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Mistaken Identity (IC)


Raveled

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The crowd, the city, the whole world stopped for a moment as Sam's lips met Tona's, and she leaned into the kiss ever-so-slightly. There could have been a parade marching down the street, the building might be exploding, or maybe the sky tore open and was disgorging alien invaders; for handful of seconds, she would not have noticed.

 

And then she broke it, and the world rushed back in, and she was aware of how hard her heart was beating. She stared into Sam's eyes without saying anything, then she took a step back and broke the gaze, looking down the street. "Qu'a fait j'ai juste? Sam, je ne voulais pas vous faire... Tout ce que vous ne voulez pas le faire!" She looked down, and realized that she was still holding the other girl's hands. "Mais c'était très, très gentil. Et je tiens à le refaire. Un certain temps."

 

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Sam blinks.  On the grand list of expected reactions, jumping back and yelling in rapid-fire French was not near the top.  She's pretty sure she caught her real name in there somewhere, but the rest is a wall of very excited noise.  But it doesn't sound positive.

 

"I thought you... I didn't mean to... I'm sorry I..." she starts trying to apologize, restarting a few times, though still holding on reflexively.  Though, in a brief moment of clarity, she realizes the biggest stumbling block in her way.  "Um... You know I don't speak French, right?"

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Tona reviewed the last few seconds in her head and realized she'd been babbling in her mother tongue. "Deso-- Sorry. I was not -- I mean I want to do more." She squeezed Sam's hands and smiled at her. "Really, I do. A lot more of that and... maybe some other things. I just didn't want you to think that I was trying to rush you into something." She glanced to the side, and then did a double-take. Among the crowd was a blonde woman hurrying away from the two of them -- a blonde woman clutching a big red bag. She wasn't wearing her jewelry, but it could only be Changeling.

 

"Merde. Come on." She began to walk down the street, somehow keeping a grip on Sam's hand even as she tried to blend in with the crowd. Before long they turned a corner and were at a bus stop. Changeling had barely arrived before a bus pulled up and she jumped on. There wasn't any other choice; Tona ran for it and managed to jump on-board just as the doors began to close.

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Score!  Sam is about to explain nonverbally just how not rushed she feels, when she's suddenly rushed down the sidewalk to catch a bus.

 

Oh yeah.  Changeling.  This mad dash for the same bus the mark is on probably isn't very subtle.  Still, not much choice, and she feeds the fare in, noticing just how thin her wallet's gotten.  But the assignment they were sent out here to do isn't what's important right now.

 

As soon as they sit down, a good distance behind Changeling, the more pressing conversation continues.  "I don't feel rushed!  It's... I really like you-" she cuts herself off before saying Tona's actual name, and starts back up, "...and I've wanted to do things like... that... with you... for a while..." she goes her glowing shade of red again, and reaches the limit of how many coherent words she can string together in one go at the moment, so she settles for cuddling up against Tona and appreciating the trip.

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Tona felt her attention divided. She knew she had to keep an eye on Changeling without looking like she was keeping an eye on Changeling, but she really, really wanted to talk to Sam. Or rather, do things that didn't involved talking at all, but that wasn't exactly something to do in public. Still, talking was a thing they could do, so Tona talked. "I like you, too." She took Sam's hand in hers and held it, interlacing fingers and squeezing. "I've... done stuff with other people before, but nothing's ever quite... like this." Partly because it was always a little more hurried, being on the run and always fearing detection, and partly because before she'd never been more than a few hundred feet away from someone she had known all her life. It was exhilarating to do what she felt like.

 

Further forward, Changeling didn't even seem to be watching out for them at all. She was rummaging through the bag, pulling out packages and odds and ends like she had never seen them before. She pulled out the jewelry she had just bought and held it to the light, running her hands over it and inspecting it closely.

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Sam feels a weight lifting off her chest the more they talk, enough for her to ignore the twinge when Tona mentions having done 'stuff' with other people.  "That was my first kiss," she replies, trying to beat back the childish disappointment that it probably wasn't the same for Tona.  Dependent on definitions of 'stuff.'  "I was worried that, y'know... where you come from... and two girls... that it wouldn't... you wouldn't... I mean, since it can't... um..." The more she tries to continue the statement, the more it just sounds stupid.  The disjointed stammering doesn't help, either.

 

Her mind starts to wander for a way to bail out of that sentence, when her thief sense starts to tingle, and she takes a closer look at their mark.  "Just a second, Tona."  She gets up, gets a look at the woman's face, and then goes pale.  On the way back, she says several words in a language unfamiliar to most humans, the tongue of demons, of which the bulk of Sam's vocabulary consists of swear words.  "That's not her.  She passed off her bags and gave us the slip.  We can double back and try to pick up the trail, we can..." Then, she realizes the obvious.  "Just a second."

 

She goes back to the wrong blonde, and opts to talk to her.  "Excuse me, ma'am.  We were shopping with a friend of ours," a stretch, given the age difference, but she runs with it, "a blonde woman you probably passed in the bathroom at that cafe back there.  She kind of rushed ahead of us, and then we mistook you for her, and now we're here.  We tried calling her, but I think her cell battery's dead.  Did you happen to notice which way she went?"

 

It's a long shot, but so's trawling the streets for someone who's taken to actively trying to ditch them.  And it's fast.

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Tona watched Sam talk to the blonde woman, and thought about her words. She had never understood why some people cared if some women liked other women or some men liked other men, or if some folks liked both equally. Back home some people talked a lot about how men had to sleep with as many women as possible to make sure there was another generation, but those were also the sort of people who got angry when Tona wanted to go on raids so she didn't pay any attention to them.

Tona's train of thought was derailed when Sam revealed that the Changeling a few seats ahead of them was not, in fact, Changeling at all but just another blonde woman with Changeling's bags. Tona ground her teeth and berated herself inwardly. Of course Changeling would try something like this to throw them off the scent. It was a simple ploy, and Tona probably wouldn't have been caught by it if she hadn't been distracted by Sam. Not that she really minded, but still...

While Tona was busy being angry at herself for not being perfect, Sam was getting a better look at their mark. Up close, it was obvious that this wasn't Changeling. This woman was more disheveled and her clothes looked a few sizes too big for her. When Sam started talking to her the woman clutched the jewelry tight in her fist, and placed the bag on her side opposite Sam, keeping the bag's handles firmly in her grip. "I don't know anything," she replied, almost before Sam stopped talking. "I didn't see any other blonde lady in the bathroom. Why don't you go away and stop bothering me, huhn?" It was a lie, and one badly delivered, but could Sam really risk creating a scene on the bus?

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Oh dear.  It's this game.  Sam's in no mood for this game, and whoever this woman is, she's not very good at it.  She looks around.  Changeling doesn't appear to be on the bus, and if she were, they're already screwed anyways, so she may as well carry on.

 

She lets out a heavy sigh and sweeps back her hair.  Which, of course, means everyone else sees the Asian girl sweep back her hair, which is far less conducive to sweeping, and ends up something of a mess.  "You're being very interesting right now, and interesting looks like the last thing you want to be.  I don't care about the bag.  Just tell me what you know, and I walk away without another word."

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The unknown blonde glared daggers at Sam, actually baring her teeth and snarling. "Don't you dare tell me what I can do," she said. "You don't have an idea what Splinter can do!" Then she was simply gone, the seat empty and Sam staring at nothing -- not even the bag.

 

Tona had been watching the exchanged (although really watching Sam a lot more closely than the other girl) and sat up straight when the girl disappeared. Her head whipped around and she saw the girl -- outside, crouched on the roof of the car next to the bus! She blew the startled passengers a kiss and teleported again, appearing a few cars ahead, and then a few more. Tona wasn't sure what this meant for their test -- obviously they'd been spotted, but not by Changeling, so did that count? -- but her stubborn pride wasn't about to let this girl get away.

 

She looked at the window and hit it experimentally, but the glass wasn't about to give. Then she noticed a red lever at the top of the pane, marked EMERGENCY RELEASE. Tona grabbed it, pulled, and the entire pane popped out and onto the pavement. The bus was soon filled by a noisy, roaring wind, that Tona didn't take any notice of. Quick as a wink she was balanced on the window frame and then she made the daring leap to the car next to the bus, where the teleporter had been balancing just moments ago! After that she had to make another leap, and another, just to stay abreast of the teleporting thief!

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Well.  Teleporter.  That was unexpected.  She turns to Tona, to regroup on their next plan to find Changeling, also known as the person they actually care about tracking.  "Alright, that went nowhere.  Let's-" then, she cuts herself off when she notices her wise and cautious friend jumping out a freaking window.

 

"What are you-?" but it's too late.  The chaos has already begun.  Once more, she utters some demonic oaths, and considers her options.  Unfortunately, with Tona out in the middle of the street, drawing all attention, she can't drop her spell or Changeling's sure to notice, wherever she is, and if she can't drop the spell, she can't use another.  Which whittles things down to the mundane approach.  She follows, doing her own car hopping.  Something the Phantom Fox hadn't quite gotten around to teaching her, beyond a single jump leading to a tuck-and-roll into cover, for an effective vanishing act.  A great lesson to learn at ten.

 

Why are we even chasing her? she wonders, as she lines up the next hop.

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Three women, all climbing and leaping and clambering over the traffic, wasn't nearly the most unusual sight most Freedonians saw in a week, but it did get its share of camera phones out and filming. The teleporter -- Splinter, apparently -- scowled at the attention and leapt off traffic, only to disappear and reappear over the river! Tona hadn't even noticed that the bus had taken them onto the Lindroos Bridge and was heading into Wading Way and Riverside.

 

The archer steadied herself. This... was going to be tricky. She drew her bow and unfolded it with a jerk, drawing one of the arrows that didn't have any fletching on it. She nocked it carefully, steadied herself with one hand against the roof of the car she was on, pushed the bow forward with her other, and drew the arrow back with her teeth. It didn't give her nearly as much draw as she normally had, but then she didn't need nearly as much draw.

 

She loosed the arrow and it hit the railing of the bridge, but more importantly it trailed a monofilament line back to the bow. Tona took a breath, leapt off the car, and ran forward, off the car. As she jumped off she hit the break on the line and her forward momentum was transferred into lateral movement. The girl's small body whipped around and thought she cut it fine, she just barely managed to clear the railing and swing underneath the bridge. There, she could see Splinter hanging in the air for a moment between teleports, before Tona slammed into her and wrapped her legs around the other woman. "Vous pris," she spat at the girl as her momentum began to swing her up and towards the underside of the bridge.

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When the teleporter crosses the river and Tona pulls out her bow, Sam stops in her tracks on the van she'd just hopped onto.  She isn't- Nock, pull, shoot, swing, pounce.  She is.  I give up.

 

After that much of a scene, and the bow, if Changeling is watching, she knows exactly what's going on.  So, Sam tucks, rolls, and dives into cover, slipping into an alley as she drops the illusion and teleports over to the area where Tona just mauled a semi-random crazy woman.  And there, she waits in the shadows, watching for everything to fall apart again.  Because it will.  And this time, Sam is going to keep a working vantage to actually fix it this time.

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Normally, Tona would never have enough momentum to carry her all the way to the underside of the bridge, but she had carried a lot of energy in her initial leap, and now she neared the ironmongry underneath the bridge at speed. Most of her limbs were either tied up with Splinter or her bow, and letting go of either would be borderline disastrous. Still, she had one arm that was able to reach out and snag an iron strut, and keep her from falling back and swinging like a pendulum on her arrow's line. "Okay," she said through gritted teeth. "Time to give it up." Splinter twisted in Tona's grasp, but it seemed apparent that the teleporter couldn't simply poof out of a grapple like the one she was caught in. "Just stop squirming," Tona grunted. She was at peak physical condition, would probably never be stronger or faster or more agile in her life, but even this was a stretch of her endurance.

 

"Never give up," Splinter snarled. "Never, never, NEVER!" She briefly twisted an arm free, and raised it high -- and Tona could only watch as a red, crystalline dagger formed in the other girl's palm. And she could only watch as the other girl stabbed it into Tona's shoulder.

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Okay, seriously, what just happened?  This is just supposed to be a tail.  Why is there stabbing involved?  She winces as the random stranger drives a knife into Tona, but she manages to beat down her first instinct; to ram as much pain and fear and anguish into her head as possible, on the grounds that it would probably end in wild flailing, a long fall, and two deaths.  And that would be bad.

 

So, if scary thoughts are bad... maybe happy thoughts will do the job.  She digs into Miss Third Person's head and starts making her perceive Tona as awesome, like a bestest best friend, who should never ever be hurt because they're friends and that would be bad and they should help each other.

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Tona held on to the bow, the stanchion, and the thief, even as she felt searing pain in her shoulder and a warm trickle of blood down her back. Splinter raised the shard again and paused as Sam's psychic magic tried to worm into her brain. She looked down at Tona and saw her best friend, her trusted sister, her confidant, her mentor and ally and... and...

 

Splinter screamed and shook her head from side to side. "No! Get out of there, you don't belong in my head!" She screamed again and stabbed down at Tona wildly; the blow deflected off her ribs and went into her side.

 

The archer's face went white at the new pain, and her grip started to slip on the ironmongery under the bridge. She let out a wordless yell of frustration and pain as she slipped free and swung back on her grapple line. She was forced to face facts -- she wasn't going to be able to hold onto Splinter, not like this. So she opened her legs and let the other girl fall. Splinter made a surprised sound for a moment, before disappearing in her own fashion, but now Tona had a new problem; she was hanging under the bridge, clutching on to her bow with one hand, but when she tried to raise her other arm to grab it and start climbing, the pain made her hand tremble and she was forced to drop it.

 

She couldn't climb up, and she might not survive a drop down. But sooner than she liked, she would have to risk the fall...

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Sam watches the scene unfold and starts kicking herself repeatedly.  That's happening more and more these days, where she tries to calm someone down and they end up lashing out and screaming for her to get out of their heads.  But she's not worried about Splinter anymore; she can obviously survive the fall.  Tona, on the other hand, doesn't exactly look poised for the perfect swan dive.

 

She steps through the shadows, up to Tona's girder and grabs on, helping her stay up.  "Stay still.  I'll get us somewhere safe."  She takes a deep breath, focuses, and tries not to panic.  She is mostly successful.  In her mind, she locks onto one of the locations she's memorized in the event of an emergency, and the cold shadows consume the pair.  An instant later, Sam is falling on top of Tona in complete darkness, and they're both being battered by sticks and odd corners of plastic and metal in some cramped space.

 

She opens the door to the broom closet nearest the Freedom League's infirmary and starts shouting, "Medic!  Medic!  We've got a stabbing, here!" as she climbs to her feet and starts helping Tona with the same, ignoring the blood stains on her formerly nice clothes.

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Freedom Hall was not inexperienced at dealing with bleeding people appearing suddenly and shouting orders. Figures bearing the League's symbol on their sleeves appeared and hustled Tona off to the infirmary on the sub-level. It was odd for their visitors to not be sporting masks and brightly-colored outfits, but they still moved quickly and efficiently; in a handful of minutes Tona was reclining on a hospital bed with her shirt cut away and a doctor cleaning her cuts. They'd already sprayed her with a topical anesthetic, so she was able to have the odd experience of watching someone poke around in her wounds while being lucid enough to take an interest in it.

 

Sam, meanwhile, had been hustled off into a room by her own and now a heavy-set man in a blue uniform with the League's symbol on his breast came through the door. "Hello," he said, shutting the door behind him. "I don't suppose you'd like to tell us your name? And why your friend was cut up?"

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Sam, of course, tries to go with Tona, but she's not about to muscle her way in on medical staff.  Instead, she's briefly inspected to make sure she's not hurt, and left alone, in a room, with a cup of coffee.  Last time she was in a room that felt like this, it belonged to AEGIS.  And right now, her training is telling her that any moment, someone is about to walk in here start asking questions, which should be met with silence.  At first, she considers beating that impulse down.  After all, this part of the building is pretty much a hospital, not a police station.

 

On the other hand, Tona did just commit a crime.  She assaulted someone who hadn't done any clear wrongdoing except maybe for traffic violations, and got stabbed for her trouble.  And they are in League HQ, which could well be a step worse than 'cop.'  Best to skimp on the details.

 

Then, the big guy walks in here and starts asking questions.  And rather direct ones, at that.

 

"We're with Claremont," she says in a half-mumble, and that's it, as if it answers both questions at once, putting more effort and looking small and vulnerable and still in shock about what happened.

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The man gave Sam a No. 1 glare for a moment, then sighed and set a folder down in front of her. The tab at the top read SAM VANCE (KIT) and the front had the Claremont logo on it. "Yeah," he said. "We know. Listen, do you think you could at least tell us why your friend is covered in blood?" He waited, but ended up giving in before Sam dropped the stonewalling technique. "Alright, fine. I just hope you know that you're going to have to explain this to someone today." He stood and moved to the door, opening it and looking at Sam. "Well? Do you want to see your friend, or not?"

 

It was a short walk to the infirmary, where Tona was sitting upright on an examination table, flexing her arm. The left side of her shirt had been cut away, and the blood cleaned off and replaced with two white pads. The archer moved her arm, checking the full range of motion and wincing slightly as her arm started to pull more on the flesh over her ribs. She glanced up and froze when Sam entered the room, then dropped her eyes to the floor and her hands into her lap. "Hey there," she said after a minute, avoiding meeting Sam's gaze.

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Miss Samantha Vance has to raise an eyebrow at seeing "SAM" on the cover.  But that's not important.
 
A little pouting, and they're gone, to see Tona.  She doesn't even say a word, hopping up and following along as soon as the big guy says the word.  She follows along, eyes darting about for anything new to the layout for reference.  But really, as long as the broom closets don't move, she's fine.
 
At Tona's room, things suddenly get awkward.  "Hey," she replies, taking a seat, letting the silence stew for a while as she tries to figure out what to say.  Eventually, she opts for, "What happened out there?"
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Tona scratched her uninjured arm. "I was trying to catch the teleporter," she said. "When she went underneath the bridge I tried to swing after her. I remember Mr. Archer saying that teleporters have a hard time getting away if you can get in close to them, so I got in as close as I could." She sighed. "But then when I was under the bridge and wrapped all around her," And boy did she ever blush red when she said that, "I couldn't get out the way of the knife. Eventually I decided that it was better to let her get away than, well, gut me." She coughed. "Um. Thanks for not letting me, you know, fall."

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Sam nods graciously at the thanks for such a petty task as saving her friend from plunging to her death, not to mention getting her proper medical treatment.  Though the larger point seems to be missed.
 
"Okay," she replies, "the tactics were sound, but... why did you need to chase her in the first place?" she asks, giving up on discretion for the direct approach.  "I mean, this was just a homework assignment to watch Changeling go shopping.  How did we go from shopping to jumping across traffic and mauling someone and stabbings and almost falling off a bridge?  I mean, homework's not supposed to end in stabbing."
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Tona squirmed under the line of questioning. "Well, I was... She was trying to escape, and... I mean she still had Changeling's bag, and...!" Tona sighed and slumped. "Okay, so I screwed up. Big time. But I couldn't just... I couldn't let her get away. She was so close close and she was going to get away!" She clenched her fists, not sure how to verbalize her hunter's instinct to chase and pounce, not to let a target run off scot-free.

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Sam frowns for a second at Tona's suicidal persistence, but forces it away in favor of a reassuring smile, however forced.  "Hey, you don't have to chase them all down."  She places her hand on Tona's, playing against her fist in hopes of getting it to loosen, to get Tona to be less tense.  "Sometimes, it's okay to let something go.  I mean, it's not like she was hurting anything.  If it's a good day, you don't have to fight."
 
A sentiment that's lost on a lot of Claremont students, sure, but Sam's still a believer in solving problems more... civilly.  Which often involves inciting riots.
 
"Besides, I think Changeling gave her that stuff to shake us."
Edited by Blue Rose
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Tona opened one fist and took Sam's hand, squeezing almost painfully but not saying a word. After a couple of minutes she took a deep breath and raised her eye to meet Sam's. "But I did look really, really cool, didn't I?"

"You really did." Both girls looked to the door, where Changeling was standing. "It's all on YouTube and everything. Of course not many people would recognize a petite redhead and an angry brunette, but I've got sharp eyes." She looked at Sam. "And you were right about leaving my bag behind to lose you two."

Edited by Raveled
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