…are we out of cereal?The back of his palm slapped over his face as he realized the kitchen might be light on the most important meal of the day. We got eggs, right?A sigh slid out of his mouth, hand turning over as he rubbed at his forehead. …no, no, I ate all the eggs. It wasn’t even anything crazy but coming in at three in the morning with nothing else to eat last night, he might have ended up boiling about six or so eggs and swallowing them down.
Nothing crazy.
He was a growing boy and needed the protein, after all.
Still, though… what’s the point of having all this bread if nobody’s buying any actual bread?
With that question unanswered, Zain lay there on his futon with morning light cutting across the floorboards in a long stripe of orange, eyes aimed up at the spinning fan beating the air. Dust motes danced in the air as the sound of early morning Chinatown hit his ears, and his stomach… his stomach made it clear how much it wanted something to fill it.
The fourteen-year-old blinked again, wiping the grit from his eyes as he allowed himself a few more seconds in bed to appreciate how sore he wasn’t. Before a month ago, just waking up used to come with a fee. Even with the healing beam — at least the few times Stick let him use it — he would always have some ache in his shoulder from a bad hit, a bruise on the shin from checking a kick, or a stiff neck thing from being flipped into the ground.
Small stuff.
A basic tax.
He’d been paying it for over a year, even before Stick.
This last month had charged him nothing.
He took stock the way he did every morning; knees, ribs, shoulders, knuckles. Every piece of him reported back the same way, all clear. No stiffness from swinging and not even any soreness from the eleven-man warehouse special last week.Sitting up, Zain stretched out with his arms over his head and rose up to his feet. One motion poured out into the next, mouth opened in a big yawn.
The kitchen was quiet by the time he made his way down, gray-blue walls staring back at him while the radiator ticked to itself in the corner. Zain got a glass off the drying rack and filled it from the tap before setting it down on the counter. Tap still going strong, he ran his hands under it to wash his hands before anything else.
As soon as he was done, he shut the water off and turned.
His elbow clipped the glass and the entire thing went over. Eyes wide, Zain’s hand snapped out to grab for the cup before it fully cleared the counter. Five fingers closed around the body of the thing, a clean catch with barely even a splash — only for the glass to go off in his grip like it’d been shot.
Water and glass went everywhere all at once; down his wrist, over his knuckles, and across the tile in wet spray, one big piece spinning to a stop by the fridge while Zain just stood there holding nothing. “...Dammnit.”Steps entered the kitchen before he even looked up, bare feet slapping a familiar pattern. “Good job, Zee.” Colleen Wing entered the kitchen, hair up and the woman still in the usual t-shirt and shorts she slept in. “You break another door too?”
He tried to bite down on a sigh but it escaped him anyway. “No, Sensei.”Colleen looked down with a raised eyebrow, barely even acknowledging the glass all over the tile and water spreading towards the table leg. “Congratulations.”"It's a cup, Sensei." He shook his hand off over the sink, pieces of glass falling free. "Cups are like a dollar. A dollar for four."
"Glasses are not a dollar, Zain. The door upstairs wasn't a dollar." She stepped around the spill and pulled the broom out from beside the fridge.
"Okay, the… the door…" He sighed again, one eye shut. "Th-that door been sticking since I got here. You know it was sticking."
"You pulled it off the hinges."
"...It stopped sticking."
Half-lidded eyes just blinked back at him for a second as she held the broom out to him handle-first. From the way her lips were pressed tight together, Sensei was in no mood for a discussion.Man…They both knew the money wasn’t even the point, especially considering all his hauls. Hell, she knew that there was a closet downstairs with enough duffels in it to re-door the whole block.
He took the broom and tried to clean up.Tried.Sweeping should’ve been nothing, just another chore; a chore he’d been doing since he was tall enough to hold the thing. And that was exactly where and why it went sideways. His hands kept trying to do it from memory but all that muscle memory belonged to a kid who couldn’t haul half a ton if he needed too.This is stupid. He could put a grown man through a coffee table and land balanced. He could catch a bat mid-swing. So frickin’ stupid… Last week, he haymakered a sumo wrestler who hit the gym and did it without putting the guy in the dirt too.
In a fight, everything measured itself.
It was a broom he couldn't be trusted with. A dustpan. A stupid cup.
Colleen leaned on the counter with her tea and watched him pick glass out of the tile grooves for a while before she started in on him.Again.
"You're still going out."
Not a question.
And it definitely didn’t need an answer, so Zain kept sweeping.“Not like you need the money. Not like it’s even your job, Zain.” She raised the cup, sipping on her tea for a second. “Somebody’s been jumping around on the rooftops by the way. Mrs. Wu next door thinks it's raccoons.”"...Could be raccoons."
“Hundred pound raccoons, Zain.”“This is the city.” He shook the dustpan, clicking his tongue as he did so. “We already got giant rats and alligators in the sewer. Raccoons could hit the gym, y’know.”“Zain.”"I'm getting better with it." He tipped the glass into the trash, careful as he could. "That's what the noise is for. I'm getting better."
"Not what I asked."
She didn’t ask anything at all, actually, but he wasn’t about to point that out. Either way, he went back over to the wet spot with the broom, just in case he missed any glass.Her mug clicked down on the counter, the radiator still ticking in the background. “Have you seen Stick again?”His hands kept sweeping, eyes rolling to answer what his mouth didn’t.“Zain.”“I didn’t.”"You're not going back to this Stick guy."
“I just said I didn’t.”“...just making sure.” She raised an eyebrow at him, as if making sure he wasn’t lying to her face. “I know what he seems like. Hidden knowledge or whatever. All the stuff about ki or whatever… stuff I might now know, but we both know that an old man found a teenage boy with strange abilities and tried to make him something he wasn’t. Understand?”He opened his mouth and nothing came out, nothing close to words and nothing useful. It only took a few seconds of that for him to close it again and look back down at the dustpan, glass glittering in there.
A hand took the broom out of his, easing it away finger by finger before he could squeeze the handle into splinters. He looked up again at Colleen as Sensei put it aside and made her way back to him, a plastic cup in her hand filled with water.“No glass for now.”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Night air hung thick over the city, New York autumn heat almost as humid as summer for some reason with even the concrete sweating.He was still practicing his swing over Lower Manhattan when he found the chalk.The corner of an alley off Delancey, the exact spot where he’d left a mugger folded like an omelet two nights back stood out to him as he swung past it — the sight forcing him to take a second look.And a third.What the…Somebody had traced a full chalk outline around where the man had been laying. Head, arms, the little bend in the legs. Accurate, honestly. Annoyingly accurate.
Then they'd added cat ears on top of the head.
And a speech bubble right above that — I MADE BAD CHOICES.
“...huh.” He stood over it, hands on his hips as he read it twice.He didn’t get the chance to say anything else as a laugh came down from the fire escape above him. He didn’t even have to look either, but he did anyway.And there she was.
Hanging upside down off the railing by her knees, white ponytail pouring straight down and arms crossed like she was doing something normal. “Hi there, tomcat.”"You know vandalizing a crime scene's probably also a crime, right?"
"There was no tape." Felicia's head tilted, which upside down looked deranged. "No tape, no scene. That's just sidewalk art."
Zain rubbed his nose slowly. “Shouldn’t be doin’ that.”"Somebody has to. You never even leave a note." She swung off the railing, dropping a whole story to land beside him after a flip. Touching down soft as a grocery bag, she stuck her tongue out at him. "Basic branding, tomcat. The ears are a signature."
"The ears are your signature. On my guy."
"We can’t collab?"Zain let out a long sigh and let his hand drop from his face. This girl…That was the whole thing with her now, and it had been just a whole lot of this for the last week or so. Like usual, she hadn’t jumped into his fights or asked what he was up to — never even got close to asking, honestly.
What she did was show up after, every time, to grade his landings, chalk-art his knockouts or steal something dumb off him — like his knuckleduster — and make him chase her half a borough to get the thing back.
She was turning his whole war into a game of tag.
And it was mad irritating.
…Mostly.
Felicia tilted her head as she looked at him sideways. "So how'd you know it?"
"Know what?"
"My name." There was no purr on it, just a question in a Queens accent and a raised eyebrow aimed at him. "For real. How."
"I told you." Zain shrugged back like he wasn’t completely feeding her bullshit. “Mystic warrior stuff. Martial arts secrets. A guy like me knows things. It's one of my powers."
"That's not a power."
"Oh, it's not?" He stepped back, both hands clenched tight at his sides and pulled. Ki flared up and out of him, blue light flaring up both arms in a hissing burst that lit the whole alley wall and threw both their shadows sideways for a split-second.
Felicia jumped back half a step before she could catch herself, eyes narrowed as she found her pace again. "...Bullshit."
“...how?”
"That's a light show.” Those blue eyes were still narrowed to slits. “That's not a name-knowing power. There's no name-knowing power."
"Oh, okay, sooooo… the magic chain is just fine." He pointed down at his sleeve, links dangling out of it. "Chain that stretches almost a half mile, no problem, totally regular. But magic kung-fu is the line for some reason?"
"That's different."
“C’mon.” He shook his head slow. "How else would I know your name, Felicia Hardy?"
It came out of him easy; full name, both barrels.
A split second later, he blinked as a piece of chalk bounced off his eyebrow and landed in front of his feet. He swiped at his forehead, fingers coming back white."Real kung fu masters see that coming." Felicia was already backing toward the alley mouth, the grin back on. “Bye, tomcat.”
"You—"
She jumped up to the roof before he could finish the sentence.
Oh, we running? Serpentine Steel dropped out of his sleeve into his hand. I can run too.
The chase started fast and didn’t let up as he followed her up a fire ladder and over the first three rooftops at a dead sprint. Felicia was as quick as her name, cutting through hanging laundry lines without slowing, sliding flat under a pipe railing on her hip, and dropping off ledges into alleys without even once looking behind her.
The Cat cleared a gap, her boots landing lightly on a plank walkway between two buildings on Orchard — old wood on older brackets — as the white-haired girl went across as light as a rumor. Zain was right behind her, barreling across it at speed as the entire thing finally let go under him; brackets shearing and boards dropping away piece by piece down toward the alley below.The old him would have fallen right there.
New him didn't.
His foot found a falling board and pushed off it before it finished falling.
Then another.
The third was almost enough to surprise him, each plank holding him for exactly the instant it took to leave it as they all dropped away under his Foams like the world's worst staircase. Just like that, he crossed the last nine feet of gap running on debris and hit the far wall still moving before he even threw the chain.
The first cast missed completely, steel links whipping past the fire escape and flying off through empty air. Fuck!
And even that didn't end it, his airtime longer than it should have — even for just a split-second more. He came down slow enough to plant a foot against a window frame, kicking off into the air as he threw the chain a second time.
This time the chain bit, steel wrapping tight as Zain swung out over the open street with traffic light and asphalt blurring under him at speed.
Felicia glanced back mid-stride, eyes wide as that rhythm of hers hitched to see him still on the move.
Yeah. He grinned into the wind. Saw that.
He released the chain early, sailing clean over her head in a wide arc and landed the route in front of her. Black Cat immediately cut a hard left before he could cut her off, the girl dropping down toward a lower rooftop. Cackling after her, Zain rebounded hard off a billboard, sneaker soles ringing off the metal support struts as he dropped straight down after her. She hit a fire escape, hands out to catch it, and spun right back up in a quick reverse move — their eyes met for a split second as they passed each other, his grin fading as hers grew.Clever girl. Chain out, he caught tight to the same escape, swinging underneath the whole structure and landed at the highest point right across from her, arms crossed.
For one whole second, he thought he had her.
Only for her to look him dead in the eye, and fall backward off it.
"Goddamnit!”
As pissed off as he was, he was still laughing and now she was laughing too.As always, she got him in the end; a flying tackle off a ledge he didn't see coming that sent the both of them rolling across a tar roof in a tangle, links of his chain digging into his back hard enough to make him wince as they slid to a stop.
He lay flat on his back, breathing heavy, with the bandana half off his face. Felicia sat on his chest, hair hanging down as she pinned his arms and grinned down at him — victorious.
Then she pecked him on the cheek, quick as the chalk flick. "You're it!"Pushing off his chest, she was up and gone off the roof edge before his brain even filed the report. Her laugh went down the fire escape without her needing to touch most of it.
Zain lay on the tar paper staring at the sky.
...What.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Cat (Almost) Got Your Tongue — 100 DPGet a kiss from the (soon to be) infamous Black Cat.
FAIL: "Blessed by the Sun God" (600) [Demon Slayer] {Talent}:Dojo Points: 300