Make a business for yourself, boy, set some goals/make a fair dime out of dusty coal

[pressthatbutton]

Katja is standing in front of the Conrad, staring up at its roof. Squinting. She's not really doing much else (other than chainsmoking), and hasn't decided whether she's even going to venture in or not. On the one hand, it seems like a good idea to see who the enemy is. On the other, she's a demon and those are angels. Yes, those, right there

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[mustardwithat]

Fritz is walking past the front doors of the Conrad while Katja glares up at the roof. She happens to take a glance--just a glance--out the doors, and almost walks on.

And then she almost trips over her own feet and falls on her face because what the fuck is she doing outside?

She doesn't even wait to try and work out the logic. Doesn't think, doesn't apply any sense at all. Just slams her way past a businessman on his way in, thunders up to Katja and stares at her.

"Who the fuck are you supposed to be?"

[pressthatbutton]

What. What.

Whut.

Sure, if Katja'd been paying attention to the ground level, she would've noticed the blue-haired doppelganger stampeding out of the hotel, but as it was, she was too invested in memorizing the number of windows on the top floor that had their curtains drawn. And now there is a tiny version of her, except with worse hair, yelling in her face. Oookay, then.

"Clearly, we came to the party dressed as the same person, so I could ask you the same question," she snaps, then takes another draw on her cigarette and huffs out a little cloud of smoke at Fritz. Bitch gets up in her personal space, bitch gets her lung cancer. It's not as if she hasn't already stolen her face or anything.

[mustardwithat]

Fritz plucks the cigarette from Katja's fingers and brings it to her lips, sucking until the ash drags its way up the cancerstick by a few centimeters. And then she exhales in Katja's face.

"See, might have come dressed the same, but I was here first. What happened, a bloodbank vomit on your head?"

[pressthatbutton]

Katja frowns, snatching the cigarette back from Fritz. Her cancer sticks. Hers. Not for naughty face-stealing strangers. "Who says I was even going in?" she says. "Just inspecting your lovely little abode from afar."

She takes another drag on her cigarette. "And I put the blood on my head myself, honey."

[mustardwithat]

She might have liked this bitch, if this bitch didn't have her fucking face. It's the revolving door of cigarette stealage, apparently, because Fritz snags it back, takes a longer, slower drag, and then drops it on the ground. And steps on it.

She exhales in Katja's face. Two can play at the cancer game. "Who ever said it was my fuckin' abode? Ritzy-ass cement box."

[pressthatbutton]

Oh, that's it. Not only is this little chick gonna steal her cigarettes, she's gonna waste them. Katja whips out another one, lighting it because fuck if she's going to let some upstart punk take her cancer sticks. And this one gets ground into the other's forehead if she tries to touch it. "You were the one that marched out of it, missy," she replies.

And then gets straight to the point. "So, are you going to stand there with your cute little hackles up, or are you going to tell me what the hell you're doing with my face?"

[mustardwithat]

"Missy." Fritz drawls the word with all the scorn she can fold into it. "Sure and begorrah, I'm in awe. I'm supposed to be, right? All intimidated and shit?"

She pulls a pack of cigarettes from the front breast pocket of her coat, draws one out, and balances it between her lips. "Fuck that shit. You show up looking like you want to piss on my employer's territory and then want answers from me? Honeywhore, whoever sold you your brains should give you a fuckin' refund."

[pressthatbutton]

Katja shrugs, just sucking on the cigarette like it's oxygen incarnate. If the little blue-headed wonder wants to get her hackles all up and then pretend they're not, Katja doesn't seem to be the one lacking brains. "You always do what you're supposed to, then?" she quips.

And then snorts. "Honey, I know what subtlety is, and pissing on shit it isn't." Hey, she's gotten something out of the girl, anyway -- these are her employers. H'm. Know thy enemy indeed. "I was merely scoping out the supernatural wonder of Chicago, O Conrad hotel." Not going in, of course, because she's not stupid, but you know. Scoping out. "I was unaware that it would discharge tiny copycats that like to spit and bluster in my face."

Yeah, right, Katja. You try and take the high road. You're six years old like the best of 'em.

[mustardwithat]

....and then, suddenly and horribly, it clicks.

Jesus fuck.

Note the sudden absence of hackles, Katja, as Fritz reins in just about everything--temper, expression, vocabulary. "Yeah. Right."

She leans back and lights the cigarette, taking her time about it. Her mind is going about fifteen million miles per hour, and all the really wants to do right now is tear Katja's head off and mail it back to her father. Or at least to his last known, which is a fucking old address. "Now you know the Conrad's secret. It's a giant copy machine."

[pressthatbutton]

And that is a sudden change in attitude, right there. Katja stares at her for a moment. "Yeah, a broken one," she says. She's close enough to the girl to be able to tell that there's something off about her, and she's not giving off heat like a demon would be. Doesn't feel right, not like a supernatural, either, and Katja's learned to read everyone that's suspicious as angel. And if there's an angel with her face, she's sure as hell the copy machine got in a fight with a Rift. Or at least God.

"котенок, I can practically see the gears grinding in your pale little head," she comments. "And it's not trying to figure out the secret of the copy machine. I would imagine it already knows."

[mustardwithat]

"Hn, čubka's head is well-oiled, then, not empty."

She looks Katja over, toes to eyes, blowing out a steady stream of cigarette smoke as though marking her territory somehow. "God knows when his first version fails, I guess."

Fritz would be disturbed if she knew how similar their current lines of thought are. Well. Mostly she'd be pissed.

[pressthatbutton]

Katja makes a face that, were it not so annoyed, might actually be disappointed that Fritz so obviously left a joke open for her. No fun sparring if the other side's gonna get lazy. "Given that it's a copy machine, looks like God wanted to make more of the original. How unfortunate for Him that copies degrade."

She counters the smoke-cloud with one of her own. "Look, munchkin, the original's got more than enough brains in her head to know when something's occurred to the copy. Out with it." She's positive it has something to do with why they look alike -- her brain can supply the easy 'duh' of family lineage, though it burns that she'd be related to an angel of all things, but it seems this one knows more than she's letting on. Katja doesn't always ask (er, demand) the information, sure, but she's not going to bust out the poisons on the sidewalk in front of the Angel Stronghold.