Welcome to Gaia! ::

-Chapter(s)-

-Relationship(s)-

Jay and Korin are members of Isis. Jay's father is also a member, but his intentions lately for her as a Celestial seems to be blurry. Her mother's clear attitude is one of disgust. Besides working with Isis, she currently works for a local bookstore specializing in horror, called Horrorific.
Korin was rescued by Isis after her neighborhood was invaded by AGSA when she was just a child, and has grew up with the group.

Samuel and Tong are member of AGSA. Samuel is a new edition to the agency as an interviewer of sorts, since he had previous experience in the lore of celestials. His partner seems to have gone AWOL and is no where to be found.
Tong is one of AGSA's muscles, doing odd jobs that may require his skills and abilities. With visits to the shrink and more self control, the Celestial noble looks like he's to be permanently promoted as a retrieval agent.

Laurence is a member of Chrest. He grew up with an oppressed Celestial mother but sadly beleived that the rantings of his father to be true. Now a narcissistic snob, he lives to rid the world of Celestials, the bane on this planet, much like his mother.

Kurayami is a distant Celestial loner who has power over metal and the shadows. His attitude to the world seem to be quite inhuman, especially since he himself had killed when he was young. As a mere child he took the lives of those who had killed his parents.

Kozue is a young girl working at the local supply market. She is also quite the skilled florist, having an eye for gathering flowers but also has the skill of moving earth. She knows that she is a Celestial, but rarely uses the ability. She lives and works close to the most wealthy and fluent areas of the city, hoping to gather a little fame for being a florist.

Mock, like many of the young Celestials, lost a parent to the enigmatic Chrest. Though she was told of what she was before they took her mother, she hides her true nature to most due to the fear of being caputured and killed herself.

((Just so everyone knows, if you read my chracter profile now, it's different. Just in case it matters. sweatdrop Now, ONWARDS! twisted ))


You may not think so, but robbing people blind is a terribly tiring thing.

Except when the full, jingling purse you've got on your hip from robbing people blind can pay for some food and drink. Then it doesn't seem so bad.

Mockingbird found it especially wonderful, as she ordered a small pie, mashed potatoes, corn, and roast chicken from a serving waitress. For starters.

The waitress rudely looked the scraggly girl up and down and hurried away.

Mock, a young woman of about fifteen, though she wasn't sure of that age, drummed her dirty fingers on the table and then grabbed the cup of water the waitress had brought her and sipped, staring through the glass bottom at the distorted shapes of the restaurant. The waitress shouldn't assume she couldn't eat all that, she was a growing girl, for crying out loud!

The food was synthesized, of course. Even with all the money she'd stolen today, she couldn't afford a natural meal. Only nobles got that sort of stuff, and even then it was usually only for special occasions!

When she returned the empty glass to the table, she found the owner and his furiously twitching mustache inches away.

"Hello," Mock said, pleasantly.

"I'm the owner," said the owner.

"Congratulations," said Mock, grabbing the man's huge hand in both of hers and shaking it enthusiastically.

The owner stared, flabbergasted, through his beady eyes.

"Can I help you?" Mock asked into the silence. She was very good at covering up her sarcasm, but her words were sarcastic nonetheless.

"Do you have a probem?" asked the owner, wiping the hand she had shaken pointedly on his apron.

Mock thought about this for a moment. "Yes," she said. "Several, actually. You see, I've come to the Toenail Fungus-"

"Techno Forcefield," corrected the owner, looking angrier and bristlier by the second.

"Right. Well, I've come here for some food, and instead I've gotten a very large man who is apparently the owner. Is the kitchen out of the food I ordered?"

"We only serve paying customers," insinuated the serving girl, who now peeked around from behind the burly owner.

Mock knew she didn't look like a paying customer, but she had stolen a good deal of money from quite a few people in the deca-mall this afternoon, and she was hungry after two dead days. Actually, she looked like the street kid she was, nothing like the hoity-toity patrons who usually graced this joint.

"Right," she said. "Good idea. I wouldn't serve non-paying customers either, if I owned a restaurant. Now about my roast chicken, could I get a bit of sauce on the side?"

The owner raised one bush-like eyebrow.

"I'm sure the Neon 'round the corner would make you happier, kid." He put his hand not-so-reassuringly on Mock's shoulder. "Now get out of here before I call the police." With a flick of his monster hand he'd pushed Mock out of her booth, so that the girl stumbled away.

"Oy!" shouted Mock, regaining her balance and composure. "I've got money, you great hairy brute!"

The owner's piggy eyes flashed with fury, as he approached the lanky young woman.

Mock stood her ground, but seemed to shrink substantially as the owner got closer and closer. The man was a great hairy brute, after all.

"I've got money!" she shouted again, backing up two steps for every one of his. She painted her steps with colorful phrases, making the man's eyebrows look like they were eating his face, he was so angry. And the restaurant was silent, watching the street urchin streaming curses at the owner.

She realized that this just wasn't going to work, and darted out before the man-shaped hairball could get too close to her. She ran for a bit on the ground level, beneath the traffic-ridden mono-car street-rails. Eventually she figured he probably wasn't following her anyway, and she ducked into a narrow alley and leaned against the wall. She sighed and bounced her fists against the wall. It was stupid. Just because she looked it, didn't mean she was as poor as all the other streeters out there.

The groundwalk was bustling with activity, so she slipped into the crowd and nicked some more money, before locating herself a tele-screen booth. She went in the little glass room and activated the machine.

"Hello," a pleasant female voice crooned. "How can Andel Tele-Connect help you today?"

"Yeah," Mock said, as if she were just talking to another person, "I need to know what the weather is going to be today." Mock did this just about every day. She didn't like being in the rain that much, it made her feel itchy, and she always wanted to be able to find a shelter before the Biscuits made her life harder than it needed to be.

"Locating your information. One moment please. Would you like to listen to some music?" asked the obnoxiously polite computer.

"No," Mock said absently. She had heard ATC's idea of "music" before and it was better to just say no.

"The esteemed Biodome Specialist Control Team have decided upon-" here a man's voice cut in with a pre-recorded word "-rain-" the woman's voice returned "-starting at 4:27 PM and ending at 9:32 PM on-" the woman would have blathered on about the date and how the Biscuits were so wonderful, but Mock shut the booth off and left.

She'd better find some quick food, even if it was the crappiest synth' stuff out there, and find some cover. She sighed and rushed off towards the closest deca-mall, where foods of varying degrees of crap could be found.

((By "deca-mall" I mean a ten story mall. I'm making this up as I go. Above the ten stories of mall, there could be fancy restaurants and conference halls or something. Whatever floats your boat. Synth' is short for synthesized, if you didn't get that. Well, there you are.

Also, sorry for it being SO long. I got carried away. sweatdrop ))

"Damn... some is close by, some is around here!" The criminal struggled to get free as the cops pinned him into the floor, his head being buried into the ground as one of the cops pressed his palm down on it. "Another, another who moves the shadows!"

The hunters merely looked down at their prey as a mad raving man. Many in the slums indeed had lost their sanity as they strived to survive, but most just accepted their place in their world and found consolation with others like them.

The shadows which cast them selves away from the dim lights began to scintillatingly swirled around the cops and the criminal. The tendrils of darkness, which seem to mimic that of moving water, splashed themselves around the faces of the hunters. Blinded and befuddled, the law enforcers moved thier gloved hands to their faces as they tried to removed the darkness away from their hands. They moved and wriggled about, and from far away, they were like the denizens of the poorest streets. They were madly dancing like fools and ranting about being blinded by the darkness. Truly, mad indeed.

The criminal seemed to have slipped off its cuffs quickly, throwing it to the ground and darted away from the scene. His face held little terror, nor did it ever look back as the cops continued on with their struggle with shadows. He ran through the jungle of men and garbage, though the men this time were wiser as they parted for the fleeing one.

Other began to crowd the cops, a few of the most desperate quickly swiping at their weapons and tools. Though they knew well that the modern weapons were only enabled in close proximity of its owners, but people are cunning creatures, finding ways to hack into even the systems implented into government weaponry. The others just watched in bewilderment wondering what was happening. A few took steps forward in attempt to help them, but found that they were no help either.

No one saw where the criminal had gone to, running down the alleyes and into the corner where he disappeared. Coincidently, the shadows which veiled the men disappeared with him.

Sam fidgeted at a cafe, angrily typing away at his lap top as he filled up on coffee and coffee cake. He had leads to cross off his list and a partner to be angry at. How dare this man, his partner, make him worry about him. They barely knew each other! But Sam felt like it was his responsibility to find the guy, and his bosses felt that way too. He had some outside support, but he was the one with him the last month or so before he disappeared.

This was harder than tracking down that last celestial they had worked on together. Sometimes celestials wanted to be caught, without even knowing it themselves. Caught and tagged, so to speak. Hey, it was a great way to end up in history. Sort of. You at least ended up in an agent''s notes somewhere, if nothing worse happened to you. It depended on who found you out and their personal opinion towards celestials.

Sam thought the two were related, and it was driving him nuts. He had thought he was good at solving puzzles, but here he felt like he was missing half the pieces. If you are missing just one or two, you can still get a good picture.

(is tong supposed to be his partner?)

Sam closed his laptop with a sudden movement and nearly left the cafe without paying. Only the worried waitress on his heals reminded him. He assured her that her service was fine, and shoved enough money at her to make his escape peacefully.

He stopped by his place before arriving at an apartment on his list of leads. He had information leading him to believe that bad things were going down in the city. It was best to be inside at a time like this, and even with his top-of-the-line weaponry he felt like chicken s**t about the whole matter. But he knocked on the door of a woman's apartment, rehearsing the lie he had come up with himself.

"Hello, do you know of a man named Geffry Dalmer?" Sam held up a laminated picture of his partner for whoever opened the door. "He's been subpoena'd as a witness and we're having trouble locating him."


---

Eh?" The old woman hunched and peering from slight crack of the door. "You gotta speak up sonny."

Her hair was silver and white, neatly tied up into a bun. Her skin was dark and blotched by liver spots. It was wrinkled with the wears and tears of life. Her olive eyes gazed gently up at him, showing wisdom and curiousity while looking behind the door. She wore a simple white and red poka dot dress, reminiscent of the clothes ages ago. The room behind her was dimly lit with the most visible object, a simple shaded lamp.

Besides the sights, the scents began to flow from her door. The smell of fabricated lavender smell and industrial strength arthritis medicine.

----

Sam had the urge to take her to a doctor, just to get a hearing aid. He sighed. "Yes, Maam." He tried speaking even louder. "Can I come in?" He crowded under her doorstep, trying to keep the rain off of his back. Maybe inside there would be paper and pencil and he could talk to her that way. What, she hadn't learned to read lips?
----

The very moment that Sam had moved towards the door, the old woman pushed her door forward, making the crack even smaller. Her eyes twinkled in the darkness, gazing at the man and the dark pouring sky just behind him. The scent of rust and wet concrete soon overwhelmed the aged aroma of her home. She followed the rain drops like it was a familiar face.

"The sky isn't what it used to be," she whispered to herself as she looked beyond Sam.

"And you son," she spoke in a commanding tone as she pushed the door closer to a close, "You're not gettin' ani closer in here till' I see a shield or some kind of ID, ain't no theif gonna rob my house."
----


((tch, that's all I had saved. Do you have my last PM to you?))

(Hooray, I can post! eek )

The urchins around that had been watching stormed the cops and took their weapons. Fools. They're useless without the owner. Moving forward, away from the dark wall he had been hiding against, his heavily-shadowed face glowed under his oil-black hair. The sockets that held hidden eyes were narrow, looking at the struggling cops. His lips were pursed, "Now, now, gentlemen. I'm sure that man's crime was nothing compared to yours." His voice slid from his mouth like it was silk. "Why bother to disrupt this place with your weapons? They needn't taint our peaceful community..." The last word drawled out slightly, and his lips pursed once more. His voice had sounded almost friendly, but given the circumstances, it would not be taken that way by anyone with half a mind.

He looked around and saw that a few of the occupants in near-by areas were watching. Debating whether or not to dispose of them, he casually looked around at them again and again to get an idea of who they were or where in the area they had come from. Turning his attention back to te policemen, Kurayami decided that they would pose no threat, and to ignore their very prescence.

((Sorry, I haven't posted, Gaia was being assy and then my dad came to visit for the weekend. Anyway, here we go.))

With the presumably semi-toxic remains of a Royale Burger from Burger Monarch dissolving happily in her innards, Mock was doing a circuit of the deca-mall, looking (without any hope of finding) a place to hide and sleep for the night. The malls' nooks and crannies were usually either already taken, or watched, so it made them notoriously pointless to waste time in.

But time was just what Mock could afford to waste. On her way into the mall she'd seen a cozy looking tunnel entrance into the sub-city. If she couldn't find anywhere better in here, she planned to slip outside before it started raining and head underground.

Sure, that's where the Agency was, but how could they find one girl in all the webwork of tunnels under the city. The commute tunnels alone would be a perfectly acceptable place to sleep. The other tunnels included some independant shops, black market traders' abodes and the occasional vigilante or private eye headquarters. No risk there.

After walking for a little less than half an hour, Mock noticed that three men had been following her for several floors. They all wore idiotic looking suits, trying to dress themselves up to cover the stench they emitted. She started walking faster, trying to see if they were actually follow her, or if it was just her, being paranoid as usual.

((Sorry I mentioned burgers. I couldn't think of an alternative, and yet clear, way of saying it. Ghost, I assume the Sharkies were, in fact, talking about my character. I assume too much...but hey.)

((burgers are fine, they're just a name for a specialized sandwhich))

On the balcony walkways of the apartment complex.

"Good luck on both attempts sir," a man around his late 40's answered politely, "The locks here in the apartments are reinforced into the door and the frame, and the superintentdant is hard to talk to to the old lady there."

His eyes were hidden beneath the glare of his simple square framed glasses. The man humbly stood by his door way with an undershirt on, but still wearing his business pants and leather shoes. Either he was leaving or he had just got back from his job. He was just a step out of the doorway, showing cautiousness to Samuel. The police weren't the most skilled sociable workers in the city.

"Speaking about super," he pushed his glasses up his nose, "I was wondering if we could file a comp-"

A soft beeping sound interuppted the working man. The ambient silence the complex hall and the trickling rain behind them broke to the sound of the communication device on his wrist. It began to glow a soft hue of red while a simple light monontone ringing beckoned him to answer.



Around the many levels of a deca mall

A short and stout figure, dressed in an extravagant navy blue suit stepped in front of the girl with a wide grin across his lips. His teeth were white and wide, his canines were very animal like. His eyes were wide open, glaring at her as she approached his general direction. He his hands were at his sides, with palms open and fingers a bit bent, waiting for something to hold on to... or catch.

The stench, was a blend of cheap perfume and their body odor. It was getting stronger as they gradually increased their walking pace towards their girl. Two of them were fast approaching. One of them had his hand behind him, making him walk rather awkwardly. The other had gloves with what seem to be steel plates around it, like a simple gauntlet.

Their eyes were much like the short ones. Like those of predators.