"Well, I'm not much of a hugger, really. But I'm glad you get a kick out of 'em." She just sort of accepts her hugging fate at this point.

Alex freezes a little once ensnared in the embrace. She carefully pats the large squid-thing. "It's fine. You didn't know nothin'."

Girls call each other cute all the time. It's normal.

"No," she says bluntly. "I can't really recreate it. When I did it I-" She trails off, eyeing the water. "Just forget it."

She steps off the ledge and splashes into the pool, but notably keeps her head above the water.

"Eh, sometimes you become a kaiju of almost every element on the table and just chill." She grins, clearly deflecting. "I'm just super cool like that."

"Oh..."

Alex blinks, shocked at first.

"That's... really metal. I did something similar in London."

Alex lets her lead her to the pools edge, purposefully not paying attention to the muttering. Girls called each other cute all the time it's not weird.

"Uh, sure. Go for it. But... heavy? You look practically malnourished. I don't think anyone would call you heavy."

Alex averts her gaze anyways; it doesn't help her sanity at all in the abstract. "Hey, Rapunzel," she says, keeping her composure.

She wrestles off her hoodie, with all her wearing underneath being a bikini top. She has various occult and miscellaneous tattoos running up her forearms and forelegs, with some scattered around her torso and back. She rolls up the hoodie into a loose ball.

Mica nods slowly. "Okay," she says softly "I can do that." She smiles weakly.

"About as far as this junkyard," she explains.

Mica finishes her sandwich, and snatches a few more pieces of meat for the road, sliding out of the chair and scarfing down the snack on her way into the bus.

A few moments pass, and Mica comes wandering back out with an old gym back that was definitely dug out of a landfill. She holds it close in her arms, making her way back towards Sovereign.

"That's all of it."

"Uh. There's some stuff in the bus I still have since I lived with... my family. Before they kicked me out." She takes another bite.

The man showing half of his face seems to put Mica a little more at ease, if only a little.

"Yeah, well, we'll see," she murmurs, carefully taking another bite of sandwich. "But I hope so too."

Mica begrudgingly takes some cheese and meat out, before taking a bite of the unholy sandwich. "You're the first time to be nice to me in a very long time," she says through a mouthful of food. "But my dogs are getting fed so..."

Sovereign guesses correctly, stopping Mica in her tracks from just gorging herself after sitting down.

She pauses, squinting at Sovereign. She takes some bread, cheeses, and meats to slowly assemble a monstrosity of a sandwich. "This is all too nice," she says. "Is there a second catch somewhere?"

Mica nods slowly, the more grim topic taking her by surprise, but even she understands the weight of it.

"I understand."

"Well, I was already planning to avoid all of those, so, sounds easy enough," she says with a grin. "These unwritten rules are so easy."

Mica nods slowly. "That makes sense," she hums, leaning down the two bowls she was handed. "What makes them unwritten rules? Wouldn't somebody have written them down by now, if they're super super important?"

The dogs immediately begin to swarm the men, happily collecting around their legs, anxiously awaiting to be fed.

Mica watches her dogs, not moving, then looks back to Sovereign. "Uhh sure okay, we can do that." She nods. "Talking is good, I can talk."

She grins at the confirmation of food.

"Uhhhhhh... the pawns can't go diagonal on the board unless it's taking another pawn. I learned that the hard way," she explains, very clearly not on the same page.

The mention of food seems to cause the girl to perk up, if only a little. Some of the surrounding dogs, too, suddenly seem a little more excited as well, as though pinging off their master's hunger.

Mica nods, teetering back and forth on her heels, impatiently waiting, but in silence.

"Bandersnatch," she says. "Like the one from Alice in Wonderland."

She nods a little at the question. "They'll stay calm if I stay calm. And I'm calm. Hungry, but calm."

"'S Mica," she answers. "Mica Hirsch."

Mica huffs, taking a step back and wandering around Sovereign, thinking. A few dogs get up to lazily follow her in the rough circle.

While she liked her setup, she realized it wasn't sustainable, and her dogs went hungry too often than she'd like. Stealing from the local corner stores was going to get some heroes to root her out sooner or later.

"Alright," she says, stopping in front of Sovereign again. "I'll join your little richboy club, I guess."

Mica shifts her weight from foot to foot.

"Yuh-huh. Am I gonna have to hurt people? I don't like hurting people unless I absolutely have to."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't worry about it Rapunzel."

She pats Hydra on the top of the head, and turns to leave back inside.

Not too longer after, she comes back out wearing a hoodie over swimming trunks. She pauses, scanning the area for signs of the squidgirl.

"Hmmmph."

Mica stuffs her hands into her hoodie pockets. "So what's the catch? Option one sounds too good to be true and three is so vague. Do I need to wear a stupid tophat too? What's up with that."

"Yeah I do it all the time, I even swim with my coworkers after work every now and again. So long as I don't do it on the clock, which I'm not, I'm golden. Employee perks and all that. I even keep spare sets of clothes in the break room for it."

She tries to pull out of the cape's grasp. "I do need to change though, if you could just... let go."

Mica jumps down, landing right in front of Sovereign, kicking up a plume of dust around her as her boots meets dusty earth.

"If those snotguzzling shitbrains come near me or my dogs I'll rip 'em apart," she says matter-of-factly. But her confidence wavers a little.

"... But y'know, what are the options...?"

Alex sighs. "Look, Rapunzel, I..."

How the fuck do you fix this?

"You can stay at my place tonight, if you'd like. We can order pizza, or something. Or we can go for a swim here. Or both. I dunno..." She rubs the back of her head awkwardly.

"Never heard of you, or that. Nothing words."

She crouches down, holding her face in her hands. "That's me, Sir Topham Hatt. There a problem?"

Alex frowns a little, feeling a pang of sympathy and uncomfortable familiarity.

"They're bastards," she grumbles, a hint of anger bubbling in her voice, patting the 'hair' of the main head. "Fuck 'em. Whoever this woman was she can go die in a ditch, entáxei."

Before Sovereign even steps foot into the junkyard, Mica has already heard his car, his footsteps, she smelled his foreign stench and how it clashes with the familiar smell of her home.

Mica stands, her dogs reacting. Not in a show of aggression, but defensive, the dogs watching the every move of the men, analyzing and preparing for any shows of hostility.

Mica bristles. "Who the FUCKSHIT are you?" She calls down from her vantage point on the bus roof, her stature similarly defensive. She didn't want a fight, but she wasn't going to be pushed out of her home, either, if that's what this was all about.

Alex is caught off-guard, arms raised a little, and she stands in place awkwardly.

Hesitantly, uncertainly, Alex lightly pats the cape on the back.

"You... okay?"

In an old junkyard, piles of overgrown, ruined cars and vehicle parts left strewn in every direction, dogs of all type and breed lounging, running around, playing, sleeping, whatever it is that dogs do.

Mica sits cross-legged atop an old school bus, all the internal seats thrown out and left out to serve as makeshift dog beds. The bus itself has been messily spray-painted black, covered in an assortment of different chaotic designs in various colors. Mica is eating a sandwich- one she stole from a local deli- while a big rottweiler lazily rests with her, its head comfortably in her lap.

She looks out over her 'pack' from her vantage point, enjoying the evening.

"You-" Alex sputters a little, plainly caught off-guard. Girls hug each other all the time that's not weird at all she mentally reassures herself.

"Well... you should've come in through the back entrance. You're just lucky it's a slow night."

At least this was a distraction.

"I was close to clocking out anyways... Just... c'mon." She turns to lead the mutant, then pauses. "Don't touch anything on the way cause I'm gonna have to be the one to clean it." And she continues walking again, leading them through the lobby and towards the back entrance out to the fenced-up pool area, also vacant.

Alex perks up and faces the doors, only to find them vacant. Odd.

There's confusion, until she spots the head- then there's a moment of recognition.

"What are you doing here!?" Alex whisper-shouts at the head from across the lobby. She very much didn't want to case a scene and bring the concierge around to investigate and find the cape in her lobby.

The Beacon Inn- a four-star hotel detached a little from downtown. Ritzy and fancy, but not to the point of anything special. A great big V-shaped building made of steel and glass, with a bit of a postmodern streak in its architecture.

The entrance of the hotel is large, with a large road leading up to it. The lobby is spacious, with a heavy emphasis on blue and gold colors. The carpeting is a deep navy blue, and the almost gold-like floor tiling reflects almost like a mirror. Chandeliers hang from the high ceiling.

Alex, dressed in vest uniform, wanders the empty lobby. It's a slow night, which is simultaneously good and bad for her. Less things to do. Even the lady at the front desk was on her break and didn't have a need to fill in yet. She strolls around, making sure a table didn't miraculously get itself dirty, but keeps the front doors in the corner of her eyes, just in case.

She stumbles, but just as quickly catches her footing again. She whips around to face Hydra.

"I was just saying it how it is, alright?" Alex snaps, sudden tenseness in her tone. Defensive, almost. "Stating a fact doesn't mean anything like that. It wasn't a compliment. Me saying puppies are cute is just a fact. Same thing." It wasn't, in fact, the same thing.

Water slowly drips out from the undercarriage of the vehicle, and slowly, surely, the puddle watches the dealer.

Halfway through him unpacking, the puddle inches up behind the dealer, and then all at once, like a snake striking, a loosely human shape springs out from the puddle, wrapping around the dealer, a hand covering his jaw, partially drowning him with each breath through his mouth. She does notably leave his nose uncovered, of course.

"Alright, shithead, here's how we're going to do this," she whispers into his ear. "Struggling is only going to make this harder for you so listen good, I'm only asking this once. Firstly, is your boss here? Just nod or shake your head, I'm not giving you a chance to scream."

Alex spins on her heel to glance at Hydra, quirking an eyebrow. "What do you mean what I said earlier?" She huffs, sounding a mix between genuine confusion and irritation. "I said a lot of things earlier. Dating way back when I was born, even. Narrow it down some, shit." She shakes her head, walking onward again, balancing along the rooftop's edge.

"Won't be necessary." Atlas marches to the other edge of the rooftop, jumping up to the edge. She offers Cruach a salute, and her form falls apart, letting gravity do what gravity does best to a body of water, and the water splashes onto concrete.

The water pools together as a collective puddle on the ground, dragging itself across the side-walk towards the car Cruach had directed towards, hiding in the shadow beneath the vehicle. With discretion of the position, the water forms liquid tendrils to rise up to the undercarriage, squirming through small holes to disappear into the interior of the car itself.

"I'm not exactly going to be able to keep up to a car," she huffs in response. "Unfortunately I'm still normal human speed."

Atlas has to take more of a running leap to cross the gap, her body unraveling a couple inches to offer herself more distance to grab the ledge. She does, and the water coils back into one solid form, and she quickly hauls herself up onto the rooftop.

"Worst-case-scenario he figures something is up and I threaten to waterboard him with gasoline. It's historically worked like a charm so far."

"I didn't say shit, Rapunzel." She turns away, clambering back onto the dumpster, leaping to grab and haul herself onto the fire escape.

"You coming or what."

"Metal, water, wood, gasoline, fabric, toxic gas," she says. The last example is an explicit lie- best to trip up other people about your powers, she reckons. "Any material around me, I can become, more or less." She omits any drawbacks of her power.

Atlas reasons if Cruach could detect lying, she could call her out on it, and Atlas would learn a piece of her power she can plan around. If not, then Cruach is left in the dark. Atlas smirks- rather, the marks in the water shift to resemble a smirk. Close enough, it gets the point across.

"So is that what you do?" She muses aloud, walking alongside the other mercenary. "Get reads on people or something like that. Or is your power thingy that weird thing going on with your hood."

"Not gonna happen, but sure, whatever." She scoops up her clothes in her arms, the fabric miraculously not getting wet as she balls them up. She marches over to an unused ventilation unit and haphazardly stuffs the clothes in there, turn turns right back around to the edge.

"Hasn't been a problem before. Though Americans are weirder than the British, so, we'll see."

She shakes her head. "I don't have anything that lets me outrun a car. But cars do have a lot of hidden empty space perfect for liquids. You can watch I guess, I don't care. Just don't get in my way."

Atlas grunts in response. "Yeah, yeah." The metal in her body recedes, and her body rapidly fades into murky water molded into a human shape. Her 'mask' disappears with the other metal, the contorted demonic visage giving way to a more mundane human face etched into the water.

"Way ahead of you, birdie," she says, voice coming out a little warbled. Her clothes drop through the water, hitting the floor- the liquid body doesn't have any details, akin to a barbie doll. "Don't touch my shit, or I'll drown you."

"None of your business, that's why," she dismisses curtly. "I had my reasons."

"I'm just looking to get rich. I'm sure you can relate... Or not. I don't know you."

"Yeah, yeah, sage wisdom and all that." She waves a metal hand dismissively. She keeps her focus on the people below. She doesn't outwardly admit to the fact that she's going to take Cruach's advise on following them to their dealer.

"What, you been at this sorta thing longer?"

Atlas glances back down the alleyway, seemingly ignoring the question entirely as she contemplates further.

"Atlas," she answers after a moment. She scratches the side of her neck absentmindedly. "That'd mean something somewhere else. But I have to start all over here to you Americans. Two years of reputation down the drain." She snorts, shaking her head a little.

Atlas flexes her fingers a few times. "I was considering it," she comments. "Couple of bozos in an alleyway. It's either easy money, or so low on everyone's priority that I don't get any money out of it, then that's just a waste of my time."

Atlas is pulled out of her contemplation. She spins on the heel of her boot, metal cascading across her skin, forming at the fingertips on both limbs and crawling all the way up the arm, ending at just below the elbow.

Metallic eyes scan over the other cape for one drawn-out second, then two, then three.

"And who the fuck are you supposed to be?" Her voice is rich with a heavy Greek accent.

While Atlas has learned the basic rundown of the city, she hasn't been here nearly long enough to intimately understand the layout of the streets, or the shortcuts, or what types of groups like to congregate where. And so, Atlas is out and about- a woman in camo cargo pants, a white tank-top, and black sports bra- and what one might immediately recognize as a metal mask contorted into a demonic visage, but the way it melds into her head under closer scrutiny betrays powers at play.

She isn't exactly subtle as she stands on the edge of the roof, peering over into an alleyway where two people in hoodies are exchanging money. Drugs, maybe, Atlas didn't know, nor care. She was instead focusing on trying to determine how much she might be able to earn herself by dragging them to the police station and hoping there was a bounty to be had, there.

And if not, then she'd just waste precious time from her day. Decisions, decisions.

The other cape would no doubt spot the metal-faced woman on the rooftop, sticking out like a sore thumb, lost in contemplation.

Alex snorts. "Even without the mutant bits you're still a weirdo, huh," she muses. "Just stay out of the way and I won't be pissed off. Sounds easy enough, right."

"Wanted what?" She blinks, not catching it. "... Okay. Whatever. You can just owe me a favor I guess." She shrugs her shoulders.

"No." The answer is immediate.

She pauses, glancing away for a moment, gears churning in her head.

"... Actually, yes, you can. If I get something in exchange for it. I like to work alone, and I'm not a charity." She raises an eyebrow, smirking.

"I'm a little in-between jobs, right now," she hums. "So I'm not really working for anyone. For times like this, I just chase bounties. But those are easy. You just look up who's wanted, then drag them to whoever has the bounty set."

Alex's head tilts in a subtle nod. "That'll do. You never heard of mercenary work or bounty hunting? People will pay you to rough up or catch bastards for them. I've been doing it for years. Pay is good."

Alex's lips curl into a toothy grin. "Bashing fucker's faces in with a fistful of steel. It's therapeutic. And I get money for it. Basic win-win situation, babe."

Atlas chuckles to herself. "Χέσε μας, you're hopeless. Stand up for yourself better, or steal shit, or push losers into a river."

"Fucking... spit in the world's face, or something. Carve your place in the world with force if you have to. Refuse to accept shit just sitting down."

She tosses up the marble, catching it midair. "Life sure is a bitch, huh," she says. She leans against the dumpster, now twirling the marble between her fingers. "So you gonna mope about it all day? Or you gonna say 'fuck it, we ball'?"

She shifts her weight a little between her feet. She stuffs a hand in a pocket, fishing out a small steel marble, holding it between her fingers. "I dunno, then. Put on a poncho or something. Wear a bedsheet like a ghost on Halloween. Lot of options."

"Cool story. Still dressed like a stripper, though, so..." Alex coos.

"Shit, for real, though?" She mutters something in Greek to herself. "Cute girl in a skimpy dress? People pay good money for that shit all the time." She scratches the side of her neck. "Maybe you just haven't found the right strip-club or something..."

"You'd think five heads would equate to five brains, huh," she snorts.

"That's fine. You're dressed like a stripper so I'd imagine you could figure out another way to get easy money... or shoplift. I don't care, do what you want, but my motto in life is to never do anything unless there's a fat wad of cash involved," she coos, lips curling to reveal a bit of a shark-like grin.

"Alex. If you want what I was doing, you got to pay me for it. I accept cigarettes and booze for payment."

Atlas chortles. "You're real cute, φρικιαστικό," she drawls.

The metal in her face begins to recede, the demonic visage 'melting' back into a normal-looking face, until the makeshift mask is gone entirely. She's smirking. "If you're going to insult me at least use one that makes sense. Tin can just sucks."

"You name yourself after a monster and ask not to be called a freak?" She muses. "I mean your real name. Unless you don't have one of those. I guess. What, are you a sad orphan or something?"

"Apparently find weirdo octopus-girls hiding behind dumpsters," she snorts.

"What's your name, then, freaky."

Atlas tightly grabs Hydra's 'wrist' before she can reel her hand away. "It's not a mask," she grumbles. "No touchy." She lets go.

"I don't owe you what I was doing. But luckily for you, I'm the most damn interesting person in the city, now that I'm settled in."

"Persons don't have multiple heads. Or tentacles," she grunts. The metal falls down her body, crawling back in reverse to turn her back to flesh, leaving only her metal face. "Then what are you doing stalking me, freak."

"Hhhhhhuh. I was not expecting a freak," Atlas drawls, her voice rich with a Greek accent.

She reels her hand back, having left a sizeable hand-shaped dent in the bin, and casually scratching at the side of her neck, sharp metal screeching as it scrapes against other metal.

"What are you supposed to be? Calamari? Κορίτσι?"

Metal crawls up the rest of her body, up from her fingertips, up her arms, spreading over her shoulders, and going up her neck to meet with the 'mask', and flowing down her torso.

She grabs the side of the garbage bin, clawed metal digits digging into the cheaper metal of the garbage bin, and shoving it away, letting out a grunt of effort, to get a better look at what exactly is making all these weird noises.

A foot steps onto the rooftop, then Atlas pauses, head snapping over to glance over her shoulder.

Beneath her pants, metal climbs up her legs, ending just below the thighs. She steps off the roof, falling harder than a normal person would, and landing on the garbage bin, metal screeching as she crushes through the lid, completely unharmed, the metal in her legs absorbing the fall.

She clambers out of the garbage bin, feet back on asphalt. The tusked metal jaw of her mask-face-whatever twitches slightly, almost like a mouth. "What the fuck?" She rumbles, knowing something is off, but not having any ideas as to exactly who, what, or where she heard it.

Atlas turns around a corner, stepping into an alleyway, searching for- and finding- a fire escape ladder.

She drags a garbage bin underneath, and climbs on top. With a solid jump, she grabs onto the ladder, hauling herself up. She climbs up the staircase up to the roof, boots making heavy metallic thuds with each step of the way up, the entire skeletal structure of the fire escape shuddering slightly, but holding firm.

7:33 PM.

As the sky begins to shift into cascading hues of orange and purple and pink, and the back-streets get less and less foot traffic, the mutant might spot the most curious sight- a woman, in simple camo cargo pants, black combat boots, white tank-top and sports bra, and a metal face contorted into an almost demonic visage- the immediate impression would be that it was a mask, but no, it's definitely melded into her skin. She has her long black hair tied into a ponytail.

She has her hands stuffed into her pockets as she casually strolls down the sidewalk, all the confidence in the world in each step. The few scatterings of people left on the streets in this neighborhood at this hour give her a wide berth as she marches.