Boys and girls pretend to know me, they try so hard,

And I get what I want my name is my credit card,

Don't try to hate me because I am so popular

The Veronicas

The bash swarmed with the crowd of famous tech-heads sprinkled throughout with surge monkey, neo foodies, random cliques and reputation bombers. I blended effortlessly with the random rabble of people. Unfortunately, I blended a little too well.

If I wanted to get in with the Crims, I had to stand out, and cowering in a group of real reputation bombers just wasn't cutting it. Being around the people I need to impress didn't make some magical plan to prove Hayate wrong materialize in front of me like I had hoped.

The only way I could think of to get in was to find a Crim to flirt with until he invite me as a date, but I was wearing a dorm uniform under my clothes and my classic pretty surge would be a little boring for most of the guys there. Causing some sort of scene would just make me look stupid. That left finding something to kick, but I had to be careful because a lot of the Crims thought they were above kickers. Egotistical bastards.

I left the group of reputation bombers and wandered over to someone who was running around with a tray of drinks. I snagged one and leaned against the wall to drink it. I noticed a hovercam drop from overhead to get a quick shot at me, probably wondering why I wasn't where I was supposed to be, before it zipped off to chase someone else.

I kept my spot against the wall for ten minutes, scanning the crowd, before I saw the people I had been hoping to see all night. Han was walking through the party with a tall, very pretty girl stuck to one of his sides. He was ignoring her to talk to his best friend Takashi who was walking on his other side with Morimoto, Hayate, and a few of the Crims in tow.

If I somehow managed to get on their good side, then I'd have a better shot. Using Han was not going to be an option; I did rudely slam him into the sidewalk. Takashi had a girlfriend, so that ruled him out unless I wanted to look desperate. That left Morimoto, Takashi's best friend, but with his reputation with girls, he wasn't exactly ideal.

I sighed. I knew better that to take the bait with Hayate, but I just had to prove him wrong. All I wanted to do was rub his nose it; I didn't care about the fame, and I didn't care about the invitation into the Crims. He was smart enough to pick something that would involve getting both of them.

I dumped the ice from my drink into my mouth and puffed my cheeks out to avoid the almost unbearable temperature. This whole night was completely pointless; it was almost dawn and I was no closer to getting into the Crims. Unable to take my frustrations out on the one person who deserved it, I started glaring at a hovercam that bobbed overhead.

I was so focused on glaring at the innocent hovercam as I thought of various things to kick that would humiliate my brother, that I missed the person next to me. I didn't notice them until they brushed part of my hood aside.

"Oh, don't you dare!" I snapped after I swallowed my ice and slapped their hand away. "Do not do that." I commanded. I glanced over to see Han standing beside me with two drinks.

"Thought that was you." He commented blankly.

"How?" I asked in confusion. I was completely covered by the long robe.

"You seem like the type to stand by yourself up against the wall at a huge tech head bash you're crashing." He answered pointedly.

"Look, you want me out, all you have to do is say so, but don't yank it off ." I replied as I fixed my hood back over my face.

"What brought you here?" He asked conversationally. I watched as a few hover cams dropped down to get a few shots of him. They hovered a the edge of his reputation bubble.

"My idiot brother." I admitted quietly.

"He invite you?" He asked lazily as he scanned the party.

"He knows how to make me angry." I answered cryptically. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow. I shrugged. "Look, sorry I was so awful earlier." I offered to change the subject. I was particularly happy about having to apologize, but if worst came to worst, then I might need him.

"Frustration does that to people." He dismissed mildly.

"Yeah, it does." We descended into an awkward silence as he finished his drink. "I think I've had enough of this party." I finally admitted.

"I would say I'd see you around, but I don't even know your name." He answered, looking at me expectantly.

"If you got in the Crims because of something other than your reputation with women and your pretty face, then you should be able to find that out, shouldn't you?" I asked sarcastically before slipping off into the crowd. Either he thought I was horrible, or he took that for an attempt at flirting; it was really the former, but maybe I could play it off as the latter if I needed to.

My shoulders sagged as I pushed my way through the crowd. I was completely screwed; the thought almost brought angry tears back in my eyes. I hated to see Hayate win at everything.

The cold night air cut straight through my gray silk robe the second I walked through the mansion's front door. I felt like I was a shadow as I slipped past the people standing around the front steps. Not one of them bothered to look away from whatever they were doing.

That was the definition of being Extra, I guess; walking around in the background while the famous people refused to take two seconds away from their lives to notice anyone else.

I glanced back to the mansion one last time over my shoulder to see Hayate walking out the doors surrounded by hovercams with two girls on each arm. Morimoto appeared next with two more. I rolled my eyes at my brother's behavior. I was sorely tempted to walk over and somehow screw it up for him, but then I remembered that I wasn't supposed to be there.

The realization made me panic because I knew lone reputation bombers were rare and me standing there staring would be a dead give away that I wasn't supposed to be there. I ducked around to the side of the building. I immediately collided with someone who shoved me backwards. Without the reflexes that I had developed from hover boarding, I would have landed flat on my butt.

"Watch it." A man's voice slurred out.

"You watch it." I shoved back without thinking. I glanced up to see the disgruntled face of none other than Takashi; the one person on the planet who would lock me out of the Crims and every other social event for life.

"You bit-" He started.

"Takashi, just leave her alone; you're drunk." Han cut him off. His voice stayed steady and level as if he was bringing up the weather instead of trying to pull his drunk friend out of a fight.

"Extra doesn't know her place." He sneered.

I watched as a hover cam spotted the argument and zoomed in on the three of us. They apparently used the side exit to avoid being followed like this. Another two soon joined it. Han followed my gaze to them as Takashi drunkenly ranted.

"I think I'd better get going." I muttered as I attempted to sidestep Takashi to get to my hoverboard, only for him grab my arms in an iron grip. Han reached to pull him off.

"You think you can disrespect me and then just walk away?" He snapped with an evil chuckle.

Now I was scared, and let it be noted, that it takes a lot to get Rin Nakamura scared.

"I just-" I stuttered helplessly.

"You what?" He sneered. I stared feeling out around me with my toe, hoping I would find the metal of my hoverboard.

"I-I-." I continued trying to think of something to say. My foot found the solid metal of the hoverboard, and I could have cried in relief.

'Takashi, she's just a kid." Han reminded. Takashi's eyes cut away from me to Han, and I snapped for the hoverboard to rise, hoping I could get away while he was distracted.

The hoverboard jerked upward, and I soon discovered that Takashi's toes were resting on the side away from me. He let go of my arms as he was flung off balance. I stepped completely on the hoverboard before I shot up, completely out of his reach. I noticed that Han was smirking at the scene unfolding in front of him, as were a few of the people watching the vids on the feeds being sent out by the fifty hover cams that now surrounded us.

"Should've let me walk." I taunted, suddenly feeling braver now that he was on the ground, and I was safely in the air.

"You think you're tough just because you got away from me on your hoverboard?" He yelled upward before he let out a barking laugh. The people starting to show up after seeing it on the feed laughed with him as the tried to sneak closer to the argument. Han completely ignored the girls that slid up next to him as he watched everything unfold with an amused smirk.

"If you want to see how tough I am, why don't you come up here and get me?" I yelled down cockily. He laughed again as his girlfriend Neela grabbed one of his arms and tried to pull him away.

"I might have been out of the game for a while, but I'm still the best there is." He replied, earning a cheer from the surrounding crowd.

I shifted my weight nervously as much as possible without rocking the board. There must have been more to the Crims than I thought, because all I knew was they were a partying clique who were supposed to be tech heads. I had never actually heard of one doing something that involved being a criminal, or technology.

"Prove it." I barked back.

"Six days from now, the day before the Crim bash, meet back here with your little city toy," He gestured to my board. A few of the other guys started chuckling. "I'll show you what real hover boarding is."

"How exactly do you plan to do that? Looks to me like you're stuck on the ground." I yelled back. I heard a few gasps and chuckles run through our growing audience.

"Race me and find out." He shot back. "Third party decides the course, neither of us know until we meet here. Hovercams keep track to make sure no one tries to chicken out on some of the obstacles." He named his terms.

"Done." I replied without thinking before I shot off.

Z

I skipped the sunrise to get some much needed sleep.

When I woke up, the feeds were plastered with images of me in my long silk robe hovering over everyone like a ghost. No one got a shot at my face, recognized my voice, or had any clue who I might be. I stared in awe at the fame I had accumulated overnight; my face rank had topped 100,000 from some of the nick names people had given me.

I immediately put the new wall allowances to use and got myself some new disposable clothes from the hole in the wall, along with a pair of sunglasses to help with light and wind when I hover boarded.

When I was done getting what I wanted, I started scanned through the feeds to see if people had figured out it was me because of the face rank bump, but it turns out I wasn't the only one this little incident shot into the spotlight.

Everyone had an idea of who it was in the robe; most of the people were hover ball players, or bad asses like Takashi thought he was, but several other girls that had siblings in the Crims actually made the list of prospects.

The list was too broad; there was no way anyone would be able to single me out. The realization brought me a little bit of relief; pissing off the leader of the Crims was not what I wanted to be known for.

I skipped my morning class-again- and spent my time scanning through the feeds. Most of the things about me were slamming; they all had the same theme of 'there was no way I could be that like Hayate'. I found that funny because I never knew Hayate was one to piss of big faces and dig himself into his own social grave in front of the entire city.

The weird thing about this whole situation was a lot of the people in the city didn't look at it that way. They saw the Bomber Girl challenging Takashi's reign of the city as bold and courageous. Many of them were rooting for her to win, or at least hoping she had a spot in the Crims her rebelliousness. I seriously doubted either of those were going to happen.

I soon went back to looking at the kicks speculating who it was under the hood. A few ego kickers had put vids up proclaiming they knew who it was. A few people that were know for hover boarding and hover ball flat out said they were the ones standing on the hover board in the robe. A lot of them were immediately discredited, but a few enjoyed a massive bump in face rank as their names were added to the growing list of possibilities.

Disgusted with the talk on the feeds, I started sorting through some of the pings I had gotten. I lazily told the room to arrange them by biggest face first. I was expecting Kaede and Hayate to be the top of the list, but one plain, unadorned ping took the very top spot.

It was from Han Lue, and it only contained two words:

Found you.

This chapter is dedicated to gabriellarourke96. Thank you for reminding me to finish this chapter