1.5 Val
The sun is only just starting to set by the time Val leaves Taylor standing at her house. Val wonders if the anxiety that's hunching the girl's shoulder is for Val's sake or for the trouble she represents.
It's rare that Val's assigned purpose is so morally white, and she doesn't intend to take it for granted. She plans on earning Taylor's trust, though she thinks that probably wont be too difficult. Probably helps that it's easier to trust someone who's Contractually bound to follow your orders. The instructions she had been given are tame, and still Val had seen guilt in the other girl's expression. Val enjoys having freedoms, but she's a creature made to serve. A knife to be used. She doesn't take offense at being given commands.
Val is keeping the wrappings around her eyes instead of using the sunglasses she had been given by Taylor. The sunglasses are supposed to be part of her civilian disguise, so it would be best for her general anonymity if word of a sunglass-wearing vigilante didn't make its way around the streets. She has a black hoodie that she has taken from Taylor's closet, and she tightens the strings to obscure her features. It'll be for the best if nobody sees the cloth around her eyes, either, and the hoodie will help with that.
Liberal applications of the more useful utility spells she knows would be her normal default when moving across a city unseen, but because the power needs to come from Taylor's reserves, it's probably wise to keep magic to a minimum until she knows more about the girls capabilities.
The constantly fluctuating quantity of power that Val has access to across her different summons is probably one of the reasons she's only ever bothered to master a few utility spells. She knows that some of her kind only take contracts with sufficiently powerful summoners, but Val has always accepted almost any contract she could get her hands onto.
The early stages of exploring a new world are always some of the most fascinating to Val.
She makes her way towards the nearest part of the city that Taylor had circled, one of the places Taylor had said she would most easily find good hunting. Val probably won't be able to learn much about how to blend in tonight, but her goal is to smash enough heads together to be able to buy a phone by the time the shops open up in the morning.
Taylor had given her a brief explanation of a few of the things that Val would want to look into buying as soon as possible, and it's obvious what's highest on the list.
The ability to contact people at any distance was definitely useful, but not anything Val hadn't seen before. Of course, the methods she knew about were almost entirely magical.
No, what had amazed her was Taylor's brief description of the internet, so easily accessed on a handhold device. Comprehensive, global, sharing of knowledge was definitely a first for Val. An aspect of this world that was totally unique.
She notices that those have been adding up. Val is starting to take Taylor's warning that she needs to be careful more seriously. Too many unknowns.
The air is brisk against her skin and the sun is starting to illuminate the horizon in brilliant hues of red and orange. Filtered through her particular sense of perception, the observation is clinical in nature, but Val can recognize its beauty in an abstract way.
She takes a moment to wonder at her luck. She hadn't expected to have been freed from her prison, maybe ever, and now she has somehow found her way into a contract with a good-hearted summoner that's too quick to trust and has given her liberal amounts of freedom. It's an actual dream come true. Val is waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It doesn't take long to reach her destination. Although she's only traveled through a small portion of the city, Val feels like she has enough context by now to say that Taylor's house was definitely in the 'good' part of town.
The buildings had gradually fallen more and more into disrepair and the graffiti had become more and more frequent as she had worked her way inwards. The homeless litter the streets, some slumped against buildings, others deeper in alleyways. Some are drunk or otherwise incapacitated, some are not. She notices at least one that isn't breathing, ignored by his surroundings. Val moves forward, knowing the futility in trying to save everyone.
She moves through the streets at a quick jog, having layered a small enchantment over herself that would have any watchful eyes sliding past her without second thought. Eyes were too easily tricked, one of the many reasons she avoided using her own.
Having arrived in what she thinks is the area that Taylor had marked on the map, Val looks to scout out a good vantage point to begin waiting for a mark.
She sees a short building with a wide, flat rooftop that will serve her purposes. She easily scales her way up and sets aside the bag of clothes she had been carrying. Taylor had apologized for not having a spare backpack and had seemed embarrassed to have been giving her a plastic bag to hold her things in. Val only thinks that the embarrassment had been endearing.
Staging location picked, Val settles against the ledge and lets out a breath. She lets the thoughts that have been running through her mind drain away and she slows her breathing. The bizarreness of the day makes it more difficult than usual.
Once her racing mind has quieted and her breathing has become long and shallow, she expands her senses as far as she's comfortable with. The limitations of magical sensing is rarely distance. Rather, it's the user's ability to process the overwhelming amount of information.
Still, Val's better than most. It's far from the first time she's done this.
The city here is densely packed, extremely so. Val has seen such cities before, but never one in such disrepair. The weight of hopelessness here is almost a physical thing and it hangs over the deteriorating city like the morning mist.
The sounds filtering through her head are too dense to unpackage fully, but it's easier when you're looking for something specific. Like the way the sound of a shattering glass will pierce its way through the hubbub of even the most crowded room, so too will the distinctive sounds of impending violence break through the steady hum of city life.
As expected, it doesn't take long. A woman is shouting for help several blocks away, and Val can hear a man's bludgeoning threats.
Committing to memory the location she's leaving her small bag of supplies, Val begins to fly across the rooftops towards the sound.
Arriving shortly, Val takes the scene in with greater detail. A man has dragged a woman into an alleyway and seems to be trying to wrench her purse from her hands. The man only seems interested in her belongings, and her anger that had been growing fades slightly. Val knows this isn't worth respect, but she has low standards.
It would be simple to disable the man in an instant, but she thinks that some violence will give a measure of control back to the woman. And if not control, at least vindication. Val doesn't mind obliging that.
She drops from the rooftop she had been perched on and lands without a sound within the man's field of view.
She had been expecting an exclamation of surprise, maybe, or at least some kind of blustering threat.
Instead, the man pushes away from the woman and just stares at her, face slack in surprise. Bad instincts on this one, but Val supposes that isn't too unusual. Common thugs are rarely the crème de la crop of the criminal underworld.
Val begins to move towards the man with long, confident strides, and this seems to spur the man into some kind action. He had been holding a knife, but now fumbles towards his waistband, letting out a panicked, "Get the fu-"
He doesn't have time to finish, Val having closed the gap much quicker than would normally be possible. She delivers a vicious backhand to the side of the man's face that sends him staggering several feet to the side. Whatever he was reaching for is forgotten, and the man is hunched over now, holding his head. Val doesn't let up.
She spends some time pushing and slapping the man around the alley. It's demeaning, intentionally so. It's a show put on out of consideration for the victim. She can feel the eyes of the woman on her back, terrified relief mixed with confused satisfaction.
Val puts her performance to a close with another blow to the side of the man's head that leaves him crumpling to the ground in a pile.
He's going to wake up with a splitting headache, but he'll probably be fine.
Show over, Val leans down to start looking through the man's belonging. She can feel the woman watching her. She first checks to see what the man had been reaching towards and finds a silvery metallic object with a handle and a cylinder.
A weapon, she can intuit from the way the man had instinctually reached towards it. She spins the metal object around, staring down the hollow cylinder, curious despite herself. For reasons she doesn't understand, she hears the woman behind her make a muffled sound of concern.
Deciding she'll look into it later, she tucks it into her own waistband the same way the man had and goes to rummage through his pockets.
He has a wallet with a few pieces of the green paper that Taylor explained was the currency here. She only needs the money, really, but pockets the entire wallet. Taylor had used an amusing phrase, earlier. "Asshole tax."
The man sufficiently searched, Val walks over to the woman's purse, which had fallen to the wayside during the assault. The woman hasn't moved a muscle the entire time and stares at Val with an expression of wariness and fear.
Val scoops up the purse and tosses it the woman's way, hitting her square in the chest. She somehow manages to fumble the purse anyways before managing to secure her grip.
With a sharp jerk of her head towards the front of the alley, Val says, "Come on, I'll walk you home. Where do you live?"
The woman startles and steps away from the wall. "Uh." It takes her a few seconds to find the words. "A few blocks, down that way. To the left." She gestures shakily in the direction. She takes a hesitant step towards the entrance of the alley, towards Val.
Val nods once and turns to walk out. She gestures for the woman to follow. She hears footsteps behind her.
Val turns left at the alley entrance and walks in silence with the woman for a minute, giving her time to settle her thoughts.
Glancing back to the woman, Val feels the need to state the obvious. "It's not very smart to be walking around this late at night."
Annoyance replaces the apprehension on the woman's face.
"You think I don't know that? You think I had a fucking choice?"
Regret washes over her face as quickly as the outburst had come.
"I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. It's been a long night." She looks so genuinely distraught that Val let outs a laugh.
Val is just happy to see some spine. She thinks this one is going to be fine.
She continues to walk in silence.
She can tell the woman is curious, but no questions are forthcoming. Val thinks that in this city, ignorance is maybe one of the only protections the weak have.
Knowing that the woman has probably gotten at least one look under her hoodie, and wanting to keep a low profile, Val instructs, "If anyone asks, you didn't get a good look at me."
The woman is nodding her head emphatically with a meek "of course", and Val isn't concerned with duplicity. It's not that she trusts easily, only that she can't imagine a reason for the woman to act against her. It could happen, she supposes, but it wouldn't be the end of the world even if it does. Only annoying.
It takes a short time to finish the walk to the woman's house, and Val leaves her at the doorstep. She's being thanked profusely, but Val just waves away the thanks and turns to make her way back to her bag that she had left on the rooftop.
The night passes without remark. There's a lull in activity once the moon has reached it's highest point, and Val has to resort to wandering the streets with her plastic bag of clothes slung over her shoulder. She makes sure to hunch her shoulders and move quickly through the streets, to foster authenticity. She has moderate success.
One of the robbers had been wearing a black backpack, which Val appropriates. Some of the victims ask her name while thanking her, but she declines to give it to them. She keeps the strings of her hoody tight to minimize how much of her is seen. Her most distinguishing feature is her white hair, which she needs to be careful to not reveal. Some of the victims and perpetuators might have seen her eye wrappings, but Val doesn't think it matters.
As the sun begins to rise, Val has accumulated a moderate stash of loot. She's taken about a dozen and a bit wallets, four of those metallic weapons that have similar shapes but vary in their details, a backpack, a handful of knives, and a stack of cellphones.
She knows that most of it could fetch good prices at a fence, but Val is entirely underequipped to try to locate and convince one. She'll just hold on to them for now.
She had messed with the cellphones for a bit, trying to understand how to use them, but all were locked behind passcodes. The touchscreens were fun to mess with, though. She'd ask Taylor about them this evening.
Val had donned her civilian disguise by this point, which consists of Taylor's gray pants and white long-sleeved button-up. Val temporarily wears the hoodie still, intending to conceal her hair. She's going to buy a beanie or hat to hide her hair as a temporary stop-gap but wants to find a wig to work into her civilian identity as a longer term solution.
She's tied the cloth she uses to wrap her eyes around her bicep, unwilling to lose it. It has sentimental value. The sunglasses let in light from the sides that tint her closed eyes a soft red, and Val finds herself annoyed. At least this isn't one of those summons where she has to forgo them completely.
Val had walked to the better part of town and has been excitedly waiting for dawn to break, wanting to go shopping with her blood money hard earned cash. She's pretty confident that she can blend in as long as she doesn't need to talk much and can figure out the process of buying something by observing a customer.
She stakes out one of the stores on the corner of an intersection and eventually sees someone with keys unlocking the front door. Val waits a bit for the first customer to arrive, and follows them in. There's a bell on top of the door that rings on entry. The store clerk is staring at her warily, and it's pretty obvious why. Sunglasses and a hoodie aren't the most assuring of clothes. Still, he doesn't actually do anything, but Val can feel eyes on her back as she browses and waits for the first customer to buy something.
In the meantime, Val is wandering the store looking through the wares. She finds a rack of sunglasses pretty quickly and decides to pick up a few extra pairs to be safe. One of the pairs she buys is heart-shaped and impractically large. She loves them immediately.
The beanie is harder, but fortunately she does find one. Val spends some time looking through the prepaid phones Taylor had talked about but finds herself too lost to make an intelligent decision, deciding to wait for advice on picking one out. Maybe Taylor can help after her school is out.
The payment process is easy, which is a relief. The man who had first entered the store simply places his items on the counter and hands over a few bills. The clerk makes some polite small talk that transcends cultures and the man only grunts a few acknowledgements. Confident now, Val holds her beanie and sunglasses in her hands as she walks up to the counter.
The clerk is still giving her an odd look, but Val forges through. She places her items on the counter and hands over enough of the bills to pay for her items. She hopes she hasn't grossly misunderstood the price tags, but it seemed fairly obvious to her. The transaction finishes easily and the clerk hands her some change and seems relieved to see her leave.
Walking a few streets down before turning into an alleyway with some cover, Val removes her hoodie and tugs the beanie down over her head. It's not perfect, but it probably mostly hides her hair color. She leaves her first pair of sunglasses on her head, but fully intends to wear the heart-shaped ones when she meets up with Taylor. She's positive she'll get a reaction.
Now in a slightly less suspicious disguise, Val spends some time walking the streets, simply getting a feel for the city. She's always found the exploration of new places fascinating. Her mom had used the word "wanderlust" once, to describe Val. She thinks it's a fair description.
She finds the park that she's supposed to meet Taylor in and spends some time walking through, listening in on the conversations of the people there. It's a bit invasive, but a lot can be learned in the way that people speak casually. The morning and midday pass uneventfully, with Val soaking in as much information as she can. She passes the time patiently, waiting for her next meeting with the summoner.