Description: The final step is sudden and without warning. One journey ends as alone the woman finds the edge of the world and decides to take the final plunge. At the end of one journey, another begins. Carpe diem.
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"What the snap?"
A lone figure on top of a roof in a building in southtown bangs on the keyboard of a small laptop. The red dressed woman wearing shades adjusts the lenses o her nose and stares at the loading screen for the web page containing her email, only the screen seems to have frozen. The first assumption is this typical cell network connection is just running really slow, but then the screen pops up about the page not existing. That is when the woman bangs on the rooftop in disgust. The cell connection is down?! That almost never happens.
"No way.." The woman mutters. She's alone. Talking to herself, but that isn't so unusual for people using computers, in fact the red clad woman had come to this location specifically to be alone so she can talk to her computer.
"Man at least I can use the nearby wireless signals," the woman states and sure enough soon finds herself online again and cruising to her email. This was great! Until she realizes her password is locked out.
"What the..." The woman says, flabbergasted. What happened to her access?
Reaching into her hat, a red pointed witches hat, the woman retrieves her cell phone, a red razr. Flipping it opened she instantly sees something wrong. . 'No service'. But there was service when she came up here. Grumbling the witch dials a number anyway, if there was one thing she knew it was that 911 would work anyway. . . And it does! Except then she has to hang up before she gets in trouble for calling 911 when she isn't in an emergency. For a heart beat she considers shouting into the phone, "Help! My internet is broken!" But she quickly fights the feeling off and snaps the phone closed. Looking from the phone to the laptop, thoughts start to fly through the red clad woman's head. "Okay Naerose, get yourself together, this is totally weird. What could be causing this."
Naerose Delphine. The red clad woman, a self professed witch, stood at the roof of a high rise building. Only a laptop, cell phone and her broom stick are anywhere near her in the picturesque dusk. She didn't know that there was a reason this night setting was somehow perfect.
"My service is canceled.. My access denied.. All of this was supplied by the Casnio.. Supplied by Blackjack," Naerose murmurs, thinking back. Blackjack, the organization she's belonged to for some time and for the last year, Naerose alone was active. None of the other agents, including Elle Belmounte had acted at all in the field, Elle wasn't even in the public eye. Some assumed her murdered, others that she just vanished. Whatever the reason, she was gone and Naerose alone sought answers. No one else seemed to even care. When Naerose encountered Dr. Tran, the only other even around. This was weird, he didn't care enough to get involved, so who canceled her access? Was someone trying to get her to go home? Not if her security clearance was canceled, she wouldn't even get in the door. Frustrated, Naerose sat down.
Watching the golden colors die, Naerose sat on her backside and fixed her shades while thinking. It has been a long road. Blackjack was the first group to take Naerose seriously and she grew a great deal with them, even more now without them, but it was a tough road too. She had to betray friends, she had to paint herself the villain and she did it without question, all for the organization that she gave her heart too. It earned it by giving her faith. It all started with a random encounter, little did she know that she had been watched the entire time. She remembered the treatment was rough, no one seemed to like anyone, but despite that they accepted her. Together she fought on the side often considered the bad guys of the Thailand conflict. She fought Jinchuu and even betrayed friends and when Elle vanished, she fought to keep the group alive. She never knew if it was what Elle wanted or not.
A faint smile touches her lips. It was a nice road, a long road, but yes very tough. *Bzzzzt*. The phone vibrates in Naerose's hand. What the... Naerose opens the phone, it's a text message from.. Elle? Well from Blackjack anyway, who can say if Elle herself sent it. Opening the message Naerose reads:
"You're fired."
Shock.
Naerose stares at the phone, not believing it. Elle was back and.. she was fired? So many things shoot through her mind, but chief amongst them,
"Snap! She isn't even going to tell me to my face?!"
It was the least Elle could of done, but then Elle was never known for being polite. Or kind. Or Naerose's friend. It was business and Elle lied, cheated, manipulated and burnt bridges to get where she was. She cast allies to the wolves. Naerose had seen it happen time and time again when she abused her own employees. Was it really that big of a surprise that it happened to Naerose now?
"Hah." The witch says and snaps the phone closed.
"End of the Road."
The phone slips from her hand and she shakes her head with a weak grin. Man. So much of her life down the drain. Her goal to bring back Blackjack, to make sure it's legacy was remembered was over. Suddenly so free was frightening and exciting at once. She was hurt and angry, but also a little relieved.
"Man.. fudge that rat." Naerose states and gives the laptop a little nudge. It was subsidized and wouldn't work without the cell network being activated anyway, she couldn't even pawn it off now. Picking up her broom, the witch realizes that she has nothing to show for all of her effort.
"Not even a severance package."
It wasn't true though, she had knowledge, experience and skill to show for it. Naerose had learned a lot. Walking to the edge of the roof with just her broom, the same thing she started with when she first met Elle Belmount. They were an aggressive group of people, but they paid well. Though it was always her way or the highway. A grunt. Bitterness was a wholly new feeling to the red witch. Now she felt it all the way through. She wanted to shout, she wanted to talk to Elle, demand to know why, explain how she felt. She wanted to break something, but then a pause.
A moment is taken to gather her thoughts and feelings. "I can't believe this is happening.." She murmurs and sighs, "What a fool I've been all this time, trying to be loyal for something like this. All the people I've hurt." The red witch closes her eyes behind her shades and grips her broomstick. Meanwhile the sun dips farther beneath the horizon. "How perfect." Naerose states, pausing to admire the sunset, in her most serious and normal display ever, which she could only pull off when she was perfectly alone.
"Oh well, it isn't like we were friends to begin with," The witch reminded herself. She couldn't help but feel betrayed despite this.
"Time for a new journey." The witch states and leaves the roof.
A red razr and a small laptop is all that remains of her time with Blackjack, but the witch herself is already considered what to do with her life. From here on out.. She would serve for herself and her friends.
Now, in the stairwell of her new life, the thought strikes Naerose, so profound she has to stop walking. An outsider might of just thought Naerose was being indecisive, but it was more like she made her decision making process profoundly visible. "Wait who are my friends?" Naerose frowns, the seemingly random thought for someone who can't read minds was along the track of trying to decide where to go first. She stops and decided to make a mental list.
"Alright, I'll just ummm.."
Once again, in Nae's thought process. Were she not alone she might of mentioned being hungry by now, but that was in part because Naerose liked people off balance. No one knew what to think of her, she was erratic, crazy, unmanageable.
"Daniel," Naerose decides. "Isn't he somehow related to the Todoh place?" The witch scratches her jaw, thinking out loud. "Right, that will be my lead then." So with her plan ready, Naerose marches out the front door of the building and doesn't look back. Besides who waves good bye to a laptop and a phone?
It would be just like before, only this time it would be her own gig. Individuals would need to be recruited and she knew who to start on. Then all she needed to do was find jobs, networks and a future.
Stepping out of the building, Naerose moved from one road and began a new one. "Man, I'm going to have to tone down the weird."
Log created on 14:16:48 11/18/2008 by Naerose, and last modified on 21:50:40 04/22/2009.