zenderael_rl | Artemis/Tai Feng

Who: Tai Feng and Artemis
When: Friday, 8/19.
Where: The streets of Bastan.
Before/After: N/A
Warnings: Purse-snatching!! Also, calling thieves mean words, and one bullet.

Artemis hadn't planned on returning to Bastan so many times in a single week. He tended to avoid warping as much as possible, it not being a very pleasant experience for him. When he couldn't avoid it, he consolidated several items into a single trip, to minimize the number of warps he'd need to take.

Marlene's meeting had been short notice and a surprise. Heimdall's meeting had come before a hunting trip into the woods surrounding Bastan. Friday, he was unpleasantly surprised by a business partner requesting yet another trip to Bastan, so he decided to make the most of it by spending the time afterward doing some research for the project the Vahishta had given him.

This mostly involved people-watching, jotting down quick sketches of the sorts of things clerics wore and the motifs that seemed representative of the city itself. That involved a lot of standing out of the way and being distracted by his surroundings. For someone so finely dressed, with such noble bearing, that was practically an alchemical recipe for looking like a target.

Hau Tai Feng, meanwhile, was sort of from here. Sort of in a couple ways, really. The merges were a strange thing to think about even when one had already planted her ears-deep in Pakerion jungle soil. But for all she objected to calling Underwood anything like "home", it was her "turf", which is like property and therefore much more OK for tough people like Hau Tai Feng (deludes herself into thinking she is) to think of as hers. And it was back!

Then a guy saved her from some cops (she didn't need the help, she told herself, only probably correctly), paid her to bring something only maybe totally catastrophic into the city. That had been handled already, though it took Tai Feng the rest of yesterday to get the plan laid out. Being from here helped. Nobody asked too many questions when you could literally give them the street address of your own house. Even if the streets were a little messed up now...

Which left her, her errands completed and as usual intensely uninterested in actually going home, wandering down the streets not of Underwood but of Bastan proper. Best to get a look at the place, right? She should've stood out - short, with scrubby black hair that runs wild past her ears, face visibly different from Zen natives and the imported Earth populace alike, her ears glistening with studs and rings, not to mention a 100% Earth-made streetwear outfit. But she didn't, just another face in the bustle. A little rogue trick; she got sick of being gawped at like an alien about four kilometers ago. And then she came across Artemis.

Tai Feng wasn't much for alchemy, but she could still tell a mark. A guy only half-attending to his surroundings, finely dressed, stick up his butt...she considered it for a few more seconds. She might have to boogie pretty fast, but losing pursuers was her specialty. She could use the experience.

Also, he looked rich and that sort of pissed her off. She took another look, trying to spot something she could lift in a hurry.

That was about when she ghosted out of the crowd at a jog, "accidentally" driving into Artemis' side. Long fingers move for her prize, and she's moving off again in a blur! Strike like the cobra! Or the...tongue? No time to think about class metaphors.

Artemis was distracted. Not stupid.

The easiest thing to lift off of him was the satchel he used in place of a supply belt when he wasn't in his battle attire. No more difficult than snatching a purse.

Simply being blundered into was enough to annoy him. It also happened to result in a long jagged line across the page, marring his sketches. His response was immediate; he whipped around as Tai Feng fled and snatched her by the shirt collar, hauling her back.

It was then that he realized she had his satchel, as well. "Impolite and a thief."

Tai Feng's senses were razor sharp, now, and her reflexes sublime; even so, she was already in the process of sing-songing, "Ah! Sorry sorry!" before her brain actually processes the reality that she had been...caught.

AGAIN. BY HER HOODIE THAT SHE LIKED. WHY DIDN'T SHE PULL THAT UP AHHH

"Ahhhh," she said, very slowly - just a pause word, filling space that she didn't have something better for. She looked back at him with the sort of dull incomprehension that probably every lowbie Rogue with an ego had worn at some point.

She didn't really have a game plan for this outcome, actually, but slowing down wasn't gonna cut it. She gave him exactly long enough to make eye contact (slate grey) before she started fussing, trying to pull herself free with jerks, but trying not to destroy her favorite jacket meant she couldn't just rip the hood off and just bail. "Leggo leggo!!" she yelped. "Sorry for hit into pretty man with log in butt!!"

She got caught so she didn't really have an excuse beyond blurting whatever came to mind. It aggravated her accent, too; noticeable even at the best of times, her word choice and enunciation had now both slipped badly.

He had no idea what she was trying to say, but decided that he should be offended by it anyway. His own eyes, the same violet as his hair, narrowed in irritation.

He could've easily gotten her to quit struggling by pulling his gun on her, but his gun hand was his writing hand and that one was holding onto her hood (with the charcoal pencil still in his fingers--she'd be cleaning some smudges out of the fabric when this was over), and his left hand was still holding the journal with no recourse except to drop it. His hands were full. No gun. Maybe that made her lucky.

Or maybe it made her unlucky. Because it meant the hoodie was the only means he had of controlling her.

He jerked her back by the hood, hard enough that he hoped to make her stumble. "Let's not add stupid to the list. Return it."

On a dim level, Tai Feng sort of wished she could get her hair that color. She'd never quite got around to dying it.

She could end all this by dropping his satchel and bailing. He offered, or at least sort of implied he'd offered.

Two tags. Two days. Not a OK. Just, really not OK. Her lips tightened, teeth grit, trying to come up with a solution. Then he jerked her jacket, and her balance wobbled. It probably should have made her stumble, but her balance preserved, yielding only a step.

Her legs jerked under her, and she knew she had to proceed. So she swung the satchel up, slinging it just briefly into the air - then snapped her arms back and shoved off with her legs. She surged into the air - leaving her hoodie behind as she snatched the falling satchel (neatly; no spills!) and landed on her feet, slinging it around her shoulder. An Earth-make sports tank top, mostly black, was underneath. She gave him a dire look, then...

.....stuck her tongue out and made a big "Nyaaah!" sound.

She spun, then, broke into a run, racing off at a dead sprint, plus one satchel and minus one jacket.

He watched with a mild sort of horror as she tossed his bag into the air. There were several breakable items in there, including a small emergency potion supply which could easily ruin the rest of the bag's contents if the vials broke.

And then the tension against his arm was gone before he knew it; his hand jerked back with the sudden loss of opposing force, and he was left holding an empty jacket.

And she was running off with his bag.

"You mangy little--!" He tossed everything down, hoodie, pencil, journal, and snatched his flintlock out of its holster.

Artemis was a good shot, normally. But she was a rogue, and he was in a hurry to get the shot off before she disappeared with his things. When he pulled the trigger, it wasn't a guarantee.

She was a rogue, and though Artemis couldn't know it, her spec (such as it could be called, between her limited experience and specs not actually existing per se anymore) was in evasion and avoidance.

There was a BANG as the shot went off, and yet it seemed almost like she were reacting before it did; a sharply efficient, almost animal lunge to one side, and her weight swung low as she tried to balance the satchel and her bag while keeping up speed. The bullet dug a chunk out of wall on a storefront nearby. She'd need to put distance between the gunshot before she could effectively blend again, and distance she was happy to get, cutting suddenly down a side street as soon as one appeared.

Single-shot guns were the best thing ever. She needed to thank whatever god they said it was that made the more modern guns turn into angry trees.

"Cur," he finished dully, watching her vanish around the corner.

He let out a growl that was more of a sigh, lowering the gun to his side. It would be impossible to catch her with the head-start she had and him needing to reload before he could take another shot. He was capable, yes, but he was no rogue.

Bastan was not Enghelab. The sound of a gunshot ringing out garnered attention. It was easy enough to explain to the paladins who approached him that a rogue had stolen his things, but the description he was able to give would not be specific enough to find her. There were any number of small, Asian girls with short dark hair in the newly merged Bastan. She would be pursued, but not found.

Frustrated, he turned back to retrieve his journal from the ground as one of the paladins rushed off in the direction the rogue had disappeared in.

His eyes narrowed at the hoodie she'd left behind. He picked up the journal and flipped it shut over the pencil, stuffing both into his belt for the moment. Then he picked up the hoodie to rifle through the pockets.

What Tai Feng would find, when she had the chance to sit down and go through his bag, was a small emergency supply of potions, an assortment of writing/sketching supplies, a second journal filled with notes on alternative power supplies for Earth electronics, some mid-rank alchemical ingredients, and most importantly, Artemis's cell phone.

The hoodie was the sort of well-loved apparel that the ill-to-do have in every world; different materials but the same overall concept, it was patched in a few places where moths or rips had gotten into it, but a pattern on the back and shoulders, like threads intertwining freely, had been well-preserved. It also had pockets! Two in front, interrupted by the zipper. It felt heavy still, even after her weight had legged it; examination revealed a few candy wrappers (Earth); a few coins (Zen); a coil of the sort of high-tensile utility line, with a claw at one end, used commonly by certain mobility-focused rogues (Zen); and her cellular phone (Earth).

The phone was an old model that was budget even for its time, in an inelegant but functional plastic case. Useful, potentially, except for one nuisance of a problem:

Her cell phone's system language was some nonsense squiggle language. (Cantonese)

Tai Feng, some time later, set down on a rooftop about three districts over to check on her haul and wallow in self-loathing for messing up on something she had done for the specific purpose of not thinking about things she had messed up. She rummaged through, hands poking in; she spotted the potions first and then the ingredients, and decided to be more cautious. No alarmed killer spiders leaped at her, at least.

With some care (and a pair of gloves from her back pocket), she spread out her new collection. She wouldn't really be able to sell any of this outside Pakerion, she knew that easily enough. Probably only certain parts, too, now, with the occupation...She ran a gloved thumb over her lips, stood up, started to pace around the spread...and then noticed the cell phone.

She laughed a big crow laugh and quickly squatted down to pluck it up, looking it over with interest.

If Tai Feng had a better idea of what she was looking at, she might've realized that the journal was worth quite a bit of coin to the right buyer. Alchemy/Earth tech integration was a big market right now, and Artemis had poured a lot of time and effort into the schematics in that book. It was a bit like getting access to patentable inventions before the patent had been submitted.

That, and the phone, were the things Artemis was most concerned with retrieving.

The phone was Zen-make, and fairly high-end. It had Artemis's contacts on it, of course--a few personal but most business, including one number listed under The Mazda. Other than that, access to his google drive which had more production notes and brainstorming in it, though nothing Tai Feng would be able to decipher, and everything else of interest protected by a need for a password input.

Artemis knew that the hoodie and the handful of coins and the grappling hook would not be enough for any bargaining power. But when he found the phone, that seemed quite useful. He straightened, the jacket folded over one arm, and inspected the phone. Cheap, and full of nonsense. He'd been in the Nenakret enough times to recognize that Earth had other languages, and that they did occasionally use different writing systems, but he was unable to make heads or tails of this one.

He'd have to look up the OS online and find directions to the language settings. Simple enough.

He was going to get his things back. This wasn't over.

Artemis/Tai Feng - A Bad Plan