Private Justice For All?

[Cartri Keswoll]

Cartri giggled and managed to fend himself off against the dreaded orphans "Alright you scruff bags calm down now" he said with a smile as he got up, his hands trying to ruffle as many heads as possible. A few feet away he caught sight of Daiya's gaze, who was probably wondering why the kids were calling her a princess "Okay everyone... I've brought with me a special guest today! this is Daiya!" he said calmly as all of them tilted their heads to the girl they were looking at "The punk princess..." he mumbled after a few seconds to the excitement of the kids.

Soon, some of the other kids who were chilling about came over and looked up at her with wide, shiny eyes, some even rapped their small arms around her legs "I knew you were real!" one of the kids said cutely her leg "Cartri always mentions you in our storiesssss!" another said excitedly jumping up and down. In all honesty, many of them were awestruck to see a real princess in the place they called home.

"You've got yourself a diamond there Cartri," a familiar voice said from beside him. With a grin, Cartri turned and instantly hugged Matias, who was only a year younger than he was "Don't you have any idea's tough guy" Cartri said before pulling him into a brief hug. After they had pulled away, they both looked over to Daiya and waved sarcastically over to her "By the way, there have been developments on the buyout you should know about..." Matias frowned, looking back to his friend with a shake of his head "It fell through again... if we don't have another offer by the end of the month they'll throw everyone out and knock this place to the ground" he said starkly, his eyes looking to the younger kids who had no idea what was going on "That's way too short, I doubt you'd get one in two let alone one"

Cartri slowly placed a hand on Matias's shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly "I'll figure something out. just don't tell anyone else alright?" Cartri asked, one that was reassured with a nod by his friend "Got it. The only other person is Polly. But I threatened to burn her lifetime supply of sweets if she told a word" the teen grinned, something which was responding by a brief chuckle from Cartri. Suddenly, from the far end of the room, a baby began to cry from one of the small beds on the far end "I'll sort the dribbler out. Do you mind making Daiya more comfortable?" Cartri said with a motion to his girlfriend "No worries, I'll save her from the ravages"

While Cartri went to deal with the upset new arrival Matias partied the sea of youngers like a god and stood between her and the little ones "Alright folks, I think she's had a good welcome" with a groan the kids hesitantly let go of Daiya and grumbled away "Sorry about that, they can get quite excited with new people, especially when they've been made into legend around here" the young man said politely, extending a hand "Matias, and you must be Daiya" he said with a firm handshake

"Me and Cartri go back a long way, I must say you've got yourself a one in a million kid" motioning his head back to the ginger, they could both see him gently picking up the baby and calmly placing it against his shoulder. Surprisingly, the kid in his arms seemed to calm down quite fast "Without him, we'd be so much worse off. You don't understand how much of a lifesaver he is..." Matias stated proudly to the girl.

"How did you two meet anyway? he never really told me that part other than the stuff you get up to on the planet"

Daiya ​

 

[Daiya]

Cartri's introduction seemed to settle the open question, and the teen forced a grin to the small faces that turned up at her. Her boyfriend's best kept secret: a horde of younglings who doted on his every word. Daiya giggled at the thought, crouching down to get close to the level of the youngest among them. Most seemed as thin and gangly as the redheaded teen had been the first night she met him, making it hard to tell exactly how old they all were.

Not old enough not to be stuck here, in any case.

"Wait, what?!" Daiya could barely blink before she was mobbed by the younglings again, more than just one scrawny girl this time. They crowded around their 'punk princess', making demands and comparisons the teen had never heard of. A disturbing pang shot through her body, why had Cartri kept all of this from her when he was telling these children all about her? "Whoa, whoa, one at a time!"

Daiya nodded to each in turn once she got them to sound off their names to her. Lissa, the closest and first to ambush her, had bright blue eyes that seemed too big for her tiny body. Runas, who clung tightly to her thigh no matter how many times the uncomfortable teen tried to move his fingers, insisted on calling her Punk Princess as well. She caught another few names, but there seemed to be a dozen more waiting to pounce on her, and Cartri was too deep in hushed conversation with another boy to help.

"Alright, alright, you want a story?" Daiya relented to the incessant demands of the younglings, searching for a good tale to tell.

"YES!"​

She grinned at the chorused response, starting slowly to reel them in. "Weeellllll, this one time on Epica—"

"What's Epica?"​

"A beach planet," Daiya explained, and instantly regretted it. The younglings quickly made loud exclamations about it, every single one of them telling her the last time they had been to a beach or how unfair it was that she got to go. A long sigh passed through her nose, groaning at the high-pitched chatter assaulting her ears and leaving no room for her to continue. The teen had to raise her voice to carry on, "A planet where...chit, it's like none of you actually want to hear the story!"

She smiled at the chorus of groans, finally gaining the younglings' undivided attention for once. Just before her moment as an acclaimed, and apparently royal, storyteller, Daiya hear a husky voice floating down from above. The teen looked up into the face of the boy who was deep in conversation with Cartri just moments ago. He shooed away the younger kids, reaching out a hand to Daiya with an introduction.

"I must be Daiya," the teen quipped, taking the offered hand. She let Matias help her up, adjusting her skirt before relief took over her face. Daiya hadn't realized how weary the younglings made her until they were gone, and she relished the easy grin that spread over her face. He hadn't called her a punk princess either, and as Matias started talking up Cartri her grin only spread, widening her eyes as it went. "Lifesaver, yep. That's Cartri."

Daiya was learning all sorts of new things about her boyfriend today, like how good he was with babies.

"I guess we sorta first met at a party," Daiya was watching the scene from across the room, resisting her imagination's attempt to play more tricks on her. The infant soothed itself fast against Cartri's shoulder, leaving the teen struggling to carry on her second story to an orphanage kid today. "I mean, I'd seen him around Dar—around Denon." With no idea how much Cartri had told these kids about Darkwire, she thought it better not to be so open about it yet. "And we were both at this new nightclub, The Loft. That's at Sakedo Tower, and they're both run by Luminous Sun, whiiich you don't know what I'm talking about anyway... We danced, then he helped out a friend of mine who was getting fethed over by Sun."

"What has he told you about?" Daiya gestured to the room around them, her hands spread wide for a moment. Her eyes spoke earnestly while her words explained, "I swear he told me nothing about all of this."

Cartri Keswoll​

 

[Cartri Keswoll]

"A party huh?" he said with a satisfied smile to Daiya, nodding along with what she had to say about Cartri and herself. Matias couldn't imagine how different Denon was to Garos, especially with all the highrises and different activities you could get up to there "One day, once I get out of this stinking place I'll have to come to visit you guys, and try out these "clubs" he chuckled lightly, his eyes briefly turning to Cartri who was doing well in calming the baby down.

"There's probably much stuff he hasn't told you about. Don't worry, most of them are good" he reassured Daiya, making sure she wasn't going to get worried for no reason "He has told a lot of stories about some of the adventures he has been on, mainly to do with the evil corporations that are on Denon. The kids love it, as do I" The boy shrugged, remembering a few stories that were memorable "For example, there's one where he blew up a factory and this raging wookie almost killed him. I believe that was one of the most popular ones" he smiled, knowing that Daiya was also involved in that story.

Although, throughout his storytelling, Darkwire was never mentioned once.

"Of course there's always the one person that dislikes them too" Matias rolled his eyes and looked to a girl laying on a bed, eyeing up Cartri as if he was a snack of some kind "Back in the day she used to date Cartri, but before he left Cartri decided she was too much," the boy said, looking back to Daiya with an unsure look.

"I presume he didn't mention Polly did he?"

Daiya ​

 

[Daiya]

As Matias spoke, Daiya found herself struck with how young he seemed. His thoughts, aspirations, even his view of her homeworld seemed wide-eyed and naïve to the Denonite teen. One of her hands felt for a familiar weight on her waist, and she recalled that she left all but her smallest blaster at home. They fell uselessly in front of her, and the teen picked at some loose threads from her skirt instead.

"Most of them?" Her eyes lifted to the boy's face, watching for a flinch or glimmer of lies. She caught her hackles rising with the whiff of his reassurance, her eyes flicking over towards her boyfriend once more. At the sight of him still cradling the infant, Daiya let out a soft breath, turning back to nod along with Matias' chattering. She even let the boy's mistaken retelling of a factory fight pass without challenge.

Now she understood where Cartri had found his noble heart.

"Polly?" Daiya asked at the sound of the new name, her eyebrows rising in response. Something pulsed quick in her veins, but she dared not look to Cartri this time. The teen thought that she was her boyfriend's first relationship, hadn't he said that more than once? Her heart beat oddly, almost relishing the knowledge that his first girlfriend had rejected Cartri. Daiya folded her arms across it, pressing tight as if she could muffle the sound.

Daiya tried not to think that it was anything more than a coincidence.

"What do you mean, he was too much for her?" She leaned in close to the mousy-haired boy, too aware of the pounding heartbeat in her ears. Her breath came quick and shallow, Daiya could hear that now, too, sounds cascading in a flurry around her head. The teen had seen no Vision this time, but she still couldn't shake that sensation she had before. It was as if she was back in that lift again, back on Denon, right back to the feeling of her world closing in on her. All over again.

Her voice came as a hoarse whisper as Daiya ask, hoping beyond anything that Matias wouldn't answer the way she feared, "Who is she?"

Cartri Keswoll​

 

[Cartri Keswoll]

Matias seemed slightly intimated by the girl leaning in closer, almost as if she was demanding him to spill all the secrets about him and Polly right there and then "Uh... n-no she was too much for him" he said nervously to the girl, trying to keep eye contact as best as possible "With the way things were going for him, I'm surprised me the relationship lasted that long..." he said with a sigh before briefly looking to Cartri who was tucking the baby into bed "It wasn't really Polly fault either, the way the orphanage was treating would make anybody mad"

Across the room, Cartri smiled down at the baby and began to make his way back to Daiya. To the right of him however, a pair of peeking eyes from the bed watched him walk back over to the pair, narrowingly slightly to the girl in front of him "Baby problem solved" he said with a sigh before looking around at the other kids around them "Matias, in my bag there should be all the items that were requested. Mind handing them out while I talk to Daiya in my "room" he asked with a brief smile, to which was answered with a nod "Of course, I'll give you two some space" Matias answered, giving Daiya a glance as he walked away to sort the scruff bags

"Come with me, I've got to show you something," he said with a slightly nervous tone and a gentle grab of her hand. Carefully, he weaved around the excited kids and guided Daiya to a secure room at the end of the hall. Standing in the doorway, the open boarded up door revealed a decomposing room that had seen way better days. The windows were broken, the floorboards had holes in them, everything just seemed broken "This... this right here was my room" he said with sorrow, carefully taking a step forwards to face all the bad memories that flooded into his brain all at once. Right now, all he wanted was to finally get this off his chest, but he was unsure how she'd find him after

Water filled his eyes as he looked back to Daiya with a lowered head, a tear rolling down his right cheek "A place where they left me to rot for years"

Daiya ​

 

[Daiya]

She might have laughed at the way the boy reacted, almost flinching as the teen leaned in for more details. Might have, if her blood wasn't pumping furious through her veins, demanding of her the way she was demanding of Matias. He stuttered, stumbling over his words, and then he said something innocently disarming.

"...with the way things were going..."

Daiya stood back on her heels, listening more patiently to the boy after that. She took a long breath, feeling the rhythm of her heart beginning to calm back into its steady, easy beat. If the two broke apart with the way things were going it must have been a problem with Polly. Her lips curled into a smirk as she considered the orphan girl at a loss to handle her hot, ginger boyfriend.

The teen made it into a grin instead, reassurance swelling the corners of her mouth. "Sounds like she just couldn't handle him." She kept her tone light and cheery despite the words, "Don't worry, Cartri's in good hands with me."

When Cartri returned to her side, she hooked her arm inside of his. She didn't know why she needed to take possession of him, but between Matias and whoever this Polly was, Daiya should seem like the clear winner for her boyfriend's affections. She was glad to see the other boy walk away, realizing that her sense of unease hadn't vanished completely. It was easy to cling to Cartri, his support was a buoy in this unfamiliar world.

A world the teen was finding a little too unfamiliar with every passing moment.

"This dump?" The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, and it gaped dumbly into the void of history. Daiya had seen worse, and had only barely escaped living in it herself. Still, seeing it in front of her, and how much it affected Cartri—

"Oh, babe, I didn't mean you!" She reached up gingerly to his cheek, curling a fingertip around the tear to catch it. Stepping on her tiptoes, the teen kissed the place it had fallen, her heart weighing heavily from her words and actions in the last few minutes. Until this moment, she had given little regard to what Cartri's childhood had looked like, or understood what it meant to him. Standing here in the middle of it, feeling what it was to grow up in this squalor and decay, having little guidance and even less purpose, made her own eyes grow damp. "This place is horrible! It's like some of the worst holes on Denon, where younglings just get dumped and nobody really cares if they make it out. I..."

Daiya realized this was exactly the place she could have found herself if Tawrrowaldr hadn't taken her in. She hadn't even thought of her Wookiee guardian for months, and now all she wanted was to give him a long, grateful hug.

All she had now was Cartri. Daiya slipped her arms around his midsection, leaning her head against his chest and shoulder. "You're free from it now, Cartri," she murmured, her hands spreading gently over his back, softly rubbing against her melancholic boyfriend. "You won't ever rot like that again."

Cartri Keswoll​

 

[Cartri Keswoll]

"Oh, babe, I didn't mean you!"

"I know you didn't Daiya..." he weakly smiled, his wet eyes looking down to the finger that caught the tears which fell. Feeling her soft lips press against his face Cartri leaned forwards to give her one in return. For so long, he had bottled it up and hidden away the pain deep inside. Now that Daiya was by his side, he was able to let his guard down and finally let go of the pressure on his shoulders "You don't know what I had to go through in this shithole. The only things that kept me going were the kids" Cartri sobbed, wrapping his arms around her to bring Daiya into a tight hug.

If it wasn't for the kids seeing him differently Cartri probably wouldn't have been standing here now.

"T-hank you Daiya..." he said back with a shakey voice. Being embraced with love was something that helped him calm down fast. Considering he didn't get much of it in the orphanage all of it was still quite fresh to him "With a girl like you I'm sure I won't" Cartri quivered a smile and kissed her on the lips again, holding her in his embrace quietly for a short time. Both of them had gone through their own troubles that scared them to their very core, they needed intimacy like this in their lives.

"Ohhhhh booooo hooooo" a sarcastic voice said suddenly from the door. Snapping his head, Cartri narrowed his eyes at Polly who was in the doorway with a wide smile on her face "I see you haven't changed from being a crybaby. Is this princess the one that holds the tissues for you?" she giggled before finally walking into the room and dead staring Daiya with an unimpressed look "I'm Polly... and you must be glitter girl right?" she said with a tilt of her head "Where did you pick this one up? one of those emo rock clubs all the weird kids go to?"

"Polly, that's enough!"

Daiya ​

 

[Daiya]

Daiya held onto the most precious thing she had in the galaxy. He shook and sobbed inside her arms, and then, at last he returned her embrace. When his lips touched her face, she welcomed it eagerly, her heart thumping its own approval in her chest. The teen tried to dampen it, to stay with Cartri in his moment of need. It wasn't going to make him feel any better if she let her heart run away with her feelings right now, so Daiya just murmured soft sounds as he let his tears and past out to her.

"You'll always have me. I promise!" She tightened her arms around him when he kissed her, heat rising on her cheeks and neck. One of her hands went to his cheek when they kissed again, Daiya didn't need it to press her body any closer to her boyfriend now. Her curves matched his, flesh to muscle, and her lungs breathed in when he did. The world fell away around them as Daiya reached up for another kiss.

And then it crashed back down on top of her in a shrill voice.

The teen whirled to spy a thin, blonde girl standing in the frame of the door, and her heart leapt into her throat. For a moment, her stomach flipped itself over as she felt an unsettling sense of confusion. Daiya couldn't tell if her visions were suddenly starting to run in reverse or not, but the girl in her eyes looking shocking like she had just stepped out of her past. Or her mirror.

Daiya only relaxed a little when the other girl introduced herself as Polly, her muscles rigid as durasteel from the sharp words coming from her mouth. She forced herself to untangle from Cartri, giving Polly the full weight of the crossed arms under her gaze. Glitter girl? Princess? The more she heard from the orphans here, the more she wondered how a guy like Cartri had ever emerged. "Actually, the weird kids go to the raves in the warehouses, way better accoustics."

She flicked her head, enough to send her colored locks flying out toward the sneering girl. Daiya couldn't tell what her boyfriend had ever seen in a girl like Polly. "Call me Daiya and I won't call you a bleached rag, m'kay?" The Denonite teen made a show of appraising Polly's straight blonde hair and poorly-fitted, outdated clothes. She glanced over at Cartri, "Is she allergic to color or something?"

If Daiya wasn't already on edge ready for Polly's retort, she might have screamed at the sight in the doorway the other girl had just passed through.

"What the feth?!" Daiya stepped closer to Cartri, peering past Polly at the creature. For an instant, a pair of big eyes had stared back at her, vanishing in a blur of fuzzy, green fur and a pair of pointed ears. She shuddered as a shiver ran down her spine, gripping her satchel to pull it up against the cold of her chest.

"No way," Daiya found her voice soft, barely audible to herself. She looked down at her satchel and the datapad inside it. Her drawing of just hours before was still there. A drawing of her own creation, a creature of her own mind. There was no way it could be standing in the doorway of her boyfriend's old home. "That's not possible, I'm seeing things."

The teen looked up, her face long and her arms folded. She wanted to be on Cartri's arm, standing strong together against her, but her very essence itched to be someplace else. "I don't wanna be here anymore, Cartri. It's too—" weird "sad, too many bad memories..." She picked up her chin to point it past Polly, not wiling to look down to see if the creature had reappeared at the threshold.

She didn't need to look to know it had.

"I'm getting kinda freaked out..."

Cartri Keswoll​

 

[Cartri Keswoll]

Cartri snapped his head back to the voice of Polly, a girl who he also used to love the same way he did with Daiya. They were both close at some point, but as most things go the relationship they used to have fell apart. Polly was known to be a heavy tease, although her sense of blood in the water sometimes went a little too far. They both shared the same sense of humor and style. At the time that was a perfect girl in Cartri's eyes. Unfortunately, her personality didn't seem to share the same ideals.

"Hm, you've found yourself a comedian Cartri" she spat back, slowly taking a few steps forward toward the pair "A bleached rag is way better than what you're repping darling trust me..." the girl said with an eye roll before looking at the annoyed Cartri with a grin "When you're free, I'd like to talk with you about something. You know, between me and you," she said softly, her hand slowly moving up his arm towards his shoulder. Cartri quickly shrugged it off and gave her a big death stare "We'll see about that..."

Suddenly, Daiya stepped closer to him in comfort and seemed shocked by something. The ginger followed her gaze to the doorway and saw something small move away for a split second. He didn't see it long enough to get a good look, but whatever was there seemed to be bad news. Polly noticed their reactions and turned to see nothing, giggling at the sight of their madness "You've really outdone yourself Ginger, has that girl made you loopy?" Cartri quickly pushed passed her with Daiya in tow "Just shut up Polly, don't speak to us again..." he grunted as they both walked out, leaving Polly alone in the room.

At first, that smile kept on her face, only for it to turn into a frown. Deep down, she still missed the boy she used to adore.

"What on Denon was that Daiya?" Cartri said when he turned around, keeping them both out of sight from the other kids as they spoke "For a second, I swear it looked like that thing from one of your sketches" he said in disbelief "Someone must have been letting off some hardcore space weed in my room while I was gone" the boy said with an awkward laugh, trying to play it off and make something positive. Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled Daiya into a light hug

"Forget about Polly, let's say goodbye to the kids and go back home shall we? I need to start thinking about plans to help these kids out"

Daiya ​

 

[Daiya]

"I don't know, I don't know!" Daiya only had ears for Cartri, and she gladly followed him when he cleared a path from the room. His ginger hair shone like a bright, ginger torch, lighting her way to safety and clarity of mind. Just passing through the doorway made her breathing come easier to the teen, who felt warmer with every new breath she drew in. It just didn't halt the shiver running down her spine at the appearance of that creature who shouldn't be.

"It couldn't be..." But it was. As much as her mind tried to push the thought out, it stuck fast. Daiya's hands dug deep in her satchel, pulling for her datapad and its holojournal. Maybe it wouldn't be there anymore, maybe she drew something other than what she remembered. Could it have all been a mistake somehow, a trick the teen's mind was playing on her? She tried to laugh at Cartri's joke, it was even funny, yet desperation eroded away her mind's willingness to focus on anything but the sketch. It didn't help that Cartri still wanted to be protective of Daiya, pulling her tightly close to him.

Daiya didn't need protection right now, not from Polly and not from herself, she just needed answers.

"Just wait a fething minute!" Daiya clenched her jaw, not really meaning to snap at him. All she could think of now was the sketch, and whether the creature on her page was now running around of its own free will. She pulled at her datapad, tugging it roughly from her satchel and tapping quickly on its screen. Her fingers moved from memory, it was a small thing the teen found to be grateful for, they would have fumbled much more with the need to be deliberate about it now. Daiya nearly dropped the device while opening her holojournal, staring dumbfounded at the image on the screen. She turned it around to show Cartri, hoping he could make more sense of it than her.

There, in a crudely-sketched depiction, was the furry little gremlin they had both just seen.

"It's him," Daiya hissed. It couldn't possibly be, but Cartri had seen it, too. Did that mean she wasn't crazy, or just that she had infected her boyfriend as well? "I don't fething know how he went from my drawing to...alive, but it's him." Then she straightened, watching the expression on his face. It colored hers with pink shame, and the teen finally nodded to Cartri, "Right, I get it, not important. Let's find your kids."

The teen forced a smile on her face, shoving her datapad into her back pocket, tucked alongside her real feelings at the moment. All she had to do was get out of this tragic, desperate place to feel better, and to keep her boyfriend satisfied. Daiya figured she could manage that, and gently entwined her fingers with Cartri's, leading him back to the room they had begun this strange trip down memory lane. Before she could step inside the room, the teen heard a pair of voices that made her hesitate.

"What are you doing, Kinsey? Don't touch it!"

"I'm not touching nothing! He's the one eating out of my hand."​

The little bob of green, soft fur was the first thing Daiya noticed when she stepped back into the room, her eyes making a beeline for the impossible creature. It was, exactly as she had heard, the little gremlin was there taking pieces of something out of the little girl's hand. She was sitting in the middle of the floor, fearing nothing, while a few other younglings had hidden away from the gremlin. Every time it tried to eat one, they just passed through it harmlessly, drawing giggles from Kinsey. She looked up at Daiya the moment the teen entered, screaming out when she saw her.

"Princess Dai! Look, isn't he so cute?!"​

Daiya was looking, but what she saw filled her with dread. While Cartri was being chased by bad memories, and a demon girl, Daiya was being chased by a figment of her own imagination.

What a nightmare!

Cartri Keswoll​

 

[Cartri Keswoll]

"Just wait a fething minute!"

Cartri stopped in his tracks and looked back at her frantic girlfriend with a raised brow. The creature they had just seen clearly had creeped her out and it would have been a lie to say it didn't for Cartri. Placing a hand on her shoulder to reassure Daiya his eyes soon looked to the datapad to figure out what she was so desperate to point out. His eyes seemed to widen slightly when he saw it was in fact the creature they saw in the room only moments ago, the same one that seemed to shake them to their core.

"Something definitely isn't right here, either that data pad you brought is dodgy or your art is more realistic than we first thought..." he remarked as he placed the datapad away and hooked her hand in his "But yea, we should go find the kids and see how they are before we go," he said with a friendly smile, looking into her eyes with a calm focus. Compared to the start they seemed to form a strong bond, one that allowed them to trust each other with their lives.

There was no one else in the galaxy he'd be with other than Daiya.

The love birds walked together back into the main room, but to their surprise, the kids found out there was another visitor within the orphanage. In the middle of the room sat the same creature, trying to eat out of one of the kid's hands contently. The other kids were either curious or afraid of the imp that had invaded their space, mainly because they hadn't really seen anything like it before "It's the thing" Cartri whispered to Daiya, gently nudging her in the side "I don't know if this will work, but try and use your datapad again and see if you can somehow contain it or disappear"

At that moment, Cartri's eyes darted to Matias who was slowly sneaking up on it from behind with a bed sheet he had borrowed close by. Cartri desperately tried to wave him off, but before he could notice the boy attempted to jump and wrap the creature in his covers "Ah ha!" said the boy in triumph, doing his best to keep him down. However, to his surprise the creature managed to slip away and make a dart for the open window, frantically trying to escape the strange aliens trying to harm him.

"Daiya! stop him!" Cartri yelled as he dived and tried to wrap his arms around it.

 

[Daiya]

As chaos broke out around them, Daiya was left with a twisted, unsettling sensation at the bottom of her stomach. She wanted to curl up somewhere, somewhere far away from the dark, dank room Cartri had shown her. Somewhere far away from all the pain and confusion here, and if the teen couldn't see it on herself, she found it written on the face of little Kinsey in front of her. The little girl had taken a step back when she'd seen the deep concern on the faces of the older teenagers, and her lips were starting to tremble.

Daiya wanted to crouch down to comfort the girl who had taken an instant liking to her, but she didn't know what to say. The teen could hardly find the words to comfort herself right now. Though her mind was racing with a dozen thoughts, not a single one of them was soothing. Her mouth opened anyway, with something she didn't think would work but wanted to hear anyway, "It's okay, you didn't do anything wrong."

A crash knocked the young shadowrunner from her thoughts and made a shriek sound in her ears. That was Kinsey, who had jumped back as far as Daiya did as Mattias sprawled himself all over the floor. She looked down to see a spry, obstinate little green critter pedaling away from the boy faster than it should have seemed possible. She didn't need Cartri's urging to start after it, her well-honed instincts of Denon had already spurred the young shadowrunner into action, and she was halfway out the window before she heard him.

"Feth, it's fast!" The comment went out to no one in particular, yet still Daiya felt the need to say it. Whatever this creature was, however it got from the design of her datapad to the thing running off in front of her, she had to find out! The roof threatened to twist her ankles as she ran, and now the teen cursed herself for not changing from the denim skirt that had shown off her assets so well. Now it was doing a little too well at that, throwing the young shadowrunner off even more.

Nearing the side of a chimney, she took a chance and dove for the gremlin. Daiya leaned toward the roof to avoid leaping right off its edge, expecting pain from her shoulder as it hit the shingles. Her hands reached out, a hair's breadth from the creature, and she could have sworn its green fur tickled her fingers as it slipped by. The young shadowrunner hit the roof, rolling to kill her momentum. She came to a rest, belly up and chest heaving, just centimeters from the drop over the side, where the creature had vanished out of sight.

"CHIT!" Daiya blinked away hot tears, sizzling against her cheeks. Her shoulder burned alongside the scraped calves on her legs, and her heart pounded in the teen's chest. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, unwilling to let her give up. "Chit, chit, chit, chit!" Hands reached for the datapad she had tucked away, as her eyes examined it through narrow slits. "We'll see how you run now!"

Setting her stylus in eraser mode, the teen rubbed out the markings of her drawing's legs on the screen, digging so deep it might have dug scratches.

Cartri Keswoll​

 

[Cartri Keswoll]

The creature managed to escape out of Cartri's reach when he made a valiant dive to capture it, leaving the ginger haired teen to huff with frustration and scramble after it once more. Carefully weaving past some distressed kids he saw the thing make its way out of the window and onto the roof, where it tried to make its grand escape away from its attackers "Quickly Daiya! do something!" Cartri yelled as he jumped out the window in tow with Daiya. She seemed panicked at first, unsure of where to turn. However, a light bulb seemingly appeared above her head before pulling out her datapad.

Cartri ran past Daiya and went out of sight to keep the chase going, his breath quickened but his lungs were eager to catch this make belief fluffball. Not far away, it seemed to be a few feet away from the ladders, but as he reached for them its legs suddenly vanished. The teen grinned as he knew Daiya had figured something out big time, allowing him time to dive again.

His arms wrapped around and pulled the creature into his chest, it's desperation clear when it began wildly thrashing in his grip "Ah, chitttt!" he grunted, his body falling to the side in response to trying to keep it close.

"Daiyaaaaaaaaaa!" Cartri shouted, his head trying his best to look at his girlfriend "You must delete the rest of his body! he won't stop else!" he yelled with a clear struggle.

Right now, he didn't know how long he could hold onto this scruffy thing for.

Daiya ​