New Faces, New Places | open

[Athena 'Shift' Logan]

Athena Logan groaned, shaking her head as she looked around. Why was she on a roof...? Where was her team? It was the middle of the day - just how long had she been out? The shape shifter clutched her head, shaking it slowly. She hadn't gone on a bender lately, she hadn't even been drinking that much, not since that poisoning attempt in her beer one night. Rubbing the heels of her hands into her eyes to scrub away some of the grit that rest there, she took a more complete stock of her situation, hand reaching automatically for the gold-and-black communicator at her hip.

Flipping it open, the red furred Changeling croaked into the device, throat dry. "Tyrants -" she cleared her throat, spat, and tried again. Couldn't look weak in front of her team, not when she was so off put by this strange situation; she was the leader, she had to at least act like she knew what was going on at all times, even if she hadn't a clue. "Teen Tyrants, this is Changeling. Report in." She could see from the edge of the roof, now that she'd gotten up and assessed her surroundings, that things were...off. That hot-dog stand had never been on that corner before - it was always set up across the street. The bank, too, she could see it sitting there quietly. They'd destroyed that last month - it was still under construction. Or it should have been. What was going on? Why weren't things where and how they should be? Something fishy was going on, and her need to gut whoever was responsible for it was growing by the minute.

Cursing under her breath - her communicator only gave her the hiss and pop of static feedback, nobody in her team reporting back yet and nobody on the same channel - the villainess turned around - just in time to spot a new arrival to her little slice of Jump City's rooftops.

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It was a minute, maybe two, after Changeling had appeared in a fold of energy. Contained, as it ate itself, rather than catastrophically taking out the entire city block with it from a chain reaction between them. Which was a good thing, for all involved, really. The silence stretched around the area, before a light fluttering sounded when a tired looking kid arrived on scene, the telltale bing of the Titan's Communicator blurped, indicating the incoming message.

"Who the hell are you?" The brown haired, hoodie wearing, scrawny looking kid, stared down at the communicator in her hand, reading the strange anomaly scrolling by. 'ƎᎮAƧƧƎM ᎮИIMOƆИI' scrolling by on hers, not that Changeling could particularly see. "you're not Shift, unless you became some wannabe 'bad girl'."

Her tired eyes ringed by shadows of several sleepless nights, moved giving Changeling a once over. The civillian of Rena, stood across from the rooftop, eyeing Changeling. She didn't seem very threatening, and didn't give off the vibe of being in control, that Rena once did. Nella just looked tired, and annoyed, even through the green lenses. Her arm moved stiffly downwards, sticking the now turned off communicator in her pocket.

"Well, are you going to answer, or just keep sitting there in a daze, Wannabe?" 'Nella' asked, tapping her foot to keep the chill from entering her toes. She was a bit underdressed, but as she was originally from the northern states, it made a bit of sense that she would choose to wear a hoodie and jeans in place of a coat, and some thicker pants. At least the hood was pulled up to cover her ears.

[Athena 'Shift' Logan]

Just what she needed; something else to confuse her. Or maybe explain a few things, if she could catch them and make them talk.

Changeling turned around, hands curled into claws, ready to attack the nearest thing that provoked her impressively short temper. Unfortunately for her stress levels, 'Nella' was too far away to claw the face off of. Oh, well; she'd just savor it when the time came and she got within range of the tiny pipsqueak. "What do you mean, who am I?" She barked out a laugh, tossing her head back, curls bouncing against red fur. "You blind or something? I'm Changeling, leader of the Teen Tyrants! What, you been living under a rock lately? New to town?" The Tyrant sneered, eyeing Rena.

Obviously not a threat; just some dumb kid who'd gone on to the roof at the wrong time. She didn't have a costume, looked like a stiff wind could knock her over - but she did look a little familiar. Maybe part of someone's family the Tyrants had murdered. And she was calling her some stupid name, too - how many literally red people could there possibly be wandering around? Changeling wondered. Body paint had nothing on naturally-grown fur. "Shift? Like I'd have some lame code name like that. Ugh, no thanks." Her teeth bared in something that could, perhaps, have generously been called a 'smile' if one ignored the bloodlust in it, Changeling advanced towards Blacklist.

"And I'm the baddest girl you're ever gonna meet, don't doubt it." Saying so - and judging herself close enough - Athena lunged for the thin neck of 'Nella', her thick, sharp finger nails swiping viciously at her pale skin.

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For some scrawny kid, Nella looked like she could care less about Changelings little speech about who, and apparently what, she is. Judging by her name, and that laugh, some kind of dog power. More general. Shapeshifting? Not something she hasn't dealt with before.

“Am I supposed to care what that is?” she muttered under her breath, stiffling a little yawn.

Nella shifted weight to her other foot, inspecting the nail on her hand, letting Changeling do her thing. Monologuing, pretending to be some big bad. She heard the same shpeel from some lowtimer in an alley with shadows awhile ago. She had been in a much more humorous mood then.

“done, yet?” Nella asked, as the little speech about being some kind of big scary leader was over. Hardly a speech. For villainous monologues, Nella gave it a 3 out of 10. It might have carried some weight, if she hadn't been talking to Blacklist.

“Changeling isn't any better.” Of all the names Nella could have gone by, she was glad it was Blacklist. It fit, considering her feelings on most things. Maybe it was personal attachment, but Nella liked Shift's name better.

There it is, finally. The 'sneak attack' that was long coming. DIdn't take any precognitive abilites to see this. Just a little bit of tact. Nella raised her right arm bracing herself, intercepting the claw gunning for her throat, but didn't throw Changeling, or move out of the way, just absorbed the impact.

“baddest girl around?” The tone of contained anger used, and how each word slurred. Nella slipped a little into her accent,sounding a lot like a certain masked hero.

Chk!

It was unfortunate moving swords, guns, and otherwise seemed to make so much noise or the battle would have likely ended there. Producing a gun from seemingly nowhere. She hadn't have had the time to draw it given how late she reacted.

“I highly doubt that.”

The barrel was brought up to Changeling's chin, and Nella squeezed the trigger, the barrel of her pistol aimed for a killshot right Away.

[Athena 'Shift' Logan]

It was a noise she'd heard dozens of times before, and even then it was only pure instintive muscle memory that saved Changelings' life on that rooftop. She was too far gone into her lunging movement to try and fall back, to scramble away, and the throbbing radiating up her hand told her her attack hadn't done much good; as light as her clothes looked, it seemed the black-eyed girl had something tougher underneath. Armor, maybe, or some kind of scales - Athena couldn't be sure, but she knew her fingers were throbbing from smashing into them. Nella certainly wasn't the civilian Changeling had pegged her for at first; not taking everything so calmly then wiping out a gun.

Shifting into a squirrel, Athena dropped to the ground, the bullet whizzing through her dark red fur, leaving a neat part in her tail. The shot echoed in her sensitive ears as the Titan chittered angrily at Blacklist, tiny clawed hands digging into her clothes as the scurried her way up the short villainess' back, fluffy tail twitching. At about shoulder height the Tyrant shifted back into her human form, her muscled arm coming around Rena's neck in a choking attempt as her free hand made a grab for the gun - knocking it away or grabbing it herself, Changeling wasn't picky how she got it out of Rena's hands.

"You little, obnoxious --" Changeling cursed, oft-repeated words from her heroic counterpart. The moves, however, were new; Changeling was more formidable in hand-to-hand, but only slightly - and Shift knew better than to let Blacklist touch her bare skin. The lack of purple hair made this Athena Logan sloppier, less defensive of skin-on-skin - or skin-on-fur - as she attacked. She might not have been the baddest girl around, but she was certainly trying, her temper surging as the gunmetal glinted in the wintery Californian sunlight.

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Nella lamented the bullet had missed, despite losing part of one element of surprise she had. Sure she would have probably had to burn her favourite sweater as blood annoyed her to wash out too much, but it would've been one less potential headache. The bandaids peered between the claw marks in the sleeve, though hadn't quite sliced through that. The jig was up that her arm wasn't going to be cut. Oh well, it's not like she liked to rely on that little bit of embarassment.

A bright red squirrel like that, was somehow stupider than a green squirrel. So she was dealing with a shapeshifter. Too bad the bullet caught fluff, instead of flesh. Either way, a half shaved ass might have given her a chuckle, if it she was in a joking mood. Nella watched for the telltale sign of the shift, and yes, there it was. A little less obvious than Shift's own tell, but it was there, eerily similar. Rena gave her the gun, she hardly kept it loaded anymore, temptation, and only had the 2 bullets in it, one now, the rest were empty shell casings. Unregistered too, to the surprise of no one, with its serial numbers filed off.

"I'm guilty of both," Nella said, moving away from Changeling. Small and skinny, Nella normally didn't stand toe to toe against someone directly like this. Changeling, supposedly, was taller and not a twig. Not to mention could become a Gorilla in part of a second. Nella pushed away a strike, parrying it to the side, and to Changeling, would look like a glitch happened. Suddenly Nella, without a tell, without a sound or change in wait, moved. Only slightly, but she did.

By movie standards, it looked like she moved from one frame, to another. She had teleported, instantly, from parrying, to lower. She had teleported to both throw Changeling offbalance, and balance herself in position for a very sudden twist side snap kick, as she had teleported herself into position, mid twist, rather than moving, or anything.

[Athena 'Shift' Logan]

The smirk just drove her temper up to higher pitch, but she didn't have long to dwell on it - not with a leg suddenly slamming into her side, knocking Changeling away from Nella as the gun flew in the opposite direction and clattered away. Oh, well - she had always preferred using her hands to take care of matters. One hand clutched at her side as she recovered her balance and breathed her way through the pain. Damn! She was going to be bruised from a kick like that - and where had it even come from? She hadn't even seen the girl move.

The hunched Tyrant had stumbled away and fallen onto one knee, but now as she partially recovered, she straightened up a little, hand dropping from her side. Athena glared at Nella, breathing hard. "You think that's going to take me down? You'll have to do more than that to take down Athena Logan, shrimp." Changeling growled. Her hunched form blurred for a second, two, then a lioness stood where she had knelt. The feline form stalked forward smoothly on rough paw-pads before it blurred again - this time, however, she didn't shift back into a human. Oh, no; this shape shifter was head and shoulders above her good counterpart. no, the red lioness split into two, the feline forms splitting and padding across the hot roof concrete in opposite directions - circling the notorious disguised Blacklist.

Two animal forms was the extent of her splitting - her father could do more, but he had years of working up his powers. Even so, two was more than her heroic counterpart could do, and while there were handicaps on her powers still, she was quite a bit ahead of Shift in that department. One of the lionesses roared, the sound echoing across the quiet morning air. The other lioness hunched, then leapt at the irritating Nella, claws extended. If she couldn't hurt her as a human, then, well, she'd just have to see what queens of the jungle could do!

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That as an actual surprise. Nella had been expecting the red girl to drop, and try to monologue. Suppose she wasn't quite like the Green furred girl the city knew and loved. But that wasn't the only reason. Nella had tested herself when she came back to life. And found out, despite the lack of Spirit Particles ambient in the world, she was still able to augment her own attacks, particularly her striking power. Kicking through a cement wall, or other walls and grounds, were not beyond her capability, almost as if she had super strength. Too bad that didn't extend to being able to throw cars around.

She had been sure that would have broken a couple ribs with such a direct hit. Maybe it was adrenaline that kept the Red Changeling from feeling it, or maybe Nella had misjudged the girl's durability of body. Maybe it was maybelline. Too many maybes for Nella's own taste. It didn't get any better.

"..." Nella didn't care enough to reply to the red girl, but was notably caught off guard by her response. Athena Logan? This girl was definitely not the Green furred girl, despite the same name. "... you really are some wannabe," she declared, though almost regretted that immediately. The red woman had shifted, differently than before. Nella momentarily blinked when it felt like the girl went out of focus after becoming a lion.

It certainly wasn't imagination. There were two. If what you see was impossible, then simply accept it. A good rule of thumb for being born in a world of metahumans. Test it. Nella was greatful for the ability of precognition. It allowed to know what would happen in the immediate future, though with so many possibilities, each one both possible and impossible, given her own actions can be so split. Yeah, the one coming towards her was certainly real, she could feel the claws ripping into her, after momentary confusion about her center mass.

Now test the other one. Nella was running out of time. Sure she coudl sift through these fast, but if she tried to look at every possibility, it would have been too late to do anything, and still had yet to go through them all. Nella frowned, and waited for the leap that she had seen coming, though her eyes stayed on the one hanging back. Nella fell back, the slashing claws flying through the air where she was just a moment ago. She rolled onto her back, placing both of the flats of her feet to slam into the first lioness's rib cage, and pushing up at the same time. An improvised monkey flip to throw the big cat a good distance using its own weight.

Nella would have reacted faster after the moment, but it nearly mirrored something. It wasn't a big cat, but similar, and it wasn't red, but blue and sparking. She stumbled overed, shaking her head, instead of testing the second Lioness like she had wanted to do, or keep herself from being pincered between them. Her hand cradled her forehead momentarily, shaking the thought away from her mind, the rooftop returning to focus in her vision.

Shit...

There were a few things she needed to figure out. Did they share injuries, did the 'fake' disperse or did Rena need to get them to touch again. Or maybe they were both real, sharing a hive mind, rather than two separates. Cloning was a strange thing, and she'd seen a handful of different kinds, certainly.

And that could've taken less time, if she hadn't zoned off for a moment.

[Athena 'Shift' Logan]

Oh, she was going to be feeling that kick Nella had given her for a while - Athena was pretty sure nothing had been broken, since she could still move, but it wasn't exactly /easy/. Her side was going to look like bruised roadkill for a while, if the villainess was any judge of her wounds - and she wasn't looking forward to the ribbing (literal and verbal) she'd certainly be getting from the braver members of her team when her mottled bruises invariably turned her ribs into a sunset-esque panorama. It was something to get annoyed over later, though, since she had bigger problems to worry about right at the moment.

Well, 'bigger' was a relative word. Nella wasn't a big person by any stretch of the imagination; compared the the lionesses' attacking her, though, she was at least taller, not something she could boast of around most people. As she fell away from Athena's first slash of her claws, the other lioness kept up her circling, red feline body sleek and muscled - the various scars showing up on her body more of an afterthought during a fight. The bullet wound on her shoulder that replaced the ragged knife scar dipped and danced as the shape shifter moved, the lightening scars covered by generous fur. Nella stumbled, and the circling lioness took this as her cue to surge forward, tufted tail whipping behind her as her double retreated to allow room for attack, to keep an eye out for anyone dumb enough to try and stop her - their - her - plans for the uppity civilian.

It wasn't like pinning a civilian gave her a big head; it wasn't anything to write home about. But getting the better of someone, proving she was better, stronger, faster - that always gave Changeling a rush. And why not? It meant she could take whatever she wanted, DO whatever she wanted. It worked out in her favor quite often - luckily, she had her team to make things easier. Not right then - another mystery to look into, after she taught the gun-toting Nella some respect. If her lunge toward the human knocked her down like Changeling planned, then she would shift back into her human form - losing her red double in the process - and get some answers out of her. If she missed, then Athena would just make up that plan as she went along.

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Damnit. Rena lurched off her feet, coming back to her senses. The problem had plagued her since she returned. You can take a girl out of war, but you can't take the war out of her. It seemed her mind refused to settle down, and accept that there was such a thing as safety again.

As they fell though, it happened again. It was as if Nella skipped a few frames. A slight shift, a buffer in reality, moving her ever so slightly closer to the rooftop. She hit it with nary a bump, compared to what might have been on being tackled by a lioness. Her green eyes narrowed into a glare, when the red woman mounted her in a sort of grappling pin. No doubt as a way to hold the wily teleporter down. Unfortunately, Nella had questions of her own, and leverage of her own, as well. She didn't let herself fall into the range of another this easily

Changeling's hands wrapped around her throat, though wasn't strangling her, for a reason. It didn't matter to Rena the reason, just that it wasn't happening.

"Athena." So Rena had dropped, or.. used the full name of her friend. "Identical scars, like a mirror, even similar aura. Where the hell are you from? It's not this Earth." Not that she'd told anyone, but Rena, and by extension Nella, were among the few that had personal dealings in different realities. A prick as something sharp poked the red villainous. Not enough to draw blood, but enough to let her know, that just as she had REna by the neck, Rena held her at knife point. A standoff.

"And I suggest you answer truthfully."