[Jaden Wolf]

Autumn
(Human Form)

On a dark street of the slums, outside of a bar, a couple of drunken men surrounded a lucain girl. The men were shouting words not to be repeated, and the girl glared up at them, her eyes glowing amber in the light of the full moon. One man reached out and shoved her into the wall.
"What you looking at like that? Think you're so tough-" he slurred, adding a few incoherent curse words as his friends laughed drunkenly.
"Move." The girl stood straight despite getting shoved, and stared down the men.
"Wha' you say? Who ya think ya talkin' to?"
"Who ya think I'm talkin' to? Unless you see some other idiots standing in my way," the girl took a step forward, "I told you to move."
With a colorful word, the man lunged forward, with a fist aimed for the girl's face. In a fluid motion, she stepped to the side and he hit the wall, cursing as he lost his balance. Turning back, he gawked at the girl, trying to figure out how he had missed, or how I managed to hurt his hand, more likely, with his brain size, she thought with a smirk. The movement angered the man's buddies who all launched themselves at her in their drunken rage. Sidestepping the men easily, she frowned as one grabbed her sleeve. She pulled back violently and punched the guy in the face for good measure. She liked this shirt, and stepped back with a disgusted look at the blood dripping from his face.
She watched the men writhe in front of her, trying to get on their feet, but too drunk to tell which way was up. It was astonishing, really, that they hadn't passed out already...she had to give them that much. But honestly, the scene was so pathetic the girl shrugged and walked away.

Continuing down the street, she turned into an alley, and calmly made her way to the next street, wondering about the condition of her jean capris and hoping they didn't have blood on them, or a rip...even though they already had a few rips on them. Getting enough money to clean or replace them was a pain. With a sigh, she shoved the thoughts from her mind with a shrug and continued on her way.

[ShadowStitches]

Jane


Aspen

(human forms to come)

A tall, well build man in a black leather coat, with short, spiky, dark brown hair and pitch black eyes walked down the streets. His eyes usually where calculating and one could say emotionless...but these days, they had a worried, nervous look to them. On his side, klinging to his hand, was a small girl, no older then 9 maybe. she had dark orange-ish hair, a white fluffy coat and cream colored pants, her head stuck in a little brown beanie with cat ears sewn to it. She yawned loudly. "Aspen? are we there yet?" The man threw a quick glance down to her, muttering "yeah, only a few more minutes..." He just hoped that the guy who promised them a room for one night would keep his word...The slums where no place for a small child. then again, the slums where a great place to hide in...and thats what they needed most at the moment.

Loud voices made Aspens head snap around, his free hand instinctively grabbing under his long coat, but hesitated to pull the weapon out. The girl looked into that direction too, obviously more curious then afraid.
from her viewpoint, she could see at least half of the spectactle the Lucain girl caused. her lips formed the word cool silently, with eyes wide.

Luckily forJane, and unlickily for Aspen, the Woman was coming into their direction. And jane somehow managed to wind her hand free and run towards her. this was something she only very rarely managed, and she almost forgot over all the 'pride' where she was going, resulting her to almost bump into Autumn .
"Jane!" Aspen hissed, a tiny moment, there was a sort of...fear flashing in his eyes, as if he was afraid that if he let her hand go, she'd disappear into thin air, going after her. Jane glanced up at Autumn "I'm sorry missus. but how did ya do that? I never saw anyone els kick butt so fast, only Aspen, and that gets boring after a while...but you are..." her adoring babbling got cut short by Aspen, coming towards the two females.
"okay thats enough now. Jane, come on lets go. Sorry to bother you Ma'am" he said quickly, only throwing a short glance at Autumn before trying to grab the tiny hand of jane again, who pulled away tho, pouting.
"no! I want to stay with the cool lady!" she complained. "I'm sure she has other things to attend to" Aspen replied, now obvious annoyance in his voice, but jane only turned back at the Woman, looking up at her with big eyes. "oh...do you?" she asked, lounding slightly dissapointed.

[Jaden Wolf]

Practically having eyes in the back of her head and being the kind of girl she is, Autumn is very difficult to surprise. And yet, she was certainly surprised when a kid nearly bumped into her. Then, before she could brush the child aside, the girl had started babbling about beating people up. Autumn blinked. She'd never been complimented on her...behaviour. Most people just saw her as a rough and tough street kid.

But more importantly, what the heck was a kid like this doing in a place like the Slums? It was then that she noticed the man coming towards them. She caught that he looked a little...skittish. A look she'd seen on quite a few people around these parts. However, in this case, he seemed like he could take care of himself...so that could only mean they were in some sort of trouble? Oh, whatever. Let him take the kid away and she'll go back about her business, whatever that was.

But it seemed the kid didn't want to go. Autumn blinked again. Did she just call her 'cool'? Most people thought she was just cocky and stubborn. Well, at least they were right about the stubborn part. She wasn't afraid to admit that. Heck, there wasn't anything she was afraid of, period. Then the man told the girl that Autumn probably had other things to do. Well, fact was, she didn't. But she could see that the guy was trying to get this kid...Jane, did he say? Anyway, he was trying to get her to go, and Autumn wasn't going to get in the way of that. But then the kid stared up at her with such a face that now Autumn was thoroughly perplexed. She had never in all her years, met such an innocent-seeming kid. Most children around here knew what was what.
"Well, no." she muttered in her confusion. Then she shook her head and sighed, moving to pass Jane. "Look kid, you'd better listen to this guy. This is not the kind of place to run up to some stranger."

[ShadowStitches]

Aspen sighed. The girl they just met sure seemed confused, and who could blame her.
This certainly was not normal behavior of any normal child in the slums. Heck, some of the kids here most likely knew how to handle a gun before they hit puberty... so someone who was innocent was rare.
"eh, I've got Aspen to take care of me, so its okay" she replied to Autumn, grinning broadly and pointing at the man behind her. "whats your name? mine is Jane, and we come fr-" at this, Aspen suddently grabbed her hand, not too roughly, but still firm. "We're very late already, Jane. come on now. bye!" he said, almost growling. he obviously was not happy about her wanting to share information about them, at all. "Can she come too?"
jane asked, while he already made a few steps into the opposite direction. "I dont think so" "but she said she had nothing to do..." "I said no" Aspen said, his voice sharp now. "say goodbye, and then lets go." right in that moment, he got a text message on his mobile phone. While he read it, his eyes darkened even more.
The text message read:
They found you. Aspen, you cant come here, I've overheard them talking about Jane. sorry, but its just too dangerous for both you and me. Good luck
P.
Well...there went their stay for the night


Jane wouldnt see that tho. obviously disapointed, she trotted the few meters back towards Autumn, holding her hand out to shake hers, frowning slightly. "Goddbye missus...it was nice to meet you" she said shyly.  "actually...before we go" Aspen said, his attention now back at Autumn. "you wont happen to know somewhere we could spend one night? a hotel or something?" He was not too comfortable to spend the night at a that defenseless location, but they could not get away from here just now. He needed to flesh out a new plan,
and he still had something to do here. wheter or not he liked it.

Human forms:
Jane
Aspen

[Jaden Wolf]

((D: My muse lives!))

The kid kept chattering, plainly stating her name as well as her companion's, and was about to say something about where they came from, when she was cut off. Autumn nearly sighed. This guy obviously had his hands full with this...Jane. To state where you come from could reveal who you were and your intentions. He'd stopped her just at the right moment. Not that Autumn would really care, but he didn't know that. Then there was a quarrel between the two, if you could call it that.

She certainly did not miss the expression on this Aspen's face as he read some message on a cell. Well, that certainly backed up the idea that they were in some sort of trouble. The kid was oblivious, coming forward to shake Autumn's hand goodbye. But before she could react, Aspen asked her if she knew of some hotel. She gave him a look of disbelief.
A hotel? Around here? Seriously? What could pass as a hotel in these parts were not some place you'd want to take a kid...particularly if there was trouble afoot. Hotel managers did not press into other people's business, but would eagerly sell out one of their own customers for the right sum of money. They would even turn their back if a...situation arose. Surely he'd know that, so he must be desperate to suggest such a thing.

Then she thought of a buddy of hers, who had gotten into some trouble a while back and vanished one day while getting food from the market. No one had seen or heard from him since. Before that happened, however, he had given her full rights to use his apartment whenever and however she wished.
"There's an apartment close by that you could use. No one but me ever goes there anymore. That fine?"
The only reason she had not walked away by now was that it would probably come back to bite her in the butt if something happened to these people. Now that she knew their names, she could be connected with whatever problems they had. Breaking this connection wouldn't be too hard, but it was a pain. She'd just shrug them off later, after she gave them access to the apartment.

[ShadowStitches]

(hooray to that )

Aspen almost smiled when he saw the look on her face when he asked her about a hotel. He was sure he would have reacted exactly the same way, if he was her. But fact was that they had to get off the streets. Preferebly right now. And even a shady hotel was safer then just stand around in the open...tho only a little.

He furrowed his forehead slightly at her offer, obviously sceptic about it. He seemed to try to practically suck out onformation by looking at her. this Girl clearly did not seem like some one who would get herself involved in problems that where not hers. So why was she offering them help? And he was certain that she did know that the two of them where in some sort of trouble. On the other hand, he knew a lot of the...employees of the guy who was after them, and got rather quick in recognizing the ones he did not met before. And, at least untill now, they operated without involving outsiders in helping them...
They may had changed their tactic tho...
He already fell a decision tho...This Apartment only could be much better, or much worse for them then a hotel room with a more or less corrupt owner. Even he had to take risks once in a while...

All this was running through his head, before he answered calmly "sounds better then a Hotel. I think we'll take the offer..." "really?" Jane squealed happily, and a little too loud. "Oh thank you! that is really kind! thank you so much!" she almost hopped on the spot out of exitement, and it seemed that only a short glance
calmed her down enough to stop her from trying to hug Autumns knee. Aspen did not get it...This girl had been through so much pain, loss and bloodshed the past 3 weeks, and yet she still managed to be so happy.
He just hoped that she was not somehow loosing it already...

While they began to follow Autumn, Jane now really bouncing and Aspen not looking too comfortable,
Jane began to ask questions again. This time, she seemed to be carefull to not talk about herself too much,
casting a questioning look over her shoulder every now and then "So, you do really live around here? I bet you have seen a lotta cool things...have you told yourself to fight?" the last question was somewhat different in tone...while she seemed completely innocent the whole time, this last question was somewhat...more seriously curious the childish. as if she knew perfectly well which questions might where important and which where not to her...

Aspen still was even more tense then before. He was not used to actually follow someone else, even less then he was used to take care of a child 3 weeks ago...that still was weird to him...
His attention was caught by a man who leaned against a wall of a small street they passed by. The way he looked at them for a moment, and the fact that shortly after the passed left his spot and went into the other direction and out of sight got Aspen extremely alarmed...but he only slowed down a tiny bit. He did not get a
proper glance on the guy to tell if he really was a threat or not.

(something more exiting will happen in the next post, I swear O.o. Just have to get something done school wise now, I've been incredibly lazy the whole day XDD)

[Jaden Wolf]

It didn't bother Autumn that Aspen seemed rather skeptical about her. After living around here for so long, not much about all things shady and dark surprised her anymore. She had enough sense to know by now that whatever was going on, it had something to do with Jane, who had started to bounce and squeal and stuff. Autumn gave her a funny look at the "so kind" remark and shifted backwards ever so slightly when it seemed like the kid might hug her.

So now she had to lead them to Sam's place. With a shrug, she turned and started down the street. Autumn had known Sam almost as long as she'd lived in the Slums; he'd been a good friend, and quite soft considering where he lived. Now that she had decided to take them to his apartment, she suddenly felt somewhat obligated to help them out in any way she could. That's what Sam would've done. She was then drawn from her thoughts by Jane's chattering. She didn't really want to answer the kid's questions, but decided, what could be the harm? It wasn't like Autumn had any real enemies. Just people she ticked off every now and then.
"Yeah, I live here..." she muttered, glancing at Jane at the mention of "cool stuff". This kid really was strange. Autumn would not call watching people fight to live "cool", and so she just shook her head somberly at the statement. Less than a second later, she gave Jane an odd look. She had picked up on the different tone on the last question, and it puzzled her. Perhaps this child was not so clueless as she seemed.

Staring into the distance, Autumn thought about the fights she always seemed to get into. Even before she came here, she could fight. She could hold her own without the need of a weapon. Around here, most people carried weapons, so she was considered a rarity, and people had come to respect her because of that.
"Yeah, I guess you could say that," she muttered in response to Jane's question.

So accustomed to shady characters, Autumn barely took any notice of the other man. At least, not until she notice Aspen slow down slightly. Glancing at the buildings, she looked back at him.
"It's just around the corner," she said in a low voice, aware of the possibility of being overheard by whoever was after them.

[ShadowStitches]

Aspen nodded briefly, his eyes also wandering over the houses, tho his interest was more focused on the windows. He furrowed his brows slightly, obviously not seeing what he was searching for, and walked a little faster again to keep at hight of he two girls. After Jane looked at Aspen, her bouncing arround and child like behavior seemed to stop completely, her eyes growing creepily serious, and a little afraid. Aspen was not paying too close attention to this, obviously thinking about something. If they would go to the apartment right now,
they might would give away where they stayed. He was not completely sure that they where being followed right now, but he was having a very bad feeling that this might be the case. If they stayed out here longer, and would try to confuse the potentional pursuers, They would be in imidiate danger. Jane looked shyly from him to Autumn, obviously not really sure what was going on.

Aspen's descision problem was washed away however, after he got a short glance over his shoulder. at the end of the small side road appeared two men. And they moved towards them a little too fast for casually walking down the road. He cursed under his breath, and grabbed Janes hand briefly. "Right Alley. Now." He all but hissed at Autumn, his voice having a sharp, almost military tone to it. He had the feeling that they where going away from their destiny rather then getting closer, but for now, it was important to get the hell off that road. When they went into the small alley , He fastened slightly, desperately searching it with his eyes for a opportunity for them to cover behind or hide. the road ended in a small crossing, leading the way to further small alleys. Aspen suddently stopped, looking at Autumn exclusiely. he seemed eerily calm, but his voice had a strained undertone to it. he was about to do something he never did before, and was not really fond of. but what chance did he have? "listen. there's no time to explain anything. But please help me out here. If we get seperated in the next few minutes, try to get Jane to the Flat, no matter what." Jane wanted to protest
"but...Aspen.." He threw her a short glance. "I'll call you to find the flat. If I dont do so in one hour, you know what to do" he said, looking at the little girl, who was now obviously afraid. Aspen looked at Autumn again,
while pulling out two guns from under his coat, offering one to the Woman they just met after a short hesitation. This was all very unprofessional, but desperate times called for desperate measures. and he knew that there where more then two pursuers now, judging on the sounds of steps coming closer. "can you do this for me?"

(ugh...I really hope this is okay. i just thought that Jane is much more likely to tell Autumn anything at all then Aspen, even after this situation. So I the possibility of seperating them for a short moment would not be a that bad idea. that is, if that whole thing is okay with you ^^'')

[Jaden Wolf]

((Of course it's fine ))

Autumn was quite aware of Aspen's agitation, even before Jane was, though she was a little surprised by the kid's reaction. It proved that the girl still had enough sense to know when to be serious, which made her a little less innocent in Autumn's eyes. When Aspen came forward and grabbed Jane's hand, Autumn cast a quick glance over her shoulder and saw the men. Following the two into the alley, she noticed him looking for a hiding place. Grimly, she thought to herself that not many hiding places remained intact for long around here...at least, not the kind you'd find in an alley.

When Aspen turned and looked at her, Autumn stared back, her face also calm as she listened to what he had to say. She was a little surprised at what he was telling her to do, knowing that the situation must be worse than she'd thought. After all, it couldn't have been easy to make a decision like leaving Jane in the hands of a stranger, however temporary it may be. She was definitely startled when he handed her a gun. Autumn generally preferred regular hand to hand combat, so she'd hardly ever fought with one, though she very well knew she could do so if she needed to. Sam had taught her how to use them, "just in case", he'd said.

Autumn couldn't help but curse him at that moment. It was out of respect for his ways that she'd helped them out in the first place. But now that those men had probably seen her, there was no backing out. She was now part of their situation, even if only a little. Besides, she'd be damned if she let something happen to a kid. Settling the gun into one hand, she kept the other clear for whatever reason she'd need it for...including taking Jane's hand, which she did at this moment. She may be a stranger, but she didn't want to end up losing the child. With that, she nodded seriously at Aspen.
"Yeah, I got it." Then she looked down at Jane and gave her a small smile. She wasn't afraid of what might be coming for her because of this. Autumn wasn't afraid of anything.

[ShadowStitches]

Jane looked up at Autumn, her eyes big and fearful, but also seeming to be a little thankful.
She, in her childlish trust, was pretty sure that nothing bad would happen to them. to this point they always got away from this kind of situations. And now she had even two people who took care about her. Still, the possibility that today something would go wrong, or even that she might get separated from Aspen was scaring her more then normally.

The Alley was really not a that grand place for cover. Expect for some boxes and a few dumpsters, there was not much to help them out. And they had not enough time to try and make a dash to the crossing. What caught Aspens attention however was a fire ladder. Once you where on one of these, it was very hard for the pursuers  to get a clear shot, because of all the thin metal bars. Sure, the only way from there on was up, but one could always enter the building through a window or the doors on the roof. And once inside the house there was much more opportunity to hide. Of course, the Ladder was up, and they would have to either stack up some boxes to get there, or get it down otherwise...

Finally, the Group of men who where after them appeared at the end of the Alley. Jane recognized one of them, and gave Autumn's hand a small,scared squeeze. This guy was the only one who survived two encounters with Aspen so far, and he also was the only one who ever managed to seriously hurt her Guardian.
The other three where new, and a little more nervous it seemed. One of them opened fire as soon as he caught sight of Aspen and Autumn. Luckily for them, the bullets missed widely. They had a bit of a cover, standing in some sort of niche, but that would only last for a short moment, until the thugs would be at their height.

Aspen fiered at their foes himself, who tried to somehow stay out of his aim. The guy who fired first however was not lucky with this, and got hit between shoulder and chest, stumbling backwards. Aspen growled slightly frustrated, and called out at Autumn over all the fuss "We need to get that ladder down! try to shoot at the lock!"