It had been a long trip from New Jersey to Panic City via the train that Katelyn had purchased a cash ticket for in a bit of a rush as her world had crumbled around her. The feds had hit the Costello crime family hard, and in wanting her not to be arrested with them and sent to some government facility to be a lab rat due to her abilities, her adopted father Nic Pirelli had sent her away with a bag of money and a city name on a piece of paper. She had taken off through the woods out back of the house, and an hour later she was on the train heading west out of New Jersey.

That had been a day and a half ago, and Katelyn hadn't slept in nearly two now. She'd arrived in Panic City roughly three hours prior, and with horror had discovered that the five thousand dollars that Nic had thrust upon her before telling her to run was gone, leaving her with no more than the eighty dollars she had in her own wallet. Even wracking her memory, she had no idea how it had happened when the backpack it had been in never left her sight the entire trip.

Now Katelyn was making her way up the city sidewalks and streets, trying to find someplace that she could stay for the night with minimal cost, and growing more and more tired with each passing moment. Due to her fatigue, she doesn't realize it when she drifts into the street as she walks, at least until there were bright headlights suddenly baring down on her. She has just enough time to turn and adopt a look of shocked realization before the Mustang slammed into her.

She felt her legs break in multiple places as the front bumper impacts against her and then she was airbourne, bouncing up and over the hood and roof of the car, then falls off the back to land in a bloody and broken heap on the pavement as the car screeches to a stop. With her entire being in the clutches of mind-numbing and white hot agony, the sixteen year old manages to roll onto her back before succumbing to unconsciousness, her body already beginning to heal itself in plain view of anyone looking.

"They gone?" Leon asked, his eyes flicking to and fro from the rear view mirrors for any signs of glaring headlights that brought a rain of bullets whenever he saw them.

"Affirmative, I do not believe they appreciated the nitroglycerin bottle with the cloth of Lance's shirt ignited and launched at the front protector of their motor vehicle" one of the two people in the back spoke up, looking through the back window. The one that spoke was a young looking sixteen year old boy, who seemed to be gushing over the explosion he had seen just ten minutes ago that caused the pursuing car to careen off its course and into a pole.

"Tobias the hell did I say about that sciencey talk?" Leon growled in irritation before looking away from the rode and back at the boy, not understanding a word the boy was saying half the time, "Your brother isn't here to translate so dumb it down a level or two so me and Lance here can actually understand what the hell you're saying! It's like you're throwing up a thesaurus or something!"

The boy seemed unaffected by Leon's stare, still grinning and giggling over his own work. Leon rolled his eyes and looked back to the road, crying out as he narrowly avoided crashing into someone. He smashed his hand into the horn, the blaring sound yelling at the person to get out of the way. The person was probably clipped by the side-view mirror, judging from how they now lacked a side view mirror, but Leon could see the figure some how getting up in the rear-view.

"Look at what you made me do!" he growled, not looking away from the road this time. He was going at a fairly high speed, definitely breaking the legal speed limit. They were being chased by a group of wannabe-heroes that had signed up for that new program the government was offering, though their competence was laughable since it only took one molotov cocktail to deter them. He did not plan on slowing down anytime soon however, since that was their only one.

"To be fair you're the one that took your eyes off the road..." the other person spoke up, Dario Lance, his voice was meek, a timid creature. Though despite his timidity, he was bearing a death-grip on a bottle of alcohol that the other two had tried to steal away from him.

"Lance don't you get me started else I'll make sure the dogs get a good taste of an ass cooked medium rare!" Leon huffed in response. The Lion looked down at his gauges, going about 95mph on a 35mph lane, seemed like an okay speed. It was night time so there wasn't much traffic and-

Lance and Tobias suddenly cried out, both of their arms pointing to the windshield and Leon slammed his foot on the brakes. There was the sound of thumping as the body flung over the car and the car screamed as if in horror as it tried to stop itself. Once the car was stopped, the clowns left their car to investigate just what they had hit.

"Just go. Keep Driving," Lance begged, however Tobias and Leon had already gotten out of the car to see what had happened.

"Excellent work Leon, you have struck a female at too high of a velocity!" Tobias snorted.

Leon gave the boy a deadly glare, and the boy silenced himself. He looked over the girl, expecting her to be dead. To his astonishment, she was breathing. She was bleeding, but-wait no,she wasn't even bleeding anymore. He blinked, looking at where gashes on her head should have been. This girl was perfectly fine! The Red Lion froze for a moment, since this woman was perfectly fine after being hit like that, that could only mean one thing.

"Tobias. Girl. Backseat. Now." he ordered the other child. Tobias looked to the girl before calling for Lance to help him. The two dragged her unconscious body into the back of the mustang while Leon hopped into the driver's seat once more. Once all the doors were closed, the wheels began to tear at the ground as they tried to find friction against the ground and the car took off as quickly as it could.

--

They stopped at a abandoned warehouse, not quite Leon's property, but nobody was certainly going to come here anytime soon. The girl had been sat on a chair they had found, since there was nothing else they could put her on. She was not tied down or anything, just kinda left there while Lance, Leon, and Tobias spoke with each other.

"Wait, so we do kidnapping now? Since when did we do kidnapping!?" Lance asked, a bit hysterical and panicked.

"It's not kidnapping...ok maybe it's a little bit kidnapping, but it's not like we're forcing her to stay here," Leon explained, "Just you two sit here with her and i'm going to go call Parker and Shellie to let them know we're not dead and what's going on."

"What even is going on?" Lance whined.

"Just shut up and do as I say..." Leon sighed exasperatedly. These dumb-f*cks were getting on his nerves, the only competent one of his crew was Shellie. Although Tobias and Parker did have their uses, Lance was just an alcoholic that was getting closer and closer to being burnt to a crisp with every complaint.

Leon left to make the phone call, however received no answer from either of them. He figured that they were busy, so he simply returned and let them be. He couldn't use phones for long anyways, his body heat always made them overheat and shut off. When he returned, it seemed like the girl was beginning to wake up.

"Well good morning sunshine!" he spoke up, "You feeling alright?" he asked.

Upon awakening an unknown amount of time later, Katelyn felt a near overwhelming sense of dizziness fill her and she let out a low groan as her eyes opened slowly. She heard someone speaking and with a bit of effort lifts her head to find a half-blurry figure standing before her. As the man speaks again, asking if she was feeling alright, her vision clears a bit and she gives a small nod in reply, feeling mostly fine aside from her disorientation.

"I think.. I think so." The sixteen year old mumbles out as she lets her gaze fall upon her bloodied clothes for a long moment before her eyes widen in a mixture of surprise and panic before her gaze shot back up to the man before her. "What- what happened? Where am I?"

She knew that something bad had obviously happened, but most of the previous hour or two before whatever it was was little more than a blur in Katelyn's mind, though she does remember feeling agonizing pain from something.

"Who are you?" She follows up with a weary tone, not knowing how much that the man might have found out about her during however long it had been that she slept for.

The girl was waking up, nodding to his questions. Perfectly fine save for the usual side effects from waking up from being unconscious it seemed. Leon was standing, the cellphone beeping as it powered off from overheating. He merely tossed the phone in Lance's direction as the alcoholic juggled the phone for a bit before catching it, not having expected to have the phone thrown at him.

"There's been a little accident. You see, I kind of hit you with my car. Like, 95 miles per hour kind of speed here. You got a little knocked out as opposed to immediate death, which is good, but not normal." Leon walked as he spoke, trying to piece his words together carefully in case this power-user decided to blow up on him or something.

"My name's Leon, Red Lions? Ring any bells?" Leon laughed a bit as if he had made a joke, "Nah, i'm kidding, I 'aint famous," 'at least not yet' he added on within his thoughts.

"We are currently in an abandoned warehouse, as for where exactly that is I have no clue as one of my friends is the one that pointed me to here. Are you sure you're alright now?" Leon asked once more, wanting to verify that the girl was not secretly dying on him and he should be throwing into the hospital doors.

Katelyn had let her gaze drop from the man to stare down at her lap and ruined clothes once more, and as visibly tenses while listening to his reply as to how she had come to look like she was in some horror movie. She felt a bit of fear well up as the man more or less lets her know that he was at least somewhat aware of that she was different, not knowing if that would turn out to be a good or bad thing and briefly she considers trying to make a run for it.

She looks back up at him slowly as he introduces himself as Leon and jokingly asks if she'd heard of him before, to which she begins to shake her head before he lets her know he'd been kidding and then informed her as to their current location, even if it was a bit vague.

"Yeah, I think so..." She replies to his repeated question from before. "Ain't exactly the first time something's happened that should have left me dead." She adds without giving much thought to her words, not seeing a point in lying to the man since it was clear that he knew she was different. "I'm guessing since you took the time to scrape me off the street, you want something from me?"

She takes another look down at herself and winces at the bloodsoaked clothes before speaking again. "I.. I wouldn't suppose you might have something else I could maybe change into?"

Ah, a smart one it seemed, one that also seemed to cut to the chase. At least Leon wouldn't have to go through the trouble of explaining why he wanted that little something.

"No I don't have anything for you to wear at the moment. Although, I do actually want something from you, but in your case I believe it's more of an offering, Ms Dimeo," Leon dropped the theoretical bomb. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet that revealed her ID briefly before flicking it back to her lap. The wallet was probably noticeably warm, but he did not really care if the girl thought there was something strange about him right now.

Leon had found the girls wallet and researched her on the phone briefly as he had gone to call Shellie and Parker. She had been related to that rather infamous mafia in New Jersey, interesting. Who knew such a connection would be practically dropped onto the hood of his car? Sure they had gotten into quite a bit of trouble already, but that meant that this girl had to be somewhat used to this lifestyle, and she had powers like him to boot!

"You see, I have a bit of a group of my own, it's not quite a mafia nor is it very big in this city, but I am here to offer an invitation into The Red Lions. You'll be given protection, a roof over your head, supplies, and anyone that fucks with you fucks with us. All in the exchange of you working for me," Leon spoke before waiting for her answer.

Tobias seemed to be toying with the phone, opening it up and messing with the battery on the back of it while Lance seemed to just cling to his bottle and wait impatiently for this to be over with. Lance seemed to be jumpy, and ready to run if this girl decided to suddenly attack.

Katelyn gave a nod of acceptance when Leon informed her that there was nothing else she could wear at the moment, and then the teenager stiffened a bit as he calls her by name and tosses her wallet back a moment later. As she went to pick it up, Katelyn bites back a hiss of surprise at the heat emanating from the leather. A moment later she realized that Leon must be not much different than herself, she couldn't be the only one or so she hoped.

She holds her gaze on him with barely a blink as she listens to him speak, making the offer he'd mentioned before, and although Katelyn feels no small bit of mental discomfort with how much this guy seemed to know about her, without Nic's money what the hell else did she have? It wasn't even really much of an option, not that she felt he'd force her if she said hell no, still she wasn't just gonna just blindly agree to doing his bidding. She'd been taught better than that.

"What exactly would I have to do?" Katelyn inquires cautiously, slowly rising to her feet and managing to stand with just a tiny bit of shaking in her restored legs. She doesn't make any attempts to run or threatening moves however, just stands in front of the chair with her gaze locked on Leon, not paying much attention to either of the other two who were milling about the warehouse.

Leon paused as the woman got up, asking him what she needed to do. The Red Lion rolled his eyes, "I'm not going to ask you to kill anyone if that's what you're thinking of. It's going to be a wide variety of things I might ask you to do. Whether it's bank robbing or having some fun and stirring up some noise in the underground."

Leon crossed his arms, "We're not a business, The Red Lions exists to protect its members, hang out, and have a bit of fun," he chuckled.

"Purposely killing someone without reason in my gang is against the rules, my rules," his voice seemed to grow a bit serious before reverting to its aloof and rather upbeat tone, "Besides, it's just to have a bit of fun and make sure nobody messes with us...our goal is to be feared I guess you could say."

What The Red Lion wanted was to rebuild his pride from New York, perhaps get a bit of payback after being tossed out simply because of some rumor that the authorities were on high alert for him there. Leon wanted his power and pals back, and he was ready to start from scratch to do it all over again, it was what he was doing right that moment even.

Katelyn found herself nodding with a small bit of relief that the job offer wouldn't force her to commit murder, though Katelyn could admit to herself that she knew she could take a life if it was do-or-die. But that wasn't to say that she wanted to go out and kill random people at someone's unquestionable order, so she was happy for that at least. She wasn't sure about the whole bank robbing thing, but bullets didnt have much of an effect on her to worry about fallout from that.

"If you want to be feared, how do you not plan to kill?" She finds herself asking as soon as the question enters into her mind. "I mean hell, it was self defense but I got two bodies on me already myself, and I'm only sixteen. And that wasn't even me looking to be feared, just to survive. Someone comes at me with that kind of intent, I'm not gonna promise that I won't treat them with the same."

She pauses for a few long moments and considers things in her head before speaking again. "If you can promise me that if a day comes that I want out, I can walk without having to spend my life looking over my shoulder any more than I have to already. If you tell me that, then I'm in."

"Sometimes living is worse than death," Leon spoke with a knowledgeable smirk and left the first question at that. He knew just what fear could do to someone. Even if it's an empty threat, paranoia could really eat away at someone. Torture was another option, they wouldn't die, but they'll certainly wish for death to save them.

The girl made a condition, if she wanted to walk out she could walk out without trouble. Leon shrugged, "So long as you didn't do something like blow up one of our guys before you left then you're free to leave anytime you like. Except Lance. You can take him if you want," Leon was joking of course, though Lance did give him a rather nasty look. Leon ignored the nasty look, if Lance wanted to stop being treated as if he were useless, then he should work for it. The idiot did nothing but lay around and drink all day, hell Tobias did more than him at least even though Tobias was usually destroying things.

"So, you in?" he asked.

                     

Katelyn was completely still and silent as she listened to his response to her final question, and then gave a nod as he asked if she was in. "Yeah," She says with an assured tone, though hoping very much that this whole thing wasn't going to blow up in her face. "I'm in."

She then gave the sour looking one that Leon called Lance a sideways glance, and quickly finds she probably wasn't going to end up liking him very much. Even if Leon had been laying the jokes on a bit thick, he didn't seem much of the pleasant kind. She then gives a brief look to the third guy, though he seems to be content so probably they would be fine.

"So uh, can we go somewhere where I can clean up and change now please, I got blood all over me and this shit is sticky as all hell by now." Katelyn says at the end, a bit of disgust in her tone before shifting her mood to teasing as she told him "You owe me big for hitting me with your car, by the way."

"How about I repay you with the car?" Leon jaunted back, "Alright c'mon, we got a showers at the yard and you can borrow some of psycho-freak's clothes."

The Red Lion waved for dumbass 1, dumbass 2, and Katelyn to follow him as he went to return to the car. He did not want to bring her directly to the junkyard just in case she was one of those 'heroes' that ridiculous program had brought up, but it seemed that she was an alright girl. Hell maybe Fayte could learn a thing or two from her!

"You have two options as to where you live," Leon explained on the way, "Considering you're not at a legal age to get your own place and even if you were I doubt you have the cash for it. You can live with me, the boys, and Faye at the Junkyard or you can live in Shellie's apartment. They're not too far from each other, and i'm sure Shellie wouldn't mind. If you have anywhere you'd like to go that's yours feel free to stay there, just let me know what and where just in case something happens like Death Master or something."

Leon merely assumed that Katelyn knew about the events of Death Master, the villain that had devastated the city. His gang had narrowly avoided the destruction the villain had brought upon the city by Leon's lack of paying water bills and theft of bottled water rather than the tap. He had not known where Shellie lived at that point, so he could not exactly go to warn her not to touch the water. He had made a point to himself that he had to knew where everyone lived just in case something like that happened again.

The Red Lion swung open the mustang's door, ignoring the dent in the front caused by Katelyn's mass. The car was still functional, though Leon figured he'd have to throw it into the scrap heap soon and use the salvageable parts for the other cars in the yard. Not too big, considering he had much nicer cars than this old mustang he had stolen off the street in the garage.

"What can you do? Skills?" Leon asked once they were in the car.

Katelyn blinked a time or two before realizing the Leon was just kidding about giving her the Mustang, which was more than fine by her since she didn't even have her licence and doubtful she'd be able to get one anytime soon now, given her status as a runaway. She almost asks about who psycho-freak was, but decides to just wait and see.

At Leon's urging, Katelyn follows at the tail end of the foursome as he leads the way over to the car. She continues to hold her silence for a bit longer to listen with rapt attention as her now boss gives her a couple options as to possible homes. "I think I'll stick with you, figure that any feds that might come looking for me out this way would be less likely to try searching the junkyards."

When they reach the car, Katelyn finds her eyes widening slightly as she takes note of the damage to the hood and front bumper of the Mustang. "Holy shit.." The girl mutters as she comes to a brief stop to recover from the sight of blood splatter in the wiper trench. "You probably want to get me cleaned out of there before someone like a cop sees that shit." She adds with a bit of sick humor a moment later, but nonetheless not a bad idea.

She gets in the car, ending up in the backseat on the passenger side and still feeling the lingering remnants of her earlier dizziness, she leans against the inside of the door, trying to make herself comfortable and beginning to feel a bit fatigued as a side-effect of her very brief coma. She gives Leon a confused shrug when he mentions someone else called the Death Master, who while she had absolutely no idea who they even were and the tone of voice that Leon used, did not wholly make this guy sound like someone she particularly wanted to meet. "I don't know him, only been in the city for a few hours."

"Skills? Hmm..." She says after he asks, trailing off for a short couple moments as she thinks about the inquiry. "I can hotwire a car, but I don't really trust myself to try driving anymore. Kinda afraid if I panic over something that happens I could accidentally rip the steering wheel off. I'd survive even if it wrecked, but all that does hurt, yah know? Past that, uh.. well I'm a decent shot with small guns but with your no-kill policy, I'm not sure how much use that'll be.."

She pauses for a moment, suddenly feeling a desperate want for a cigarette. "Oh yeah, and I can lift about nine-hundred pounds... Hey, any of you guys got a smoke?" She finishes in a bit of a rush, suddenly feeling a bit less comfortable with sharing all her secrets.

Leon was listening to the girl speak as he drove the Mustang out of the warehouse. From the sounds of it she was already more useful than Lance. What grabbed his attention most of the skills, was the ability to life nine hundred pounds.

"Nine hundred pounds!?" Tobias spoke up, his eyes widening. He had ended up in the front seat with Lance on Leon's side in the back. The teenager was looking back at her with interest, the little scientist within him interested in this phenomenon, "How-I...Nine......are you an ant-woman?" he whispered in awe.

Leon was actually impressed that Tobias was dumbfounded to the point of being kicked from the science-talk for even a few seconds. The kid did not react the same way to Leon's abilities, but that was mostly because he was too busy cowering in fear as Leon burnt the people that jumped them to a mobile crisp.

The lady had requested a cigarette, something Leon lacked, and for pretty good reasons. He had attempted smoking once, it was not worth it. Touching the cigarette would always make it either erupt in flames or it would not last long enough for him to be able to enjoy it. He had given up on the 'comfort' that his previous friends often offered a long time ago. Now he just lit the cigarettes rather than smoked them.

"Ah, no we don't have any of those..."[/font] Leon spoke, "We don't have anybody that smokes in the Junkyard, so you're going to have to get those on your own or when we do something like bust a convenience store. Do you even know what city you're in by the way? How could you NOT know about that guy?"

"What kind of rock have you been living under?" A grumble came from Lance as he shot a sideways glare to Katelyn as if she might try to take his precious bottle.

Katelyn winced ever so slightly at the volume of the words that come from the kid in the front following the revelation of her strength level, as he turned and sputtered out a loud exclaimation of shock and likely disbelief that rang in her ears. Upon registering his question at the end, her eyes narrow and she throws a half-hearted glare at the boy who didn't seem to be much older than she was, or perhaps it was even the other way around and she was the elder.

"God, I hope not." She mutters under her breath before turning away to look out the window for a moment or two before Leon speaks again, letting her know that there weren't any cigarettes and she gives an accepting nod to having to wait a bit. Then he seems to get a bit rowdy with his words, and her gaze goes downcast for a moment as what he says makes it sound in her mind that he suddenly thought her stupid for not being aware of the Death Master or whatever his name was.

"I'm sorry." She apologizes without looking up. "Four days ago I was living over a thousand miles away from here, and I kind of had my own problems for a while before that. I basically got shoved out the backdoor with a few grand and a piece of paper with the name of this city on it, had to make it on my own all the way here to avoid the risk of getting picked up by the government for being different when the feds arrested half of my family." Katelyn then adds before letting her gaze move to stare out the window.