It's Not A Stake-Out Without Donuts (Open)

[shibyou]

He was glad that his catsuit was insulated. A strong breeze threathened to chill him to the bone, but it pounded ineffectually on Shibyou's frame; he remained still and stoically silent, gazing down at the street below him. He'd been camped out on the rooftop of one of the many restaurants, and he was scoping out one in particular.

He'd watched a man enter the opposite restaurant an hour earlier; the man a broad, stocky build, with a shaved head and prison ink on his arms and chest. The shirt he was wearing tonight was covering those up nicely, however.

Shibyou picked up the binoculars next to his feet as he remained crouched, observing the man and his date through the window. The ex-con had chosen a table next to the window. Foolish. And to think, privacy should've been one of the top priorities on his mind after getting out of the joint. He noted what was on the man's plate, lowered the binoculars, and made a note on the small black notepad in front of him.

His tongue began to stick to the roof of his mouth, and he picked up a water bottle nearby and unscrewed the top, taking a sip and letting it wet his mouth before swallowing. He capped it again and put it back down, forgoing the binoculars at his feet as he watched the man he'd been stalking for days now. He shifted slightly on the balls of his feet, reminding himself to keep patient. The longer he observed this ex-con, the more prepared he would be to deal with him.

[xaria]

A short figure strolled through the streets of Jump, its face attached to a long beard. It wore a pirate hat and costume complete with a scepter-like cane the “poor thing” used for balance. If that was all the information you had, you might have suspected the figure to be an old man that was confused as to when Halloween was. But nope—this figure was a twelve year-old girl who knew Halloween’s date quite well. She just liked dressing-up as something random now and then. Wearing what people call “normal” clothes didn’t interest her at all and she wouldn’t be caught dead in them. Plus, currently, she was on a dare . She took dares seriously, you know. This was no exception.

So what was she dared to do?

Pretty much to enter the city dressed as an old pirate, choose a random building and jump from its roof right onto the next. She’d never done something like that before and although she was a tad nervous, she was MUCH more excited. Make that double-triple-OMGYAYZ excited. Her head studied each building’s roof as she passed them in a quest to find the perfect one to leap off of. She didn’t know what she was looking for exactly, but knew she would know it when she saw it. Then she saw it. “It” turned out to be a man holding binoculars, camped-out on a restaurant’s roof. Spying, huh? A grin flashed on her face as she entered the restaurant.

After a short search, she found the staircase leading up to the roof. Of course, she wasn’t allowed to go up there, but who truly cared? Following a last glance to make sure nobody saw her, the pirate—old man—girl—whoever tip-toed up the stairs. Why tip-toe? She didn’t want the man to hear her, you see. That and tip-toeing is fun. Crouched low at the top, Xaria’s eyes observed the man whose back was facing her whilst he grabbed his water bottle and took a sip. Another grin. This time, it was one of her “EURIKA” grins. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Xaria Xavier had an idea. An idea to mess with the adult. Trick him, you know?

Pressing onto her scepter, Xaria watched as time was frozen. It’s truly an amazing sight, you know. Everyone and everything’s unmoving. Gravity even fails to work, obvious when you look at a stationary waterfall. The only thing it didn’t affect was Xaria as she scrambled out of her hiding place. There was an element of teasing while she took her time, stumping deafeningly towards the man, knowing he wouldn’t be able to sense her. Grabbing his water bottle and notepad, she stuck her tongue out at him before racing off. Catching sight of a chimney near the staircase, she dashed behind it before pressing onto the scepter, bringing back time. Now she just had to wait for him to notice his missing belongings which hopefully wouldn’t take long. Xaria was an impatient child.

[shibyou]

True to Xaria's power, Shibyou was none the wiser to her involvement in his situation up on the roof. Truthfully, if it had just been the water bottle she'd pilfered, it would have been a long time before he realized it was missing. He was, after all, taking very infrequent drinks from it. Truth be told he didn't really want to bring it, but his throat was still a bit sore from his botched robbery earlier, and it didn't irritate him as much if he kept drinking water.

I can't believe that plan went wrong. I didn't do it in costume because I didn't want to chance running into a hero, but I didn't even consider the possibility that there might be someone who could sense the bombs I placed. And I thought myself prepared... There was no excuse for my failure.

Something caught his eye through the window, and he raised the binoculars to his eyes again and focused them on the ex-con and his date. It appeared that they were having an argument, although they were trying to keep it quiet. His gaze flitted from his mouth to hers as he worked on reading their lips. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards into the ghost of a smile as he figured out the cause for the dispute. Apparently the woman had brought up the idea of children, and the guy didn't like it. I assumed that you didn't talk about things like that with her, and it looks like I was right. I guess she doesn't know what you do on our own time, then.

He looked down from his binoculars to retrieve his notepad, and promptly froze when he saw it was gone. He noticed that his water was gone as well, but he wasn't too hung up on that. He craned his head so he could look over his shoulder, scanning the rooftop for other signs of life. When he saw nothing he turned his head back around, returning the binoculars to his face.

A whole night's worth of research, compromised. Who and how? It couldn't have been that insipid Kid Flash, his arrival is always accompanied by a gust of wind and often the boom of the sound barrier. Teleportation? Often generated sounds from portals or the readjustment of mass and matter; truly silent teleporters were scarce. And it wasn't a Titan; they wouldn't be able to stop themselves from asking what I was doing.

Returning his attention to the scene below, he found himself feeling just as frustrated as the ex-con looked.

[xaria]

[OOC: UGH…I’m sooooo sorry. Had zero time to reply. Busy, busy, busy, busy.]

Behind the small chimney, the first thing the twelve year old girl did was flip through the notepad. Based on the description, it looked like this guy had been observing a couple, particularly the man, for quite the while. Boring…boring…blah…more blahs…and ugh. Losing interest as quickly as a hyperactive monkey watching paint dry, Xaria then threw the notepad to the side and shifted a bit in order to see what the unknown grown-up was up to. He was still looking through his binoculars and it didn’t look like he noticed his things were gone.

It was certainly taking a while. Xaria spent the who-knows-how-long questioning the smarts of adults. Ok-ok, make that the first five seconds. Then she got tired of that and had to do something else. That’s when she begun playing a one-man {or girl in this case} chopsticks game. Do you know how boring that is? Well Xaria sure found out after two seconds or so. Then she had to think of some other quiet game. From thumb wrestling to rock paper scissors, the girl gave a few seconds to each only to be disappointed of how boring the one-man version was. Finally, the who-knows-how-long was over.

The man was frustrated, that much was obvious. Just the fact that Xaria noticed it proved that. Yet it didn’t look like he was doing anything about it. The most he did was craning his neck to scan the rooftop. That’s it. Then, seeing nothing, his face resumed its position. You got to be kidding. If it was Xaria, she would have actually, you know, moved . Not caring what-so-ever about being caught now, the girl let out a giggle. The giggle then matured into full-fledged laughter before she sprang out of her hiding place.

The notepad and water-bottle were dangling from her hands as she displayed them teasingly, a big grin formed on her face. “Looking for these?” She asked. “I wonder what that guy over there will think of this notepad,” she speculated out-loud, motioning towards the dude with her head. She hoped it was the right person. She hadn’t read much of the notepad, just enough to be able to guess. A giggle escaped her as she stuck her tongue out and began strolling towards the staircase. Not even running. Just strolling. “Think he’ll find it more interesting than me? Because I almost fell asleep. You really should take some writing lessons, you know?”

[shibyou]

Shibyou was still observing the man through his binoculars with a purposeful intent when he heard the giggling, He kept the binoculars pressed against his face, resisting the urge to turn around and find out who he was dealing with. If there was one thing he had learned since arriving at Jump City, it was that you never responded to someone's dramatic entry. He wouldn't be distracted, they might be irked, and he'd have a proper window of time to survey them.

When the giggling became laughter, he deemed it the proper time to crane his head back around to see who was there. He regarded them coolly, despite how odd it was to see someone dressed up like a pirate at this time of the year; he'd grown more used to lavish costumes since setting up camp here, too. Although his first thought was still What a ridiculous look. He didn't really have any room to talk, since his costume was comprised almost entirely of black leather, but at least his was functional.

"Looking for these? I wonder what that guy over there will think of this notepad,"

The voice tipped him off; whoever this person was, they sounded quite young. Possibly a child? He hoped not. His personality didn't mesh with with children, especially the energetic ones - and it seemed like this one was one of them.

He lazily followed her head nod with his eyes, looking in the direction she was gesturing towards. A guy in a red shirt, sitting two windows away... A good guess, considering he hadn't made much note of what the man was wearing while observing him.

"Think he'll find it more interesting than me? Because I almost fell asleep. You really should take some writing lessons, you know?"

He returned his gaze to the pirate-themed person behind him, wondering just what their angle was. If it was just to incriminate him, then there was no need for this conversation. Blackmail? Possibly, since she alerted him to her presence and knowledge of his activities, but she hadn't revealed what she wanted yet. He supposed that it was entirely possible that she was doing it for fun, but that was rarely the cause in situations like these.

He absent-mindedly raised a hand, pointing a finger down at the restaurant. "Two windows off. I'm tailing the bald guy in the striped dress shirt." He let his arm drop, but kept his eyes on her. "You're welcome to give that to him if you like. He's border-line illiterate, so he'll make less sense of it than you did. Or just tell him what I'm doing. He'll be paranoid, it'll be harder, but I'll still get him."

He lapsed into a period of silence then, just watching her and waiting for her reaction. The inevitable question that was hanging in the air was "Who are you?", but he didn't voice it. As much as he kept to secrecy and deception in his outings, he knew that revealing which cards you didn't have was just as dangerous as which ones you did. They seemed to be on equal footing, and he wanted to keep it like that until he found out more about her.