Welcome to Gaia! ::

Crystal stood there and waited patiently to see if the woman was going to answer her. Or, even notice that there was another woman standing in front of her. That was quite a fall after all. Plus... now that she was standing in the woman's presence, Crystal was able to let her powers do their own little thing. It was a nice change of pace to see someone's past history rather than instantly see their future history. She wasn't getting much information, but that was because she wasn't trying to pull the woman's entire life history out. She didn't have much of an interest in that right now.

… especially not since there seemed to be a new event taking place not far away.




Having cleared a few streets over the rooftops, Otto Octavius settled himself into a decent hiding spot on the rooftop of an apartment complex. The bank robbery had gone perfectly, with no interruptions from the Wall-Crawler at all. Normally that would have made his day more pleasant, but today he was simply bitter that he had to pull a robbery at all. If the bug hadn't destroyed his last laboratory, he wouldn't have needed to do this. Wouldn't have needed to start over. That fact made him angry.

But... at least things were going flawlessly so far.



The scent and sounds were enough to draw the woman's attention... but the sight that hovered over her head was enough to keep her attention. The scent of sweat, metal, and old cologne and sewage.... the sound of heavy breathing and metal slamming into concrete. And then.... the man holding sacks of money hovering over the alley as long metallic arms carried him across the alley over the rooftops.

The woman stared up at the rooftops of the alley for a few long lingering moments after the man had passed. The cigarette in her hand gently dropped ash on the ground next to her long leather boots. She brushed her long black hair behind her ear and tried to listen for where the man was going. When the sound stopped not too terribly far from her, a small smile crept across her dark red lips. Closing her eyes, she took one last drag from her cigarette. When she pulled it away from her face, she let the entire thing burn in her fingers with a long, bright stream of fire. Smoke gently rolled out of her mouth and around her face as she exhaled. After another moment, she stood from the wall she had been leaning against and tossed the ash from her fingers. She straightened out her dark red jacket, then the black shirt she wore underneath. Brushing off her black fingerless gloves on her tight black jeans, she shifted her hair around and started for the street.

She hadn't been doing this sort of thing for very long. A few weeks at best. Normally she wouldn't have cared to see someone with large sacks of money fleeing across the rooftops. But... she'd recently left her days of stealing and street violence behind her. At least she was going to try to anyway. Every now and then she'd pass a store window and think of how nice this or that looked... and how easy it would be to obtain it. Every now and then she'd pass a dealer in the streets and get the urge to go and break the effort she was making to clean herself up. Every now and then she'd think about how nice it might be to go to someone like Blackstone and do a job or two for some quick and very large sum of money.

But... as long as she had new friends that actually made her feel like she belonged with them... she was going to make the effort to fit into their world now. And that meant getting in practice whenever she could.

She soon came to the fire escape of an apartment complex. Looking up the very tall ladder, she listened carefully. The metallic hissing drifted from the rooftop, and she could only assume that this was the right roof. She took another inventory glance at the ladder, noting how rusted it was, but decided that it was safe enough to climb up.

After stretching her torso out, she tossed her long hair off of her shoulders and leapt as high as she could to grab the bottom of the railing. Grabbing onto it, she carefully swung herself onto the escape and began climbing her way up.

Sun Wolf
Location: Fire escape of an alley.
Company: IGNITION
Status: Surprised and slightly irritated.
OOC: ......


Alex was nearly to the top of the roof when something new caught her attention. It sounded as though someone or something had just slammed into an air vent. She'd been tossed into those things once or twice herself, so she recognized the metallic crunching sound they made. Assuming that her target was in fact on this rooftop, she sped up her climb. A small smile crept across her dark lips as she heard a voice above her. When she looked up, she was surprised to find... not the man with the metal arm thingies.

Alex suddenly stopped and stared up at the teenager looking down at her. A confused frown had replaced the smirk that she'd been wearing just a moment ago. Her brown eyes stared quizzical up at the man, and her long black hair danced gently behind her.

This wasn't the person she had watched mover across the rooftops over her head. Didn't look like him, didn't smell like him, didn't have the money or fancy little metallic arms... nothing. That said, this guy didn't exactly look like he was trying to escape off the roof or head for cover. Normally people got out of the way if someone like that was heading across the rooftops.

No... this boy looked more surprised to see her. His jacket was a little scuffed to one side. There was a faint lingering scent of heat on the rooftops, but that was all she could really gather.


"Not usually..." Alex huffed. She began continuing what little climb was left of the ladder, then crawled onto the ledge of the building. "Only when I'm tying to.... erm..." No, couldn't say that she used to do it when she was breaking in or out of someplace. ".... I'm more inclined to work from the ground." she said. Dusting herself off, she glanced around the rooftop. No sign of the man with the arms... though there was a dent in the air vent. Guy must have passed by or this punk kicked it or something. Don't usually see people doing parkour from rooftops this high though. At least she was assuming that's what the dent was from. Didn't know of any other reason for someone to dent a vent. The small frown grew as she scanned the rooftop. Quietly trying to gain a better trail of the assumed robber. There was a lingering scent, so he was around here somewhere. Maybe not this rooftop, but there was no sign of him fleeing. He was hiding somewhere.

Alex tossed her hair from her face and off of her leather jacket. A gloved hand began rubbing the olive skin that was exposed between the glove and her sleeve as she let out a small sigh. "Speaking of work, you'd probably better run along. You didn't happen to see some creep with long metal leg things coming out of his back move across the rooftops here anywhere, did you?"

Sun Wolf
Location: Rooftop.
Company: IGNITION
Status: Neutral, for now.
OOC: ......


Alex arched a dark brow in return to the man's questions. She couldn't say that she'd ever had normal taste in men, but she certainly wasn't after a guy that smelled like her grandfather. ...if she had a Grandfather. Couldn't say she'd ever that that little bit of "normal" in her life.

Her brow arched higher when he admitted that he was a hero. Her eyes traveled over his form and his choice in "costume". For a brief moment, her expression practically screamed "Yeah, right..." Granted, she still didn't have a costume, and wasn't sure that she ever would. Not really her style. But still...

When he offered his hand to her, she stared at it for a moment. As though she wasn't sure what to do with it. Gently she offered her hand to him palm down and returned her gaze to his face. She wasn't used to hand shaking... or the polite introduction of a... super hero.

"Alex." she said, then took her hand back. "Ventura area... Can't say I've ever heard of it." It was safe to assume now that this guy was an outsider. Who else would just announce that they were a super hero to a complete stranger. For all he knew, she could have been looking to meet up with the guy with metal limbs.

Sun Wolf
Location: Rooftop.
Company: IGNITION
Status: Neutral, for now.
OOC: ......

Alex blinked slightly in surprise when the man winked at her. She wasn't used to this sort of, what she assumed was flirting, from guys like this. ”Uh... right. I'm pretty much New York City bound, so I'm not sure I'll ever have the chance.” she replied at first.

Then she took a moment or two to think about his offer to help out. She had just started on this whole “hero” thing, and she wasn't really used to working on a team like that. The only time she really did do a team up sort of thing was when she took that brief job with Blackstone. Even then she was more of a solo act. Fighting a “bad guy” was probably a lot different than trying to fight a hero. They didn't aim to kill like most of the “bad guy's” did. It might be a good idea to have a hero tag along with her to help out. Step in if she gets in over her head or does something un-hero-like.

...or he could take over and she wouldn't get any practice in at all.

…or he could double cross her or something and be working for the metal limb guy.

”Uh...yeah. If you haven't seen him come through here though, then he might have gotten away already.” Alex said. Maybe she could just go look for the guy after this guy left or something. Shouldn't be too hard to sniff out.

Sun Wolf
Location: Rooftop.
Company: IGNITION
Status: "....wow..."
OOC: ......

Alex winced slightly as the man moved to the edge of the roof, insistent upon tagging along with her. Suppose there wasn't much she could do about it though. She had promised herself that she was going to be more hero-like. And that meant not telling people off and to get lost, right? The guy was just trying to be helpful, and she couldn't sense any ill-intent coming off of him. So... should be alright, right?

Then the air around him began to change. With the enhanced senses that Alex possessed, it wasn't hard to notice the very curious change. More curious was that the air around her tended to do the same thing when she became angry. Couple people used to joke about her being a hot head. They never did so for long.

THEN he completely morphed into a burning blue and black skeleton...thing. Alex watched the transformation with wide eyes. She tried to hide her surprise, but she couldn't help but feel impressed by his little power. She also couldn't help but note how fricken awesome his whole get up was. Skeleton with blue flames? Awesome. Not that she was going to admit that though. Had to keep some form of pride.

Taking a long, deep sigh, Alex walked towards the edge of the rooftop herself."Nice flames." she replied. She stopped there and turned her full attention to the rooftops around them. The very faint scent of calogne was still in the air, and there was a large fracture in the edge of the next rooftop. Something heavy had hit it. "Might as well try that way." she said, pointing towards the next roof.

Sun Wolf
Location: Rooftop.
Company: IGNITION
Status: Maaaaybe she could show off just a little herself...
OOC: ......


Alex had taken the few moments for him to respond to inspect the distance across to the next roof. When he asked about wings, she glanced back at him and gave him her own smug little grin. "Wings? Nah. I'd rip too many jackets with those things." she replied, turning her body around completely to face him. She took a few steps towards him, the smug little smirk still curled around her lips. Once she reached a certain spot, she suddenly lunged to the side. Both of her feet landed on the very edge of the rooftop. She bent down as far as she could, her body tilting backwards as gravity began to pull at her. She lept, her body twisting and flipping as she became airborne over the alley. She landed on the other rooftop with nearly as much grace as her flip over. The smug little grin... still in place.

Wings, no. Flight, no. Enhanced human strength, flexibility, stamina, and endurance... yes. Parkour from a few years worth of running from cops and breaking and entering via rooftops... yes.

Gently, she took a hand and placed it under her hair behind her head. She then flipped her hair to the side, letting it snap at the air. Flames swept across her hair as she did so, and vanished as her hair fell back onto her shoulders. Leaving a small curl of black smoke floating in the air next to her. "But... I manage to hold my own roof-jumping."

Sun Wolf
Location: Rooftop.
Company: IGNITION
Status: Alright, time to get to work.
OOC: ......

Alex gave him another little grin, then turned her attention back towards the rooftops. "Suppose we'd better get to looking then. His scent isn't that far gone. He went this way not too long ago. I don't hear any metal grinding on stone, so I assumed he's either long gone or he's stopped." she said, her eyes looking about the other rooftops.

She focused her gaze on one direction in particular. The scent seemed to be drifting from that direction. It wasn't very faint, so she was putting her money on the guy having stopped to hide or something. It would at least give them a chance to catch up to him. She still wasn't quite sure how she felt about the guy tagging along... but she could more than handle herself if things went south.

"So... you ready to get to hopping?"' she asked, glancing back at him.