Runner at Heart | Open

[Aki Welland]

Breathe. In...one...out...two...in..three..GO The girl launched herself from the shade of the rooftop, skittering across the thin pipe to get to the next building. It was at least a twenty foot drop, and one wrong step could send her plummeting towards death. The dark skinned girl gave a whoop of joy as she jumped and landed on the roof. Her heart was beating and copper braid glinting in the sunlight, but she was by no means out of breath. In fact, she was just getting started. Her goal was to get all the way across town without getting the police or the institute involved. Last time she'd only gotten about a fourth of the way across town. Of course, she had been out after curfew and that didn't really help. But she was always out after curfew, preferring the night to do her running.

She let out an exasperated puff of air to get rid of a lock of molten copper dangling in front of her face. Her gloves were ready and she took in stock the next jump. It was longer, and there wasn't a convenient set of pipes connecting it. No, but there was a streetlamp. If she could get her hands on that she could build enough momentum to swing from that to the roof and get to the ledge that would take her another story into the air. Aki grinned at the challenge as she started to count it out in her head. She took a deep breath and and let her mind spread to the people below. The thoughts took over her for a moment as she lost control. Nothing stuck out in the blur, just a confusing mix of happiness with the sun and the normal grumbles of the day. No one had seen her, and no one seemed to be looking up. Good. With great difficulty she detached herself from the thought nebula and came back, opening her slate-ish green eyes.

Her breath in had calmed her heart, and she let herself speed again. Her muscles tightened and she started to run, letting her feet guide her way. Aki saw a line and ran cross the wall, launching herself from the wall to the light pole. She felt free and alive, exhilaration coursing through her veins. Her gloved hands grasped the light pole as she swung around it once to gain momentum. The as she came down she launched her body from the pole like an arrow, letting it curve through the air. As she came close her heart beat loudly in her ear and she started to curl in for landing. The heels of Aki's hands hit first and she rolled in, forcing herself fast to her feet as the wall approached. She jumped up, grasping a windowsill and pulling herself up onto the next roof.

So far so good.

[Rhett Goddard]

Rhett was working in Pilot's downtown that day. And by working I mean pickpocketing, of course. What for? Chocolates. He hated the damned things but he wasn't in a good mood. He felt like stepping out of the world for a few days, not going to classes, staying in his room for the maximun time possible... and eating as much chocolate as he could afford, and since he didn't have allowance and besides food, he didn't have any other use for the money he, gained, the quantity of chocolate he had been eating lately was, well, rather big. He had discovered he likes black chocolate the most.

Fortunately he had, apparently, a good metabolism or puberty was still kicking in hard enough for him not to get fat easily.

Vanity Fair magazine in his left hand, no questions about why this particular. Awkward. He looked around the area, no persecution, whoever was running there was doing it for fun or to get somewhere quicker. After closing the magazine, and while the figure was getting closer, he noticed three things: the figure was a girl, the figure was not only running, but doing parkour, and that she was quite good.

Rhett was a person that enjoyed having dramatic entrances and exits. He wouldn't admit it, of course, but he ended up doing them quite too often and mostly unconsciously anyway, so it wasn't really his fault, just his trait. And so, making his entrance as dramatic as possible, no explanation of how he ended up in a rooftop is provided, but let's just say a fire escape was involved. Magazine once again opened up, he glanced at an article about Justin Timberlake while sitting in the floor, just next to where he calculated the girl was going to pass through in a couple of seconds, hidden by a rooftop access door.

"Hello." He said out loud as the girl passed next to him.

Dramatic entrance: check.

[Aki Welland]

The voice so close to her stopped her up short. Her whole body fluidly moved from where she had been to the wall, letting the momentum bounce her back to land on her feet. And she was just about ready to get going again too. Sometimes in this town it was so hard to get a good run going that she thought about smacking the kid. It really, really pissed her off, and she let it show in the lines of her hazelnut colored skin as she frowned.

She sort of knew who this kid was. If memory served her right his name was Rhett something, although she couldn't remember what his power was. It didn't matter right now because if she really wanted to she could find out. Easy. So she let her body relax and stored the emotions behind a not so thick wall. The fact that someone else was up doing the roof made her curious, to a point. She looked at the magazine, Vanity Fair, and the blond boy. What was he doing up here? Maybe scouting for Vincent or something stupid like that? If she even got the inkling he was she would beat the tar from him and be gone like lightning. Her mossy slate eyes watched him carefully, every slight twitch of his body. She was ready and any sign would have her taking off to complete her mission.

With adrenaline still pumping through her as well as loud music she took out and earbud. Maybe a relaxed stance would be better. Her body relaxed slightly, and she came to stand at her full height. Five feet and three inches. Not much really, but she carried it well and with pride, as well as determination. So it may have seemed she was slightly taller. She couldn't tell right now if he was taller since he was sitting there.

" Do you need something or do you sit on rooftops like Santa Claus and creep on random Runners?" She asked in a challenging, sarcastic tone.

[Rhett Goddard]

"The second one." Rhett promptly answered as he stood up in one jump. "It was just too hot today to bring the Santa costume."

He then examined her up and down in one quick second. She looked so animalistic that he wondered if she was meta, something he didn't usually do, in the other hand, she reminded him of the many 'partners in crime' he had back in Europe. Most of them seemed just like her, innocent, lost and determined at the same time, and he wasn't taking into account the parkour-ing yet. Or maybe it was all about the parkour, after all, it was their way to make themselves free in more than one sense, not only it kept them from the hands of justice, it also let them do pretty much anything, objects were not obstacles, they were just places to accelerate or shine.

If Rhett had the smallest capacity for empathy with another living being, he would have felt that she was just like him, one of his own.

It was not the case.

"You know what sucks about the American style?" He knew she knew he referred to parkour. "It's all about the fancy tricks. About showing yourself." His eyes were still fixated in the Justin Timberlake article, pretending to be reading it... Yes, it was all about the drama of the scene. "You guys ruin it, l'art du déplacement is not about that at all."

[Aki Welland]

L'art du what? Her mind worked for a moment before it wrapped around that he meant parkour. She wasn't so good with other languages, but she was pretty sure that meant the art of displacement. Well, for him it was an art. It wasn't an art to her. It was a game. No matter how real the consequences were and that death here was final with no retries. A cynical, snide smile curved across her mouth as she watched his facial expressions. It's all about the fancy tricks eh? Oh boy, you don't know the half of it. For me it's always been about the fancy tricks. A dramatic sigh dripped from her lips, releasing some of the emotion she was saving for no good reason. Her eyes followed his movements. Well then.

" I'm sooooo sorry that I can't cater to everyone's tastes. I play my own style pretty boy. Not American, not European, or African or Asian or any other style. My game, my rules." She shrugged. The adrenaline was fading and that's NOT what she wanted. Aki wanted to run and move, to not have to think rationally as she moved through the world. Everything was a path, everything was a chance. The world was her obstacle course.

" I can see what you mean about it being to hot for the Santa Suit. All that extra fat to make yourself round would be awfully hard to move in." She skimmed his public mind momentarilly, seeing he wasn't taking in a word of what he was looking at. Drama queen much? It was all about how the scene unfolded. Well, if he was going to be like that she could play too. Aki had no problem waiting for a few moments to get what she wanted.

[Rhett Goddard]

Rhett wasn't the getting-offended-easy type, and thus the girl's words didn't get too deep, which he clearly could have demonstrated with by continuing his read of Justin Timberlake article, however it wasn't hard to notice there were more to it to than just telling him he was fat. It was a challenge, and Rhett liked challenges, specially those like these when he knows he can win.

He closed his magazine and stood up in one quick jump.

"L'art du placement isn't about competition either, you know." He threw the magazine behind his back and walked up towards the roof edge as he spoke. "It doesn't mean it may not be used for that, after all, life does seems to be a competition every time you're not blinking." He had to speak a little louder so the wind wouldn't carry his voice away. "Pick a place in town, say it out loud, and get there before me. Go ahead."

[Aki Welland]

His voice grated against her ears because of the smug tone it held. What she wanted to do at the moment was go over there and smack that look right off his face. In fact, her body moved several centimeters as if to launch herself forward before she got some semblance of control over herself. That just wouldn't do. But just the way he spoke in general. Oh it was so irritating. The magazine flew over his shoulder in a flutter of crinkling shining pages and she watched it fall with a papery splat onto the ground below. A few people looked up at the shadowy teens and shook their heads, muttering incomprehensible words.

And then the challenge. Oh yes, the glorious challenge. She was going to love this. But where to? Where could they go that would be an even match for them. Not all the way across town, because that was her personal goal. She didn't plan on sharing that with anyone, not in a million years. They could race to the residential district but they weren't really supposed to go there. Disturbing the peace and all that. So the only way to go was back from where she came. The Mall. It was a good long distance between where they were and would provide an excellent obstacle course on and off the rooftops. Aki feverantly prayed that Sloane wasn't on duty. The girl had had a few unpleasant encounters with the officer and wasn't about to have another one. Oh well, let's just hope we're lucky. She thought.

Her whole mindset calmed as she thought about her goal. Her adrenaline had spiked again once the challenge was issued and she felt alive. Numbers started off in her head. Each count was a step. She closed her eyes, taking in a welter of images from the people around her to try and get her bearings. She didn't want Mr. Hot-Shot tracking her eye movement to see where she was going to go. For a moment she was still as a few math calculations ran through her head and she planned a little of her route. The beginnings of a headache wormed their way through her brain like tendrils of poison ivy and she rubbed her temples. Fun.

Her muscles spasmed as she made sure they weren't going to cramp and she looked across the street at the unknowing people below. A sly smile glimmered across her face.

"Mall."

And she was gone.

[Rhett Goddard]

To Rhett's consideration, there were many people in the globe far too easy to read. They way they speak, the way they move, the way their mouths curve when saying the vowel 'e' and many more things were, in his mind, keypoints that determined what they wanted and how they felt. He was an expert, and Aki was an easy mark, which was proved to him when she started running into the goal, chosen by her, the mall.

It was an intelligent goal, not too far, not too close and plenty of obstacles for either the rooftop path or the street path. He considered for a split second as she started to run. For the first couple of blocks rooftops was the better idea, to avoid turning through the streets, but afterwards, descending was optimal, at least for Rhett, who wasn't used on aerial parkour and knew the streets better than the rooftops. He calculated the approximate amount of time it would take him, the moves on each obstacle, a plan B and even a plan C. Piece of cake. He sighed.

"Yeah right." He then said out loud as he slowly walked towards the fire escape through where he climbed to the roof. "Like I'm interested in competing with you."

He wondered how much time would it take for her to notice she was running by herself. After all, even if it could be implied that Rhett was challenging the girl, he never said anything about competing, he only told her to get there first, and as if commanded, she went to do so.

[Aki Welland]

She leapt across another building, noticing his footsteps hadn't even begun. She was too far now to try and search for his mind. Then again, it seemed like he wasn't going to compete anyway. Her face curled into a snarl. How had she allowed herself to be played so easily? Well, she had seen a challenge and taken the risk. She should have known it wasn't going to be worth it. So she let her body continue to move, but away from her target. She wasn't going to play the fool in this little game. If he decided he was actually going to go there he wouldn't find her there.

Aki let her foot slide as she neared a ladder, catching herself on the corner. Her body flung over and she caught the side of a building as she turned. Then she slipped down the ladder into the people on the street. They hadn't even noticed one more person just entering the crowd. Was it that commonplace? Did people just pop off the roof all the time here? Well I do. The thought caught in her mind and made her laugh. For a moment she considered going back and seeing what that kid was going to do.