It had been going so well. One of his best hauls in weeks, sucker after sucker falling hook line and sinker for every angle he tossed out. Little kid who'd lost his mom, pretending to have been knocked over and shaking down his mark for hush money, he even broke out some cards to play a few rounds of three card monte. It felt like his lucky day, everything he touched turned to gold, and everyone he encountered found themselves relieved of the burden that was their wallet.
But all at once everything went wrong. Someone he'd tricked earlier in the day came across him again while he was in the middle of hustling some new sap, and as soon as he was recognized the cops had to get involved. Any sympathy he hoped to incur for being an innocent kid being chased down by the cops was squandered when he was picked up by the ankles and shaken so all his ill gotten spoils came falling out of his pockets. Now the blue fennec fox was being hauled to a squad car in child sized handcuffs, his whining excuses falling on deaf ears.
He grunted out when he was tossed into the backseat of the police car, the door slamming shut before he could adjust to sit himself up. "I'm gonna tell my youth worker about this police brutality!" He wailed, but if the cops who'd informally arrested him picked up on the slip up about how experienced he was with this outcome they didn't show it. Instead the pair simply waltzed off leaving their arrest waiting in the back seat while they got some free donuts for the road or something. The fennec sighed in resignation and rested his forehead against the passenger side window, more upset at himself for getting caught than anything else.
It was a boring few minutes waiting for the pigs to come back to their squad car and take him downtown, so the fennec boy made good use of the time by fidgeting through his pockets to retrieve a well hidden set of lockpicks and went about unlocking the handcuffs. He had a lot of experience picking locks, and unfortunately a good measure of experience picking them while his hands were literally tied behind his back, so it only took him a few attempts before he felt the cuffs creek open and free himself. He rubbed the feeling back into his wrists and looked through the window to check if the officers were returning anytime soon. The backdoor was obviously locked so he had to wait on them before he could spring himself, but they were taking a longer time than he expected. And the streets suddenly seemed so quiet and unpopulated. Did a parade start somewhere else in the city while he was distracted?
Any further questions fled from his mind as there was a sudden loud quaking crash from all around him, something landing ontop of the car he was in nearly denting through the roof and shaking the entire vehicle. A spark of panic went up his spine while he looked around, and it almost seemed like the car was reacting in the same way until he noticed it was literal sparks of electrical current running through the metal of the car! Something popped, the hood of the car popped open and smoke poured out, and the doors on either side of him flew open with a streak of lightning blasting through the air! In a blind instinct of fight or flight, the fennec scrambled out of the car through the passenger side opening and fumbled onto the street, crawling a few feet away before turning around to see what had even happened!
His eyes widened in disbelief at the sight in front of him. The police car was dilapidated and looked like it was all but seconds from exploding, and there was someone standing on the roof of it. Steel toed boots crunched the siren lights, below a ripped formerly ankle length dress held up by a studded belt, leading to a purple striped long sleeved shirt clasped at the ends with spiked wrist bands. The outfits wearer a yellow and black furred... hedgehog? girl with upturned spikes pierced ears and a crazed look in her eye and a manic cackle exposing her fang tipped teeth. With an active surge of electricity sparking off her body as she laughed manically, she looked like a monster straight out of a slasher flick, at least in the fennec boys wide entranced eyes.
With the former prisoner-passenger sitting in the street in full view, it didn't take long for the electric girl to spot him and flash a crazed sharp grin at him. She lifted her hand and pointed a finger gun at him, letting him see a pair of rings one on her index and the other on her pinky fingers, which began to glow with active electrical current running between them. As the fennec sat there in a hypnotized daze from the outlandish sight before him, the thought occurred that it looked like she was charging up to shoot him with pure lightning, but even after surmising that he couldn't bring himself to move. Luckily for him before she could fire a spark at him, the crack of an actual gunshot rang out and a split second after a sphere of electricity flashed around her body a plunk of lead smacked into the side of her head as if it was a pebble that had been tossed out. Her attention snapped entirely to the source of the gunshot, the fennec looking as well to see the cops who'd arrested him guns drawn and shaking in their hands while they took aim of her.
The yellow woman cackled with an amused expression while lifting her hands, visible electricity charging up her body and conducting through the car beneath her, collecting into balls of writhing lightning in her hands. The police tried in futility to fire on her again, the clap of gunshots ringing out with every bullet ricocheting off the barrier of living electricity around her body which robbed them of their momentum making them harmless. Then a blinding streak flared out as she threw her arms forward and tossed the charged up missiles of electricity at the cops, the pair diving back helplessly before they were struck and tossed through the air in a spiral of thunder that shattered glass and street lights around them. The law enforcers were left in smoking heaps with dizzy spirals in their eyes, completely taken out of commission while the leftover electrical current sparks through anything conductive around them.
The hostile girl laughed at the sight of the neutralized cops like it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen, literally slapping her knee and wiping a tear from her eye. Then she turned her attention back to the street and found the blue fennec boy on his feet and gazing up at her with stars in his eyes with his hands clasped together. He looked upon her with the awe of witnessing ones first shooting star, and the reaction was surprising enough that it made her flinch back.
"That was so cool!" The blue fennec yelled in breathless wonder, his tail wagging behind him and long ears perked up high over his head practically quivering with excitement. It wasn't the reaction she was expecting and it took her a few moments to process it while he continued to gawk with sincere admiration.
"Oh uhh... yeah?" She finally replied, grinning somewhat nervously as if she wasn't sure whether he was being sincere. "You serious? I just smoked those pigs..."
"Yeah! They were pricks! If anyone deserved a thunderbolt up the ass it was those bastards!" The fennec replied nearly screaming with glee, jumping on his heels and gesturing with his arms for emphasis as he spoke. She chuckled in surprise and smirked with a bemusement and slight confusion. Usually such displays of psychotic violence were met with panic and fear, so this was a curious enough deviation from the norm to stoke her curiosity.
"Ha, couldn't have said it better myself." She hopped off the squad car and landed beside him, unable to resist a slight pose while he continued to heap adoration upon her with his swooning captivation. "Well you should go ahead and run along runt, because I had about half the precinct chasing me down before I ended up on this block." She explained, the distant enclosing whine of police sirens echoing in the distance as if right on cue.
While she turned to face the approaching cavalry, he flinched with instinctive panic at the approaching siren sounds, his ears flattening back against his head and eyes watering with worry. She lifted her hands to crack her knuckles, but she was interrupted by him reaching out to grab her arm and tug her aside. "Are you crazy! Come on we need to bail!" He yelped, the audacity of taking hold of her was enough to surprise her into compliance while he dragged her down the street. Just before she could yank herself out of his grasp he reached a manhole and paused before it. He tensed up and lifted his free hand towards the manhole, trembling and causing her to perk in curiosity before feeling a rumbling beneath their feet. Suddenly the manhole cover was thrown into the sky by a geyser of water blasting out onto the street, splashes drizzling around them as the water dissipated as quickly as it'd appeared.
The display was enough to leave her stunned staring in confusion, letting him drag her over to the open manhole and push her down into it, the yellow spiky girl gasping as she fell into the darkness of the sewer while he hopped down to follow behind her. They landed on a thankfully dry walkway alongside a rushing canal of rushing city water, the fennec hitting the ground running and taking her by the hand again to rush along while she was shaking her head from the dizzy of the fall. Their footsteps echoed through the sewer and the approaching wail of police sirens behind them faded into silence while he ran along guiding her through a maze of pipes and municipal stations while she was disheveled enough by the curious experience to follow at a close pace.
Eventually they came to an alcove that she might have run right passed without noticing if he hadn't lead her right into it, then the light faded for a few steps until the fennec made a blind jump and grabbed an overhead cord which activated a mass of bulbs to flicker alive and illuminate the surroundings. A furnished childrens clubhouse of a living space was packed away in the nook of the underground alleyway, a small mattress in the center surrounded by a collection of knickknacks and scraps of cloth hung up like drapes and a pile of emptied wallets in the corner. The yellow spiked girl looked about with interest while the fennec caught his breath walking to a ratty folding chair and sitting down.
"Heh, so this is your pad?" She asked looking around in a circle with her arms outstretched theatrically, before she folded them across her chest and leaned against a wall looking over at the tuckered out tyke. He looked up at her with a somewhat sheepish tint to his cheeks and nodded affirmatively while she smirked and went back to looking around.
"If I can help it this is where I crash, yeah. When I'm not in a foster home..." He answered, kicking an empty can of soda at his feet and lounging back into the chair and sighing as he settled down from escaping the law. She grunted in acknowledgement while fidgeting with some stolen electronic she'd found and plucked up, a static jolt going through her and causing the thing to fry and smoke while she chuckled in amusement and tossed it over her shoulder. His only reaction to the display was to smile wide and giggle in excitement. "That's so awesome... have you always been able to do that?"
She snapped to look at him at the praise in his tone, her eyes glancing off to the side while she fidgeted scratching her finger at her cheek, clearly unused to having such rapt interesting. "Uhh, yeah, guess so... Could ask you the same with that little water show from before. That was you right?"
He shifted at the question and nodded again. "Yeah... I mean, it's not anything special. Not like blasting thunder at fuckers!" He squealed lifting his arms up and miming an explosion, much to her amusement. "I can only really uhh do that effectively with really pure water... the more junk that's in it, the less I can do. That pillar was the most I could manage with what was under the street. I would still be in handcuffs if it wasn't for you!"
She tilted her head curiously at the proclamation, it taking a full minute for her to replay the events from before to come to the realization that he must have been in the backseat of the police car and she'd accidentally set him free when she stomped down on the police sirens. "Oh! Uhh right, you're welcome? Yeah, I guess it is pretty neat shit! At least when I'm juiced up." Her inexperience with having a positive interaction with someone who was sincerely interested in her was showing as she shuffled across the room while he beamed excitedly following her with his gaze.
"Do you have somewhere to stay? I mean, you'll probably want to lay low until the heat is off right? I-if you need some place safe to crash you can stay here! You can have the mattress of course, I can-" he began to chatter off a mile a minute until she stabbed a finger under his chin and held his jaw shut to cut him off.
"Whoa there runt, first of all I don't run from the heat, I run right into it!" She growled at the implication of cowardice, making his ears splay back while he shrunk away apologetically. "And anyway... what makes you think I'd want to stay here? Actually, why would you want me to stay here? You don't even know me!"
Once she finished speaking there was a sudden sharp glare in the fennecs eyes, but it passed so quickly that she thought she imagined seeing it. Just as quickly he receded away from her, his lip beginning to quiver while his eyes welled up. "B-but I helped you get away from the cops! And you saved me! If it wasn't for you I'd be back in the system right now, and if you leave I-I-I-I'll be all alone agaaaain!" He stammered out while trying to fight back tears before his voice cracked and he bawled his eyes out.
The outpouring of words and tears made her flinch, balking in surprise at the full blown stream of tears pouring down his face while he even held his hands to his eyes doing little to stem the flow. She glanced around nervously while he wailed, a feeling she wasn't familiar with weighing in her chest. Normally she wouldn't have given a rats ass about this random kit, but pointing out that she more or less owed him and if it wasn't for her he'd end up back in the nightmare that was foster care caused her to feel no small amount of guilt! After a few moments of deliberation in the face of his loud crying echoing through the sewer around them she finally sighed in exasperation. "Alright fine, I'll hang around for now."
No sooner did she finished the final syllable of her concession before he finished crying like turning a valve to stem the flow of tears, smiling up at her with an earnest expression with his hands held in fists up to his cheeks with a look of pure glee. The instant shift made her blink while looking off to the side, beginning to wonder if she was in a hidden camera show or something. "So what's you're name?" He asked, snapping her back to his attention.
"What now?" She replied taken off guard by the question while meeting his gaze with a stern accusatory one of her own.
"You said I don't even know you. So I want to get to know you! And that starts with your name right?" He elaborated, still looking up at her with pure worship in his eyes and not a hint of puffy or red to suggest he'd ever been crying mere moments ago.
She tilted her head and her jaw slacked with disbelief towards this kid. Then she collected herself and looked off to the side while digging her pinkie finger into her ear crassly. "It's Pulse. Call me Pulse the Tenrec." She finally answered, getting a breathless gasp from the boy as if that was the most nifty name he'd ever heard in his life. "What about you?"
Turning the question back on him caught him off guard, and his expression shattered in a wave of anxiety crashing over him. "Wh-what about... me?" He parroted, while she rolled her eyes and groaned with annoyance.
"Yeah well do you want me to call you runt all the time? What's your name, you got mine right so fairs fair!" Pulse huffed while crossing her arms and tapping her foot impatiently, suddenly it felt like she was looming over him while he hemmed and hawed.
"It's.... crsed sprngs...." He muttered under his breath. Pulse grimaced and leaned down close, cupping her hand to her ear and squawked demandingly for him to repeat himself. He trembled while blushing beat red as he worked up the nerve to respond. "KARST SPRING!" He finally yelled, his ears folding down in front of his face to hide behind them as he shared his name which he was evidently quite ashamed of.
Pulse tilted back at the sudden shout and blinked, only to grin bemused at his overreaction. "Hah. Karst, huh?" She reiterated teasingly, while he shook his head in frustration and waved his arms around.
"Shut up, I hate it! It's so stupid! I wish I had a badass name like yours! Something like... tsunami or something!" He huffed while she just chuckled, walking towards his mattress and patting his head as she passed him.
"Yeah well let me know when you think of something then, runt." She laughed as she flopped back onto the bed, arms behind her head and crossing her legs while she took a load off. Karst perked at her making herself at home, smiling and skittering over to kneel down at the mattress edge and went right back to adoring at her presence.
"Okay, I will! In the meantime you can stay here as long as you need to, mi casa es su casa!" Karst chirped gesturing his arms out as if what was around them was a lofty manor.
Pulse just scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Yeah well that wont be very long at all, so don't get too comfy cause I ain't sticking around forever..."
