First Love Arc [https://www.rellawings.com/superluminal/arcs/firstlove.jpg]
scenebreak [https://www.rellawings.com/superluminal/scenebreak/wingsbreak.png]
Follow the Kitty
Chapter 14 [https://www.rellawings.com/superluminal/chapternum/chaphead_14.jpg]
Quinn dragged Leona past the waiting line directly to the warehouse entryway, where they encountered a bouncer dressed in nothing but leather and spikes. He grinned in a way Leona wasn’t sure she quite trusted.
“What’s this now? Mini-me?” He snarked as he took in their appearances. He wasn’t exactly wrong. The pair were perfectly coordinated, right down to their electric blue hair.
“Something like that.” Quinn smirked. “Our hair will completely match by the end of the summer. Anyway, you letting us in or not?” she asked with a wink, and jokingly punched his shoulder.
“Wouldn’t dream of trying to keep you out of the joint, Quinn. Heh… I don’t like your stuff personally, but what the hell, you’ve got your fans.” He cast an analyzing glance at Leona with a scowl and shook his head. “Eh, we could always use more chicks, even if she seems young. Your mini-me’s pretty cute so try not to let the unsavories swarm too close.” With that, he stepped aside to grant entrance. Leona smiled, happy to get a compliment, even though his words were condescending.
Leona had expected the need to force their way through the crowd, but the event was still in its early stages and the place hadn’t quite filled yet. Music similar to the stuff her sister had been producing lately was blasting over the stadium-grade sound system, but generally, the feeling was that the show was still gearing up.
With a purpose-filled stride, Quinn continued to lead Leona across the floor to the main stage speakers. Leona squeaked and clapped her hands over her ears when they got closer to it. Her sister laughed at her as another guy caught sight of Quinn from atop the erected stage.
The pounding music drowned their words out while Leona patiently waited with fingers in her ears for Quinn to finish up. Reaching some kind of accord, they nodded, and he gave Quinn a hearty thumbs up who flashed a grin in response before issuing some more loud words that were equally inaudible to Leona, who was by now withering under the audible assault of the huge speaker.
When she had finished, Quinn pulled Leona away to the bar.
Quinn’s lips moved, but Leona didn’t hear what she was saying. With a tilting of her head, Quinn mimed laughter as she reached down and booped Leona’s undefended nose. When it was clear the idea wasn’t coming across, she firmly took Leona’s hands away from her ears. “It’s quieter here, so cut that out…. Anyhow, hang out here for a while. The drinks are on me. They carry more than alcohol, so don’t worry. Goonie would kill me if your blood alcohol went anything over zero, so don’t take advantage.”
“Who’d tell her?” Leona chuckled mischievously.
Quinn looked at her adopted sibling with wide eyes, as though she wasn’t sure who she was looking at.
“I’m kidding, you goof!” Leona laughed.
“You’re the goof! Had me thinking I’d finally gone too far and corrupted my goody two shoes little sis for a sec there. In the event you drank, you’d best keep it to a tiny amount, got it?” Quinn lifted an arm and pressed her thumb and index finger together firmly. “And don't take drinks offered by anyone you don’t know. Ruffies, y’know.”
Leona rolled her eyes. Another guy, presumably the bartender, spoke up from behind the bar. “You're telling me you want us to ignore—her size and age? This little squirt? You’re freaking kidding.”
“No, I trust her judgement. She’s literally packed to the gills with nothing but fluffy goodness.” Quinn smirked at the bartender. “If something happens though, I’ll be hearing about it from you, won’t I?”
“Tch—fucking babysitting duty… Damn it—you’d better play ‘Midgardener and the Serpent’.” That song was one of Quinn’s less recent creations. She had played it a few times for her back at home and Leona’s eyes widened slightly when she realized this man must be a fan of Quinn’s. Was she really that well-known?
“Hah! Sure thing. I really hate playing my early stuff, but for you it’s fine.” Quinn shook her head and winked at Leona. “Ya see what I put myself through for your sake?” She grinned. “Anyway, I’m not going on for about another hour, so get out there and dance! This place should be really bumping soonish.” She casually leaned against the bar.
“You want me to go out there? And dance?” Leona scoffed at the notion. “You’re taking the lead then, sis! Let’s dance!” She grabbed her older sister’s hands and proceeded to the dance floor.
“Weren’t you here for a drink?” The bartender called out after them.
“Shit… I knew you’d drag me out. Alright, bum. Let’s do this thing. I’ll give you the full dance rave experience!” Quinn ran by her sister’s side and when they reached the center of the floor, the two started dancing wildly. It was clear Quinn better knew what she was doing while Leona did not know at all what to do, just flailing and giggling. She did her best to emulate her sister, and they had fun until some of the staff shouted for Quinn.
scenebreak [https://www.rellawings.com/superluminal/scenebreak/wingsbreak.png]
The rest of the ‘rave experience’ wasn’t particularly fun for Leona after that point. Once her sister was up playing her music, Leona started enjoying the music more while nursing a soda at the bar under the watchful eye of the bartender. She didn’t feel right mingling without her older sister there to guide her steps, so she didn’t.
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Once in a while, when Quinn played a song Leona particularly enjoyed, she bopped along right there by the bar, a broad grin plastered on her face. At those times, Leona watched Quinn jamming on her equipment with laser beams playing across her body. Smiling as she admired her sister, Leona was reminded about why she loved her and thought so much of her. She was a very talented musician who aspired to be renowned nation-wide one day. The only real drawback to this ambition was that Quinn would occasionally become somewhat distant back at home when she sequestered herself in her room to compose.
“You gonna wallflower here all night? You’re gonna look like a lush,” the bartender commented behind the bar.
Leona considered this unwanted criticism, but nodded. “Yeah… I don’t really—”
“Hey Leona, right?” Despite all the crazy ambient sounds and music, Leona was surprised to hear someone she didn’t know loudly call out her name. By now the warehouse was really heating, filled to the brim with warm bodies that had all crowded together; the dance floor was totally packed with ravers now. Leona wiped her forehead, brushing a lock of her hair to the side.
She turned to see who’d called out to her and found an average-looking young man in what seemed to be the dress code of the staff like the bartender, not that the bouncer much seemed to care about conforming, considering his leather-bound-look. If that was the standard dress code, Leona would have been embarrassed any time she spotted the staff members. Instead, they wore black clothes with neon green glow-in-the-dark straps and bands across them so they could be identified at a glance, kind of like how construction workers wore reflective vests when working at night.
He was waving insistently as he forced his way through the mass to keep Leona’s attention on him. When he broke free from the crowd pressing around the bar, the young man held a strange object up. He held it out to her, talking in a quieter tone, but leaning over to Leona’s ear made his words barely audible, “The name’s Frank. I hope Quinn mentioned me to you.” Leona looked down at what he was offering, a wallet with a cat motif.
“She told me a lot about you and the matching hair thing you two’d be doing tonight so that I’d know you and be able to keep an eye on you when I can, not that anyone looking couldn’t tell that you’re related to her. Ya look almost identical.” He laughed. “Anyhow, I’m staff, helping.” As though he had to say that. Even though he hadn’t explained what he did here, Leona put two and two together.
He went on, getting to the reason he was talking with Leona, “A girl dropped this on the other side of the bar. I looked around for her, but no luck. She got lost in the crowd. Look, I’m pretty busy with other stuff I’m supposed to do and I can’t monitor you the whole time with Clark. I wonder if you’d mind helping and look for this wallet’s owner. She stands out pretty well, so it shouldn’t be too hard. It’ll just take more time than I have.”
Blinking, Leona gaped. She went over the long list of people Quinn brought up in conversation. Was there a Frank somewhere in that mix? Pursing her lips, she wondered why the guy was specifically asking her for help. Just because she was Quinn’s sister? Had she been conscripted to help with the running of this rave, although she knew nothing about anything? Something about this was fishy.
“C’mon, help a bro out. You’d probably get on with this thing’s owner, I think. You’re looking pretty lonely over here all by yourself, anyway.” He shoved the wallet into Leona’s hands. “The girl’s got a hairband with glowing pink cat ears on it. She’ll stand out. Find her, pull her to the side and return her wallet to her and, boom, you're done. ‘Course, you could always talk to her after the fact too.” He smiled.
“Alright, fine. But tell Quinn to be more subtle next time.” Leona took the wallet and charged into the crowd, looking around as she forced her way through. Frank smiled slightly to himself for having completed Quinn’s all-too-obvious ploy before heading back to whatever he was doing before.
As she was finally making a bit of headway, the music shifted, causing the dancers' movements to change and threw Leona off-balance. She accidentally crashed into several people on her way through. Some of them cursed at her while others laughed and bumped her back playfully.
Working her way through the undulating mass of humanity, Leona searched, doing her darndest not to be knocked over. She really didn’t want to find out how quick the partiers’ feet would turn her into paste. Finally, her eyes caught the faintest glimpse of a pair of fluffy and glowing cat ears. She got a bead on where she spotted them poking through the crowd and chased after them as quickly as she could, but in moments she lost sight of them through the undulating hordes. Leona glared holes through the dancers that materialized out of thin air between herself and where she had last spotted the girl.
This was a horrible mess. Leona looked back towards the bar, but given how short she was, she wasn’t even sure which way was up or down. She was very much lost at sea in this sweaty throng with no landmarks to help.
As though the universe felt like pouring gas on the fire anew, one of Quinn’s catchier songs played and everyone threw their hands up into the air and everyone started shaking their bodies. Leona’s eyes spun and her head cocked as she lost the horizon amongst the teeming shapes.
Leona was on the brink of giving up, but before she fully threw in the towel, she tried pushing her way to a wall so she could work her way around the crowd. The right-hand rule of maze navigation was now her best chance at making an escape. She hadn't gotten very far before someone crashed into her, knocking her to the floor.
Shaking her head, Leona gasped, disoriented. She looked at the culprit, a cute girl firmly planted on the sticky floor beside Leona. “I’m sorry!” the person who ran into her yelled before she unsteadily raised her head. Leona’s eyes widened as she cleared her head and her eyes fastened onto a glowing headband with... NEON CAT EARS!
“It’s you!” Leona gaped and fumbled for the wallet she’d dropped she’d been holding when they collided. After searching the sticky and dirty cement floor for a moment, Leona spotted and reclaimed it. Thankfully, it was taking longer to be ground into some person-paste than she’d expected.
“I-It’s my first time at something like this—” the girl with the cat ear hairband said apologetically. “Sorry, I’m not used to it yet. I’m so sorry,” the girl cried. “I didn’t mean to be so clumsy. When it got kinda overwhelming, I started running and desperately tried to get out of all this—” She gestured with a fed up expression, her words barely audible over the pandemonium. The girl was blushing so cutely Leona’s heart thudded. She was so nervous and vulnerable-looking Leona couldn’t be angry with her for slamming into her.
“It’s my fault too. I was dizzy too, and I didn’t know where I was. C’mon.” Leona took the girl’s hand and tugged her up. Refocusing her attention, she scanned around and finally spotted a piece of recognizable decoration, just barely visible above the heads of some shorter dancers. “Hurry. Let’s go!” She pulled the girl free from the sweaty mass of ravers.
When they were clear, the girl tugged to free herself from Leona’s grasp and heaved a relieved sigh as she asked, “C-can you let go?” She looked very nervous. Leona gaped and released her hand with an accepting nod. “I’m sorry and—“ She looked at her sweaty hand and saw that wasn’t the only reason it was wet; it had blood on it. The girl winced.
“Are you okay? Crap! What happened to your hand?” Leona took her hand again and examined it, seeing that some of her blood had dried on her own hand. She had a cut on it that looked pretty fresh the way her blood was seeping out. Leona looked around and saw that ravers had simply dropped their empty bottles onto the floor and many got broken. That could be seriously dangerous.
“Y-yeah—it hurt when I hit you and... It was probably my fault. I’m clumsy. I was holding a bottle of coke I got at the bar. I’m more worried I might have spilled coke on you than about this.” She waved the bleeding hand and with her uninjured hand, she patted Leona’s body to check for any wet spots. There wasn’t anything worse than sweat damp. Leona blushed at being so manhandled by another girl in public.
“Wait, no—don’t worry about it. Anyhow… I mean… I have—a friend of my sis’ found something of yours and asked me to look for you to return it—” Leona held up the catgirl’s wallet.
The girl looked at her hand with wide eyes. “Oh, no—I’m such an idiot!” She practically fumed as she pawed at her pockets and groaned. “T-Thank you… What’s your name?” She fumbled for the wallet, her eyes expressing gratitude louder than her words.
“Oh—um… Leona W— Ramses.” She hadn’t quite gotten used to giving Goonie’s last name, even though it had been a long time since they’d gotten her legal full name changed. She wrote her name down on papers, but it took a while to adjust.
“It’s nice to meet you, Leona! I’m Sarah—Sarah Namias.” Leona’s heart skipped a beat as a strange warm feeling blossomed inside her.
scenebreak [https://www.rellawings.com/superluminal/scenebreak/wingsbreak.png]