Snatch 1.9

“Look… I’m not bullshitting you, I’m not lying or anything like that.” The girl on her shoulders sobbed softly, Yon’s voice rising slightly at the idea of being left behind in the care of those whom she expected to give her existence away. “I just need a place to stay, please. Anything at all. I’ll do anything, I’ll repay you anyhow I can. Please…”

Sasha sighed, concentrated on keeping her balance as she trudged ahead, the girl now on her shoulders, legs wrapped about her waist as her chest pressed at the back of Sasha’s head. Sasha’d put up her slick, but distinctive hoodie, opting instead to guard her face from close scrutiny via the cap which she’d bought and the way that it interacted with her enchanted choker.

“I’m not going to sell you down the river or anything like that you know.” Sasha started, noting with a smidge of annoyance the way the girl relaxed against her, pressing those barely covered fatbags of hers against the back of Sasha’s neck. They were surprisingly soft, annoyingly so in fact, a minor reminder of the fact that she herself hadn’t managed to grow anything off of the washboard she called a chest. She didn’t always enjoy looking like a boy. Only sometimes, mostly when it was useful over the other things; androgyny was generally easier though. “I’m just saying that if you want me to buy that the police are going to be so inept that going to them is going to put you in more danger than doing anything else, I just feel like you owe me a bit more of an explanation as to what the hell the ABB really want you for. I mean you don’t seem like the average dimwit they like to grab for sale.”

“Cause I’m not.” Yon spoke, almost offended despite continuing to cling tightly to Sasha’s back, her breath tickling the smaller girl’s ear as she was carried. “I just... look it’s a string of bad stuff, and a longer story that I really want to dwell on ok. And besides I don’t want to be walked into the hospital by a ‘mysterious faceless girl’ and set all kinds of alarms off. ABB has got its fingers in way more pies than you’d think downtown.”

“Or you could be a bit hysterical and irrational right now.” Sasha pointed out, earning her a glare which she couldn’t actually see. “Hey, look. I just saved you from a life of being some guy’s rape-slave or something you know. That shit messes with people. Some guy nearly pulled me off the street in broad daylight once you know, right in front of everyone there, had them convinced he was my dad. So I know how these things can go.”

Sasha couldn’t help but shudder at her own mention of a few days ago. That was probably the second scariest thing that had ever happened to her... not counting that time.

“I’m not being irrational, or messed up… or maybe I am messed up, but that doesn’t matter cause no matter how messed up I am, it’s still the truth. The ABB aren’t going to just let me get away. And the police aren’t going to be able to save me from them if they show up. Hell I fully expect some crooked bastard to hand me right over. The local cops are shit, it’s just how things are.” Yon retorted, her raven hair spilling down across Sasha’s neck, flagellating the exposed skin with every step. Her eyes casting from side to side on occasion, trying to make it seem as natural as possible that the smaller parahuman who was carrying her could take her weight, while searching for anyone who was keeping too close an eye upon them.

Yon noted how they’d stuck to the shadows for a while earlier before dipping into a dumpster area for some thrown out clothes, the smaller girl who’d been carrying her seeming to know her way around the act as she pulled out what seemed to be a lightly damaged but serviceable t-shirt. A practiced skill it seemed, one which had gotten her at least the bare minimal coverage to keep from being too suspicious here.

“Honestly speaking, the last person to know you’re messed up is hardly ever you. Just saying. Still you do seem a lot calmer than you were out at the graveyard.” Sasha shifted her weight to better balance the girl on her shoulders, even as the scent of a nearby fast food join assailed her hungered belly with rumbling growls, the feeling of weakness still there aching at the core of her limbs. Yon on the other hand let out a light grunt of displeasure at the memory of the mentioned moment. “I thought you were going to piss yourself out there. Lucky you didn’t I hate that smell.”

“Well excuse me miss for being fucking frightened out of my wits. It’s not like I wasn’t expecting horrible things to happen to me soon you know. I was scared shitless as it was when you popped in and punched that guy like an empty piñata. Surprise doesn’t add well to mortal fucking terror alright.” Yon responded testily, her biting tone bringing a small smile to Sasha’s lips. "Anyway you don't seem all that homeless. I mean you don't smell like a hobo."

“Well, at least it seems you aren’t just in panic mode anymore. But you’ve got to admit that I have a point.” Sasha glanced back at her passenger with a wry look.

“Fine, you’ve got a point. I’m a hysterical woman with paranoid delusions… and if you take me anywhere near a hospital or a police station I’m going to fucking run away, on my sprained ankle, fuck the consequences. Ok?” She warned in reply.

“Geez… fine, fine. You’ve convinced me. Look I don’t exactly have a place to put you up though. You might be able to tell but I’m not exactly the type to have a place to call my own.” Sasha responded with a light sigh, lightly wetting her lips in anticipation of the food which she could smell.

“Well… it’s not like we aren’t rich now.” Yon replied, her tone almost hopeful as she spoke.

“We? I don’t exactly think any of this cash is yours. Hell I’m not even sure I won’t just show up and drop it on the Police’s doorstep and be done with it.” Sasha rolled her eyes, somehow she found that she wasn’t at all surprised at the girl’s attempt at claiming some of the prize for herself. She didn’t mean a word of the whole ‘take it to the police’ spiel, but she’d figured it would get to the other girl just a bit.

“Look, I should get a cut… I’m a victim here and I need a little something to grease getting back on my feet you know.” Yon practically begged as she harrumphed at the idea of actually giving it all away.

“Yeah… the more I listen to you, the less ‘victim’ you seem. Just sayin.” Sasha replied.

The larger, older girl rested her chin in Sasha's curly, wild locks in a relaxed manner. “Liar… I'm one hell of a victim. Can’t you see its written all over me.”

“Right. Well whatever... I’m hungry enough to murder a horse, and some of this money’s going to go to good use. I’lll find you a good place to stay until either you heal up or shit blows over. But for tonight at least you’ll have to stay in one of those overnight hotels. The ones couples rent to fuck each other’s brains out for a few hours. They stay low and don’t ask questions or keep records or anything, so I doubt you’ll get any trouble there.”

“You’re taking me to a love hotel? Seriously?” The young woman’s tone was incredulous.

In truth those ‘overnight’ hotels had sprung up after the Japanese exodus in the late nineties, Right after Leviathan had sunk japan and the refugees flooded their way into every American city. A lot of Japanese culture artefacts had found their way over, this being one of them. The idea itself had been quickly adopted by every and anyone who’d enough money to put into real estate in a big city, and a low enough threshold on caring about ‘seediness’ to participate in the grand adventure of giving people a place to go get laid.

“Yeah. I know one not too far from here.” Sasha piped up, she’d watched more than a few people go in and out in her time on the streets of the bay to know that it had no real care nor particular standards for who used its services. “Oh don’t fucking worry, we’ve got money to burn, so long as we don’t burn too much and look suspicious, and you act natural about it.”

“… we? Ok fine if you’re saying we. But Our money should would stretch better elsewhere.” Yon seemed to recover just a bit of composure.

Sasha rolled her eyes again. “Yeah. Like I said I need a little time and an over-nighter should be enough to buy a little to find you a spot to stay without catching attention on it ok.”

“Oh fine. But I demand my fifty percent of the cash.” She commanded imperiously.

“Wow… I save your life and not even an hour later you’re demanding I pay for your pleasure.” Sasha deadpanned. “Besides, you don’t have a fifty percent of anything. You can have an allowance. I’m keeping everything else, I’m the one with the deep pockets remember. And the one who can actually do anything if gangers show up looking for it.”

“Oh fine spoilsport… but you’re paying for the full works. I need some cable and ice-cream back in my life after the week I've had.” Yon pouted, or at least Sasha assumed she had, she sounded like the pouty type. She also sounded like the dangerously sociable type. Sasha figured she’d need to be careful with her, one way or another.

*Growl*

“Yeah… food sounds good. Let’s go do that.”

“Fine. Lets.”



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For all that her companion had been almost too easily companionable, Sasha couldn't find it in herself to really push questions on the admittedly interesting Asian girl she'd rescued. Allowing her a room with all the proper amenities had been the least she could do here, and she didn't miss how Yon had been talkative the whole way, almost as if to distract herself from the reality of the situation now that she was no longer directly in it. Sasha was pretty sure though, that the loud porno channel the girl had pulled up had just been an attempt to get a rise out of her 'savior', as she backed out of the door and headed back outside to go stuff her face with as much food as her belly could hold.

Sasha had literally never eaten so much in a single setting before, munching her way through her eighth chilli-dog as desperately she tried to fill the void of energy which seemed to consume her limbs. She’d been a bit dizzy and anemic when she’d finally stumbled into the all night snackette and demanded food with an intense urgency.

She’d need to be careful with these gloves, she figured, staring at the ragged old things which adorned her hands. Well it was either that or figure out a manner by which to store fuel that she needed in order to feed them. Really it felt like the gloves seemed to concentrate the energy which her body used, drawing it all together for explosive bursts of actions. And the way in which she lost durability on her shirt by just a bit after every major use told her something about how much potential strain on her muscles they could have been without it.

Idly she wondered if that was why she wasn’t feeling tired per say so much as… drained. Her muscles and joints didn’t ache, didn’t feel as if they were worked to the bone as she’d been doing. She’d done more than a fair share of science back when she was still in high school, being a local geek and friends with a few calculation obsessed idiots had taught her some esoteric information. Just a little bit about all kinds of weird things really... they’d even gotten her into playing RP sessions with them, using real world science stuff to come up with powers and effects.

She’d never actually studied so much as when she’d cracked open a science book looking for something new to trump them with.

Idiot boys… she thought fondly.

Idiot me… she thought with far less joy, remembering the less pleasant aspects of her life after her parents were gone.

She made her way back to Sabah’s apartment a while later, bobbing and weaving though allies and dark corner as she went, ensuring no one could trace her back to this place... her safe-haven.

Sabah apparently had left something for her to eat on the stove before herself turning in.

Sasha couldn’t help but smile at that generosity before herself hitting the hay.

... after eating it all.

“I didn’t seen when you got in last night. Did you sleep well?” The soft spoken young woman asked, even as she shoveled a particularly cheesy omelet onto her younger room-mate’s plate, a light side of turkey bacon dropped on top of it.

“Yeah, thanks. I had a few things I wanted to take care of last night. It was a bit more productive than I expected.” Sasha answered, trying to stay as close to the truth as possible without giving anything away here.

“Did you get everything you wanted?” Sabah quirked her eyebrow as she asked the question, clearly intuiting that what Sasha’d been searching for had been whatever hidden stash of valuables she might have actually had. A common enough practice among those who had no place to place anything of their own to find a place or two hidden from everyone else to keep anything that might actually hold real or sentimental value.

The assumption at least made it a bit easier to skirt around the truth. “So, so. I have to keep looking. But I think I’m fairly set so far.”

“Good, I want you to stay safe though, I heard yesterday that the ABB are getting a lot more aggressive. And apparently something big went down last night... the morning papers were saying that there was shooting in the Boat Graveyard, and that someone put a whole bunch of ABB members in intensive care. Between that and the burglary at that casino in their territory...” Sabah trailed off, the concern in her voice palpable. In Brocktown Bay one kept an eye on the gangs like they did the weather, an inevitable force in the world that one needed to prepare for, but couldn’t ever stop. Knowing the likelihood of bursts of gang violence was nothing less than a necessity for living a long and healthy life.

Sasha merely nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I’m staying safe. Just got to get a few more things, have to go looking for them before I can really get settled in.”

She’d planned to have a fairly busy day today, she could feel her charges having returned and now with the drugs and guns she figured that she could possibly make some stuff happen on that front and make herself some weapons and additional effects. Maybe. She’d have to think about some other applications she might be able to make.

“Well be careful out there. People are getting a lot more tense.” Sabah gave a small smile.

Sasha couldn’t help but melt a bit inside. “Hey… ah… do you, maybe... want anything done? Like around the house or anything? I kinda feel bad hanging around here without paying you back for it somehow. I mean…”

Sabah nodded. “Yeah, I understand. Feeling like you’re pulling your own weight for something; I suppose you could do the dishes... just take off those funky gloves of your before you start it up ok.”

Sasha’s face reddened slightly. “I don’t wear them everywhere you know.”

“All things considered love, you could have fooled me on that one.” The Arabic girl laughed softly.

Sasha grinned despite herself.

Yeah, this was going to be ok.


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HOLY FUCK! This was NOT ok!

She scrambled forward, scampering into the nearest shadows as the group of cars pulled up. Red and green flashing everywhere as ABB gang members spread their way into the quiet night. Their eyes harden onto a terrible purpose as they emerged from every quarter. The ones with the big scary guns were the minority, but it seemed like every bloody member of the organization was out in force, to do the bidding of their lord and master.

Lung was on the hunt, and his entire organization was moving. Lung the parahuman who could turn into a freaking dragon and outfight anyone until he won. Lung who'd fought freaking leviathan toe to toe for hours on end.

Nights like this everyone knew that it was best to just find your way into a random abandoned building or warehouse and hope for the best. Nights like these, the streets belonged to the gangs and getting in the way of that was a good way of getting yourself killed. This was nothing less than all-out war on the streets, and Sasha was caught out in this hell storm.

She’d taken most of the day to lounge about, sure that she’d have time and space to get everything she wanted done.

At the very least she’d managed to scavenge up the things she’d wanted to grab for enchanting, and even swung by a store in order to grab a few of the items involved. Maybe it had been a bit much to hope for when she’d went back, but both the car and boat from last night were long gone, though she’d managed instead to stumble across one of those big sorting magnets, the type that was industrially rated, and the remnants of an old tugboat, its coal fired engine still intact after so many years.

She was stronger now than she'd started the day for certain...

But every whisper on the street was that she and a bunch of other young parahumans who'd defied Lung were on tonight's hitlist... and she had a sneaking suspicion that nowhere was going to be safe for the next few hours.