(Posting may be slow, but please feel free to jump in)
She had left without warning.
It seemed that nobody missed her, because she was yet alone in the filthy, abandoned hovel in which she took residence. Suited her just fine, indeed, for she needed time to digest the turn of events that brought her barreling into New York. She did not know exactly what prompted her to leave in the middle of the night many months ago, from the infirmary bed where she’d spent her coma.
Xavia had taken awhile meandering about, somehow making her way into the heart of NYC, tired and alone, but surviving. It had been like walking through a labyrinth with never ending twists and turns, untold circumstances, and consequences along the way. It turned out that in the center of this imaginary maze was a very real and very abandoned old building.
She’d stumbled upon this poor relic of the past with it’s sagging and tired exterior, windows and doors boarded up to supposedly keep the squatters out, and a notice plastered to the boards across the door, “Condemned.” It did not keep her out though, and she slipped in after wondering how she would do so for a few hours. In the end she relied on the one thing she had come to despise since becoming what she was: her mutation.
The building was three stories tall, the boards blocking entry through all but the broken out, circular window that marked the attic. There were a few trees clinging to the chipped siding and crept upward in the attempt to take over this old Victorian house, but they were small and she doubted the strength of their branches. Besides, they only touched the bottoms and middles of the second storey windows, and she really did not want to smash some windows and risk alerting people of her presence.
It was dark, she was getting chilled, and morning was soon to come by the time she formed an idea. Xavia was determined, though, and hesitantly put her hands, each on a trunk of a tree, two that grew close together. Concentrating hard, and after a few false starts, the two plants began to thicken and branch out. It was a slow, grating process as the branches began to weave and curl around one another to create a natural sort of trellis, with hand and footholds to lead upward. Not stopping to admire her work, she simply scaled the branches to ascend toward, and climb through the small attic window.

Months later…

The sound of a piano hauntingly filled the house with it’s off key tune as her slender digits danced across the yellowed ivory keys. The warble of Chopin did the trick to drown out the sounds of a concrete jungle; the screaming of angry car horns, the profanity of the passerby, the annoying coo of the winged rat… Indeed, as out of tune as the old instrument was, it sounded much nicer to Xavia than New York, New York.

This piano she played so skillfully was old and beat up, left to rot in a lower quadrant of the house. Scratches marred the once, glossy surface of the sad thing. One of the back legs had long since been broken and splintered, and was now propped up by grayed wooden crates, still askew for that funhouse effect. The lid that had once covered the hammers and wires that made the sounds, lay halfazzardly against a wall, covered in a thick film of dust that indicated it had not been disturbed for quite some time. It was as if someone had removed pieces and parts to repair the thing, and simply forgot about it and then abandoned it, leaving it to rot along with the rest of the house.

The occasional person stopped long enough to listen to the spooky sound that trickled softly from the house, gooseflesh forming on their arms as the hair stood up. Everyone in the neighborhood just knew the house was empty, a lost cause indeed. But lately they could hear the sound of the old piano playing, yet see no signs of life. Had some specter taken up residence, and was now trying to scare the pants off of people just for the fun of it?

Xavia was glad to keep it that way. Her frustration and anger with society, normal or mutant, was so great that all she wanted to do was disappear from the minds of others. It sounded so simple, and became the foundation for her decision to stay. She could care less if she scared someone who could not see her. Hah! People were so stupid with their traditions, superstitions, and random folklore. Their imaginations, in her opinion, got the best of them and let them feel things for no apparent reason at all. That bothered her so damn much.

What angered her even more, though, was having to rely on her weak abilities to survive, while all those people who walked by could go out and do whatever the hell they wanted, and go home to their loving families and soft beds… Hot showers… Just the thought popping into her head caused her to slam her fingers down to create a disgusting sounding chord, then to stand abruptly. The stool toppled over and landed with a satisfying crack on the uneven floorboards.

She did what she never did, and kicked the thing away from her in disgust, before tromping through the dim room toward the staircase. The floors creaked and groaned under foot to mark her passage, a rhythm of off beats touching the dingy floor until she reached the stairs and began to climb. With every step upward, she mumbled in her native tongue, pretty much speaking to herself the whole time like a madwoman. Up the two flights of stairs she went, rambling while stepping over the broken steps, griping about life in general.

By the time she reached the attic, she was rambling about something else that must have ticked her off. Surely the young woman had a few screws missing… After all, she was talking to herself, carrying on and on in rapid Hungarian with every step she took. She did not stop until she hit the sunbeams that filtered in through that back window in which she had climbed to make her home.

Motes of dust were kicked up by her feet, sparkling in the bright beams as particles slowly drifted through the air, making for a fantasy effect that surrounded her with its dim glow, cutting off the stream that was her rambling.

Stepping up to the window, Xavia kept as much in the shadows as she could to watch the normal city activity that took place every day. Every day was the same: the cars, the trees, the faces, the sidewalks, the same damn thing every day. When would it end? She wondered this as she watched a cyclist whiz by gridlocked cars and one or two drivers flip the guy their Hawaiian good luck symbols, and heard the report of a horn coming from an SUV.

With a snort, she walked away and plopped into the seat of a legless armchair. Curse these people, she thought, curse them all. As she picked at the threadbare fabric that encased the overstuffed frame of the chair, sitting directly in a sunbeam for comforting purposes (after all, she’s a plant!), she watched through the window as storm clouds brewed in the distant sky.

Unfiltered sunlight streamed down from between buildings and structures as Kitska walked in a cheerful silence down the well-worn concrete of the sidewalk, the faint smile on her lips growing a little brighter when the light was able to reach through to her fair skin. She adjusted her grip on the wound cloth handles of her little white paper bag, filled with the precious cargo of a new whisk and a bit of a bread sample she'd acquired at her new favorite cooking shop, a tiny local place and her recently-proclaimed official cheer-me-up spot. After a close call with a mugger on the way home from work the night before, she had been feeling anxious, not to mention a little low on light. While she'd already been in the city for a week and a half, the realization had finally struck her of how vastly huge and different this place was compared to Ottawa, her last place of residence. And it made her feel ... well, a little lonely, honestly.

An especially bright patch of sunshine easily distracted her from the thought, nevertheless, and without thinking she stopped to savor it for a moment, letting it sink in and fill her up with warmth. While it was unnoticable to most, she could feel her skin growing brighter. After a few moments of standing there, oblivious to the strange looks she was earning from a passerby or two, she snapped out of her reverie only for her gaze to be caught on a figure in the corner of her eye. Glancing towards it, she found herself looking through the weathered windowpane of the abandoned house beside her, where inside a woman sat alone on a rather beaten-up armchair. Kitska, in all of her social grace, froze for a moment, eyes wide in surprise like a deer in the headlights, before she even considered continuing her walk back towards her apartment.

<<< OOC: I hope you don't mind me jumping in here, if you do let me know and I'll delete the post. Also, sorry for the length of this post, just wanted to work out a good way for Domingo to be where he ends up! Again, I hope you don't mind! >>>

It is a strange concept, fate. Whether it exists or not, the very notion that 'everything happens for a reason' and that all life ahead is pre-determined is one that has affected the thinking of history's great philosophers and scientific minds since civilisation began. Today for Domingo, fate itself had reared its ungraceful head into the forefront of his mind. Those moments during an ordinary day, when a chance event occurs that leads to something important, and affects you to think that fate itself may just have a part to play in yours and everybody's lives. Domingo wasn't sure if fate existed, in fact he leaned more towards free will, but he did believe there was more to life than life itself.

In New York, Domingo had found a place that excited him. The vastness of this famous city astounded him, and the explorative nature of his personality could be released and allowed to take hold of his young, inquisitive mind. Just that day, he'd stumbled across a quaint little teashop, where he'd sat and relaxed, sipping sweet tea and reading through the daily newspaper. A suited, middle-aged man with a briefcase had also enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere that the teashop exuded, he'd been drinking a coffee, deeply absorbed into whatever it was he was reading about in a men's health magazine. The briefcase sat close to his ankle, Domingo had noticed, and was a shiny black.

After reading an interesting article about a mutant rally that had happened the month before, Domingo was mildly startled by the sound of the smartly dressed gentleman's mobile phone ringing increasingly loudly, with one of those annoying 'traditional' ringtones that seemed to be synonymous with the average modern businessman. The man lifted the phone from the table and answered with nothing but the word "Halliwell." Domingo couldn't help but hear the man's conversation...

"You've found it?... Where?!...Okay I'm... Okay, I'll be..." He looked at his watch swiftly and directly. "Fifteen minutes. Stay there."

With that, the man stood up quickly, placed his phone onto the table hard, thrust his hand deep into his pocket for loose change, and throwing it on the table beside his half-full (or was it half-empty?) cup, shouted to the waitress at the back end of the room. "Here's the money for the coffee. Its all there, thanks..." He then ran over toward the door, leaving his phone there on the table, swung open the door, and before Domingo could even shout to him, was outside and sprinting up the sidewalk to his important destination.

Realising that the man had left his briefcase, and after almost losing a bag himself earlier in the week, the young Spaniard ran to the door, leaning to peek his head out and right, in the direction the man had ran. He was nowhere to be seen. Domingo tutted to himself that he hadn't reacted quicker, and steeped outside to see if he could get a better look. A pair of teenage girls walked past as Domingo squinted to see further up the street, giggling as they passed him. He turned towards them, confused, and they looked away swiftly trying not to be caught looking back, laughing amongst themselves. Domingo stood for a moment and wondered what it was they were laughing at. Blinking himself back to normal and still somewhat puzzled, he shook his head and turned to walk back inside the teashop. As he walked back to his table, the warm sensation of moisture all over the crotch of his jeans could be felt. He looked down, and realised that the teacup, with the tea it served as the vessel for, the sugar lumps from inside the container that had sat motionless on the table, the saucer, teaspoon, and a coaster from a nearby table, had all been attracted to Domingo without him being aware as he'd ran after the man, and were now stuck to his chest. and thighs. The contents of the teacup had emptied quite noticably all over his crotch area, and it dawned on him why the teenage girls had been laughing at him a moment before.

"Oh Jesus Christ," he exclaimed aloud, flapping his arms in despair in the now empty tearoom. It was then that the cup, saucer, the individual sugar lumps and the other objects stuck to Domingo fell suddenly and crashed to the floor. The sound was loud, and Domingo coudln't believe his luck, or lack of it. A huge sigh of discontent came over the eighteen year old, and he stood for a second, cursing the uncontrollable gravitational mutation of his that had resulted in this unfortunate occurrence. Grabbing a serviette, he attempted to dry his 'modest area', that which had been affected by the split tea. Kneeling down on the floor, Domingo started to pick up the broken pieces of cup and saucer, and out of the corner of his eye he noticed the shiny black leather of the briefcase. He remembered that 'it' was the whole reason he was in the situation he found himself in. Fate, it seemed, had a sense of humour.

After he'd almost lost his own luggage upon his arrival in New York, only for it to be resued by his new friend Lenna, he decided it was only right that he take it upon himself to deliver the briefcase to its owner. How he would do that, he didn't know. He took hold of the briefcase, and at that moment the waitress appeared and frowned as she looked on at the table, and the broken teaset that lay there.

"I'm sorry about that, here, let me pay for what I have broken, here..." He set the briefcase down and took out his wallet, apying the waitress for the tea, and also a few extra dollars for the mess he had accidentally caused. The waitress shrugged and silently took the money in one hand, whilst juggling the broken bits of pottery in the other. She headed back into the kitchen, and Domingo quickly picked up the briefcase, the mobile phone off the table, and headed out of the door.

After wandering around the streets for an hour, hoping he might see the poor unfortunate man that had left his briefcase and phone in the teashop, Domingo decided to sit down on a nearby bench to take a closer look at the phone. After losing the use of his own only a couple of nights before, he needed a new one. He only thought this for a second though, he'd took it on as his mission, and do his best to return the items to their rightful owner was what he'd do.

All of a sudden, the phone rang, the memorable tone that had sounded back in the teashop ringing loudly all over again. He looked down at the phone, its lights flashing in his hand as it got louder and louder. He'd have to answer it, he decided, and pressing the 'answer' button, lifted it to his mouth and spoke softly, almost afraid to speak.

"Hello?" his lips produced the word with a hint of fear, realising that he could be perceived as having stolen the phone from where the man could have easily gone back to collect it.

"Hello there, my name is Ed, thanks for answering my phone..." Domingo pictured the man he'd witnessed running off in such a desperate way back in the teashop. "If you have my phone, it means you might have my briefcase?" Domingo replied, speaking carefully and slightly reserved. "Yeah, I do have it also," The man spoke again. "Good. Now, I'm a fair man, a little bit stupid and definitely forgetful, but fair. I'd like to offer you a reward if you could meet up with me and give me back my briefcase and phone. The case has my work stuff in there, and I really need it back, whaddya say, you wanna make yourself something, son?"

Domingo answered in a friendly and co'operative manner. He had, after all, wanted to help in the first place. "Yes, of course, you have my word. I will bring them to you. Where would you like to meet?"

Another hour had passed, and Domingo reached the street corner where he had arranged to meet the man. The nervous teenager stood there, holding the briefcase tightly in his right hand. He looked up one street, up the other, and back up the first again, looking for the man who was already late to retrieve his belongings. And then, a tap on the shoulder, and Domingo turned to find the man, still in his suit, standing there smiling with glee that his briefcase was soon to be returned to him. "Thank you so much, you are truly a good young man." He reached out for his briefcase, and Domingo handed it to him as he spoke back.

"Hey, no problem at all sir. In fact, the exact same thing, well nearly the same thing, happened to me earlier in the week. Here's your phone, too." Domingo reached into his pocket and handed the phone to the relieved looking man. Taking the phone and sliding it into his inside jacket pocket, the man looked seriously into Domingo's eyes. "Whats your name kid?" he asked, as he delved his spare hand into his other pocket for his wallet. He began to open the wallet, and his fingers slid over the dollar bills inside.

"My name is Domingo," he replied, just as the man handed over to him a bunch of the aforementioned dollar bills, creased crumpled up. Domingo tried to make out how much money the man had given him, and was looking down at it counting up in his head, when the man spoke up once again.

"Well, thanks again Domingo. There's about fifty, sixty dollars there, its the least I can do. I best be off though. Thanks!" "You're welcome!" the smiling Spaniard shouted, as the man turned and walked a little along the pavement, looking into his mobile phone to dial a number, turned to wave, then disappeared up the street and out of sight.

Domingo was still smiling as he strolled off in the opposite direction, stuffing the reward for his honesty and integrity into his jeans pocket. He passed a row of abandoned houses, thinking to himself that fate had actually been good to him. And now it had left him here.

Coming from further down the street, he could make out the faint and delicate sound of a piano being played. It then stopped, but Domingo carried on, wondering where the graceful musicianship had come from. Standing still for a moment to concentrate on the sounds around him, he tried listen out for the piano again, but in vain. Disappointed, he crossed over to the other side, and straight ahead noticed a thin and attractive looking young lady, around the same age as Domingo himself, standing there, staring into window of the house aside her. Confused over what the girl had seen, he followed her gaze into the brightly lit room, and saw a large and beautiful plant with long, lightly green coloured leaves resting in the seat of an armchair, directly in the sunlight. Domingo wondered for a second why such a seemingly healthy, living plant was sat there on an old armchair in an abandoned rundown building such as this? It seemed strange to him, and it looked as though he may not be only one who thought so...

Unaware of the fact that she was being spied upon from below by a younger woman, the dark haired woman in the chair slowly began to relax, closing her eyes and drifting into serenity. She hardly felt as her body began to transform from its natural form into that of a plant. Glossy leaves began to sprout and cover her, the sunbeam caressing along the green surfaces like tendrils of hair. Xavia sighed as the peace of this transformation engulfed her.

She had never transformed this way before she had come to solitude many months ago, never felt it transition so painlessly and smoothly since becoming what she was. It was as if she was beginning to accept, rather than fight the mutation. The warmth of the sun comforted her as she sat alone in that dusty chair in an equally dusty attic. She simply awaited the rain that was to come within the next hour, or so she had surmised by the clouds that were looming on the horizon.

Another person joined the girl below, and by that point, she lost all human characteristics as she became what looked like a large rose bush. He was just in time to be able to see the buds start to peak through the leaves and unfurl in glorious, crimson blooms. Blossoms reached toward the sunlight and their scent filled the house, and drifted out of the window to fill the entire block with the sweet smell. It did not just mix with the smells of NYC, there were so many blooms by that point, that the scent overpowered the smell of exhaust, garbage, stale alcohol, and other smells that so often permeated through the vicinity.

Suddenly the sound of splintering wood from below broke her trance. Her eyes opened as she could hear the noise coming from the front of the house, opposite of where the two spectators stood. Xavia pushed out of the chair, and the leaves and blossoms began to wither and drop to the floor to reveal the plant mutant in her natural form. A dark haired beauty emerged from the curtain of leaves and blooms, dressed in what looked like a flowing dress, but was in all actuality, an old sheet she had found when her borrowed clothes became too tattered and stained for her to wear, and had been fashioned crudely to resemble clothing.

She barely made a sound as she crept toward the attic door, and only paused when she heard the front door crash against the wall to the entry way. Heart in her throat, she took a hesitant step back as she could hear the sounds of muffled voices from below. Swallowing heavily, Xavia approached the attic door and turned the crystal knob, opening the portal a few inches and peeking through the crack, then tried to get a better look by opening it further.

“She has to be here, I could smell her a mile away. Damn it, the girl had better not disappear again or the boss ain’t gonna be happy.” The sound of a man’s voice filtered through the old house from the foyer, a voice that sounded only a little familiar to her as it echoed off the bare walls.

“Oh, she is here. You bet your life on it, Rod.” Another voice, this one jerking her back to the day she had been kidnapped, found her ears. She shook her head in disbelief and nearly stumbled back. The man from the little park in Kalamazoo, MI. But it couldn’t be, she thought, that man was dead. The man had died in the accident that coincidentally saved her from uncertain fate.

Hardly breathing, she took a step back and closed the door as silently as she could. Xavia was not about to let them take her again, she just could not go back to the lab again, couldn’t be subjected to the torture they had put her through that was obviously bad enough for her to have nightmares about, even if she did not remember exactly what had really happened.

She tried not to panic as she heard them bump around the main storey of the house, and padded toward the window, a quiver of fear and apprehension catching her belly painfully. The woman leaned out the window just far enough to see what her escape options were, only to see a suited figure round the back corner of the house.

Oh God, oh God, she thought and quickly pulled back into the house, backing away from the window. Apparently it wasn’t fast enough, because she heard the man yell, “She’s in the attic!” Shards of wood flew into her face from the window pane as a bullet ricocheted off of it, to imbed itself into the wall!

She could hear the guy grunt as he began to climb the trellis, and she could hear the other men tromping up the stairs to reach her. With little time to act, she mustered up as much strength as she could, sweat beading on her forehead as she summoned her hated powers. The trellis she had created months ago began to coil around the climbing man’s ankle as he was about halfway to his destination. He yelled as he was swept and left to dangle by the limb that had coiled around his ankle. Brambles then formed a thick barrier in front of the door. It wouldn’t keep them out, but it would buy her time. Just as she heard the men at the landing, she ran for the window again and climbed onto the awning above the dangling man.

Xavia did not have time to be amused by the sight of the goon, hanging by his ankle; she had little time to think at all. She reached down to touch the trellis and gasped in pain as she quickly made it grow some more, giving her the rungs she needed to get onto the roof. She was dizzy as she grabbed on to the handholds, and started to scale the flora trellis, and barely made it onto the roof before she summoned the last ounce of energy she could spare to cover the window with the brambles.

She collapsed, out of breath, shaken, pale, and looked around for a way to get out of this mess she was in. Her eyes found the two spectators below, and she made eye contact with both people, only staring for a moment. The moment almost seemed suspended in time, but was quickly dashed away by the men crashing through the attic door and into the brambles. Her head shook and she stumbled to her feet.

Her feet slipped a few times as she tried to climb the steep gables of the roof. Sweat stung her eyes and blurred her vision while she scaled her way to the top peak, wind picking up and whipping her tangled curls around her face. It seemed like there was no way out, except perhaps to leap onto the roof of another house…

THAT IS IT!! If she could just leap onto another roof, and keep going, they would not be able to catch up to her! Boosted by the notion of getting away, she balanced, one foot in front of the other, on the peak of the roof. She looked to the neighboring house, and the gap between her rambling abandoned house and the point of destiny looked like a killer. It was her only option, though.

Xavia tried not to fall as she picked up some speed on her precarious perch, and she made it to the edge, where she took the leap of faith toward the next house over. She looked like a perpetual superhero as her sheet billowed around her while she flew the gap, then landed against the side of that house with a sickening thud, and a white knuckled grip on the gutter.

As she hanged there, the two men from in the house broke through the brambles, and having heard her on the roof, climbed onto it as well to follow her toward the house. They stopped at the edge and peered at her with leering grins on their faces, and the man she had thought was dead, spoke to her. “Give it up. You got nowhere to go but down.”

She could feel herself slipping, and feel as the first droplets of an autumn storm begin to rain down on her. He was right, she thought, this was it. Something inside of her changed with that moment, and a smile crossed her lips. She glanced briefly at the men over her shoulder and said, “Going down.”

With that final utterance, she relaxed her body and loosened her grip.

Blink. Kitska had been stunned before, but now she was baffled as the woman that had been curled up on the shoddy seat just a moment ago was replaced by a wildly growing rose bush, with tendrils of leaf and vine that reached into the sunlight almost luxuriously, clusters of foliage glinting with a brilliant sheen. Her head tilted ever-so-slightly to the side as the first traces of a silky-sweet fragrance began to permeate the air.

Almost instantly, her mind rushed with questions, possibilities, a torrent of thought that tugged roughly at her like a crashing wave. What did it mean? A figure in a beanie cap brushed past, bumping lightly against her shoulder in that nonchalant passer-by's warning that she was in the way, though Kitska barely seemed to notice. She had never seen anyone do something so ... different. For a moment she glanced down at her own hands, eyes gliding across the near-glow of her fingertips almost instinctively. Anyone else, anyways. But it was rather silly to have thought that she was the only one, wasn't it?

The sound of one particular set of footsteps slowed nearby, faint against the distant drone of cars, and she looked up with a bit of a start, only for her gaze to land on the very, very blue eyes of a man ... A young man, that is, since he didn't seem much older than her. He was now staring past her into the window, a quizzical sort of expression on his well-defined features, and she was instantly struck by what had likely prompted him to do so.

A sweep of deep berry made its way across the bridge of her nose, contributing a faint tinge of blush to her cheeks. How long had she even been standing here like this for?! "Oh! Um ... I ... Ahh," she stammered softly, flustered by the apparent nosiness on her part that she'd only just realized. She really ought to just leave ...

Muffled shouts and the loud thwap of bullet hitting wood became audible, and she spun back towards the window to find the chair empty, covered in a light dusting of wilted petals. The stripped-bare room was empty.

Her breath came in a sharp exhale of stress as she heard a man's shouts nearby, and her gaze frantically scanned the house, looking for the source. It had to be coming from there ... It just had to be. Kitska saw him. Dangling from a trellis, a tendril of familiarly vibrant green wound stubbornly about his ankle. She'd barely taken a step towards him when a flash of flowing cloth appeared on the roof -- the woman she had seen just moments earlier -- and the dark-haired lady seemed to wince as a series of plants intertwined over the windows.

A shudder wracked her body as a new, particularly painful noise rang out as the stranger leapt off of the roof, only to be hanging from the creaky gutter of a nearby building. The violent rips at the foliage and the sardonic looks on the men's faces as they appeared from where she had just leapt said it all.

>>"Give it up. You got nowhere to go but down."

The woman's lips moved, but she couldn't hear the words that they formed. The sunlight was fading fast. She was falling, her body dragged limply downwards like a ragdoll by gravity's force. A small, brave, pleading shout managed to escape Kitska's mouth without her realizing it and she dashed forwards.

What usually would have been a glow off of her skin was a sharp flare of light, and her fingers reached into the air as she deftly and desperately tried to craft a string -- something, anything. There wasn't enough time ... But she had to do something! Twisting the shaft of light into a weak thread, she tossed it towards the gutter and it stuck, but Kitska couldn't will it to wind around the woman's wrist quickly enough. Another burst of energy sent her running forwards again, eyes locked on that twine of light as she tried to focus, but the woman was falling so quickly ...

Walking on sunshine, whoa oh~ And don't it feel good?~

Shin hummed a little tune as he revved the engine of his little red scooter. The kitten's roar mixed with the subtle sound of piano as he blasted along the street.

He'd chosen a new path that day. One that took him through residential New York, around old houses, and near a restaurant he thoroughly enjoyed eating breakfast at. Because of the distance, Shin had started the day out early. 4AM came, all-too-quick. Thor was crotchety and grumpy about his morning walk. Shin got an inkling that they both preferred their walks accompanied by the song of birds. Early mornings meant few birds. Few birds meant they had to find their own little tune.

Thus, Shin's old Walkman radio came out of the closet, into a pocket, and 'round his ears. Howling the morning walk away, Shin and Thor woke half the mansion with their crooning.

And then he went to work. Except first he had to get there, and see... that's when he saw the strange men climbing a house, and the pretty lady in the bedsheet flying through the air. And stopped. And paused. And looked, and listened, as smart drivers were wont to do. His scooter jerked to a halt three feet from the two onlookers who'd arrived prior. Shin didn't notice either, eyes locked on the woman's position.

He got up off his red scooter, jerked his red half-helmet off his face, and rested it in the crook of his arm. And stared.

Under his breath, Shin continued to hum.

Walkin' on sunshine... whoa... oh... and don't it... feel good... What exactly was going on here with those men!?

'New York, New York,' was the thought that had come into Domingo's head as he'd stood and watched the drama unfold before his very blue eyes. He only made out flashes of the disturbing scenes in the building through the partly-boarded up windows, and he could only hear muffled shouting from outside on the pavement, but judging by the reaction of the girl beside him, something very serious and very sinister was aplay.

Domingo's heart was racing as he witnessed something or someone appearing to jump between the buildings. He quickly looked around, as the girl sprinted off forwards towards the danger. After the midweek episode in the liquor store only a few days before, Domingo dealt with the situation by standing back and taking everything in, deciding against jumping inhead first and getting involved in something that, at the end of the day, had nothing to do with him.

His curious side did come out though, and he thought he'd stick around just in case he could be useful. Concentrating hard, he began to levitate and move to his left, up to a height equal to the top of the building, and then set himself down carefully on the roof of the facing building. From here, he could make out a girl hanging onto the edge of the next building, holding on for dear life at such a high point. Just then, Domingo's eyes caught sight of two real meat-heads, a pair of large men that Domingo decided would make formidable opponents. 'Those guys would kill me,' he told himself, and his eyes widened in horror as the girl began to slip from her grasp. The men, approaching the edge of the building that the girl must have jumped from in some desperate act of survival, smiled and mocked her as she slipped a little more. Domingo felt as if he should do something at that moment and his hands made fists as the adrenaline took hold. Just then though, the girl looked up at the men. From afar it was hard to make out, but it appeared that the girl had smiled? And then she let go.

>>>And then she had let go of the gutter…

Xavia was not going to die on this day, and nor would she be stuck in a coma again. She was not about to go with those men either… Even as she began to fall, she could hear the two goons explode with cursing, and begin to scramble toward the trellis to get down from the top of the steep roof. She could feel the sting of a rope or string hit her, but didn’t have enough time to react and grab it.

Falling, falling, faster and faster, yet it was as if the moment was being played in slow motion. Just when one would have expected to hear the sickening crunch of a body hitting the ground from so high in the air, though, the only sound one could hear was the flutter of the sheet as it pooled in the low grass.

The wind picked up and the rain began to fall in earnest, sending the sheet blowing for a moment before becoming water logged and coming to rest at the feet of the interloper, the young lady who had ran into the fray to help. There was no sign of the woman who had occupied that bed sheet, save for the scent of roses which lingered in the fabric like an afterthought. But where could she have gone in the blink of an eye?

Seconds ticked by and turned into moments, to leave one wondering what happened to the gutter clinging mutant. Even when the meatheads, huffing and puffing from their quick descent and sprint toward where she would have fallen, came running into the scene like a pair of ugly ogres, they almost skidded to a halt within inches of each other and looked around in confusion. The bigger of the two men, his face scarred up and one of the ugliest mugs one could have ever seen, turned then and gave an accusing look to the Kit, and then it turned into a sneer as he spoke. “Where’d she go?”

(Necessarily short so you all can have a chance to get some action in ^_^)

No, no, no ... She'd run out of time. Kitska instinctively squeezed her eyes shut, wincing just as the woman was about to make impact with the ground. There must've been something more she could've done, there must've been! If she'd just reacted faster, if she'd have known sooner, she could've ... If if if if.

Where she had prepared herself for the worst possible sound imaginable -- she'd never heard someone fall to the ground from that far above before, but she could barely imagine how awful it would be -- she was met with an entirely different sound instead: the gentle swish of cloth. Hestiantly opening an eye to peek over at the base of the building, both of her eyes snapped open and an irrepressible flicker of relief flashed across her features to find no life lost, but the sheet the woman had been wearing sliding vacantly across the sidewalk in a passing breeze, minute cracklings sounding as the contours of the rough concrete picked at the delicate fibers there.

The gruff voice sounding from beside her sent a shiver racing across her skin, and she turned quickly to face its source: the two men who had been chasing that woman. Eyes widened and mouth slightly agape in shock -- they didn't really believe she had anything to do with this, could they? -- she scrambled for the right words to say. She'd wanted to help the plant-lady, but now that she'd made her escape, Kitska was as fully aware of the fact that they would pummel as she was of the guns she knew they carried. After all, even that boy from before had vanished, she assumed, shooting a quick glance where he'd been standing -- she'd lost awareness of his movements in her moment of fear. Perhaps if she were anyone else, she could've pulled a good quip and a dose of smooth-talk from that hidden vault some have. Maybe she could've found something clever to say, and slipped past the accusation he was glaring at her. Despite the years she'd spent traveling, and the dialects she'd worked so hard to understand enought o get by on, as she looked the scarred man in the face, a scowl further mangling his features, she could come up with nothing. No words. Well ... Not in English, anyways.

"J-jeg forstår ikke ..." I don't understand ... -- definitely not any recognizable vareity of smooth talk, but it'd have to do. They were the first words that slipped from her mouth, as she gingerly took a step backwards, away from them, and then another, and another. Her hands were by her sides, swaying minutely and naturally with her movements, but the fingers of each seemed to slide against one another with a life of their own as she continued to maintain the man's gaze. A bit of supplement in the form of a subltle glow from her fingertips shined, and they were in her hands: two cloth-like threads of light, gleaming pallidly against her palms.

Taking one last delicate step backwards, she flicked the two strands at their two pairs of feet, willing the strings to wind themselves about their ankles. It wouldn't hold them for long, but hopefully it would be enough to give her an advantage -- or a headstart, rather -- with the fighting tactic she was about to use.

Darting past them and taking a sharp turn down an alleyway beside the abandoned house, she made a sprint for the street visible at the end of the path, leaving the little white bag she'd been holding on to so dearly abandoned where she had been standing. If only this would work ... !

The white sheet/dress/article of clothing fell wisply to the ground. The girl had disappeared. From the distance Domingo was watching from, he couldn't be clear as to how the girl had made her escape. 'Houdini himself would've been proud of that,' Domingo thought to himself. His viewpoint allowed him to witness the two bruisers move faster than he'd expected they could, back through the house, down and out of the door. They ran over to the side of the house, below where they had been standing, and ended up next to the girl who had been quick to make an effort to help. The girl who Domingo had seen staring into the window before the drama had unfolded. She didn't seem like she understood exactly what had happened either, and she turned to face the two angry men who looked like they expected her to give them an explanation!

Domingo decided the time had come to get down there himself; this girl was alone with a pair of dangerous thugs, who's ears were blowing steam, plus he himself wanted to know what exactly had happened to the girl in the sheet. Curiosity could indeed kill the cat, but the cat has nine lives.

The young Spaniard made his descent, his body creating a silhouette that looked like a holy cross on the side of the building with his arms outstretched for balance. He aimed to land at the corner of the house, behind the men, carefully so as not to be noticed. Just before he touched his feet to the dirt, the girl's hands began to glow a strong, blinding light, like when magnesium is burned, and all of a sudden it was as if she was holding shinig bright photons themselves. Domingo realised that this girl must be 'special' just like he was, and he moved himself down more swiftly. Out of nowhere, the girl then ran along the alleyway and took a turn, out of sight and at the buildings rear. The men's heads turned to follow her pacey sprint, and their immediate reaction was to make a move towards where she had ran. Domingo set himself quietly down on the ground, and his quick-paced pursuit was performed silently and stealthily behind the men. His heart was racing at the thoughts running through his head at what could happen, but he simply knew he had to follow. So he did...

The thing about mutants is this: They're tricky. Tricky and faster than the eye. When they use their mutations, you're rarely prepared for the extensive damage a concealed burst of heat will do, or the sudden appearance of tentacles, or sharp teeth. Corrosive acid saliva? Or maybe they're simply baboon-butt red and strong as an ox... give or give three-hundred. The power comes out of left field. It's big, it's small, obvious, or not. So when you see a mutant falling, don't be fooled into thinking they'll hit ground and go splat. They won't.

They will.

Or maybe, something will come out of left field.

And everything comes up smelling like roses.

This was one of those times.

A quick intake of air zipped past Shin's lips as she fell. Oh god. Oh god oh god. He should help, he should do something, he should...!!

Hi, I’m Daisy. Shin saw it, and figured what was happening before the garish goons galumphed towards the discarded dress. Shin’s heart thumped once, twice, three times… a lady (with flower power) had fallen in the midst of thugs.

And they were now facing him... er, the woman beside him. Fencer of GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD~!!! Music streamed from his headphones still. Still. No wonder he hadn't noticed the girl prior. Shin pulled the ear buds out, and slipped them into the front pocket of his red sweatshirt, alongside the walkman radio. And then things were moving, and Shin was pulling the red sweatshirt over his head.

As it flopped down on the sidewalk next to his scooter, he turned to watch the the brown-haired girl run off. The Asian spun to face the thugs, lips pursing uncertainly to form words.

"You scare girls often, scumbag?"

The man closest to Shin turned, as his partner took off after the girl. His eyes narrowed. His mouth formed a growl.

Shin's eyes met his own with a crackle like a bolt of lightning. The first two knuckles on his right hand met cheekbone. The guard tripped backwards, feet tangled by the strings of light.

As the thugs started to close in on the girl and noticed Shin nearby, one took off after the girl, and one was just about to go after Shin because, well, he must have seen where the flower woman went… But as the man neared the male that was standing near the girl, he got pwned by said male. The other thug continued to run after the girl, and was about to get pwned by the male from the roof. The THIRD thug had finally cut himself down and came around to take on Shin from behind, and that is when the ground slightly shook under that one’s feet, and roots began to twist around his ankles, concrete crumbling and tenting in their wake. More roots went under Shin, between his feet, and did the same to the thug who had rounded on him first and was already on the ground from his feet being tangled by the girl’s powers.

Both thugs looked down in confusion and then scrambled to try and free their feet from the constricting roots. They both gave an exclamation by yelling. Xavia let the thug in front of Shin go, and the man scooted back. As the ground began to shake, and a shadow loomed over Shin and the thug behind him, the one she had let go started pointing, stuttering. The third thug looked behind him and gave a scream like a girl, which was cut off by the tree that had suddenly appeared from behind, and had lifted him from the ground by his neck.

However, the tree was weak looking, perhaps because the source of its growth was out of energy from the chase. Leaves and various debris came falling down from the top of the tree, yet the limb still held fast to the man’s throat. Bark began to shed as the man’s face started to turn purple, and his tongue lolled passed lips that began to swell up as he tried to force air into his lungs. Just when he would have died, the branch broke from the tree, and he hit the ground with a satisfying plop, then gasped and drew air threw his bruised throat.

As for the ringleader, he ignored the screams of his comrades as he stalked the girl, pulling out a hand gun, pointing it at her head. “If you don’t want to die, you should stop and turn around, and tell me where she is. I don’t want to kill you, I just want you to tell me what you saw.” His voice was calm, but firm, and to prove he had a gun, he shot into the air. He did not know the man from the roof was following him just yet.

Maybe I should try finding someplace calmer to live ...

Kitska fleetingly considered this as she dashed down the alleyway, feet pounding against the stained asphalt. Honestly, all she wanted was just to try to find somewhere she could belong. So why was her life slowly making a metamorphosis into a Die Hard film all of a sudden? After all, she worked at a bakery! She didn't have the guns nor the gleamingly bald head to be a reasonable candidate for being Bruce Willis -- and there wasn't any way that these people could know that she was ... different. Right? Right.

She reassurred herself of this hastily as she ran, until the rather defiant sound of a voice that sounded, well, not like the voice of a man who would try to beat her to a pulp, reached her, and she flicked a glance over her shoulder to see its source, a young Asian guy, just in time to see him throw a punch right into the face of one of the thugs. A grin of relief barely had time to reach her lips before she realized that closer to her than the action she'd been looking at was another man who was trailing her as she moved down the alleyway.

A tiny whimper escaped from her lips -- why wouldn't they just leave her alone? -- and her lips pursed into a determined line as she started pushing herself to move forward faster and faster. A tremor in the earth paired with the uneven pavement was enough to ruin her plans of at least a mildly graceful escape, and she fell to the ground, sliding a bit over the gravel and taking most of the force with her shoulder. All of the breath in her lungs escaped in a sharp exhale, and she pulled herself back up onto her feet, ready to try to bolt again. But apparently, the guy had had enough.

>>"If you don't want to die ..."

Kitska's mahogany eyes went wide at that phrase; his starting a sentence like that definitely wasn't a good sign. She froze again, gaze frantically scanning the empty alley in front of her and the bit of open street visible on the other side -- she'd barely made it halfway there. The sound of a gunshot ripped into the air behind her, and she flinched, instinctively covering her ears and squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. She bit her lip -- it had started to tremble again -- and turned to face him, and the gun he had in his hand.

She made a point to meet his gaze, albeit warily (she didn't want to seem that weak!) and opened her mouth to speak again, scrambling to put together the right words once more.

"I ... I didn't see anything, really," she started, her voice a timid soprano with only the lightest accent left to her voice, thanks to all of the time spent traveling about. "I just saw her sitting there, and then running, and then she fell ..."

What was she supposed to say? How was she going to get out? No string she could forge in a millisecond could ever be strong enough to stop a bullet. Maybe he'd just realize she didn't know what happened, and leave everyone be.

Maybe.

Domingo had evaded the action for the most part, as he'd skipped through the dark alleyway, puddles on the floor reflecting the light from the street in the distance. He'd glanced behind him whilst running, and saw a tree where there hadn't been a tree before, and there were voices coming from around the tree. 'What the..?' he thought, but he didn't look back for long, and he faced back towards the direction he'd intended to follow, catching up to the ominous scenario playing itself out in front of him. When he heard the gunshot, Domingo jumped behind some empty boxes and bags of rubbish at the side of the alley. Peering ahead, he saw one of the men, standing dauntingly with a gun in his hand, facing away from the young Spaniard towards the girl who was lying defenceless (or so it seemed) on the dirty ground.

>>"I just saw her sitting there, and then running, and then she fell ..."

The man reacted to this by striding towards the girl, mumbling something in a deep gruff voice. As he got close to the girl, Domingo jumped out from his hiding place and swallowed fearfully and hard.

"She's telling the truth. We were just passing on the roadside, and..." The man turned suddenly and fast, and Domingo could finally make out the man's huge jaw, angry inverted brow, and burning eyes.

"Who the hell are you, kid?" He shouted back to the trembling eighteen year old, who had moved a few more paces forwards towards the situation.

Holding out his hands in a demonstration of submission, he spoke to the man again."Hey, now why don't you put your gun away huh? Like you say, we're only kids, what are we gonna be able to do?"

Domingo glance past the formidable and bulky shape of the man, and saw the girl. He nodded toward her and to the end of the alleyway, motioning her to run away. 'Just run. Run!'

And we'll be dancin' agaaaaain, dancin' agaaaaaaain~ Shin's feet hopped in and around the roots that shot through concrete. If his earbuds had still been in, he'd of heard something deceptively similar to the disco tune. One hop, two hops. Red shards, blue shards. He scooped up the multi-colored triangles of his mind, and thrust them below himself to form a 3 foot by 3 foot triangular platform. With a vaulting leap, he shot over plant roots to land on top of the triangle!!

And floated there. Smiling. It was good, mastering new tricks.

His head turned slowly at the shadow that stretched out in front of them. A tree exploded out of concrete, carrying one of the thugs with it. Shin gulped and wobbled on his blue-and-red tortilla flotilla. Okay, maybe 'mastery' wasn't the best word for the job.

He rose on his platform, up and above the sea of roots and tree debris. Fingers clutched the side of the triangle as he leaned forward to watch.

The man hung, suspended by weak-looking branches and mottled leaves. His cheeks turned pink, then purple, the popped… as air rushed into them, post-plop. Shin cringed in sympathy.

“Ow…”

Then another man drew a gun and pointed it at the girl. He screamed:
>>“If you don’t want to die, you should stop and turn around, and tell me where she is. I don’t want to kill you, I just want you to tell me what you saw.”


>>"I ... I didn't see anything, really," the girl replied timidly. "I just saw her sitting there, and then running, and then she fell ..."

The guard seemed rather glary. Probably didn’t buy it.

Shin hit his head in a facepalm. Fingers trailed down the bridge of his nose to reveal the scene. “Ow. Ow. Ow!! You idiot. Don’t you see? She’s a mutant… and she’s right there in front of your face…”

>>"She's telling the truth. We were just passing on the roadside, and..."

A boy jumped out from behind some bags. Shin blinked once, twice… “Domingo…?”

>>"Who the hell are you, kid?" The man spun on the Spaniard, and asked gruffly.

Shin’s brow furrowed as he saw the looks the two men were giving each other, the look Domingo was giving the girl. The Spaniard wanted her to run for it. These two were cornered. Shin remembered from the training session, Domingo could do things with gravity, but… stop a bullet? Probably not. His shard platform flew up above the thug with the gun, and in one fluid motion, shot down.

Right on top of his head. KaTHUNK!!

“Make a run for it, already!!” Shin shouted at them both, on top of the gun-man. “I’ll cover your retreat.”