Coffee # 19- Crumbs and Chocolate # 28- Longing
Author: Dragons_Kin
Title: Proven Guilty
Flavor: Coffee #19 - Crumbs
Word Count: 1,809
Rating: PG
Story Arc: Guardians
Summary: Scott finds Shizu in the city...
Scott’s here… He shouldn’t be here. Thirty four years, and suddenly he comes back to her. Well, maybe not to her, but it feels like it. He’d called her name…a name she hadn’t used in nearly twenty years, their eyes had met, and suddenly she was running away from him like she’d run away from Charlie. From Charlie’s soldiers, from them and that place…
He shouldn’t be here…
Shizu doesn’t really know if she’s glad that this city is crowded, or if she’s pissed. At the moment, she’s leaning towards the glad side. She doesn’t know this city very well, but she knows it well enough, and while magic does leave residue, it doesn’t really work when it’s used to probe. That’s the only reason why Scott found her without her knowing. It’s the only reason why. Shizu turns to the right into an alleyway almost too fast for her to make it, even though she’s using her legs, not any type of vehicle.
One of her talents is to picture things, and then judge what she can pull off, so at the alley she notices about a twelve foot fence, complete with barbed wire, a dumpster, and a metal stair case halfway up the four story building of apartments. The ladder to get up is pulled up high. It’s too high for a small figure like her to normally jump. A short burst of energy could make her look like she’s using leverage, like a trampoline to climb or jump. It all takes about a second to register with her.
The fence is useless. The other side has a particularly large guard dog waiting, and she can use the short burst to the fence then jump up to the ladder. If she’s lucky, and her residue is facing the right direction Scott won’t look up or think she’s on the staircase. Shizu steps back for a small running start, makes it a good foot off the floor, grabs one of the metal links to the fence and channels her magic into making a trampoline jump off the gate. She twists at the last second and barely makes the last step on the ladder. It takes a moment but she’s able to get herself up.
Shizu’s plan doesn’t really work out the way she wants it to, with her hiding while he realizes the dead end, because she’s never been much of a fighter, so the muscles she’d have worked protest with great vigor all the way up. Scott sees her at the end of the alley and makes his way to her. She’s ready for him when he makes it to the ladder, though. The space is narrow enough for only one person to enter at a time.
She raises her hand up about chest level and channels her magic again, forcing it into a form she wants, and a kind of shiny field is there to stop Scott from touching any leverage he might have to get up onto the staircase. Shizu’s heart hammers in her chest, and her body screams at her to move, move, move. Scott’s a lot stronger than her both physically and magically. She can’t honestly say she’s beaten him just because she found a way to stop him. She doesn’t wait for him to confirm her shield, and she’s halfway across the rooftop before she can feel him give up and go another way.
Shizu’s been practicing her magic ever since she made it back to earth, just in case Scott or Darren, or heaven and hell have mercy, Ivy or Charlie ever came after her. She might not be strong, but she’s quick and tricky, and she doesn’t know if she can hide, but she’ll sure as hell try. She channels another small burst of energy. If she manages to run into Scott, she can transfer the shield to block him. Shizu looks over the railing. No one. Chills tingle her skin. All of her skin, and before she turns around she twitches her fist in a kind of small pumping motion.
Shizu forces herself to gain a little control. It’s hard when she’s so scared, but she manages to do a little probing. When she finds nothing, she relaxes a little bit. She might not know the area well, but her probing isn’t channeled to one location, it’s a range, and within that range she finds that the door which leads down the building isn’t locked. Shizu pauses for a moment to consider her options and calls forth her shield. She can’t be too far away from it, or it takes longer to call. As she’s walking, she makes it follow her until she reaches the door, then settles it.
The area is a monotonous off white-beige color, and her footsteps echo when she walks. She’s alert again, making sure that she doesn’t let him catch her unawares. Her probe is on again. She finds another Guardian in the midst of the sea of people. She can’t find Scott though, which worries her because it means that while she’s gotten stronger, he’s still better.
She is one thing he isn’t, and that’s empathic. If he’s touched something, for her, it leaves emotional residue, and she can see…hear it…well, she can understand that it’s there among other things. It’s like a switch: she has to turn it on to see it.
It’s kind of like a whisper. Like a breeze that’s there at one place, but not there another step in any direction. Happier emotions leave her feeling lighthearted, feelings of dismay or any other heavy emotion leave a void, and the whispers are dark secrets. Each emotion leaves a kind of name tag inside like cookie crumbs or bread crumbs. If she touches it, the person’s name and face pops inside her head. It’s a good trick to have. Especially if no one knows about it.
There’s not a wide range of emotions in this stairway, boredom from someone named Ted, lust and excitement from others, and for a little bit Shizu decides that touching the railing is a bad idea. She passes by the simple emotions to focus on the more complicated ones. Scott’s feelings would have to be there. After thirty four years, even her expressionless demeanor was run over after seeing him again. Her calm exterior was stricken with panic, and all she could do was run.
Then she saw it. A golden white residue that whispered longing to her, sadness, anger at himself, caution, confusion, and was that a little pride? In her? What? The rest of the stairs and railing had it, but any higher up and it was gone.
Shizu didn’t stop when she saw the door where his emotions led too. She just called her shield from the door upstairs to follow her. She wanted to put it to the door, but wondered if maybe that wasn’t such a good idea after all. That could be something that he was waiting for. He might even figure out how to disperse her shield, and she couldn’t make another one on the spot. Especially not when she was running. So instead, she put her shield where one flight became another, looked over the railing and decided to channel more of her energy into small stepping stones. Jumping over it without magic would be impractical. That and screaming inside her head was the question, “What if you hurt yourself?”
By the time she had step stoned over another railing Scott came out of his hiding place. She wanted to laugh when she realized he’d run down the stairs and into her wall. It wasn’t that Scott was stupid, far from it, but what if he’d never come across magic concentrated into a shield the size of a door?
It didn’t matter, that trick wasn’t going to work on him a third time so she dissipated it. It wasn’t all she could do. Her magic had a little something to do with the imagination, and she’d gotten good at it. Nearly twenty years in hell with Charlie and another sixteen gaining her humanity back helped her hone those skills. Short bursts were easier to handle than things like her shield.
When Shizu sees the door to outside, she channels her energy into a line that pointed at the door knob. She twisted her wrist like she was really touching the copper handle, and opened the door with a forceful slam. Shizu looked behind her. Scott was getting closer. She sealed the door. Nothing Shizu could do would ever be enough to lock Scott out, but this trick would give her a good couple of minutes and by that time, she’d use a small burst on her feet to get her back to the crowd.
~*~
Shizu doesn’t look behind her when she makes back to the crowd again. She tries very hard to control her breathing by doing a fast walk. She hopes it makes her appear like she’s just in a hurry to get where she’s going rather than looking like she’s on the run. Her probe is on full scale. She hones in on Scott for a moment, hoping beyond hope that she’s not putting too much time on him. The other Guardian is still out there. There’s something familiar about the other one that she can’t exactly place, doesn’t have time to. She doesn’t worry because it’s hard to worry about something else when there’s a person equivalent to a monster out to get her…out to take her back.
Shizu contemplates going to the subway, but knows she doesn’t have time to wait for the train. She contemplates a taxi, but won’t make herself stop to wait for a taxi. She can’t stop. If she does-
Her life is forfeit.
Fingers tapped her shoulder. There was a momentary fire in her that felt both right and foreign to her pulsed through her veins. There wasn’t enough time for magic. There were too many people to watch out for. There wasn’t enough room. Her hand turned into a fist, and instinctively she turned her body to punch the Guardian behind her.
He was significantly taller than her. Most people were, but she was barely at his chest, and the punch wasn’t enough. Maybe a kick in the nuts would, but it was too late for that. He was prepared for a fight, and it was effortless how he caught her fist in his, how he twisted her wrist so that she would be wide open. Shizu looked up. There was a mixture of shock, though if it were good or bad, she couldn’t tell, and hope filled her heart and head.
It wasn’t Scott, but…
Shizu felt a shock pulse through her, starting from her back. Paralyzing her throughout her body.
…Blue?