"Ow!"

Now her butt hurt too! The twin sent a rueful nose wrinkle up at the guy, and patted at her sore backside. "Ver...ci..vi...mill...wha-- Urk!" And... then she was being held up against the wall again.

Her legs dangled limply, and she blinked at the guy. "I'm not apposed to say nothin... but no one never said anythin' about taking you nowhere." She pondered, probably something she should have done before speaking, but... clones were slow, what do you expect? A little whine issued from the back of her throat at the thought of leaving all of her soon to be stuff up on the roof... all alone... but if she was dead, it would be of no use to her! Dead people couldn't have things!

"Okay... I will take you... can I get down now?"

Once she was set properly back on her feet, the twin set about taking the stolen shoes from her shoulder, and putting them on the staircase that led up to the roof. After squinting at the Judge, she knelt and covered her mouth with her hands to whisper to the shoes...

...but forgot the whispering part. "You stay here! And if anyone tries to take my stuff, trip 'em!" With that task complete, she gripped Elke's bow tightly to her chest, and held her hand out for the man to take.

...and held it...

...and held it some more....

...And then her arm started to hurt, so she dropped it. Apparently he didn't like holding hands while walking places, which confused her to no end. "...Boss always holds my hand..." She grumbled, lower lip protruding out childishly. With a huff, the girl marched on down the stairs, only tripping a few times. Before she knew it, they were outside, and she was heading in the direction of the alley that Elke had told them to meet up in.

"...Should be in here... over where that light is, coz it's so bright and Boss is afraid of the dark." She pointed up ahead of her, grinning to herself in a very proud manner. She was going a good job, after all!

Behind them, in the shadows up above, Elke struggled to hold back a groan, and continued crawling along on the metal walkway of a fire escape. Of course... Of. Course.... The clone would gab about her fears. What else has she told the guy?

Also... why was she alive and unharmed? If he had pushed her other twin off the building, why was this one so lucky? Dark eyes squinted. Maybe... he had figured out they they were just clones and not actual people? If so, that probably spelled danger for her. She would need to be very, very careful....

Silently, she climbed over the rail above them, positioning herself so that if she jumped she would land right on top of the guy, and grinned. He may have magicked his way out of getting and arrow in the shoulder, but there would be no escaping her this time! The twelve year old tensed, let go of the railing, and lept!

"GERONIMO!!"

He watched silently as the girl spoke to her extra pair of shoes. He treated the exercise in extraordinary stupidity as a lesson on how this person's mutation might work. If he was right about the duplicates, they would only last a couple hours... At least the only other duplicator he'd met made them for that long... They were also exact clones of himself in every way, aside from being shorter and more annoying...

He eyed the clone for another moment as she finished her message to her sneakers. If it's creator was smart enough to ditch the would-be murder weapon with her, perhaps they made clones that were considerably less intelligent... For their sake he really hoped so, because he'd assembled smarter bags of hammers.

The Judge didn't even bother looking at the hand as she offered it so that he could walk with her... The very concept of him walking hand in hand with a possible mob hired assassin's clone was... ludicrous.

He tuned her out and allowed her to lead the way out of the building to her and her boss's supposed meeting place... It was a trap... The experienced crimefighter was damn sure it was a trap. Why? Because nothing was ever that easy... The Judge prepared for an ambush from all sides; foes guns blazing; notable cover positions were located, and bookmarked for later use, improvised weapons were pinpointed, and possible ambush points were... pointed out.

What came of the situation? What was the result of him being lured into an admittedly near perfect ambush location?

"GERONIMO!"

He felt a little girl flying toward him, and reached up to catch her before she landed on him... A quick peek showed there were no grenades attached. He tossed what he figured was another clone on the ground next to the other one. He turned to the clone who had lead him here and growled "Enough. Where is your boss? Tell me... now."

THUD

"Ow!" Pavement met face. Elke scrambled up from her failed tackle, and drew an arrow from her quiver. Her twin was busy staring at the masked man, who was now angry at her for reasons she couldn't fathom. "Huh? But.... she's right there?" She poined, dropped her hand, then pointed again with more energy. "Right there!"

"Bow! NOW!" Elke's shout snapped the clone out of her confusion, and she lobbed the bow at the girl. Elke caught it, nocked her arrow, and fired!

... and a toy arrow, suction cup tip and all, bounced off of the back of the Judges head. "Ah... hell..." Scampering to her feet, she pondered sticking around and trying to fire another, but decided against it after a moment. "SCATTER!"

A moment after the word left her lips, she turned and made a run for it. The twin froze on the spot, looking from Elke, to the judge, then back, before she turned and attempted to flee also.

His eyes widened as the twin pointed at the girl he'd just tossed to the side, and the image of a quiver on her back popped into his head. OF COURSE! She was the original, and she made life size copies of herself! They all seemed to be of similar intelligence, too, considering she was daft enough to try to attack him alone.

The twin tossed the bow to the side, and he felt a fake arrow hit him in the back of his head.

Part of him contemplated falling over laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of it all, and the rest of him wanted to capture this kid and find out who was stupid and evil enough to send her to try and stop him... Also, there was that part that figured no one was that stupid, which bred the possibility that there was a girl running around town trying to shoot vigilantes with arrows... for the kicks.

He turned to face the retreating girl, and began walking after her... He would have to leap down the alley-way to cut her off here in a second, but for now- Sirens were heard; a cop pulled into the alley on the girl's side... damnit! He might get caught if he pursued her, and considering what he'd just done, this whole place was about to be swarming with suits. He would have to pursue the little trouble maker later... The Judge memorized her face for later.

He then turned and fled.

Elke nocked another arrow, stopped, turned on her heel, and raised her bow to shoot once more. Only..

The guy was gone.

She stood in silence for a moment, before letting out a crow of excitement. "YEAAAH! You better RUN! Homie don't play like th--Urk!" A hand grabbed her by the back of her shirt, hoisting her back before she could finish her statement.

Ksshckt "We've got a 1-8-7, suspect's whereabouts unknown. Believed to be armed and dangerous, proceed with caution..." Ksshckt The crackle of a voice over a radio vanished just as quickly as it had appeared, and she was turned to face her captor. It wasn't the masked man from before, as she had expected it to be, but rather and Officer of the law.

"...Oh, snap.. cops." The clone froze like a deer in headlights, staring at the officer who was looking pointedly at her, before he dropped his gaze to Elke.

"Ah... Miss Crawford. Funny place to find you this late in the evening, isn't it? What are you doing out here, hm?"

Crap.... He'd heard of her before. She attempted to shrug. "...Dunno."

The flat stare he leveled on he told her that he wasn't impressed with her answer. He switched from gripping the back of her shirt, to her upper arm. "Come on then, I'm sure your Social worker would just love to know where you have been."

The girl whined, but didn't protest as the cop dragged her along with him. As if the fact that she had been caught wasn't bad enough, he had all sorts of annoying questions to ask her as well. He also didn't seem to think her reply to 'What were you doing here?' was very funny. Apparently "I was rescuing the guy that got pushed off the building" wasn't a great answer to a cop?

...or, maybe he just didn't believe her. Either way, he filled her in on a few key things. First of all, that she had put herself in a very dangerous situation-- which she honestly didn't care about. The thing she did care about, and which kind of blew her mind, was the little tid-bit of information on who exactly she had just attacked.

The Judge.

The twelve year old was boggled. Awed... and kind of star struck. The Judge? REALLY?! Mr. Cop wasn't all to impressed at the squeal of excitement she let out, and she got a very serious, very strict talking to because of it. Basically, blah blah blah dangerous blah blah trouble blah blah blah responsibility blah donut.

She spent the rest of the ride in glee, staring happily out a window, as she was driven to her social workers office. She'd met the Judge! Oh my~

[End]