Just another homicide...

"Not really," she remarked," My brother was there..he punched me in the face. I stuck my nose into some business, his boss wasn't pleased that I was sticking my nose in..." she pocketed the chapstick," ...and...I'm not going to say much more...in case police come questioning you. You can at least truthfully plead ignorance in this case."

She stepped out of the car after it dented its front," Ho-Lee Shit," she whistled sharply," ...Balto is going to flip a bitch...please tell me you have a recording device of some sort so I can catch his reaction..or your murder...on tape."

She shrugged casually as she got out, accepting her response, "Alright then." She looked at the grill of the SUV, "Nah. I won't catch crap because that was already there-" She paused to flash a grin, "...wasn't it?"

A brow lifted quizzically before she nodded and shrugged," ...He's a crazy driver sometime. Hitting curbs and sign posts, and cats, and old women in wheel chairs. He's just a tyrant of the road. You think someone might have a bit more respect for their own car," she shifted the bag in her hands," ...lets go break into his apartment...I'm going to change some clothes..and something tells me he'll be trying to get some beauty sleep...and the last thing he needs is beauty sleep. It'll just convince him those aviators are better looking."

She grinned, tongue dabbing the injured part of her lip a moment before she headed off for the detective's apartment, only to pause as she entered the first floor," ...erm...do you know which number is his?"

Novak was blissfully aware that he hadn't told the two just exactly where his apartment was located. The thought of them knocking on every single door left a smirk on his face - until he realized that some of his neighbors were old, slightly crazy, and were likely to call the cops. Any other day, he could've handled it fine with a flash of his badge - but not today. And so the man forced himself up off his couch, heading out of the room, where he leaned against the wall expectantly as he waited for the two women.

She shrugged but headed in anyway, "If we need to we can run up and down the halls screaming until he opens his door to yell at us." She offered with a smirk, looking around the lobby.

"...we could," She remarked," Except that would be annoying. Neighbors would bitch..and we'd have to do a lot of running. I have a better plan," a smirk slithered over her face, twisting about her features as if it were right at home. A mischievous glimmer slipped into her eyes as she gave a look to his prized car.

"Why do all the running up and down the stairs when we can make him do it for us?' she inquired, tapping on the car," A mother will come running to the cries of her child...and this big behemoth here is his precious little baby...I'm sure he'll recognize its cry for help and be down the stairs faster than you can say grand theft auto."

"Does that key chain happen to have a panic button on it?"

She smiled, but it faded as soon as she noted that there wasn't one. An irritated look crossed her face and she passed off her purse, "We'll need to do it manually I suppose." She huffed, sliding into the driver's side and toying with a few different wires before annoying screeches began blaring from the SUV. She pulled herself out of the beast, got her purse back, then sat on the lobby for to wait for his arrival.

You couldn't ask for a more perfect timing..

The sound of her baggy pants scraping against the pavement was barely audible over the blare of her headphones. They were large, bulky, and a flamboyant apple green, matching her lipstick exactly. The tips of her hip-length hair twirled and danced at the hem of her dark hued pants. Her hair even matched the movement of her body, obviously too absorbed in the music to realize she was dancing along the sidewalk in plain view of the public.

She flicked her wrists every now and again to the beat.. Which happened to die very quickly as the noise from her speakers were drowned by an even louder, more annoying sound. However.. this sound hardly had a beat to it, and even caused Phoebe to cringe. Her golden eyes flickered swiftly over to the intruding sound that had caused her lime green lips to curl into a frown.

Reaching up, the woman flicked a lock or two of green and pink bangs from her face. After walking a few paces closer, she noticed the two women near the screeching car. Folding her arms across her chest and putting her weight onto one hip, Phoebe greeted them with a slight giggle and a smirk.

"I always thought it was rude to set off someone's car alarm..."

Novak quickly pushed himself off the wall as he recognized the sound of the wailing car - his SUV. "Oh no." he grumbled, quickly rushing down the hall. In a matter of seconds he was in the parking lot, quickly examining his precious vehicle, ignoring the obnoxious sound for the time being. His eyes widened slightly at the small dent on the bumper. Kneeling down, he ran his fingers over it with a scowl, his brown eyes snapping over to Zee. "What did you do?" he growled, before jumping inside the car, managing to shut it up. "This wasn't here before!" he slammed the door shut, walking up to the woman - Novak was clearly unhappy.

"Its like a dog whistle..that everyone can hear," NightShade shouted to the newcomer over the cacophony, her own palms pressed to her own ears. Lousy annoying racket. Made her skin crawl and her brain go into little flares of panic. Triggering an alarm was always bad...unless she was running from the scene and needed an obnoxious distraction behind her. Sitting next to a blaring noisebox was like sitting on the scene of a crime. Stupid...but it served its purpose.

"And here's the good boy now," she answered the green lipsticked newcomer...green...such an odd color. Reminded her of apples, if their skin smeared off while you ate them. Which was altogether a troubling mental image. To think of the solid apple skin as goopy just made her stomach flip...enough so that she didn't even notice Novak again until he demanded what happened to his bumper.

"I like how he blames you automatically..." she tucked her hair behind her ears, keeping the annoying tendrils away from her eyes," ...you forgot to tell us what apartment was yours."

ooc: Night's failing to recognize anyone. Ten points and a cupcake for her.

[ooc: yea, figured. XD is there a reason for that? o.o or just lack of interest/not paying attention? 'Cos if there's no reason.. Rogue's just gonna tackle her X3]

ooc: Two reasons really.

The one I'm sticking with...NightShade has been drunk out of her mind lately, hasn't seen her in ages...and is entirely distracted by the Green lipstick. She didn't recognize Balto either..course he was wearing glasses. Furthermore...she's convinced herself she's dead. It was just easier that way. And one doesn't generally expect someone she thinks is dead to just pop up...also the car alarm is distracting her and mister Balto's freak out...

Good reasons..right?

...the one I'm pretending didn't happen:

I typed up my reply before going and reading the character bio and was entirely confused by the name of Phoebe...and my mind was thinking that a friend of mine had a shih-tzu named phoebe that bossed around all the larger dogs. But...um...THE FIRST ONE IT SOUNDS BETTER.

She frowned, "I know, please don't be an ass. I don't want to have to junk punch you, which I could definately do from this angle." With her words she extended her fist, showing that it would be a straight shot to his manhood. "I don't want to have to do that though. Don't make me. Maybe that was there before, do you have physical evidence?"
Her head slowly turned towards the new female, "Holy shit...you're like a living, breathing acid trip." The way she said it made it unclear as to whether it was a compliment or not, best bet would be on the latter however.

Novak frowned slightly, backing up and turning slightly, knowing that Zee would more than likely follow up on that threat. "No. But it wasn't there before. I would've known." he protested, before glancing towards the 'trippy' woman. "Holy shit is right." he said very quietly, immediately forgetting about his dented SUV. "Rogue...?" Her appearance had changed, but he would never forget a friend, especially Rogue. But how could it be her? He hadn't seen her in a year or two, and neither had Nightshade. And having them all somehow meet up at his apartment? Impossible.

"...Can we not talk about Rogue? This is hardly the time or place...and you already owe me a fucking bottle of vodka lets not make it two," She growled, her temper suddenly cutting short. She assumed he should know better than to bring her up. It made her insides twist and write a little every time she thought about it sober.

A brief moment later she realized it was perhaps not such a random comment, because he appeared to be staring at the newcomer. There was no way he could be that absolutely stupid. Rogue was dead. Dead as can be. She'd dropped off the face of the earth and the twisted media blatantly refused to give her an obituary...that was the only way of explaining it. Until of course she actually looked at the girl beside her. Rogue had a lot less colors, a lot more spikes, and...and...her brain clicked.

She thought she might pass out for a moment. Her jaw dropped and she gaped. Her blood ran cold and then started to sizzle..like it would burst from her very finger tips, and then she felt sick..but she'd never been so overjoyed to be sick. Those eyes. Now that she looked at them, she could just picture them squinted a little bit in a blissful grin...and that face, without the green lipstick, overjoyed and munching on a glazed doughtnut like she'd found the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

She wanted to pounce her, tackle her, handcuff herself to her forever, and thank any and all deities for the return of her partner in crime. The person who's absence had been the final straw that left the thief a hollow shell of who she'd once been. Yet almost in the instant her eyes flickered to life, the glimmer of light was smothered out and she took a step back.

...what if it wasn't? What if Alex was making some mistake? Some delusion brought on by seeing his baby's bumper crushed in. Or maybe he'd been starting a sentence? She couldn't pounce the technicolor girl. She couldn't open her mouth to speak. While she was sure she'd recognize her friend anywhere--she knew she couldn't handle the blow of letting her hopes raise so high only to find them obliterated. Fate decided a long time ago that nothing would ever go right for NightShade Andante, she had to face her facts, she was under a lot of stress...maybe she was hallucinating.

The fact that the same name had been brought up more than once made her rise to her feet. She slipped his car keys back into his pocket as she did so, giving this 'Rogue' person another once-over before scanning NightShade's reaction to her. Her shoulders gave a twitch-like shrug, "So hug her." She offered simply after hacking into her initial reaction to the human disco standing before them.

OOC - Boredom made me do it!


.

I thought this was cute.

It's a...baby?

Someone made him mad.

Hmm...

Ouch

Those horrible aviators.

"Wtf?"

Nerd.

[ooc: Oh okies. XD Yea.. sounds good! Since balto changed his name.. I decided to change rogue's name too! X3 har har har... ]

Phoebe frowned slightly. Not that she loved being the center of attention, but a "hello" or even "who the fuck are you" would have been nice. Shifting her weight to the left, she pressed her knuckles into her hips. Her golden eyes fluttered down to the man crying over his damaged vehicle. At least you have a car... was the first thing that popped into her mind. But then again, she shouldn't be so judgemental. If a prized possession of hers was damaged.. well.. she probably wouldn't be happy either. Sighing to herself, she took a step back so not to invade the already engaged arguement at hand.

A soft giggle escaped her neon lips as Zee threatened to punch Alex in a very.. sensative location. But her amusement was shattered the second that name erupted from his lips. It had been too long.. A shiver ran down her spine that made her coo and cringe. It was ecstasy and torture as memories began to flood her mind. Slowly, her golden irises moved over to the agent she hadn't seen in years. "Wh..." It finally clicked. Her colorful eyes flickered back and forth between the thief and the FBI agent. How could it be possible that she had run into both at the same place.. on the same day? Her former partner in crime and.. well.. it was hard to explain her relations to Novak.. him being him.. and her being her..

Feeling light headed, she rubbed the tips of her fingers against her eyelids, smearing some of her black eyeliner and heavy green eyeshadow. But who cared at this point? Being the girl she was, Phoebe would be bawling in the next couple of minutes! So many thoughts ran through her head at lightning speed. She couldn't think of anything to say to express herself by now. But something had to come out--anything to break the silence..

Finally, it happened. A sort of half constrained scream erupted from Phoebe's mouth as she rushed the two, still having a surprisingly large amount of strength for her lithe body. Snatching Alex in one arm, and somehow managing to pull Nightshade in with the other arm, the rainbow clad girl wrapped her arms and legs around the two and began to form some language of screaming, crying, and perhaps a few words of english.

[ooc: Goddamn I'm rusty.. XD Sorry guys.. I be terrible.. ]

Luckily, NightShade was fluent in scream babble. As she was scooped into a one armed choke hold by the other, her own arms shot out and latched about the screamer's waist. Her own yelp of surprise added to the shriek fest while simultaneously her brain seemed to explode. Screw fate, screw probability, and screw whatever issues were looming in their near future. Her best friend was back, tangible, and screeching with the pair of lungs that apparently hadn't lost any of their oomph. If she hadn't been sandwiched between Alex's front and Rogue's boobs, she'd probably have started to dance a giddy retarded thief jig.

Her own stream of babble, curses, and tears joined the chorus of disbelief. She only loosened her grip when she was a little worried she'd crush her friend's ribcage and they'd have to take an unpleasant trip to the emergency room.

"HOLY SHIT," was perhaps the only exclamation that could be deciphered as it echoed about the area, the sound crashing into and bouncing off nearby walls. Her own eyeliner was smeared into oblivion and she only came back to reality some time later, in a state of mild euphoria, as she noticed Zee standing nearby.

"...I hugged," she remarked, in response after a moment, sniffling as her nose was starting to get stuffed. So much for the infamous thief's reputation," This is...an old friend. Best friend."

She grinned broadly, taking a step back and out of the choke hold, simultaneously releasing her death grip to view the situation. What a glorious day...her apartment burned down...but two people rose from the dead. A damn good trade in her books.

Novak only grinned, stunned into silence at the sight of his old friend. He managed to give her one of his famous hugs through the tangled mess of people, not even caring that his cool exterior was shattered. "Where the hell have you been, Rogue? We thought you were dead." he finally managed to speak, before glancing to Zee. He motioned her to join them, not wanting her to feel left out.

She had focused on blowing a pink bubble with her gum as the weep-fest went on, she popped it with her teeth at NightShade's comment, her head tilting slightly to the side, a sweet smile on her face, "Awh, that's so sweet." She cooed, as if they were merely on a television rather than actually being in front of them. "I don't understand why everyone thought everyone else was dead though." Her brow arched slightly and she only inched slightly closer, the move was so tiny it didn't even seem like she gotten closer, she wasn't trying to be rude or anything she just, ironically, didn't like being near people.

Eventually, the rainbow wonder's sobs were subdued to muffled whimpers as she slowly slid off of her friends. Her face was plastered with an enormous, appreciative smile--she liked hugs.. Sniffling rather loudly, she managed to wipe of the remaining eyeliner smeared around her cheeks and nose. "Oh my god.. " she breathed, looking back and forth between the two at a still "bubble breaking" distance. "oh my god..! Ohmygod..!" she began in a giggling frenzy, hugging the two in her death grip once again. Attemping to silence her cries and whimpers, Phoebe finally pulled herself away and began to smile again. "Heh.. I.. I'm sorry.." She apologized, looking rather pathetic with a runny nose, glassy bloodshot eyes, and a cracking voice.

Pulling her bangs from her face again, she cleared her throat and tried to speak: "W..wait.. You thought I was dead?" A brow furrowed on her placid face. "..I thought you guys were dead!" Tilting her head much like a confused puppy, she tried to rephrase herself. "Well.. I thought you," nodding toward Balto, "were dead..." Then pointing in Nightshade's direction with a flicker of her eyes, "And.. well.. I suppose we just lost contact.. Especially after he died... I just kinda curled up in bed and didn't want to come out.." Gasping a breath of air shakily, she managed to sigh out the rest of her pathetic crying.

"..I'm sorry.." Phoebe's smile weakened slightly as she pinched her lightly colored brows to the center of her forehead. "Oh mah gawd I'm so glad to see you two!!" She screeched, wrapping her arms around her two friends' necks tightly. "It's been WAY too long! Oh gawd we hafta celebrate!!" And again with the excited giggling... "Where have you guys BEEN for the past couple years?!"

"Sorry, I wish I could've told you..." he said apologetically. Now there was really only one person who didn't know that he was actually alive - and that was Slame. Oh, Latha was going to kill him. "I've been...around. Nothing's really changed from my routine, other than the obvious name change, and move, and everything..." he trailed off.

"Criminal histories...I've seen her under fire or in the emergency room so many times...well one of us was bound to kick the bucket sooner or later. Novak I assumed...because his obituary," she still had a grin on her face," ...but Rogue...we tend to lose contact...I change cell numbers like its an obsession if I'm carrying one...and around the time his obituary popped up I lurked around her apartment for a while. Days really...but it looked deserted...no one went in...no one went out. And no one had any word of her...and everyone else was dropping like flies...eventually I did my own bout of curling up and hiding for months myself...and then I came out and lost more people," she drug down the sleeves of one of her gloves, revealing her left arm, entirely ripped by scars...but one section had very straight lines on it, clearly self inflicted...and in the forms of tally marks," I'm to over twenty dead in the past two years...its too many funerals...it does that to you," she pulled her sleeve back up.

Her eyes shifted to Rogue," I haven't been dead...I was laying low..then Angel..you remember her right? She needed help..then a friend of mine has been having some...severe problems...and after everything started happening..I kind of dropped on the down low. Didn't eat..didn't sleep...weighed about eighty pounds before someone slapped me and forced food down my throat...so I went looking for everyone again..certainly not Balto...er...Alex," she shrugged," he's undercover...because he was listed as dead. Except the city's huge...and I looked...everywhere but never found a trace of anyone...so I...kind of searched my way to the bottom of a bottle...until...well...today," the thought itself was leveling, even this morning seemed like an eternity away...though it had only been a matter of hours.

She looked sick for a moment," ...sat in that one cafe," she eyed Rogue," ...you remember it?" they'd caused so much accidental property damage it was absurd," ...but after sitting there by myself so many times I couldn't really handle it. I think they eventually shut down."