C.J. stood and looked out at the expansive view. It was vertigo inducing, even with all the safety precautions. He stood there, on top of the Empire State building, in a white shirt and baggy jeans trying to keep track of his feet before they did something stupid. As a precaution he made sure not to touch the metal, in tense situations he didn't have complete control over himself. It wouldn't have been the first time he had flickered his powers through fear and made the density of a substance rise or make it rust through.

'Just, pay attention to something, it's fine.'

He decided the best thing to watch was the Statue of Liberty; he got to see two sites in one, thus cutting off a whole other leg of his journey. There were people all around and C.J. was getting really bored. He watched people that looked like ants and buildings that looked like people, but it all got sort of... Monotonous. Perhaps too much exposure to amazing stuff had dulled his amazing senses.

'Geez, that took like, three minutes to get old...'

A flier of some description lay on the ground, the type the anti-mutant groups seemed to hand out on the corner, and Alchemist picked it up. It was still in pretty good condition so he began folding. First in half, then the nose, and for the purpose very large wings. Finally his glider was ready. One... Two... Three... Lift off. He threw the plane. He watched it go down, then the wind picked it up and blew it away. He watched the brightly coloured piece of paper into the distance and sighed. Well, it had been fun at least.

'If only I had a coin...'

Noah hadn't been around New York for long, but he had already found his favorite pastime in the city. Before traveling up North, the mutant had never had so much free space to 'stretch his legs', and definitely didn't have the heights. Sure, the man had spent countless hours flashing around in backwoods and through smaller city streets, but the Carolinas had nothing that compared to this oversized concrete playground. Honestly, words could hardly describe the amount of addictive rush that came with the sensory surge of plumetting off of the side of a building, transforming one's body into a photon-based entity with only a sense of sight, and then reforming thousands of feet away on top of another structure. And really, for things that words can't describe, Noah tried mathematical equations..

[------------------------------------------------------]
For any given mutant (m),
If downward rate of travel (d) equals 9.81m/s²
And upwards rate of travel (u) equals 2.99⁸ m/s,
One can assume that: m(|u-d|) = HOLY ****
[------------------------------------------------------]

Sure, the guy may not have been a mathemetical prodigy, but he may have just hit on a new law of Physics. After another rigorous session of putting his new theory to the test, Noah sat down casually on the edge of a skyscraper. Idly kicking his feet back and forth as they dangled, the mutant had to look twice when he saw something float by less than twenty feet away. While it was far from an understatement that NYC was messy, there was no way that was random trash floating around. Upon closer inspection, it looked almost like a paper airplane. Trying to follow the trajectory of the errant flier led Noah's eyes back to the Empire State Building's observation deck - one of the few locations higher up than he currently was. And surely enough, he could barely make out a figure that seemed to be keeping up with the airplane. As his lips curled into a thinly-veiled grin that looked vaguely reminiscent to the Grinch, Noah pushed himself off of the side of the building, almost like a scuba diver scooting off of a boat and back into water. It was time for some more entertainment...

With a faint flash, the mutant was in midair, corporeal and carefully grabbing hold of one of the plane's wings. Another light flicker, and both Noah and the object were photons; as quickly as it had occurred he was on the observation deck with the airplane in an outstretched hand, peering over the stranger's shoulder.."Hey, is this yours?"

Juka was on top of a skyscraper. The question for some might have been, how exactly did he get to be on top of said sky scraper. But for Juka, the amazing bubble mancing mutant, the answer was simple: he had floated there in a giant bubble of course. The really important question was not how he had gotten there, but why he was there. And that answer was that he was up there to gain some privacy in order to think. And despite what certain others might believe and despite his often times lack of common sense, Juka did, indeed like to think. Particularly at night when there was no one around in which he must constantly be Juka Miami, fabulous performer extrodinair.

Ironically, Juka had come atop his skyscraper late at night for the purposes of thinking about exactly how he would once again become the amazing performer he knew that he was. In particular, his desire to form a band. It had been months since he got to the city and not performing was slowly killing him from the inside out. He lived to perform, to sing and be the center of attention, and not doing so was, well, not to his liking at all. And so here he was atop a skyscraper contemplating where and how he was going to find the perfect band members to compliment his greatness. And, in fact, here he had been for at least the last 12 hours.

What had started out as a musical considering had just recently turned into a consideration of a different sort. Why wasn't he tired, for one thing? He knew that he should have been. Juka may have been a night owl all his life but even he was human and needed to sleep. But now, as had been happening a lot recently, he didn't feel the least bit of fatigue, not the slightest hint of it. And it wasn't as if he had really changed his routine much in the last week either, he continued his nightly bubble floats around the city, continued visiting the Mansion and his darling girl Jewel. And Ghosty of course as well. But something seemed to have changed, he just wished he could figure out what. And other weird things had been happening recently as well, always when he was playing with his bubbles, and always of the most bizarre and unexplainable sort. When one of his kittens had started shedding all of his fur only to be replaced, in mere minutes, by its summer coat, for example, had freaked him out horribly.

Juka's contemplations were interrupted when a little paper airplane floated past him and then a...flash of light that caused the plane to disappear? It was just the sort of distraction that he needed and, without even the vaguest thought to potential consequences, Juka bubbled and took to the air, trying to discover where the plane had gone or, failing that, where it had come from. It seemed he was in luck for the latter, as the only other rooftop inhabiting person he spotted in the distance on the Empire State Building. Deciding that he really didn't like the direction his thoughts were going anyway, Juka floated himself over there. And just as he arrived he heard a bodiless voice asking if the plane was the man's on the roof. Not taking any pains to hide himself, Juka floated slightly above the man on the roof, curious.

C.J. looked at the plane. It did seem to be his. The question was, why it was there again. Well, it appeared he could never escape the fact that he lived with mutants, even atop what had to be the tallest building he had ever seen. How intolerably droll. He turned to look at the person handing the plane to him and was vaguely aware of the fact the stranger had provided some light with their entry. The stranger was almost as tall as him as well, which was not something he was accustomed to in the good ol' U.S. of A. "So it is. I'm gathering you were the light effects over there?" He gestured with his thumb toward the direction he had previously been facing.

'Well at least this gives you something to do.'

He retrieved his plane from the blonde mutant and again turned to throw it. He was very much and overhand thrower and was very surprised when his plane seemed to crumple in his hand and he could go no further with it. He looked up. There, floating slightly above him, was an eight foot tall bubble like object, with what appeared to be a six foot tall humanoid inside. Well, two mutants in one minute, that was very unusual. "Hi to you too ball person. You know I must admit I'm not used to being ambushed by quite so many mutants at once."

'Sure, the one day I don't have my sword on me, Not even a knife in my boot.'

C.J. again turned to face the brown haired teleporter and took a step back, putting him almost against the guard fence. That way at least he could see the bubble mutant as well this way. Both seemed relatively thin in comparison to his rather heavy frame, not that that meant anything when mutations came into the equation. Perhaps the two mutants were once and the same? It didn't really matter.

A cloud passed in front of the sun and Alchemist's vision was dulled by the sudden darkening. He took off his sun glasses and deposited them in his pocket, no harm done advertising his mutantness in the company of mutants. His right eye was light green in colour, his left light pink. Unease and surprised, not that anyone but himself really knew that. "So, I'm Alchemist, who are you guys?"

'Stranger danger fail?'

Bored.

Creia was bored.

A soft sigh escaped her thinly shaped lips. She knew it: Today was going to be one of those days. Now Creia wasn’t one to follow virtues or the type to make herself a better person but patience… patience was the reason why the smart stayed alive. It had only been one week since she broke out of the local nut house. And though those jelly filled poor excuses for the law probably had more important crimes to worry about, it wasn’t like she was going to jump around and start a “Creia’s Free” parade.

She leaned back against the glass barrier of the Empire State Building’s observatory deck and watched the city sky behind the protective metal crosshatched fence. With the bars, the city looked exactly how she saw it… through her ward’s cell room.

‘Funny.’ She thought, ‘Even though I am technically free, this world still has a way to make me feel like I'm standing behind bars.’

Creia reached into her pocket and pulled out a sucker. She carelessly unwrapped the candy and flicked the trash into the wind. Psssh, it wasn’t like the city was clean to begin with. She placed the lolly in her mouth and allowed her eyes to scan idly. She should probably feel grateful for the view… Funded, of course, by the local Wall Street broker who was too busy looking at the street vendor’s menu to pay attention to her hands in his back pocket.

Her eyes became drawn to the male standing near the rail. He was folding something. A… paper plane?

“Wow… don’t tell me you came all the way here to do that…” She muttered to herself.

She watched the paper plane swoop downwards towards the city streets. Amazing… today, we learned that paper planes can glide. She shook her head and started to turn to leave this insult of a place.

Then, it happened.

From the corner of her eye, she saw something quickly pop into the picture. It was a man holding the paper plane in his fingers. Creia rose a brow as she pulled down her the hood on her sweatshirt to hide her eyes.

“Hey, is this yours?”

What? Did the man think he lost that piece of paper on accident… or maybe he was a hardcore green freak and thought picking up that plane would save the world? Loser. Creia’s vision shifted a moment to the new player coming onto the stage. A man-chick in a bubble. Wonderful.

"So, I'm Alchemist, who are you guys?"[/b] The litterer said, interrupting her thoughts.

Creia could feel her heart beat. Two, maybe three mutants all in one setting? Hmmm… maybe Daddy was sending her a gift. A little ‘Welcome Back’ present if you will.

“Shhh…” She whispered to herself as she placed her index finger towards her thin smirking lips. “Patience is a virtue, Daddy…For now… we must watch before we hunt…”

Today was going to be one of those days.

-["So it is. I'm gathering you were the light effects over there?"]-
The mutant held his tongue as he looked over the individual in front of him. Was this just how New York was in terms of being around mutants? Such nonchalant response to mutations was something that Noah had yet to grow accustomed to, but in retrospect it was a good thing; he wouldn't have wanted to startle someone this high up, protective fence around the deck or not. Noah heaved his shoulders into a casual shrug in response to the young man in front of him, just as snagged a hold of his 'special delivery' airplane. And nearly as soon as he had re-acquired it, the owner attempted to turn around and let it fly once more... without much luck. The stranger had attempted to launch the object right into another (albeit more blatant) mutant. Oh well, at least this guy wouldn't be making Noah play fetch off the side of a skyscraper all day...

While this newcomer's evolutionary status was extremely obvious, his gender was a bit more vague. The androgynous asian seemed to be floating in a bubble just off of the platform, which raised its own set of questions; though, Noah had another few queries running through his mind. Was he just some sort of beacon for asian mutants, or just prone to end up around mutants in general? Regardless, it was certain that he wouldn't be having many dull moments if this kept up.. Mr. Harper was pulled from his introspection not by the curious gawks of onlookers, nor the words of Paper-airplane pilot as he spoke to both of the mutants, but by a cloud passing overhead and dimming his vision slightly. He looked up, to see the floating person still, well.. floating.. and the other man taking off some glasses to reveal a pair of heterochromatic eyes. Noah may have dismissed it as a baseline human trait, but he was pretty sure the one pink iris threw that right out of the window... or the side of the building, in this case.

-["So, I'm Alchemist, who are you guys?"]-
"Noah.", the young man said in a curt tone, quirking a brow before casting a sidelong glance at the bubbled mutant. With an exasperated sigh, Noah slipped his hands into his pockets. For some reason, he wasn't in the mood for fancy introductions or theatrics right now. Was it because he hadn't caught any reaction from his 'trick', or because he hadn't noticed the presence of the other mutant coming up almost at the same time he had?

Juka bowed in typical dramatic Juka fashion to the man on the building and then, for good measure, bowed in the direction of the glowy light person too. The first man, he decided, based on his eyes may or may not be a mutant. The second man most certainly was. And then the first man introduced himself as Alchemist, a mutant name if Juka had ever heard one. Ooh, this was most certainly going to be fun and he was barely able able to restrain himself from jumping up and down in excitement within his bubble. He contented himself with a wide goofy grin instead.

"I am Juka Miami," he proclaimed to the both of them, filled with self importance. "Perhaps you've heard of me." Far too few people in this city seemed to have heard of him, a problem he most certainly needed to fix. Thus his earlier conemplations of finding bandmates. Once he was performing and onstage again, then people would know his name. He vowed it would be soon. "And it is not a ball, my dear Alchemist," he stated, with just the barest hint of disaproval, "it is a bubble. There is a difference." His slight disaproval was made even less by the wide grin he continued to wear.

Juka was vaguely aware that there were onlookers giving the three of them some rather uncertain looks. Or, perhaps they were just giving him uncertain looks, since he was the one in the giant floating bubble. At the moment, however, he didn't particularly care. Here he was with two shiny new mutants to play with, so what if he was getting funny looks? He always got funny looks. Either that, or adoring looks. Sometimes both at once. "So, what brings the two of you up onto this fine building?" he asked.

"So, I'm Alchemist, who are you guys?"
"Noah."
"I am Juka Miami."


‘So Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest.’ Creia thought as she nodded to herself, ‘Easy enough names to remember.’


While Dumbest was explaining the difference between a ball and a bubble, Creia took a moment to glance around. Though mutants have been around for some time now, it didn’t mean that all humans were comfortable being close to them. Most of the tourists had left or moved to the opposite side of the freak show and some of them were clearly trying to conceal their occasional peek. She looked at her surrounding area. She was the only person standing relatively close to the three. Wonderful, she just loved sticking out.


Still, it wasn’t the time to come out of the mutant closet and kill these three. No. Dumber had some ability to pop out of nowhere with a glow effect and Dumbest…Dumbest had a bubble. Obviously on top of a skyscraper like this, those two had a pretty good advantage of flying off or defending from a long distance. She hadn’t seen Dumb’s mutation yet or really had any evidence if he was indeed a mutant. Who knows, maybe his parents watched too much anime and gave him a pathetic nickname.


She had to get closer to those three and make them go to her home field, the ground. But how? She was suddenly reminded of one of her favorite Amor Proibido soap opera episode. In it Isabella wanted to see if Santiago was cheating on her with another woman. So she bleached her hair blonde, placed on a push-up bra and went to the local night club as Maria, the desperate lover. She was then able to seduce Santiago and prove that he was indeed cheating on her… with her.


The episode proved a point. She needed a disguise, a way she could get closer to the three without letting them know who she really was… Perhaps even befriend them on some level. Her heart began to beat loudly.


“Don’t worry Daddy dear…” She whispered as she placed her right hand over her heart, “I know it isn’t my style to be so covert but Daddy… I know… mutant souls are worth more to you than those weakling humans. If I went on a rampage now, I might be sent away to the ward again and it would be so much harder to do your bidding there.” A grin appeared on her lips, “Daddy, I know you are mad at me now but please wait a little longer…just a little longer? I assure you the blood of these three will be some of the sweetest blood you have ever tasted…”


And with that she walked over to the band of mutants. She raised her hands to her hood and slowly brought it down. She looked up at them. Her face had a huge smile on it and her eyes brightly twinkled in the sunny sky. Creia giggled lightly like a school girl would.


“YAY!” She cheered while clapping her hands enthusiastically. Her voice sounded somewhere between a valley girl and a teenage gossip queen. “Bravo! You three are like so amazing! Oh, I so totally liked that paper plane trick you did! One minute it was flying towards the ground, the next in your hand, and the next hitting that chic-I mean person!” She laughed, “Are you three some sort of entertainment troupe?”

C.J. nodded to Noah and tilted his head at Juka. He smiled and blinked politely."You know I have heard of you, you're that, Japanese was it? musician. What are you doing out here? On tour? Must admit my tastes and yours don't intertwine perfectly but I do like it a little." He was absolutely convinced he was right, there had been so much talk about him on the internet, mostly from teenage girls jumping up and down and calling him the most beautiful person ever, minus the decent spelling and lack of caps lock.

'Must admit, he looks like a girl.'

C.J. almost died of shock when some imbecile girl decided that they were her entertainment and somehow she was their fan. The fact she decided this at the top of her voice didn't help. He glared heavily at her, his eyes now glowing pink, somewhere around shock but below anger. "Look, friend, the last thing we need right now is a stupid fan girl screaming in our ears."

'Freaking americans...'

His entire life he had not met a more loud group of humans. It seemed they all had it in their minds that the perfect level to talk at would be a couple of decibels above a jet engine, and even louder in some cases. He ignored the girl. Those of the squealing description made him uncomfortable, they drew unwanted attention like a magnet draws up a piece of iron. Rapidly so long as certain distance requirements were met. It just happened the distance for a magnet was much less than the half mile of fan girls. Maybe if she were fused to the crosshatched protective rails she would stop being his fan? No, there was no call for violence.

'Although given the current run of events she could be a mutant... Even worse. Girl with super loud voice and powers... possibly to make herself louder.'

Noah's ears were ringing. His head was reeling. His train of thought, derailed.

What could've been so nerve wracking to cause such a reaction in Noah? The shrill voice of the mutants' latest spectator, who seemed to have been able to embody all of the most mind-numbingly painful aspects of every teenage-girl cliche he could think of, almost to the point that he could hardly believe this wasn't some figment of his imagination.. Hadn't he already escaped high school?

-[YAY!Bravo!You three are like so amazing! Oh, I so totally liked that paper plane trick you did! One minute it was flying towards the ground, the next in your hand, and the next hitting that chic- yadda yadda yadda...]-

Sure, he was listening to the Asian guy-irl introduce itself (Wasn't Juka his(?) name?), and was pretty sure that he had nodded his recognition before the newcomer arrived, but he could hardly remember what he was doing on the observation deck pre-punk rock princess let alone what was happening ten seconds ago. But really, something was off with this picture. He was pretty sure that no group that looked like such a motley crew --and no, not tha Crüe-- had ever warranted a fangirl just for standing around, be they blind, psychotic, or packing any other handicap imaginable. Still, one more possibility..

Mustering a quaint smile to the petite girl, Noah leaned forward slightly as he tucked both of his hands into his pants pockets as he spoke in as polite a tone as he could manage. "Hi, sorry to disappoint you, but first of all, we're not a troupe of any kind, and secondly I doubt what just happened was even remotely entertaining. Are you by any chance on drugs right now?"

So, now Noah was dealing with Air-head, Air-bubble, and full o' Hot-air. How exactly did he fit into that equation?

While Juka was certainly used to having fan girls worship the very ground he walked on, and in some cases fan boys as well, there was just something a little off about this particular fan girl. For one thing, she didn't appear to be Juka's fan girl, she appeared to be a fan girl of all of them and while he may not have been the best judge of people, he could tell that the other two were not performers, certainly not like he was. And what was that about...being an entertainment troupe? He wasn't exactly sure what being an entertainment troupe entailed, but he was fairly certain that it was nothing up to the caliber of being a musician, especially a musician such as he was and, he decided, being accused of being less than he was was just plain insulting. He gave the woman his best condescending look. "You can clearly see that I am a much higher caliber of performer than my two dear companions here," he gestured towards the other two, "and also that none of us are an entertainment troupe. Are you a little slow in the head?" He didn't think of the inadvertent insult that he might have given to the other two on the rooftop with him, nor the fact that he had just blatantly insulted the fan girl. But she had deserved it, after all, having insulted him first.

And then he heard Alchemist mention that he had heard of Juka and his band and all thoughts of the insult the girl had made to him were instantly forgotten. "You wonderful wonderful man, you," he beamed at Alchemist. "I knew there was something to like about you. And no, sadly, I am not on tour. Indeed, I sadly have no band at the moment either and am in search of fellow musicians that can live up to my glory and prestige well enough to play alongside me. You wouldn't happen to know any?" he asked hopefully.

Upon hearing Light Man (which did seem like a perfectly good name to Juka and rather descriptive too) suggest that the fan girl was on drugs, Juka nodded knowingly. Suddenly her behavior made perfect sense and was really rather sad. "What an unfortunate situation," he confided sadly in Noah. "I had a friend once who got hooked on the stuff. Really, not good at all." He shook his head in disappointment and gave the girl his best pitying look. He simply couldn't bring himself to hate someone who clearly had so many problems in life.

"My dear," Juka addressed the drug using fan girl, "if you need some help for your problem I'm sure I could find someone. All you have to do is ask." He smiled his best supportive smile.

So they all pretty much thought she was a druggie.

All she was doing was acting like the idiots they were. Hell, she thought she was speaking their language. She let out a sigh and contemplated the worthiness as offerings for her Daddy.

But she did learn some new things. For one, Dumb had to be a mutant. She did not see many humans with color changing eyes. Why did he make his eyes pink anyway? Furthermore she had learned who Dumbest was. Some Japanese singer who was band mate-less. But then again, would who blame them. She wouldn’t be caught dead in a band with a cross dressed thing.

Her plan was failing and she had to recover fast. She could see no way to get then down with just asking them. No. She had to hit deeper… with maybe one of mankind’s most noticeable weakness.

“Oh, I’m sorry about you band mates…” Creia had lessened the high school girl act. “And I am not on drugs!” She began to pout.
“My Daddy is like a talent scout here in NYC and he told me to keep an eye out for something entertaining. You guys with that paper plane were really funny, so I like thought that you guys were an act. Like you know, one of those flash mobs that are so popular these days?” Creia then crossed her arm and looked aside. She made her pout more visibly evident and had soften her voice in a sign of emotional defeat, “I was going to invite you guys to Masa… you know that Japanese restaurant downtown with the $400 entrance fee?” She pulled out the wallet she had stole and showed off a few of the Ben Franklins in it before hiding it back in her pocket.

“I’m not on drugs…” She reiterated, “I just get excited when I see something I think is entertaiment…” Her eyes fell upon Dumbest, “I guess I was a third right…” She added with a weaker voice.

Creia forced a sniffle. She truly doubt she would get any sympathy from the three but maybe the allure of money would seal the deal.

So many options so little time. Juka seemed more up himself than the forums suggested, otherwise likable enough, he could talk to him, but now he seemed interested in... The drug addict who refused to admit she had a problem. Noah, he would call him flasher, because it was funny, was a tad closed off, but then again the only times he opened up to strangers was when he felt relatively secure around them. Perhaps that's why he opened up to Meld, she could take care of herself, and didn't pose an immediate threat. And then of course the druggie herself, something about her story had holes in it, perhaps it was the gaping hole about how the hell she got her hands on the cash.

'Quite a conundrum.'

He went with a safer option whilst not seeming like he was completely ignoring everyone, Juka. at least if he got him talking it didn't seem he could shut up. Especially about himself. "I play drums, to a degree, maybe a bit rusty, I haven't touched any in a few months. Do you play an instrument?" Yes, that would keep him going hopefully while he ignored the fact that the drug crazed freak was doing everything in her power to stay within their group. If only he had so much as a knife in his boot. No, no just being annoying does not warrant death.

'One little stab wouldn't kill her, just maim.'

He shook the thought from his mind and eyed off the wallet. What the hell, one meal with a fan couldn't hurt. Even if she was more instant than cup-O-noodles. Free food, though, sounded much like the Mansion. If the mansion had a four hundred dollar entry fee, being payed for you by a drug addict packing twelve hundred in cash. He was bored with the view anyway, a few skyscrapers and a green statue of French origin. His sightseeing was done. "As for you food would be great and I'm sure no-one would refuse such generosity." He dearly hoped the others felt the same; going with a crazy girl by himself was unappealing.