Jinx leant over the bar-top in boredom, rolling her blue gemstone back and forth between her fingers, as the night wound down.
The bartender approached her empty cup with hesitation, unsure of whether or not she wished it to be taken. She glanced up at him, flashing a false-pleasant smile.
"You don't ever kick people out of here, do ya, Chuck?" she pondered in a sing-songy voice. "You must get someone else to do that for ya, huh?"
He stood awkwardly and scratched his head. "Oh, I didn't accidentally give you alcohol again, did I…?"
In response, she animatedly snatched her cup off of the countertop and began loudly sipping air through the straw.
He sighed. "You always start calling me different names whenever that happens…"
"What different names?" she demanded.
"My—" he paused, "never mind…"
"Chuck, you're a good egg, people ever tell you that?" she continued.
"Egg—?" he puzzled.
"You know, like, something your mother might say, I dunno," she drawled.
"I… haven't actually spoken to my mother in—" he began.
"Where is everybody, anyway?" she cut in, "it's never usually this dead in here this quickly…"
"Uh, well, I think Silco took a crew with him when he—" he started to answer.
"He came down?!" she exclaimed, "I didn't even see him…"
"Oh, uh, yeah, it was about an hour or so ago…" he added.
She shot him a look that appeared to make him nervous.
"Alright, Chuck," she said, standing up, "what do I owe ya?"
"You—?" he looked confused, and seemingly decided to ignore the question instead. "Just… don't tell him that I got you buzzed by accident, please…"
"What? I'm not—" she protested, "if I were drunk, I'd probably have shot ya by now, or something."
"…You've tried to, before…" he meekly remarked.
"Oh, yeah…" she giggled, picking up her gemstone and setting her cup down.
She turned to take her leave.
"Well, if I don't see ya…!" she sang behind her, waltzing outside onto the streets of The Lanes.
Her face contorted into a pout, as she reminded herself that her father had apparently gone somewhere exciting and left her behind. Not that it was unlike him, though.
She sighed, and went for a stroll down the gravel path, flanked on either side by colorful neon lights and street stalls that had closed up shop for the night. The only places that stayed open were the 'entertainment' venues — Jinx scoffed as she passed by the door to the pleasure house that she knew some of her father's crew to frequent.
'Folks really got nothin' to do, these days, huh?' she mused.
Not that she didn't ever get bored — she did find herself aimlessly wandering the Lanes more often than not, as she was now. The only thing she spent more time doing was holing up in the underground crevice where she slept, tinkering and building new contraptions with which to blow people up.
Still, it was better than spending one's time in a damned brothel, she figured. She couldn't really imagine needing to resort to something like that just to pass the time.
She took a glimpse at her gemstone once again. Perhaps she'd do another loop around, and then head back to give Fishbones some attention.
She decided to take the scenic route, instead, finding a rusted ladder on the side of an apartment block and clambering up to reach it. She haphazardly made it up to the roof, which required a small jump, and breathed in the slightly cleaner air.
Being up above it all always seemed to elicit memories…
She tight-walked over to the corner of the roof, and hopped over the gap to the next building. She always liked to check the alleyways below for anything interesting that might have been happening. Shady Shimmer deals, perhaps, she thought of a group of three oafs below donning some not-so-inconspicuous cloaks. They didn't notice her peering down upon them, so she moved on.
She supposed she wasn't too far from the tucked-away Shimmer manufacturing facility her father never seemed to want to take her to visit, though she'd managed to stumble upon it on her own plenty of times. The rooftops began to descend from building to building, like a staircase, as they led down the cliff face and to the entrance of the factory.
She heard some type of a commotion as she drew closer. The two gruff-looking men who usually stood guard in front of the place seemed to be trying to rough up an unwelcome visitor.
She perched herself against a rooftop parapet to get a look at what was going on.
The dude they were trying to fend off didn't look very old at all, and he had weird, white hair, all spiked up at strange angles. He also didn't seem like he wanted that badly to get in, more so just to mess with them, maybe.
One of the guards decided to sock him in the face after failing to get him to back up, and the dude just began cackling the moment it connected. Must not have been much of a punch, Jinx figured.
The guard tried grabbing him by the neck, instead, at which point the dude performed a weird, backwards-pirouette-flip away from them, the top of his foot connecting with the guard's chin as he did it. The guard staggered and almost fell, and the dude landed in front of them in a low pose, his arm outstretched in front of him, supporting half of his weight by his fingers. Jinx found amusement in the thought that he looked kinda like a spider.
She wanted to move closer to hear their conversation. She vaulted herself up and across to the next rooftop as quietly as she could, and then found herself a vantage point again.
Her face dropped. One of the guards barked for help toward the inside of the factory, next to his friend, who appeared to have been knocked-out, but the dude with the weird hair was nowhere to be seen. She'd thought she'd heard him get in a few hits as she was changing position — perhaps that's all it took. What a couple of weaklings.
She sighed and sat herself down, attempting to beat out some dirt that she'd managed to sweep up with her braided hair during the journey here.
She paused — her hopes weren't to be dashed so quickly. She spotted her mysterious fighter up high, against the wall of the factory, balancing himself only on the steel architectural detailings of the building. He appeared to be trying to peer through the window, but didn't seem completely interested by what he saw.
Jinx stayed low, wishing to see what he would do next if she didn't announce her presence.
To her surprise, she watched him effortlessly scale the remainder of the wall, all the way to the top of the factory. She hastily stood, and prepared herself to follow him by returning the way she got down her in the first place.
She was sure glad not to have been carrying her mini-gun on her back, she thought as she clambered up the next rooftop, in pursuit. Stealing a quick glance up to where she'd last placed him, he luckily didn't appear to have moved very far.
She halted at the next gap to cross, as she felt that she wouldn't be able to attain enough height to reach the ledge above it. She looked to her right and thankfully spotted an alternative way up, which proved to be a shorter route, anyway.
She made it up and surveyed the elevated terrain — she would have to have been at the same height he was when she last spotted him. However, he wasn't anywhere to be found.
She grinned to herself, finding the sense of chase rather exhilarating.
She crouched down low, not wanting to be the one found first, and set off on her search — surely his stark white hair would prevent him from blending into the darkness.
It didn't take her too long — she located him standing casually, with his hands in his pockets, on the edge of a building which looked out over The Lanes' bustling nightlife.
She wondered if he might attempt to hurt her if she talked to him. She pulled out her pistol and cocked it back before getting any closer, so that the sound wouldn't give her away just yet. She felt it wise to remove the jangly buckles from the mouth of her boots. She slipped them all into separate pockets to reattach later.
He seemed to get bored of the view just as she began toward him, and so she quickly crept along behind him, hoping to catch him once he'd stopped. She couldn't help but find herself enamored by the way in which he moved — he had a certain weighted balance about every movement he made, as he hopped from ledge to ledge.
They both ended up on a somewhat narrow wooden catwalk between buildings, where he seemed to pause again to take in the view. She took this chance to close the distance between them, and stood up slowly.
She found herself holding her breath, and so felt pressured to make a decision quickly.
She pointed her gun at the back of his head, and hastily tried to think of something funny to say.
Instead, she felt a jolt as her weapon was suddenly snatched from her, the boy having turned around to face her in the blink of an eye. Even after his earlier display, she hadn't expected such speed.
She rejected the urge to back up, as, in spite of everything, he didn't actually look too scary.
He looked at her with a somewhat quizzical expression, his eyebrows furrowed.
"What are you supposed to be?" he asked dubiously, "world's worst assassin…?"
He sounded like he could have been her age, or maybe only a little older.
"They only payed me to scare ya…" she retorted, cracking a smile. "You know, Shimmer's not that hard to score around here, you coulda probably just asked somebody."
He gave her a look of suspicion. He must not have appreciated being spied upon.
"Well, if that's all that goes on in there, I ain't interested," he replied. "…Am I gonna have the mafia on me now, or something?" he added, bearing a smile that displayed oddly sharpened canines, for a human.
"Maybe that's me…?" she giggled cheekily.
He raised an eyebrow, but appeared to begin to lose some interest in the conversation.
"Yeah, sure…" he said, "listen, buzz off, will ya? I came up here to get away from you freaks."
"Wh—?" her expression changed, "you've got my gun, idiot...?"
He held the thing up and examined it, seeming to notice the colorful consistency between it and her attire.
She attempted to snatch it back, but he quickly moved it out of her arm's reach.
"What's your problem—?" she protested.
"What's your problem?" he retorted, "I didn't ask you to follow me."
After a moment of glaring daggers at one another, he reluctantly handed the pistol back to her.
She briefly checked that the hammer was still cocked back, and proceeded to turn and nail a tin can sitting on the edge of a rooftop about twenty yards away. She looked back at him and confidently blew away the smoke billowing from the end of the barrel.
He looked more puzzled than impressed.
He shook his head and lowered himself down to sit on the edge of the catwalk they were standing on, dangling his feet over the drop below.
"…How come those two were giving you a hard time back there, anyway?" she asked him after a moment.
He side-eyed her. "Uh… That was nothin', just a couple of losers."
Jinx held herself by a couple of ropes supporting the catwalk, and leant herself over the edge, swaying back and forth slowly.
"Ever feel like spittin' on 'em?" she asked of the people below.
He looked at her again. "I don't know, I'm not really from around here…"
She gave a curious gasp. "Really? Where are you from?"
He broke off eye contact in irritation. "Don't worry 'bout it…"
It did occurred to her that his clothing was a little out of the ordinary from what she was used to, even with the way Piltovans dressed — a pretty basic outfit of white, baggy pants which tightened around the ankles, a close-fitting black top, and a weird, golden band tied around his waist. His little black flats with no socks on made his feet look kinda small, she thought to herself in amusement.
He glanced at her, seemingly not appreciating her eye on him.
"You gonna tell me your name, at least?" she interjected, as he opened his mouth to speak.
"…I asked you to leave me alone, aight?" he attempted to brush her off.
"That's fine, but if you don't tell me," she continued, "I'm gonna have to end up calling you Chuck Two."
He raised a brow at her again. After a moment, his attention appeared to be drawn by the knife holster on her belt.
"Who're you out here gutting with that thing, anyway?" he asked.
She shrugged. "Whoever I want — Firelights, people who try to touch my stuff, Topsiders…"
His eye seemed to dart back at her at the mention of Topside.
"...You've been up there, you mean…?" he wondered.
"Um," she replied, "yeah, sometimes, I guess…"
"Hm," he looked on.
After a moment, he stood up.
"Well, I gotta find a place to sleep," he muttered.
"Sure," she said.
He looked at her. "Don't try to follow me this time…" he warned.
"Fine," she replied, "I only did it 'cause I was bored, anyway…"
"Hm…" he paused. "This your usual hangout spot, is it…?"
She shrugged. "Wherever, I guess… The Last Drop, sometimes…"
"The place with the loud music?" he asked.
"Oh, like, only on club nights it does…" she said quietly.
He seemed to notice some passer-by staring up at the two of them from down below. He promptly gave them the finger, which entertained her.
He slowly crouched down, setting his eyes on a ledge adjacent to them that he'd presumably use to exit the catwalk in a moment.
"My name's Garou, anyway…" he said to her.
"Oh," she replied. "Jinx."
He nodded. "Well, I'll see ya, maybe…"
She noticed his back muscles flexing through the thin fabric of his top as he prepared to launch himself.
"Yeah, sure, maybe you will…" she replied.
Without another word, he performed a thirty-foot lateral jump over to the nearby building, about as effortlessly as she'd observed him scaling the wall earlier.
She had to remind herself to release her bottom lip with her teeth when Garou gave a brief glance back at her after he'd landed. She watched him march off, disappearing into the night.