Surveillance (Terra/Open)

[hei]

Dressed in his usual white button down shirt, jeans and green jacket, Hei stood by the street corner in plain sight and for all the world to see, easily blending in with the various people in the New Jersey crowd and appearing to be little more than a simple college student out for a weekend stroll. In his hand Hei held what was obviously an MP3 player, with thin wires leading up out of his shirt to earbuds that were seemingly connected to the device. What people didn't see, though, was the small cell phone hidden underneath the loose jacket, the earbuds plugged into that device rather than the MP3 player whose wire simply led to a dead end that was taped to the inside of Hei's sleeve. All in all, it was not the usual kind of job he was accustomed to - theft, assassination, item retreival, even outright warfare..... all of those things he knew, but being assigned to follow and observe a person, while not at all new to him, was rarely something he assigned in and of itself. He'd done it numerous times before as a means to an end, a way to complete some other objective, but this was one of the few handful of times he had been ordered to simply observe.

As the crowd began moving again with the break in the traffic lights that allowed pedestrians to cross the street, so too did his target - a girl, blond with a light build and clearly still a teenager from her appearance. The same person he'd run into during his last job in New York, and the individual he had merely shrugged off as a vigilante who was clearly out of their league - it wasn't until she'd used her power that he had begun to take her seriously, a grave oversight on his part. Had he made that mistake in his previous life it would have cost him it - indeed, many of his close calls had been the result of that very mistake, and in no longer having to deal with other Contractors he had lowered his guard somewhat, something that he would not allow to happen again. As it was he'd initially thought she was a Contractor - the light she'd given off had certainly been nearly identical to the Synchrotron radiation that all Contractors gave off when using their abilities save for a slight variance in color, with her glowing gold rather than the usual blue, and it'd only been after he'd truly thought it over and reported it to his clients that he had learned that wasn't the case.

While they differed from the metahumans of his own world in several key aspects, the "mutants" of this world were still just as dangerous, possibly even more so - unlike the vast majority of Contractors, these mutants still possessed the bulk of their human identities. If anything, they were only different psychologically, and that led to another problem - they acted irrationally just as often as the rest of the world, which meant that while most of them still possessed a conscience they were much more prone to mistakes, and those that were insane or otherwise twisted were much more likely to use their abilities in highly destructive manners. It was with that reasoning that he'd been assigned by the NSA to follow and observe Terra Markov - from what little they had told him she most likely fell into the former group, well intentioned but controlled more by emotion than logic, and with a seemingly unstable power that would mean problems in the future. They had lost track of her numerous times already only to find her again when seismic activity struck in seemingly impossible locations, and they were determined not to loose her again - as such, Hei had been ordered to tail her. An easy job, but tedious.

As the crowd moved Hei did as well, keeping the girl in his peripheral vision but not looking in her direction lest he risk tipping her off to his presence.

[Terra]

{WARNING....this post is prolly gonna suck. BUT HOPEFULLY THIS TIME YOU CAN WORK WITH IT.}

Strolling along the street with a backpack slung upon her shoulders, she whistled a happy little tune thinking about how weird things have been. Not bad or horrible, but just odd and rather abnormal! It wasn't all part of her normal routine, but that was enough about that! Right now she was focusing on making a better future and trying to be a better super hero! So this blonde was doing that fantastic multi-tasking thing where she was not only wandering about looking for suspicious figures...but also trying to scout out some good deals on contests in the area. Cuisines were awesome to find no matter where she traveled! It was a learning experience with DELICIOUS!

Though, it looked like the crime scouting was going to happen first...a VERY SUSPICIOUS FIGURE in the distance was wearing a long trench coat complete with hat and it wasn't exactly cold or rainy. Plus he seemed to be in a bit of a rush. Her tummy would have to wait and just DEAL WITH IT for now. Plus, the guy, from what she could see in the distance looked like he had a bit of claw hands. A happy tune just died down to absolutely nothing and she clenched her hands into fists before taking in a deep breath. Exhaling a bit, she brought her hands up to her head and pat the sides of it while continuing her stride..."Terra! You can do this! You fixed a pipe UNDERGROUND without making something crazy happen...like the city caving in on itself!"

Whispering those pep-talking words to herself as she quite literally slapped some sense into herself, she lowered her hands and wiggled those brown gloved wrists of hers. Loosening up a bit. BUT! Thing is...the trench coat dude with claw-like hands stopped in his tracks and turned sharply in her direction. The girl with sky blue eyes starred forward for a moment in confusion as she peered through the thin line of people as the gaps aligned. It was almost as though all time stood still and aligned cause his eyes locked onto hers and they were a pitch, ghostly white. That....guy...was not human. Her eyes widened for a moment and he was charging at her like she had done something awful.

Click click when the cogs of her thoughts as they rotated into place...oh....crap....now he was SPRINTING toward her! But...these people! There were so many of them! Turning around, she bolted like a bat out of hell and looked over her shoulder to see and YEAH...whoever...or WHATEVER that was just so happened to be on her tail! Bumping into people by unintentionally grazing against them as she proceeded to weave, she blurted out "Excuse me! Sorry! Get outta my way, please! My bad! Whoops!" through the sea of people.

Trying to make her way to the closest alley way. There was even a chance she'd unintentionally bump into someone like...a college student. What about the guy in pursuit of her? He wasn't even really bumping into people at times. Just weaving about like some sorta skilled ninja. Sure, she dodged some of her peers, but not all of them...she wasn't as skilled as whoever was literally hunting her down. Though admittedly....it was kinda ironic that the hunter became the hunted....

[hei]

The longer he followed Terra, the more Hei's mind began to wander - something that most people in his line of work would never dream of letting happen since distractions typically meant making mistakes, and with mistakes came failed jobs. Thankfully, Hei had been at this long enough that he could keep the bulk of his attention focused on Terra and still spare some time to think. All in all, though, it mostly came down to one thought - what was she doing? Ever since the incident in New York it'd almost seemed like she'd been looking for something, but without any overall direction or purpose - no concerted effort in regards to heading a specific direction, no drive beyond the simple need to move, to avoid staying in one place for more than a handful of days. While Hei himself wasn't typically one to point such a thing out, he'd always been motivated by at least some kind of overall reason for his travels - at first it had been to stay by Xing's side, and then following South America it had been to find her, and find her he had. After that it had been a simple matter of survival and keeping Yin safe, and when she had been caught his attention had focused to finding her, and ever since he'd accomplished that his travels had been purely motivated by the desire to find work and to simply be able to feed himself.

Markov, however, didn't seem to have such a purpose - from what he knew following his acceptance of this job, she had more or less appeared out of nowhere as far as the US government was concerned and had simply been on the move ever since, save for the incidents in San Francisco that had first caught their attention, and why he was assigned to follow her now. Understanding why she did what she did, though, would make a lot of this much, much easier - it was extremely unlikely that she would ever shake Hei off, especially since he was still fairly certain she was unaware of his presence, but he would never discount the idea of it being impossible. Understanding her would allow him to predict her, and that alone would be invaluable in keeping tabs on her. That being said , Hei would've nearly sworn he'd jinxed himself with the line of thought the moment Markov seemed to stop, pivot in place, and then immediately make a beeline right for Hei through the crowd.

Bluntly put, Hei had a choice - he could either continue forward and double back to follow her on the offchance that something else had caught her attention and she intended to run by him, or he could stop and see what she intended to do. The problem with the later option, though, was if she had in fact noticed him and maybe even come up with an idea of why he was there - his cover would be blown, and keeping track of her would be difficult to say the least. It wasn't until Hei noticed the movement behind her that he realized what was going on - while Hei didn't know what she could have possibly done to deserve it during the time he'd been watching her, someone was chasing the girl through the crowd. Whether or not it was deserved, though, was besides the point - part of his job was ensuring the girl's safety, if only to avoid risking the use of her powers in self defense, and after a moment's thought Hei came to a decision.

Eyes as calm and seemingly glazed over as they had been since the start, Hei changed the direction he was walking, turning and seeming to stop for a moment to look through a shop window as Terra ran past him, by all appearances still completely unaware of his presence - a moment later the man chasing her passed by as well, although something decidedly felt.... wrong.. about him as he passed. The moment their backs were facing Hei, though, the man immediately turned to follow them, walking at an extremely brisk but seemingly unconcerned pace as he kept them within his line of sight, expression still incredibly stoic. As Hei followed them, though, the movements of the man chasing Markov quickly stood out - this was no normal bystander. If anything his movements were on par with Hei's own, and that alone spoke volumes. Whoever he was, Hei knew it would be a bad idea to let him catch the girl, if only because Hei didn't know what his objective was - there were dozens of possibilities, and very few of them ones Hei could afford.