Reclamation

Malik rushed to catch the bird as it fell and dove to catch it, resulting in the rest of his arrows spilling out of his quiver. Cool. He carefully laid the bird as he picked up his spilled arrows and retrieved the disc and the arrows he shot. More people were beginning to fly away with awoken birds, which was great except his bird was soundly asleep. Great. Fire could wake the stupid bird up though. Greater. The boy placed the disc back in the lantern and was whisked away back towards the tower through the sky. Is this what an arrow feels like? he thought. He was thoroughly delighted by his flight back home, and the view was amazing. Until it suddenly became day. The sudden brightness blinded him and he scrambled to put his goggles back on. By the time they were over his eyes again the sky was dark and he couldn't see anything clearly, so he removed his goggles. What a bother.

There was a small crowd entering the tower when Malik arrived back, so he followed them inside and chose to follow the shadow manipulator and Roxanne to the storage room. She slammed the door shut though, so he was stuck outside to listen to the argument inside.

 

"Hey! Get back here you little piece of shit!" she shouted as she struggled to free her legs from the grasp of the shadow. Roxanne only succeeded in falling, hitting the ground with a loud thud. She looked out the opened door and watched him run away, and noticed Malik outside. "This isn't over!" she shouted after him, and sighed. "If only I had my brother here... his Flow would've been useful." She turned her attention to Malik. "Well. You've seen me on the ground. You need something?" she asked. Roxanne was kind of grumpy now, and there was a hint of pain in her voice. "Don't worry about him. I'll take care of him later. I just needed information. I got some. Not all of it though."

 

Sydney hurried downstairs in a fit of anger- This wasn't over, she'd get inside that cabin. When she got down, she ran into the Shadow Kid- Like literally ran into him. "Fuckin'-" but she heard Roxanne's shout for him to get back over there, so she willed herself to grip onto him as tight as she could despite the surprise of the collision. She wasn't letting him get away if it seemed like he was up to something!
---
Riley watched a few more people come back before turning and entering the tower- she contemplated having a meal, but the food seemed exactly the same as breakfast so it wasn't that appetizing. She sat for a bit, watching the other tower inhabitants go about there business.
Roxanne went into storage- Shadow Kid was there.
Malik peeped by the door.
Shadow ran out, ran into Sydney.
Roxanne shouted, Sydney grabbed.
Riley stood and unsheathed the falcata making her way towards the group on a path somewhere between the distance from Shadow and Sydney's position to Malik and Roxanne.

 

Upon seeing the kid come running out of the room Malik thought about catching or tripping the kid but decided not to. He wasn't entirely fond of the tone Roxanne had taken with him and the boy was tired of being interrogated apparently. After being caught by Sydney however, the boy really didn't have a choice. And seeing Riley approaching with a weapon was a bit weird. Oh well. Malik decided to be friendly with the shadow kid since being friendly with him would probably get more answers and be safer than pissing him off. Time to be the good cop. Cool. He ran to Shadow Kid and thwacked Sydney on the side of her knee with his bow and then grabbed the kid by the back of his shirt and hauled him out of Sydney's grasp and to the floor behind him. 

Hopefully Sydney and Roxanne would forgive him later, but that depended on the information that he got from the kid. And maybe this kid would appreciate being rescued too. More friends and allies in the long run, yay. Not knowing what side Riley would take, Malik put an arrow to the string and got ready to draw his bow and aim at her or Roxanne. The kid on the floor would decided whether they would fight or cheese it.

 

Roxanne clambered to her feet as the boy was snagged by Sydney and Malik busted out his bow and arrows. What the hell? This clearly wasn't necessary. But hey, she did need his info. She started running over but was cut off by Marcus scolding them. "He knows something. I don't know what he knows, but he knows something. Something to do with what's going on, I think. He's close to Anya. He may know more than that," she informed him. "No fighting. I dragged him in here to try and get some info out of him. He ran. These guys jumped in and now it looks like a fight."

 

Roxanne sighed. "That looks heavy as fuck," she commented, and went over to help Marcus hold it. She almost dropped it under the weight. Yeah, strength wasn't her strong suit. "I don't know what floor he's on. That's really one of the only conversations I've had with that kid. None of which including letting each other know what floor we could find each other on. I didn't really expect to need that bit of information. Shit, I don't even know what floor you're on, Marcus."

 

Zein stood by, her arms crossed as her questions went unanswered amid the chaos of everyone taking a sudden interest in shadowboy. When the ordeal was finished, she walked over to Marcus and Roxanne, grabbing the shield. "Since you all kindly ignored me in favor of him, I'll just take it up since he probably doesn't want to see any of you right now," she said nonchalantly, tugging on it with a surprising amount of force. She was still full of energy from being out in the moonlight.

Her expression was mostly neutral, with perhaps a hint of irritation in her eyes. She wasn't trying to cause a fight after one had already nearly broken out. That was precisely why she wasn't going to allow the duo to bring the shield to the boy, and why she would take it herself. She didn't want another fight to start. She'd never spoken to the boy one-on-one, and neither had she acted with hostility towards him. She figured that she'd have less of a chance of getting in a fight with him.

 

"I heard someone yell for him- So I grabbed him. No one was gonna' start a fight." Sydney huffed. First the dumb cabin, the girl, and now she was kinda in trouble over that shadow kid? Definitely not a good day. "I saw the girl earlier, I think." OK, so maybe she only heard her "Don't know where she went. And you'l find me on the 3rd floor."
---
"Sorry." Riley sheathed the sword, clearly apologetic "I only meant to scare him- I didn't plan on actually confronting him. I'm the 4th floor, by the way."

 

"Wait a minute! I have an idea!" Roxanne said, and grabbed Marcus' hand. "Assuming that the kid is in our future, he'll pop up in the future, correct? Including his location, correct? So, let's test this theory!" She gave Marcus' hand a lick and scrubbed the spit off on her shirt as she watched his future. A little bit of mundane stuff like walking to the elevator, pushing a button... then walking to a room... Bingo!  "11th floor, 2nd room on the right. Now you know, and now I'll forget it in a few minutes." The rest of the 24 hours played out in her head and when it was time for bed... "God, Marcus! That's so disgusting! Why do you do this?! I swear... all men care about are their dicks... trust me, your dick is fine, sweetheart, and you really need to not do that. At least not think about doing it when I'm going to use my clairvoyance on you..."

 

Zein looked at Roxanne with a slightly perturbed expression. "Well, he can do whatever he wants with his body," she grumbled to herself, glancing over at Marcus's flushed cheeks. She  giggled lightly to herself and slung the shield over her shoulder, grunting slightly. "How does such a little shit manage to carry this around all the time...?" She sighed.

"I'll be fine alone. It's not like his shadow can touch me if he wants to get in a fight, anyway." She left the two teenagers then, heading to the elevator. Eleventh floor, second room from the right... She approached the door, and banged on it heavily with the shield a few times, waiting for the kid to answer. "I brought your shield, kiddo," she called out. "I don't have all day so come get it."

 

Sydney laughed "What was that saying again...? A man's gotta' do what a man's gotta do?" but she silently vowed to never let Roxanne use that flow on her.
"I don't get it." Riley looked between the group.
"Don't worry about it." Sydney patted her head.
Riley popped up in front of Marcus "Hey Marcus- What were you doing? Or planning on doing?"
Sydney left Riley to her own devices, deciding the situation was to amusing for her to intervene. "Oh wait-" Riley clapped her hands together, suddenly excited (kinda like when she wasn't acting all tough or whatever), and rolled back and forth on her skates "What am I doing in the future? I wonder..."

 

Roxanne objected to Zein going alone, and shoved Marcus after her. "It's in your future. Don't fuck around with time. Weird shit happens if you do, in case you haven't watched a sci-fi movie. We already have enough weird shit to go around." When she got him to the elevator, she met his eyes. "Also, get yourself a damn girlfriend. You're lucky I'll forget this in like, five minutes. Don't let the little shit hurt you, and figure out what connection he has to Anya. Maybe he'll have more answers than he says he does."

 

Zein stood outside the door for a few minutes, staring at the doorknob angrily. "Alright you little shit," she growled, throwing the door open. Nobody was there. She resisted the urge to scream, and walked up to the kid's bed, tossing the veritable mass of steel on his bed. There was something odd about his room...It was almost too clean, and there were ceiling tiles? The girl folded her arms across her chest and looked around for a moment. "Where the hell are you..."

She walked over to the bedsheet on the ground and kicked it. This isn't right... She was torn between searching the room and leaving for the moment. Something about Amir's room felt...Dangerous. Like she shouldn't be poking around. At the same time, she wasn't afraid of him, but...She let out another frustrated groan. Maybe she'd go back and get Marcus, then tear out the ceiling tiles or something. Maybe there was a hint as to the mysterious boy's secret or secrets up there. Maybe that was a little far-fetched, though...