"RUN FASTER!"

Twiggy legs carried her over a low bush, as she hopped over from the sidewalk, into the territory of a park. Behind her, a clone crashed through the bush noisily, before face planting into the grass. "But I haaate running!"

Without looking back, Elke tossed a farewell over her shoulder and kept on sprinting. A few shouts sprang up behind her, just as Elke ducked around the corner of a small building. The twin flailed and clawed at the ground as two full grown men hopped over the shrubbery after her, followed by a short woman in a business suit, who was red in the face from running after the child. "Is that her this time?!" She sounded exasperated. The twin put up a noisy struggle, as the original crept further away.

"God... Those people don't ever give up..."

Sucking in a breath, she paused to drop her backpack and rifle through it. Somewhere inside, among the various things she had picked up during the day, was a coat that would give her some cover. After slipping the light blue coat on, she threw her backpack back on and made a bee line for a rather large playground some distance away. By herself she stood out quite a bit, and although it would take some time for the agents to figure out her twin was just that, a twin, she would need to blend in.

Considering that most of the kids hanging around the slides and monkey bars were he age or younger, she figured that wouldn't be too hard to pull off. Elke tossed a paranoid glance behind her, not spotting the woman or her goons anywhere, before she stepped foot on the rubberized pavement, and fully integrated herself with the other kids.

Yet another day, yet another park—Chase was going about his typical solitary endeavors. Today, he was hanging by his knees from bars that the more athletic sorts typically used for pull-ups. Chase was using if for hanging upside-down. For the sake of modesty, he tucked his baggy t-shirt into the waist of his cargo shorts, but that precautionary measure did little to help—his hips were too tiny, and despite his best efforts, the shirt kept slipping and exposing his blindingly pale stomach.

Chase grunted in disapproval and hooked his toe around the vertical beam, swinging himself around so that he was now perched atop the bar. This enabled him to look around more easily, and the child pretended that he was Prince Chase, lord of the playground. All of the children running around below were his loyal subjects. Yeah, right. Chase stuffed his shirt back into the waistband of his shorts, hoping that the shirt would remained tucked this time, and then looped back around into an upside-down position. He casually noted as a girl glanced over her shoulder and then meandered towards the play structure. Hmm.

Chase’s shirt managed to free itself again, and Chase huffed faintly. It was no use. Using his hands as anchors, he swung into an upright position, dangling mere feet above the ground. He paused a few moments, then dropped, landing glamourlessly, but managing to stay on his feet.

Everyone was so.... pale.

Elke stopped, dark eyes watching as girls in expensive looking sundresses and clean sneakers ran from boys in tidy clothes and combed back hair. None of them looked like her. Hand me down clothes, dirty shoes with holes worn through.

Obviously, none of them knew how to play right.

A boy ran past her, a girl hot on his heels, screaming about cookies... and the twelve year old wrinkled her nose. "Pssh, cooties. Cooties don't exist..." ...Right? Yeah... Of course. She was nearly thirteen, she knew everything there was to know about... well, everything! Snorting to herself, she snubbed her nose at all of the other, younger, children and wandered toward a slide. Not many kids were loitering around over there, so she didn't have to worry about lording over them with her vast wealth of knowledge.

If she was lucky, her clone would throw the adults off her heels some how... Maybe it'd drag them all the way back to her house, or some equally funny thing... and then she wouldn't have to deal with them for a while! Yeah... maybe.

The slide was empty when she finally got there... but she wasn't the only person around. While the other kids were clambering around on wobbly wooden bridges, and messing with letter blocks, another boy was being a loner around the monkey bars. He was also pale... and skinny... and that dismount? Ugh. Elke eyed the slide for a moment, before she decided to abandon it for other ventures. The Native marched over to the kid, looked him up and down, and pursed her lips.

"You don't get out much, do you?"

It wasn't so much a question in her mind, as it was a fact. She was assuming this because she was young and she knew everything. Obviously, he was one of those sheltered kids who's moms only took him out of his bubble once a month.

Obviously.

...It was also the worst greeting she had probably ever given, but she chose to ignore that fact. Her momma hadn't exactly nagged at her about manners at any point in her life...

"I'm Elke." She shoved a semi dirty hand out in his direction.

Chase righted himself, and when he lifted his gaze, he was eye-to-eye with a tan skinned girl who just oozed with attitude. The shifter glanced around uncertainly, hiding the orange that streamed through his gaze, before looking at the girl inquiringly. By that point in time, his eyes had reverted to their typical blue.

“Can I help you?” Chase inquired uncertainly.

>> "You don't get out much, do you?"

The human-shifter blinked.

“I get out a lot,” Chase countered, his tone confused. Not as much as he had when he was homeless, but he still got out a good deal. He had just cleaned up rather well. Chase looked around for some sort of escape from the weird girl before him. He saw none. The girl stuck her hand out towards him, loudly proclaiming her name. Chase looked at the girl’s hand, then at the girl, then back at her hand again.

“Elke?” he echoed. Funny name. Chase shook her hand, briefly enough that it wouldn't trigger a shift, and then quickly released it, “I’m Chase.”

He withheld the “Nice to meet you” for the time being. He wasn’t too sure if it was nice to meet her, yet, and it would be wrong to lie.

She tilted her head at him. If he got out so much, why was he so skinny?

... Maybe he was one of those kids that didn't like climbing trees, or wrestling in mud. The brief handshake was out of her mind the moment he let go, and she grinned at the boy. Chase was a kind of cool name.. not as cool as other names, like... like nick names and stuff. She still thought her friends names were the coolest, especially Badger.

"Why are you playing all by yourself?" She questioned, adding in a suspicious squint over her shoulder after a moment. Leaning in, she lowered her voice and brought a hand up to cover her mouth from view of any spying kids... or adults for that matter. "I mean... I know the other kids are kinda funny looking, but they can't be that bad, right?"

Another squeal of "COOTIES!" shot up from behind her somewhere, and the twelve year old flinched. Point. Proven. ... But still! Even Elke didn't like being by herself all of the time, and when she was, she almost always had a few twins with her.

... that still counted as being by herself, right?

Speaking of twins, she went ahead and started a split. Since the other one had been captured.. or whatever, she was alone, and therefore a target for prying CPS lady eyes. It could not stay that way. Thus, while waiting for him to answer her, she split off a twin. The whole process was relatively quick, but not exactly instantaneous. For a moment, there would be the illusion of muddled vision, then doubles of herself, until the connection between the two broke and a perfect duplicate of herself stumbled away.

Said duplicate then proceeded to pick her nose, and Elke was forced to elbow it smartly in the ribs, hissing something hypocritical about manners at it. She then proceeded to go back to smiling at Chase, like nothing insanely weird had just happened.

The duplicate meanwhile, pouted, huffed, and crossed her arms over her chest indignantly.

As the odd girl made her inquiry, Chase shouldered a shrug, nodding his head to the side. He didn't know why he didn't play with the other kids... he just didn't feel like it, he supposed. Elke leaned in, as if she were about to tell Chase a fantastic secret, and Chase leaned in to listen to it. What Elke said made Chase grin and laugh. A girl shrieked with the cry of "cooties", and Chase also cringed.

"They're loud, too," Chase said in agreement, unphased by the cry. He was too mature to believe in cooties. Girls were okay, they were just all weird. The nine-year-old looked away for the source of the cry, but spied no outstanding individual. The child glanced back, and saw something... even weirder. Chase rubbed at one eye, while blinking the other incredulously, his brows raising in disbelief.

For a moment, there was one Elke before him, and the next, there was two. Two, identical Elke's. The new Elke wedged a finger up her nose, and the original Elke elbowed it, chastising it, before looking at the boy. Chase looked back.

"Whoa!" Chase gasped. He caught himself, and his voice dropped to a stage whisper, "You're a mutant?"

That was Chase, stating the blatantly obvious as if it was something truly novel, but his voice was neither condescending nor apprehensive. It was excited.

"I am, too!" Chase said, gesturing to himself with a thumb. He looked between new Elke and old Elke, uncertain of which one to address. Of course, the question that would follow would probably be as per what Chase was able to do, which the child wasn't as eager to share. The common sentiment of girls that had seen him shift (those girls being, his blood relatives), was that it was gross. Chase had no inclination to show off to girls. So, would he tell the truth but refuse to show-off, or lie to Elke and show-off?

"I can look like other people," Chase said simply, "Sound like them, too."

She grinned. Yup, she was a mutant alright. She preferred the term Homo Superior, though. It sounded better, and more honest. She couldn't remember which of her friends had informed her of the title (which she still didn't understand the full meaning of) but she liked it all the same.

Her grin drooped a little and she tilted her head at him when he admitted that he was one also. Her twin copied her after. He was a mutant as well? Her gaze shifted to one of scrutiny for a moment, as if she were evaluating him, before she nodded her head.

He agreed with her on the other kids being loud and annoying. Obviously, he could be trusted. There was no reason to assume he was lying. "You mean you're homo Superior too?"

Her twin glanced over at her, an eyebrow raised. "..Wassat mean, Boss?" "It means we're more important, dummy." The clone blinked, before a look of happy realization flashed across it's face. "So.. I am important too?"

"No." Elke states matter o' factly. "Because you are not a real mutant, you are just a creation of a mutant." Elke tried to brush the clone off, who bunched her eyebrows together and lost herself in thought.

"So... you can look like other people? Can you..." She glanced around, before her eyes settled on a kid not to far from them. "... can you look like him?" She was interested, that much was obvious. There was an excitement in her voice, and a small grin on her face. If there was one thing in the world she really truly loved, it was the vast variety of different mutations that were scattered throughout her kind.

After a moment, the clone reached out and tugged on Elke's sleeve. "...I wanna be important, boss.. can I be important too?" Elke blinked, rolled her eyes slightly, and leaned over to whisper in her clones ear. A moment later, the girl grinned and took off around the playground. Sprinting in wide circles around the monkey bars.

The two Elkes thinned their gazes at the nine-year-old that stood before him and alleged that he was a mutant, too. And Chase donned the most convincing, most assured pose that he could. Which was to say, he actually made eye contact for once. Still scrutinizing him, Elke attempted to clarify-- Chase was a "homo Superior"?

Chase had no idea what the phrase meant. He'd never heard of it before, so didn't truly know if he was... whatever that was. Obviously it had something to do with being a mutant. Though Chase were a good and honest child, he wanted to curry favor with his newfound friend. Which meant, though he didn't know what a homo Superior was, if being one meant being cooler, Chase was one.

"Yeah," Chase said simply, smiling faintly, "I am."

Fortunately enough, the twin asked the question that Chase begged to have answered, only to get a noncommital answer from the original. Following the brief exchange, the interrogation continued. Chase listened eagerly, his gaze swiveling about.

"Yeah, I could," Chase acknowledged, glancing back towards Elke, "But it's easier if I take something from him."

The twin had paused in thought, but went back into motion after Chase had spoken, tugging at Elke's sleeve insistently. She was sent off by the original, apparently, for she bolted off onto the playground. Chase watched with muted interest.

"Your copy doesn't act like you," Chase observed, turning back towards Elke.

So... he needed something of someones in order to be able to look like them? The native briefly considered wandering over and simply taking something from the kid she had pointed out. But.. she didn't really have anything on her person that she wished to exchange at the moment. Frowning, she turned her attention back to Chase and blinked. Dark eyes wandered over to the duplicate still running in circles, though... she was clearly beginning to run out of wind. "Nope." She answered curtly back, stuffing her hands into her pockets.

"They all come out really dumb... I dunno why, but it's kind of funny at least." Her fingers brushed over a small bag of marbles in her pocket, and Elke felt a light click on over her head. She turned an excited, slightly devilish grin back to Chase in an instant as she pulled one of the shiny glass balls from her pocket.

"If I give you this can you look like me?" For affect, she added a flash of pouty bottom lip, and drew her eyebrows together like a kicked puppy. Off behind her, the clone had finally exhausted her supply of energy. With a whump the duplicate toppled over onto the ground, legs and arms flopping dramatically, and gasped as she re-caught her breath.

"Running is haaaard!"

Chase nodded sagely as the girl explained how the twins came out stupid—amusing, but unexplainable, she commented.

“It is really funny,” the nine-year-old agreed, his gaze trailing after the clone. He hardly noticed that the girl had drawn a marble from her pocket, up until she spoke-up. Chase regarded the marble as one would regard an unfavorable vegetable, blatantly skeptical of it, before glancing at Elke.

She had the pouty-face on, which made it difficult to say, “No,” but there was the possibility that the girl could be crazy. All girls were a certain degree of crazy, at least until they were grown-ups. Then they were a different kind of crazy.

“I could,” Chase trailed coyly, wedging his hands into his pockets. The duplicate momentarily interrupted them with their dramatic flop and a loud complaint, but that did little to interrupt the developing banter.

She nearly crowed in delight. But, just because he said he could didn't mean he would. She was liking this kid more and more by the minute!

With her twin out of the race behind her, she grinned at Chase and rolled the marble around in the palm of her hand excitedly. "What would it take for me to convince you to?" She asked, mentally going through a checklist of the items she had in her backpack. "I've got some stuff I could trade.. or.." She glanced around at the playground surrounding them.

"or we could bet on it?"

"I think i'm dyyying" Her twin cut in, adding an overly dramatic groan on at the end for good measure. Elke simply rolled her eyes, and cast a glance over her shoulder for any signs of the social worker.

"If I win the bet, you show me your super awesome power... if you win the bet... well, i'll do something you want me to. Sound good?" Of course, she still needed to come up with something for them to actually bet on... But maybe she'd leave that up for him to decide.

The girl was a persistent one, but girls were tricky like that—they confused you with twisty logic until they got what they exactly what they wanted. Chase shifted his weight hesitantly as Elke attempted to bargain with him. What would get him to do what she wanted him to? Could they trade? Or make a bet?

Elke decided on her own that a bet would be more sufficient, but Chase was ever-skeptical—what if the bet was a stupid girl thing, like who was better at hopscotch or jump rope? Chase would obviously lose that bet. If that were the bet, he’d almost rather a trade so that he at least got something out of it.

Chase murmured shrewdly, “What kinda bet?”

If it was good enough, he might—though part of him hoped they made a bet, and that it was something he stood a glimmer of a chance at. Whatever it was, he wasn’t calling the shots. He wasn’t that keen on the idea of shifting for show, either way.

Hmm.... what to bet on?

Well... she could bet him that she could hold her breath longer, she was pretty good at that. She could bet him that she could beat him in a race around the playground, too. He looked pretty scrawny, so she assumed she'd win without much effort.

...but, just running was kind of boring. Hmm.

Ah! She had it. "I bet you... that I can beat you in a race around the playground. But! there will be obstacles." Turning, she pointed out the layout she hand in mind as she filled him in on her plan.

"We start there, have to hopscotch through there, climb over the big tire, get across the monkey bars, up that slide, down the rope ladder, around the swing-set, and then back to the place we started." It was like an obstacle course and a race! The most fun she could manage to get out of two things she loved to do.

"If I win, you have'ta show me what you can do.... And if you win, well... i'll do somethin' for you. Deal?" Grinning from ear to ear, she crossed her arms and waited for his answer.

She was gonna ace this for sure!

Chase listened attentively as Elke described the challenge. It was a race of sorts, but also an obstacle course. He nodded his head as Elke outlined the course, eyes flicking from one stage to the next as he mentally made note of them. First came hopscotch-- then over the tire, across the monkeybars, up the slide and down the rope ladder, around the swing set and back to the starting line.

Chase, reflexively unsure of himsef, cracked a smile. He was good at running and climbing, contrary to looking like a little bean pole, and this had a lot of both. Even if he didn't do that well at the race, it'd be fun. It'd be something to do.

>> "If I win, you have'ta show me what you can do.... And if you win, well... i'll do somethin' for you. Deal?"

"Sounds alright," Chase agreed lightly, hands still wedged in his pockets. He didn't know what he would want Elke to do for him, presuming he won, but he'd think of something.

"To the starting line, then?"

Her smile widened another two inches, and she nodded enthusiastically. Practically skipping over to where she'd designated the starting line, she set about stretching (like she'd seen professionals do it on the tv, because she was so totally professional and stuff), and readied herself.

"Okay... ready?" Glancing over at him, she waited for an answer, before setting her mind to the task at hand. It would probably be a cinch beating him, but it sure never hurt to be prepared.

"Alright... One!.... Two!..."

Behind her a girlish cry came out of nowhere, and she distinctly heard someone shout something about "catching her".

"...@#$%!"

Abandoning the race, the native clambered behind the first available cover and waved hurriedly for Chase to follow her. She knew the owner of that squeal, and had a hunch as to what had caused it. Peeking tentatively out from her cover, Elke's fears were confirmed.

"Crap... Socialworkers." From what she could see, they'd finally spotted her.... or the clone in this case, and were in the process of trying to figure out if it was the real deal. It was only a matter of time before they spotted her then, and she was carted off again. Turning her eyes back to Chase, she sighed, and chewed on a fingernail angrily.

"So much for the race... I gotta scram before they catch me."