Despite yourself you smile, you love the city, you really do, but the nice thing about being away from the prying eyes of the public is that you get to really stretch the limits of your shape without making small children cry.
Your form unwinds into a quadrupedal, shelled thing with long, scurrying legs ending in wide soft pads and a trio of eye-dotted trunks which seem to never stop sniffing the air as you begin to scour the area around the clearing for any trace of the ice wielding super.
It takes a while and you're almost ready to call off the search when you find something, a bit of leather from what might be a loose jacket judging by the bite marks and the lack of blood. It's not much, but it gives you a scent to focus on (dirt, sweat, blood, a little bit of… mead maybe?, disinfectant and a smell which seem to match what you can detect from the Nost pills) now, granted, the helpful ones are by far the faintest, but they're at least distinct enough for you to find the next trance of it in a lock of hair, and then you find the slight trail of dying, frost marked leaves in the trees and a few damp spots along the ground.
The chase is surprising long, you have to give Ice-Pal this much, they at least could guess they'd be followed and took a rather winding route once they'd gotten a decent distance from the battlefield, and at a fast pace too if the fact footprints and frost only appear every dozen or two feet are anything to go by.
Eventually though, you find the end of the trail, a small makeshift shelter made of branches, the shoddily built structure stabilized by ice and mud and nestled between a few large, jagged mounds of rock. And after a quick adjustment to your ears you can smell and hear the person inside, awake and from the smell alone you can tell they're eating chips.
It is nice to get confirmation from the noise, though you wish it wasn't quite so loud,
Regardless, it's time to have a conversation. You 'fix' your shape. Then put some more focus on your powers of persuasion, turning a thing from man's nightmares to the kind of person who could star in a major movie, and then a good bit beyond that.
With that done you stand up, turn your hand reflective to make sure you've lept the uncanny valley, smile in satisfaction, walk up the little shelter held together by ice and mud uncaring of the sun's light, and open your mouth.
"Hello?" You call into the room, projecting as much friendliness and innocence as humanly possible in your voice before stepping backwards and waiting for them to spring out of the door, a blade of ice in hand.
The man blinks as the sun's rays hit him, illuminating his brown skin, unkempt black hair and tired eyes. He wears a long, heavy coat which looks ominously familiar to your eye with a car eating crocodile seized bite of it missing, revealing a loose white T-shirt underneath it, accompanied by a pair of blue jeans with far, far too many pockets sewn into them.
The things which really draw your eyes though are the enormous, surfboard-like weapon in his hand which nearly blinds you as its razor sharp ice blue edge sparkles in the sun's light as ice grows into armor across his clothes. "Who are you and how'd you find me?"
You slowly raise your hands and take another step back, letting a trace of fear slip into your smile to make him feel like he's in control. "Name's Chimera." You tell him, trying not to be too dispirited by the utter lack of recognition in his eyes. "What's yours?"
There's a long, awkward pause after that, "Ah, have you not picked a code name yet?" You ask, getting a quick shrug as the man still pointing the sword at you continues, "…Something like that, answer the second question, what are you doing here?"
"Trying to find you before Fire and his friends come over to finish whatever you two did last night." You quickly explain. "He's got a pretty big posse with him and I'm pretty sure he isn't pleased."
Ice-Pal laughs, his voice echoing out into the chatter of the wildernesses around you, "How's he going to find me way out here?"
You shrug, "I did, and he's got enough 'friends' to cover a lot of ground." You tilt your head curiously, making the next question seem like it just popped into your head rather than the absolute most important sentence of the conversation so far, "How'd you get on his bad side anyway? He normally doesn't leave the city for anything, the other four might jump his stuff if he did, so whatever happened it must have made him absolutely apoplectic."
He squints at you, a little bit perplexed for a moment before realization hits his face, "So that's why they said there were part of the five elements." He says, like he's having some private revelation, "I thought it was weird he only had all the fire blasts… and the croc form I suppose."
The sheer surprise in his voice forces you to take a moment to simply blink in shock. "Wait, have you been- are you new in town? The Five Elements have been around for more than half a decade by now."
The man- Ice-Pal, ('the man' is getting boring) suddenly gains a new fascination with the clouds above, refusing to meet your eyes. "Ummm, yeah, new in town." He says, the half-truth making even him wince with the blatancy of it.
Before you can press him he changes the subject again, gesturing wildly with the huge sword. "Anyway, you asked about how I got on his bad side?" He doesn't wait for an answer before continuing on. "I got into a brawl with a few guys who worked for him, beat them down with a staff made of ice, took everything in their pockets-" and that confirms he almost certainly doesn't know who you are either, what with the whole, 'robbery and assault' thing.
He continues, "-and kept on going, then their buddies heard about it, I had a few more encounters with his minions, and eventually this guy followed me as I was coming back here and, well, the only way you could call it a win would be if you're counting the coat." Ice-Pal finishes proudly, his armor evaporating for a moment to better show off the coat, a piece of clothing you're now pretty certain you last saw a month or two back on Fire's back.
"How- wait, never mind, doesn't matter, he's going to try to murder you the second he finds you and, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think you're going to win that fight."
He stares at you, unconvinced. "Look, all I have to do is get in close before he turns into a big monster, easy peasy lemon squeezy. And that's if he finds me, you're the first person to find me since I… came out here."
"Maybe I'm just the first person to go looking," you respond, "The city has been going through some stuff."
His face is suddenly covered by a faceplate of ice, but before that you could see a bit of doubt enter his eyes. Finally, some progress.
After a long moment he sighs and, frustration at the world in every syllable speaks. "Fine, I'll pack what I've got, what's the plan after that?
Luckily you thought about this on the way here and open your mouth to explain, "Alright, here's the plan…"
O-O-O-O-O
Alright then, what's the plan?
[ ] Insert Plan here, I have faith whatever you come up with will be very clever, feel free to ask questions about anything you'd like if you want more clarity.
Also, thoughts on Ice-Pal (Real name not yet available)?
