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Her house, her place of business, was complete. The only real necessity Mei-Xing had left was to place the enchantments around it. She even had a good bit of furniture in. Of course, it was mainly done by herself and the elementals she'd summoned, she'd have to get favors from that Harris boy, and any artisans on the crew, if she wanted anything fancy. It wouldn't be that hard.

Still, there's one thing Mei-Xing really wants. A computer that isn't linked to the rest of the ship. She has her commlink in her head, but she doesn't feel like logging everything she might do in the future to the data storage. Some things just aren't safe to have on-hand, and a data storage device with no wireless capability will be more secure.

So, once again, she heads out into the City. Sticking to the ruined, uninhabited parts isn't what she'd like to do, but having another confrontation over 'property' isn't what she really wants.

It takes several hours, but she eventually finds a ruined building in the wreckage. She'd pass it over, as it doesn't seem to hold much promise, if it weren't for a familiar logo on a plaque in front of the building. Doc Wagon. The mercenary medic company. She had a contract with them, a very expensive one. Luckily, she could afford it. Being a shadowrunner had benefits.

She ducks through a broken window, mentally cursing whoever had done so much damage to a place rich with technology and medical supplies. The upper floors are completely destroyed, but there's a massive hole in the floor, torn open by the stresses of battle. Mei-Xing slips into the hole, wishing that getting into the highly protected lower levels of most corporations had been this easy. Most of what she saw was useless, ruined by a lack of maintenance, power, or simple destruction. There are some supplies, and she makes a mental note, mapping out the area with her PAN. After another hour or so, she stops dead. There's a locked door, but putting her hand against it... There's a hum. Mei-Xing presses her ear against the door and nods. Definitely some kind of hum. There's power in there. But with the door locked...

"I guess there's no helping it." She places her hand against the door, channels power through it, and the metal around her hand cracks before shattering like glass. She steps into the cold room, breathing in the processed air. A thick layer of dust coats everything, and she has to work up another spell to rid the area of dust and any contaminants. What she sees when she's opened up, Mei-Xing can't help but gape.

In the room are several tanks. Many of them have cracked surfaces, exposing the insides to the surface air. The only reason there's no stench in the air is because Mei-Xing's spell had blown it away, but the skeletons and partially-decomposed bodies inside the tanks are still no better for it. However, in the center of the whole mess, is a long-haired Chinese elf, floating serenely. Mei-Xing stares up at her, marvelling. It's her. Her clone, rather. A wicked smile spreads across her face as she presses her hands and nose to the glass. "My, my. You've grown since the last time I saw you. Thank the heavens we're immortal, eh? You'd be useless if you'd died of old age on me."

She hadn't planned on spending a while there. But she couldn't resist staying away for too long. Now that she knew it was there, others could get there. And the area wasn't exactly the best for spirits, it was right near a mana warp, formed by the negative emotions associated with that part of the city. If she tried to summon a watcher spirit, there was a risk of it becoming corrupt, a toxic spirit.

So she scrounged when she could, trying to set up some kind of electronic security system, but she had no clue how to make those things. In the end, it came down to her heading into the destroyed section of the city, stopping every now and then to make sure she wasn't being followed from the shadows, and checking on her clone every once in a while. Like she was doing now.

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Fate had been making her way through the city, on her way to the Jedi Temple, when she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye; a figure darting just out of view, looking a bit on-edge as she stopped to look around.

Normally this wouldn't have caught her attention. It wasn't exactly a strange sight, seeing people wandering through the city. But to see someone acting that way, heading towards one of the more abandoned parts of the city, so soon after the mess with Shiva had ended...

Fate followed a bit behind her, far enough so that she could find a quick place to hide should the other girl decide to turn around, but close enough so that she won't be losing sight of her anytime soon.

One girl trailing another was noticeable, and the behavior of the one was especially noticeable after what just happened to the ship. Kon's suspicions were also aroused and he caught up with Fate, floating over the ground to prevent making the sounds of any footsteps.

He didn't say a word, just nodded in the direction Mei-Xing was headed.

Unspoken was 'We follow together?'

Juuust to make sure nothing fishy was going on. The last thing they needed was more bombs or something.

Mei-Xing had a feeling that she was being followed, but a quick sweep of the area didn't reveal anyone. No one on the ship was good enough to keep track of her if she didn't want to be followed... At least if they stuck to the ground.

After another half hour of wandering, she finds herself in front of the Doc Wagon building again, and steps inside. It doesn't take her that long to find the cloning room again, she knows where it is. "Hey there, sleeping beauty." She grins as she steps into the room, rapping her knuckles against the glass. There's no response from the clone inside, but Mei-Xing goes about checking her vitals. "All still stable? Such a good girl. I wouldn't want you straining yourself." She settles down in the chair, stretching.

Sitting in a cloning facility with dead bodies in tanks, she watches the sole survivor of the Nightmare King Incident with a half smile. Her money at work. "Shame you can't talk back. But I'd imagine conversation with you would be rather dull. 'Hi. How are you? I'm still drekking into a tube and floating in green drek while you're off having the time of your life, getting your hoop knocked off by bugs. Woe is me.'"

Fate took her eyes off their target for only a split second, just long enough to send Kon a silent nod. She didn't bother sending him a telepathic message, not wanting to risk it if Mei-Xing could pick up on that kind of thing.

A frown crossed her face as Mei-Xing entered the ruins of a building. It made tailing the other girl a bit more difficult as she tried to avoid disturbing any rubble and alerting her to their presence, but she was able to catch up with her quickly...

... Only to see her talking to a form floating in a tank. Fate had to bite down hard on her lip to prevent a strangled scream from escaping her as memories of her past flashed through her mind.

It was the dead clones that got to Kon. Reminded him of Projects 1-12, sitting in their tubes in Cadmus, skin decaying into chalk, or worse.

His jaw was set.

They had to do something about this. They had to see if the clone could be freed.

The increased feelings of revulsion and horror were what got to her. Mei-Xing isn't an empath, but she can see the auras of living beings in the astral realm, their emotions and their spirits. Sometimes, strong emotions bled into the color of reality, and it was hard not to notice them.

She stands smoothly, pressing her back against the tank to prevent an attack from that angle. Her hand drops to her waist but... There's no gun there. She never found out if Luthor had managed to get a weapon for her or not. "Who's there?"

Blinking twice, she slips her vision into the astral realm, physical objects fading out into a dull grey while the auras of her guests bled strongly through the walls. One of them had some insanely powerful magical artifact on hand, and the other was... Odd. An alien aura if she'd ever seen one.

She thinks she can talk her way out of any situation, but she brings up some spell formulae in her head anyway, just to be safe.

... Well then. There was no point in hiding anymore. She took a deep breath to calm herself before stepping out into the open. She wasn't clad in her Barrier Jacket just yet, but Bardiche's pendant form was clutched tightly in her hand, its edges digging into her palm.

"What is this?" She asked. Even though she knew the answer, she needed details. "Explain."

Kon just hovered out and floated silently in the air, arms crossed, waiting for that explanation.

Edited 2010-09-05 02:56 (UTC)

She blinks, then shrugs and spreads her arms out. "This is the remains of a Doc Wagon facility. Think of them as medics for hire. They go into combat zones, pull you out, patch you up. If you're really good at what you do..." She raps the tank. "You can pay for a clone."

She crosses her arms. "I discovered this facility a few days ago while exploring. My clone survived, all of the other tanks were damaged by the same event that wrecked the city." She shrugs, raising an eyebrow. "Now. Care to tell me why you're shoving your nose in my business?"

"Pay for..." This wasn't a new thing to Fate; wealthy families on Mid-Childa can pay to have people illegally cloned. It wasn't exactly common, but it still happened too often, and the victims were almost always children.

So, needless to say, even putting aside her own issues, this deeply unsettled Fate.

"But... why would you clone yourself?" She said, not caring that she was ignoring Mei-Xing's question.

The look on Kon's face was one of disgust and--and possibly hatred.

He'd seen...things in Cadmus's typical round up of clones and its shut-down of illegal cloning facilities.

"For the organs, Fate. She loses something, they pull the organ, she gets patched up. It's not just a clone to have a clone, it's a donor."

He looked at Mei-Xing.

"Or it was a donor. If we can unhook her, we're taking the clone to Medbay and seeing if she can be woken up. I sincerely suggest you don't get in the way," he said to Mei-Xing. "If we can't unhook her, you're coming with us to security to be held until they can unhook her."

Edited 2010-09-05 03:35 (UTC)

"Got it in one." She beams and nods, holding up a finger. Her finger drops slowly as he continues talking, and her face falls into an annoyed look. "However, this is my property. Security doesn't have any say in the matter, and neither do you."

She slides her foot back and to the side, assuming a defensive wushu stance. "I'd suggest you two just go back the way you came and forget you saw anything here."

"A donor...? You... How could you do that to someone!?" Fate felt ill as she took in this information, and the disgust and disbelief in her voice was quite obvious at this point.

Thankfully, she was able to pull herself together as Mei-Xing fell into her stance. The disgust was still clear in her eyes, but her face had set into her previous stern expression.

"We can't do that. I can't allow you to use a person for those purposes, and I'm sure Security will have something to say about that once we take you into custody."

"So are we gonna have to do this the hard way or what?" asked Kon, smacking his fist into his palm.

"I like the hard way, for the record."

Mei-Xing gives the only response possible for a woman of her character in this situation. "Eat drek and die, troglicker."

She flings her hands out, hands swimming a bit as she unleashes two spells at once. Power crackles along her arms as divine characters glow purple around her. A snarling bolt of power goes for Superboy, it would be enough to send a normal man spinning. Fate gets a different touch, mages in Mei-Xing's world need to concentrate. So she's targeted with a surge of mana that would, unless she resists the effects, amp every sense she has to an agonizing level.

Fate didn't have any chance to to dodge, and the spell's effects hit her almost instantly. The room was dimly lit before, but now it was as if someone had set off a flash bomb right in front of her. And that wasn't the worst part; a flare of pain erupted in her right hand, the hand that had been clutching her Device in a white-knuckled grip. She yelped in pain, but tried her best to ignore it as she collect herself and get ready for this fight.

"Bardiche!"

"Get Set. Barrier Jacket: Impulse Form."

"Set up!"

Everything hurt. The sound of her own voice, the sound of Bardiche's monotonic voice, the flash of light as her plantsuit was replaced with her Barrier Jacket... her hands even stung as she clutched her weapon.

But she wasn't going to give up now. So she squinted through the sudden blinding brightness, and tried her best to focus on Mei-Xing.

The blast knocked him into a wall.

Into. Not through.

"That's it?"

It'd hurt, but not much.

"That's the best you've got?"

She had magic. That meant that he was screwed. It also meant that distracting her so Fate could get her shots in was a good plan.

She weaves slightly, dizzy for a moment, then slaps her hands to her cheeks to focus. "No. Just a warm-up." She doesn't want either of them dead, that would raise too many questions, but she's not sure how she can do this without two corpses on her hands.

She spreads both of her hands, a spread of flames spreading between them. The flams warp into dart-like shapes and spray out, heading for both of them as Mei-Xing uses that as cover to try to dart between them and out the door. She can't fight in here, there's too much risk to delicate equipment.

Fate's still trying to adjust to the light, and so she didn't see the attack before the first few darts hit. They just managed to nick her shoulder and cheek, and while normally the attack would probably just sting a lot, her painfully enhanced senses made it feel as if she had just been hit straight in the face with Laevateinn's fiery blade.

She did her best to shake off the pain, though, when she noticed a blurry shape moving towards the exit. She was aware of the risks of fighting in the room as well, but she couldn't let Mei-Xing escape the building. If she made it out into the city, it was highly unlikely they'd be able to track her down.

"Lightning Bind."

Using a bind spell when she couldn't exactly pinpoint her opponent's location wasn't exactly a smart move, but she knew better than to use any of her shooting magic right now.

The equipment was why he and Fate couldn't cut loose either.

The darts slashed into Kon's arms as his held them up to shield himself, and he cursed as his skin burned and actually started to bleed.

Freakin' magic!

Mei-Xing ducks into the hallway, then jerks to a halt as she feels something snap around her wrists. Some kind of binding spell? She glares at the energy bands circling around them, tugging experimentally, but they won't budge. Something like this took a lot of power... Or a lot of concentration.

She twists, trying to get a better view of the pair, but... Damn, this is a bad position. She only has one area spell that could work here but... Damn.

With a snarl, and a wave of dizziness, she channels magical energy, anchoring it to the clone and spreading the spell's effects to everyone in the room. Meaning Fate and Kon. The effects aren't too aggressive, they won't do damage, but it will bring the fight to a climax. Just not the kind anyone envisions a fight bringing.

Perfect. The spell worked, so now Fate can close in on Mei-Xing without being able to completely see her. Now she just had to stun her a bit, just enough so that she wouldn't struggle as they brought her to the Precinct--

And then the spell hit her. For a split second, she was anticipating a wave of intense pain... but no. This was the complete opposite. Intense pleasure - the kind she only felt during certain bedroom activities with a certain friend of hers - suddenly flooded through her, and the feeling was intensified even more thanks to Mei-Xing's previous spell.

Fate stopped dead in her tracks, and once again had to bite down on her bottom lip to stop herself from crying out. However, she wasn't able to complete stop herself this time, and a muffled whimper still managed to pass her lips. Her face lit up in embarrassment, but she still couldn't do a thing until the sensations began to fade.

Okay, it'd been, like, ages since he'd gotten any action, on account of that whole having a girlfriend thing. While he certainly, um, had gotten alone time, suffice to say, he hadn't really had much attention in a certain department in a while in general.

With a low groan that he couldn't stop, Kon fell to his knees, hunched over.

"Oh, you bitch." Seriously. "$&#@ing magic!"

As her spell goes off, she can feel Fate's binding spell fade from her wrists. She smirks as she rubs her wrists and turns around, considering only for a split second the idea of killing the two of them now, while they were vulnerable.

But, no. She didn't kill unless she absolutely had to, and the comedy couple hadn't given her a reason beyond pissing her off and threatening to arrest her. "Ta ta for now." Mei-Xing tosses them a quick, two fingered salute before turning on her heels and bolting for the exit. She was a fairly fast runner, and she didn't think that the blonde would be able to keep up. The boy, though... He was fit. Very much so.

She'd have to find a place, catch her breath... Maybe a quick masking spell, until she figured out what to do next. Yeah.

When the feelings finally faded... well, so did everything else. Not completely, but Fate's vision was returning to normal, her hearing seemed to dim, and the wound on her face no longer felt like it was on fire.

Mei-Xing was out of luck, now.

"Sonic Move."

And in the blink of an eye, Fate was gone. She dashed out of the room, and in a matter of seconds, she was only a few feet behind Mei-Xing. And now that the risk of hitting the clone's tank was removed, Fate had full use of her magic back.

"Plasma Lancer."

Several yellow orbs appeared around her, each crackling with electricity, and at her command of "Fire!", shot straight at the other girl.

Mei-Xing takes a second to look back, she thought she heard someone but that was impossible. She wasn't a physical adept, but there's no way they could've caught up with this head-Was that lightning?

"Oh drek."

She barely has time to utter that curse, trying to move out of the way, when one of the streaks catch her in the small of her back, knocking her off her feet and forcing her to clench her teeth rather than let out a cry. A second and a third hit her arm and shoulder, spinning her in mid-air until she hits the floor and skids to a halt, muscles jittering from the exposure to electricity.

She was hefted up by the collar. Apparently, they both moved fast.

There was a fist sent in the direction of her face.

Being held up like that is extremely counterproductive to dodging. She grabs his wrist, but can't clear her head enough of the pain of Fate's attack to work up even a weak spell. The punch knocks her loose, shredding the plantsuit where Kon had been holding it, and she bounces off of the wall painfully.

With a muttered string of curses, she pushes herself up, spitting out blood and touching a tooth with her tongue. She'd been hit harder, she was sure of it. Damned if she could remember when, though.

A part of Fate really, really wanted to draw out the fight. But it might be bad when they brought her to the Precinct, so she held back.

"Lightning Bind."

That didn't stop her from casting one last spell, though. The yellow rings of energy closed around Mei-Xing's wrists once again and pulled them together behind her back. Fate stepped forward, Bardiche raised just in case, and glared at the other girl.

"I suggest you cooperate with us this time." She said, and even though she was still mortified and embarrassed over what just happened, there was no hint of it in her voice.

"Or I'll punch you in the face and next time I won't hold back."

Because that? That'd been a love tap, seriously.

Edited 2010-09-06 02:16 (UTC)

She laughs.

Either she's very stupid, or Superboy's love taps aren't that threatening. After all this trouble they'd gone through to capture her, they won't kill her.

Mei-Xing pushes herself to her feet, standing easily like this isn't the first time she's been bound like this. "Fine. I'll go with you two, for now."

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