Nova ran out the backdoor of the restaurant with a pizza-box propped on her right hand and garlic bread sticking out of her mouth, making sure to grab her skateboard on the way out. She never wore any protective gear. It just made her feel like a weakling. When she wore a helmet, it made her hair stick to her head with sweat. She preferred enjoying the feeling of the wind blowing through her hair. Also, Nova wasn't wearing her uniform today. The Boss always said that uniforms were absolutely mandatory, so she chose not to wear it on a regular basis, just to piss him off. When Nova reached the sidewalk, she quickly placed the board in front of her and she placed a foot on it, kicking off with the other. She was swift to avoid the many people who swarmed the sidewalk, leaning this way and that going left and right whenever she needed to dodge somebody.

It was another typical day of work delivering pizzas for Lombardi's pizza. Going back and forth between Lombardi's and a resident's home in New York City. Yup, that was the life. Nova looked at the address she wrote down on the yellow sticky note which was stuck to the pizza box. Some guy named Fry living at 202 East 5th street Clever. If the guy didn't want anyone to know his real name, all he had to do was at least try. Some thing like John Smith or Robert Deel. I mean, really? Who was he kidding? Anything would be better than just Fry. Even Frylock would have been better.

She rode through Motts St and crossed the road and took a right at Bleeker St., then a left at Bowery. She reached the Fry guy's street quickly and turned into it. The sticky note said he'd be waiting outside the apartment on the staircase. And sure enough, as she pulled up on her skateboard, she saw a man in a trench coat and bowler hat sitting on the steps to the apartment, lighting a cigarette. Nova rolled up to him and kicked her skateboard up and grabbed it with her left hand, holding the pizza with her right. She casually walks up to the man and greets him with:

"Hey. You Mr. Fry? Ordered a supreme pizza?"

Nova hated her accent. It was absolutely ridiculous. It was a mix of British and New Yorker American accent. Very strange to anyone that could hear her talk when she wasn't trying to disguise her accent as she was doing at that very moment. She had a very convincing American accent. The man simply nods. He breathes in deeply taking in his cigarettes' fumes and holds it away from himself as he digs in his pocket for his wallet. Nova smirks but quickly suppresses it.

"How much?"

His voice sounded too deep for his looks, in Nova's opinion. Also his legs were really long and were out of sync with the rest of his body. He pushed himself off of the steps and walks towards her. He pulls out a twenty from his wallet and holds it out to her.

"Keep the change, doll."

The name calling irritated Nova quite a bit, but she exchanged the pizza for the money and murmured: "If you insist."

Nova didn't notice, but a police car had pulled up about a parking space away from where they were. She gestured a lazy wave at him.

"Enjoy your pizza..."

Nova turned around only to see two policeman walk up and onto the sidewalk, blocking the direction she was intending on going. She barely took a few steps before freezing. Her nerves were already going haywire and she could feel her heart in her chest beating a little faster. She never liked cops. In fact, she's always hated them. Always trying to avoid them since she came to America. And she did a great job at keeping them off her back. But it's been four years now....

"Say, uh, Miss Holmes? May I ask how long you've been in the pizza delivery business?"

Nova's heart froze in her chest and time seemed to stop altogether. The man called Fry called her by her real name. Nobody knew her real name. When she rented out the apartment she used a fake name. She even used a fake name for her job. She turned to look at the undercover police officer, keeping her head tilted low but her furious gaze on him.

"A few years now..."

"Oh, how long would a few years be, would you say, uhh, I dunno, four years is about right?"

She could hear him breathe in deeply and take in the fumes of his cigarette. His smug voice was disgusting. She hasn't exactly been delivering pizza for four years. More like two or whatever. But still... Four years... Paranoia started creeping up on her. Had they been tracking her from Europe? No, they couldn't have. They should have given up on that case forever ago, if there ever was one. Her files were supposedly lost...

"How long you been in the Police-ing business? I'd say not long considering it was too ******* easy to tell your name was fake. You ever take an I.Q. text? What was your score, 60 or somethin'?"

God, she was being such a smart-ass. If she had wanted to get that pathetic smirk off of the bastard's face, consider her goal complete.

Suddenly. Nova bolted. Survival mode was kicked into gear. She ran fast in between two cops blocking her way, who in turn, tried to grab her. But she twisted from their arms and got on her skateboard, riding as fast as she could possibly go towards where she came. She could vaguely hear them yelling things out, Whether they were meant for her she didn't know nor did she care. All she cared about was getting the hell away from them. She could only hear the blood pumping in her head. She cut through an alleyway, jumped a few fences, got barked at, cursed at, etc. as she went through many apartment complexes. She crossed several roads whose name she didn't care to catch. She could hear the sirens of the police somewhere in the distance. She was about to cross Copper Square when suddenly, a police car screeched to a stop right in front of her. Nova jumped on the hood of the police car on her skateboard and jumped off, continuing the sidewalk across the street. But not before a dozen or so cars honked at her furiously, to whom she responded with a graceful flick of her middle finger.

She cut through the very narrow street that was E. fourth street, a one way street, so the cops couldn't follow her in there unless they got out of their cars. Nova started slowing herself down, taking it more easy. She was rolling down the road when she saw a police man answering to his radio and looking right at her.

"**** me! **** **** bags!"

Her accents were beginning to mix up, which was a pretty good indicator that she was pretty darn angry. Can't a girl just get a break? She took off again into another alleyway. But she had to get off her skateboard and run with her own two feet because there was too much trash laying around. She had an idea. Nova concentrated her feet against the ground, the vibrations she was sending it, causing disruption. This made the ground split just slightly where her feet were landing as she ran, hoping to slow down the policemen. Nova didn't want to know why they were after her, but it was better to be safe than sorry. She probably couldn't even go back to that little shabby apartment of hers. Would she have to leave New York? How far would they follow her? Should she leave the nation all together? It felt as if her heart was breaking. She had just started this new life of hers only to have it snatched away just like that. It just wasn't fair. Just as she was thinking this, she reached a dead end.

"You have got to be ******* me..."

"Freeze!"

Nova's shoulders slouched as she released a long sigh.

"I said Freeze!"

She could scarcely hear the fear in the man's voice.

"Turn around, hands where I can see them!"

It was obvious the man was holding a gun to her. She could hear the rattling of the metal as the man's hands shook. Terra put her hands up halfway and turned around slowly. Nova had been held at gunpoint on several occasions. It was hard to really surprise her. And she knew the cop wouldn't shoot unless she made a sudden movement.

"On the ground!"

Nova kneeled to the ground and smiled. The policeman stepped forward... and Nova slammed her hands into the ground. Where the policeman stood, the earth rose fast in the shape of the wall going from both walls of the alleyway. A bullet escaped the man's gun as he tripped backwards and flipped over and onto the other side of the wall. She heard the thud and the man's painful grunt and felt the ground vibrate under her when he hit the dirt. Nova felt sadness consume her. It was all over... but first. She had to get out of there. She had basically just trapped herself into a pit and out of the danger... for now. Surely the police officer would be calling for backup. Nova looked up and saw a ladder hanging from the fire escape on the side of the building. She turned around and saw a dumpster on the other side. If she could get on the dumpster and jump and reach the ladder, she could get herself out of this whole mess. And that's exactly what she did.

Nova backed away and ran towards the dumpster. She jumped and stepped on the side pushing herself up and catching the edge with her fingers. She pulled herself up, pushing with her feet against the side. Man, that dumpster sure was tall. She stood up on top of the dumpster and carefully stared at the ladder, preparing herself. Then, after a few seconds, she dashes forward and leaped off and caught the third rung up. Her fingers almost slipped but managed to hold on. Taking a deep breath and holding it, she pushed herself up placing her feet on the bottom rung of the ladder. She released her breath and started to climb, thanking mother luck for looking after her. After several minutes of going up the fire escape, she reached the roof, where she sat against the ledge to think.....

((OOC: I hope you don't mind me throwing you a lame little human to play with. PM me if I need to change anything. ))

"Ya-har!" Eye patch askew, Jude made an impressive sort-of caddywhompus attempt at a flip that really just turned into a lame hop. But that mighty hop ended with a wooden sword pointed right at the intruder! And that had been his aim all along! Ha ha!

"What be ye doing on my rooftop?" It was a strange mixture of French and over-zealous pirate. Obviously the eleven year old in the large plumed hat had no idea of the police dealings below. Loud sounds were common in the streets. Visitors to a semi-peaceful rooftop garden, however, were not.

"Whoa. What is ziz?" The tip of the fake sword dipped when he caught sight of a red and blue light strobing below.

((OOC: Nope, I'm totally cool with this! Thanks! ))


"I hate cops..."

>>"Ya-har!"

Nova whipped her head up to see a kid no more than twelve pretending to be a pirate who clumsily pointed a wooden sword at her. Nova didn't mean to glare at him for surely he meant no harm at all but really, she was in no mood for it and glared anyways. She was in the middle of a get-away and there was no room or time for joking around. Unfortunately, she missed the silly attempt of a flip to lighten up her foul feelings.

>>"What be ye doing on my rooftop?"

Nova raised an eyebrow and smirked mockingly at the boy. Still she had to admit to herself his accent was quite amusing. She tilted her head to the side and decided to humor him.

"Your rooftop, you say? Oh, my. I apologize for the intrusion."

Then there came the whiney noise that was the police siren and noticed from the corner of her eye the blue and red lights flashing below from the police cars. They would be up there soon if she didn't scram. She dutily noted the boy dip his sword as he was caught off guard by this. Nova quickly stepped forward, grabbed the wooden sword and yanked it from the boy's hands. She flipped the sword and caught it at the hilt with her right hand. She was already on edge and maybe he would understand her jumpy behavior. Not wanting to seem too rude, she said:

"Sorry kid. Play time is over."


Nova ran to the opposite edge of the rooftop but found that the nearest rooftop was too far off for her to jump. She looked down and saw that there were police at the bottom. Staring down at the ground from way up high like that made her a little dizzy and fearing she would fall, she stepped back from the ledge. She walked backwards for a bit and then just stood there not knowing what she was to do, feeling like a mouse caught in a trap. She turned her head and looked at the kid. She got this really annoying feeling that he was the key to getting out of there safely. Or at least somewhat safely... Though he might be a bit unwilling after the way she snatched his toy from him. Nova was an incredibly beautiful girl but she couldn't possibly charm a kid who's balls hadn't even dropped yet. But she could still try.

Nova smiled warmly at the kid and flipped the sword around in her hand so that the hilt was pointing at the kid, so that he could take it.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot... but..." ah, what the hell. She was never good at not getting right to the point. "I need your help. You seem like a smart kid..." Not. "You wouldn't happen to know a quick way out of here, would you?"

His mouth was already wagging open from the scene below when his sword was confiscated from his grasp. Double incredulousness!

Good girl or bad girl? The eleven-year old pulled up his eye patch to better assess the teen in front of him. His opinion slowly but steadily declined. She was almost an embarrassing amount taller than himself, she'd taken his only hope of a weapon and talked down to him even going as far as to call him a kid. Jude was not a kid.

The only thing she really had going in her favor, in Jude's opinion, was her luxurious color of skin and eye color. She had the lightest color of golden eyes he had ever seen beside Ghost's, his adoptive mother's. She was attractive. Like, Svetlana attractive but in a far more exotic way.

"You are a bad girl, aren' you?" He frowned even when she gave him his sword back, but decided to hear her out. Ghost would say that it didn't matter if she was good or bad. That everyone deserved kindness if they had the courage to ask for it... or something like that. He didn't really get it, but she was in a need. A lady in need was guilty indeed. That's what Noir movies had taught him and that was something he could believe in. Besides, it rhymed. Things that rhymed were often true.

"I know ze way." He dropped all pretense of piracy, grabbed the girl's wrist (which felt kind of grimey.... ew.), and pulled her through a small rooftop garden area to a hatch door. The stairs were very loose feeling and made of old wood. The building was obviously old, but restored enough to live in.

"I don't know if you could sneak out wissout zem seeing you. Do you want to hide?" There were plenty of nooks and crannies away from the windows up here in the stairwell.

Nova was getting anxious as the boy took his time to evaluate her. Maybe she should just knock him out and take her chances alone? But those chances were far to slim to her liking.... Either way, she could tell he was not very happy with her. He looked even more upset when she called him a 'Kid'. But.... he was a kid! Why the long face? Still... Who could blame him? She wasn't treating him very nicely.

There was the clanking of metal down below from the ladder Nova had climbed up from. Nova critically stared at it before walking over and looking down. There were several policemen climbing the ladder, one after the other, down where Nova had her little leap of faith before climbing up the fire escape. Nova narrowed her eyes in hate. She was running out of time, and fast. She turned around and faced the little pirate wannabe.

"You are a bad girl, aren't you?"

Nova had to bite her lip in order not to snap at the kid. Or better yet, snap the kid's neck. He was getting on her nerves, his time consumption was getting on her nerves, that french accent of his was getting on her nerves. God have mercy! Nova took a deep breath to calm down. And anyway, who was she to talk about accents? Her heavy Americanized British accent probably wasn't any less annoying to him than his was to hers. And he would be the one, if he decided to help her, to get her out of the pickle she was in. Patience, Nova...


"You tell me, Ki-" She was about to say Kid again, but thought better of it. "You tell me...."

Nova didn't want to be bad, honestly, but she's sort of developed this kind of behavior through a long history of terrible circumstances and just plain bad luck.

Suddenly, he took her by the wrist saying he knew a way out and pulled her along with him. They went through a small rooftop garden area to a hatch door and into a somewhat old but livable conditioned building. He was right. She woudln't be able to sneak out with the whole block surrounded the way it was. This building was also most likely going to be searched. She was also way ahead of the kid. Nova was observing the stairway which was covered in holes and crannies. But those holes and crannies were simply just not big enough for her. She could kick a hole into the wall and she'd be able to hide in it and hide the hole with, say, some furniture? But I doubt the kid would like the idea of that, and beisdes, if the cops were searching the building, they'd be tossing furniture left and right to find her.


"Hide?"


The words of the kid echoing in her head over and over. And the fact that she couldn't go back 'home'... where was she to go where she wouldn't be found? Unless she took to just running and hiding. Which wouldn't be too different from how she lived a few years back. She got a really sick feeling in her stomach from thinking about it and a profound sadness which made her chest hurt.


It was definitely hard for someone with such a unique appearance to hide anywhere, or be in a disguise without being noticed anyway. Her dark skin and golden eyes... Who wouldn't notice that? Unless the kid had strong make up and colored contacts, there was no way she would go unnoticed even in a disguise. Maybe a clown outfit... She'd have to ask the kid again for help. The thought of that was even more annoying to her. But she had no one else to turn to at the moment. She'd be surprised if the kid continued to help a stranger. A stranger in a whole world of trouble, none the less...



"Hide? Tell me how am I supposed to hide in a place like this, kid?"


Woops! Did she say kid again? Oh, well... His feelings were none of her concern at the moment... Nova's heart began to accelerate. She hadn't been feeling like this for a while but now that she had hardly any options other than to face the police... She'd die before anyone ever put handcuffs on her. She'd die... or they would.

Well... if she didn't want to hide she could run...

Jude pulled his three cornered hat off of his head and slipped his eye patch off of his forehead. He offered it to her, the hat too. In fact... "My Sebastian haz old fashioned coat. If you stuff your hairz into ze hat you can be a man pirate. You don't look az a man now. Cops are not knowing you when you leave, but you will 'ave to go fast.."

He practcally forced the hat and eye patch into her hands and shuffled her toward the stairs. He stopped, ran back to the hatch and locked it from the inside. They shouldn't be allowed to kick a door in to a private residence without some kind of justification. He wasn't clear on what that meant exactly, but at the very least the little latch lock would slow them down. Maybe.

And one more level down, was a hall of apartments. Jude popped into the largest one and mere seconds later he was back with a very old looking coat. It was definitely something a pirate might wear. He also had a wig and a beard. Both were obviously fake up close, but maybe from a distance it could be okay.

Jude had a little disguise for himself too. Bottle-thick glasses, suspenders and a couple pens and some paper stuffed in his shirt pocket. Jude... was a nerd.

"Zere is a place you will blend perfectly. Come." He waved her to the final set of stairs in the building. They had a clinic to walk through and then they would be out on the street very close to the cops that were looking for her. But maybe... just maybe they wouldn't be looking for a nerd and a pirate.

Nova took the hat and the eye patch, though she probably wouldn't have had a choice anyway, what with the way he was urging her. He had a point though, they did have to hurry because they didn't have much time at all, and she cooperated well enough for she was obviously also in a hurry.

Nova held the hat and eye-patch in between her thighs and then she put her hair up into a messy bun, which she tied up with a hair tie that was once on her wrist. She put the hat over her head and stuffed the lose red hairs into it. Then she put the eye-patch on over her right eye. Jude lead her away into the building into a hall of apartments, and disappeared. Behind them she could hear the police trying to get that latch open, the one that the boy had just locked. The kid was back as soon as he had went with a raggedy old jacket, a wig and a fake beard. Nova rolled her eyes. They looked ridiculously fake but it would have to do. She spoke to him as she dressed.


"Say, ya got a name? If you don't want me to keep calling ya kid, you're going to have to give me something to work with. You can call me Nova. Just Nova."

Nova took the jacket from him and put it on. Then she removed the hat from her head and put on the wig and the beard. She put the hat back on to finish the pirate combo. Nova looked at the boy to see him getting dressed in an extremely nerdy outfit. She then stroked the beard with a smirk on her face as she cocked an eyebrow. She cleared her throat and concentrated on changing her voice so that she could at least pass off as a guy.

"How do I look?" Her voice cracked on the last word and she coughed then swallowed and cleared her throat again. Nova chuckled and spoke in her normal, suave voice. "That outfit suits you, ya know."

Nova meant this in a complimentary way, secretly calling him smart. He was, in fact, impressing Nova all the while. A real piece of work. He'd grow up to be someone really great one day. She could feel it in her gut, and usually, her gut was right. When she heard the police banging on the latch, Nova wiped the smile off of her face, and followed her helper away, through a clinic and out into the streets of New York City.

Nova was on red alert as she immediately saw to her left, the cops surrounding the building they were just in, but she played it off well as she walked with a casual and laid back stride, not too slowly and not too quickly. There was a swat car just across the street, too. Geez... this was turning into quite the scandal, wasn't it... Mutant related crimes must be taken more seriously. It was obvious as to why, but still... It's not like she attacked the officer or anything.


Nova and the boy passed the scene without attracting much attention, nothing more than just strange looks from random citizens which were gathered around the commotion. The police were much too preoccupied. They walked into the street and passed an electronics store with television sets in display behind the window. Nova froze as something caught her attention on the screens. The televisions were showing the building she was just in and a woman speaking about how a police officer was assaulted by a highly dangerous mutant. Nova's brow furrowed in frustration and she clenched her fists and teeth hard. Then she quickly turned away from the screen and walked in a much faster pace than before. Her eyes were wide with many emotions; fury, panic, and most of all, insecurity. What was she going to do and where was she going to go? She was too mad to think about it and would have to walk off her frustration. She would prefer to be punching the hell out of some punching bag, or maybe breaking random inanimate objects. Perhaps she could turn her little crappy apartment upside down, but she had to keep in mind to not even think about going anywhere near that place.


"Thanks for helping me, but you can leave me alone now..."

The detective sighed as he stood off to the side and watched as the news reporters began to milk the incident that had happened this night. So far, it did not seem all that dramatic. The undercover team had been waiting to bust this girl, for a reason he did not know, but the second that they tried to confront her, she ran. The goose chase started and in the mix of it, an officer who followed the suspect into the alley found out that she was a mutant. Before he knew it, ready to slap the cuffs on her for running, he claims that a “wall of stone just erupted from the ground” and separated him off from her. There was not assault, not even a single punch had been thrown, but the cop was milking what had happened.

Jorge shook his head as he stood there and finally turned back to the building they had surrounded. The girl had taken to the roof and so far no one had seen her leave. That was why they had called in the MRC, in order to handle a supposedly dangerous mutant.

She was a girl, on the run, who could happen to make walls of rock. He could see the danger in it, but she was not the one who made the first move. At least that is what he learned from the officer’s initial response to his questioning. Suddenly the man had narrowly survived a harrowing experience with a mutant who sent projectile rocks and stones everywhere, practically braining him in the back of the skull.

He was lucky he got out with his life.

“Pitiful.” he mumbled before he turned back to the scene at hand. “Any news?” he asked the nearest officer.

The man shook his head. “Their saying the roof access door has been locked from the inside. So they are going to attempt to bust in.”

“Alright, you tell them to hold their fire, understand? This is getting way out of hand. There is no evidence that the girl did anything violent.”

“She ran, sir.”

Jorge shook his head and pushed past him. There had to be a better way than this. Unfortunately a good majority of the cops in New York were jumpy around any types of mutants. Having seen what they have done to their city again and again, he really could not blame them. But still, that did not mean they could pass judgment on anyone whenever they felt like it, especially when they had not done a single thing wrong. At least not yet.

He sighed as he turned down the street, merely observing the people that were present when…something caught his eye down the way. In front of an electronic store window he caught a sight he never thought he would see…

“That a…pirate and a nerd?” he shook his head as he stared. They were extremely out of place. They were not doing anything suspicious but…why were they out here wandering around dressed like that. For a moment the thought crossed his mind to go over and ask them as he stood there, staring…

It was hard to ignore all that racket. Maya called for Jude to go see who was at the door until she realized that the sound was instead coming from the attic. Hadn't Jude been on the roof? Maybe he locked himself out...

The little door rattled with fierce determination and a steady rhythm. Well... that didn't sound like an eleven year old... The air elemental popped the lock and swung the hatch open between poundings and then had to jerk to the side and out of the way as a man with a small portable battering ram tumbled past her, down the short ladder and onto her attic floor.

"Can I help you, sir?"

She was clearly not who he was expecting.

A short exchange later and Maya quietly escorted the officers through her building to the front door. Without a warrant, she declined to let them search her home, but out of good will she took them on the world's shortest tour of the downstairs clinic. Her son was no where to be seen on the rooftop, according to the officers. Their fugitive was nowhere to be seen in her home, according to her. It seemed they were at an impasse so Maya escorted the gentlemen out to the street and thanked them for failing to do more damage than splinter the rooftop door jam.

The door did not hit them on the way out.

Maya followed them so that she could tell the the incident commander to lay off the potential destruction of her home and of her husband's clinic. She was distracted by a familiar face.

"Detective?" She tapped on the water man's shoulder what had been his name again? She cleared her throat and smoothed the pleat of her pants nervously. "If you happen upon my son, will you please bring him back in one piece? I'm going to double check that he's not inside, but your erm— peers seem intent on searching my home for your fugitive. I don't feel comfortable leaving with them breathing down my neck..."

She dipped her head to him once and skedaddled back inside. Maya trusted him to do his job and still keep an eye out for her adopted son because she was busy. Someone had to defend the sanctity of her hearth and home because the police were playing fast and loose in order to catch their latest quarry.

((OOC: Ghost won't be in this thread, I just wanted to establish where she was since she wasn't with Jude. ))

"S'cuse me, sir, you and your... erm... son? Yeah, you can't leave the area. Anyone in the surrounding area is a possible suspect so we're going to have to ask you to stay here."

A policeman had stopped her as he held out his badge right in her face. There were several orders cutting off the area with bright yellow 'caution' ribbon, or whatever that stuff was. ****! Go figure...

Jeez, ever heard of personal space, buddy?

She glared at him then turned around and stood there for a moment, staring angrily into space, trying to think of a way out of this.

"Go home, kid."

Nova was sick and tired of everything. She felt like she was going to blow up if she didn't scream. Then Nova acted on instinct. She bolted right through the ribbon and ran. But not before the police officer tried to grab her and instead, grabbed the tacky wig she was wearing and pulled it off, hat and all. She turned with wide eyes, her heart thumping wildly in her chest as the cop stood there dumbly holding the wig in his hands. The hat had fallen to the floor. He stood there speechless for a moment, taking in all of her features. Her tan skin, golden eyes and deep red hair, before stammering to get everyone's attention.


"Hey.. Hey it's her! She's over here! She's over here!"

"****!"

Nova knew better than to touch the idiot, so she sprinted down the street with all the speed she could muster.