wasn't all of course, the absence of the blouse being rather obvious to her, but Victoria didn't want to stay in the shop any longer than she had to.

Victoria got to her feet and dressed as hastily as she could in the darkness, it being both a blessing and a curse. A blessing in that it concealed her nakedness; a curse because she couldn't see what she was doing. The small amount of light filtering in from the door was enough to allow her to stumble her way to the door without causing herself any further damage or causing any further damage to the shop.

Out in the daylight it was obvious, at least to those with normal vision, that Victoria, frankly, was a mess. Her hair was wild and tangled, her eyes puffy and her face damp and red from the tears. To cap it off, her cardigan was buttoned incorrectly, being out by one. The cardigan was also clearly a little small, it being her best but also one from when she was a little younger and smaller. She usually didn't try to button it but she had had no choice. Victoria was feeling rather uncomfortable and she hugged her arms around her torso, trying to conceal, as much as possible, the disarray and paucity of her clothing.

Blinking in the sunlight, her eyes struggling to adapt she was relieved to see the young woman standing outside the shop.