#lockpicklupin

Usually for worse.

Most of the town looks like it’s been looted by now, to little surprise. With no electricity or running water and with the ugly noises of monsters in the near distance, it’s only a matter of time before everyone would have to become a thief just to get by. Stepping through the broken window of a shop nearby the apartments, she finds that this particular place isn’t too different from the rest at all. Maybe there weren’t any monsters here, but as she scours through half-empty shelves for something left that might be valuable or necessary, she can practically feel eyes on her from a monster of a different sort. 

“Sorry to break it to you, but this room’s taken. There’s a perfectly good gas station next door, if you want to scrounge around somewhere else.” A smile crosses her lips, but she doesn’t take a glance back behind her for even a second.

     Gyro waves an arm to get Lupin the III’s attention, jogging over to where the other man was standing. When he catches up he takes a quick breather, panting after his run-in with those monsters near the Pit...those things had been nothing like any sort of beast he’d learned about during his schooling. And that was just one of the unexplained mysteries Gyro had half a mind to grill someone about. One of the others weighing heavily on his mind being the thin rectangular slab he’d found in his pocket. One side was smooth and reflective, like a really darkened mirror---obsidian maybe?

      It was a wonder what brought the mutant known as Gambit here. The city being restored certainly sparked his curiosity with the place, wanting to find more and more out about it and the people inside of it. A bar was the perfect place to start--- or perhaps the idea of a good drink lured him in. Bad habits were hard to shake, weren’t they? The cigarette stuck between his lips certainly said all it needed to in that regard.

      He managed to snag a pack of cards somewhere along the way, pulling them from his trench coat and placing them on the counter next to him-- no real reason besides something to quell the itching in his fingers, the need to move them. Or perhaps just to occupy himself with a game of solitaire as he tried to eavesdrop on any of the nearby conversations. He just wanted to figure more out about this place. What were the big hits, if there was a point to bringing his... Services here, or if he should just try to call it quits on the thief thing. But that was a joke, wasn’t it? The idea of leaving his thieving life behind--- he already tried that.

      The man quickly knocks back the Bourbon he had ordered, wanting to feel the burn and whatever buzz he could get out of it, placing the glass aside to wait on ordering another, picking up the cards.

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@lockpicklupin

Now that the city was back to normal- as were most people’s powers and any other abilities- By all accounts things had gotten DULL. Sure there were things around, flashy lights, weird people walking around in even weirder suits.

What good was it to have all these potential victims, all this stuff if he couldn’t do anything with it?? He needed something . . . Maybe Someone to ease this boredom- but who?

He drifts far above the city for the moment, he can easily recognize various citizens even from this high up. None of them are quite the right fit. . . Not quite what he needs right now. He’s tempted to just stay in the air and wait for his powers to run out- maybe death would cure his boredom.

Then there it is, a somewhat familiar head, black hair, decent looking- as far as mortals go. Hadn’t he been a volunteer for one of his ‘classes’? How fitting, he was currently drifting over one of those ‘red light districts’. Why humans needed to separate areas like that in the first place . . .

As elegant as ever the archangel drops from the sky in a matter of seconds, floating just a moment above the ground before his wings return to his body- no more sound than a slight tap as he touches down only a few feet behind him.

Nora wasn’t any good at it, of course. She was mostly shit at the math aspect, and had already drunk herself into half a stupor. But gambling was equally as much manipulation as it was math--understanding your opponents, reading their moves, goading them into making the moves that benefited you the most--and Nora was good at that much, at least. She was also good at the other thing, where you didn’t care if you won or lost. And that made her dangerous.

So it was that she ended up in a Blackjack deadlock against an opponent she didn’t know to be wary of.

“Come on, hit me, hit me,” she slurred, 7 showing, 10 hidden. She ate a french fry. “Do it. I want you to. He~y. Make it a 4, kay? This guy’s getting on my nerves. Let’s show him who’s boss!”

She elbowed the dealer, waggling her eyebrows at the thief across the table. 

With the city seemingly returned to some level of former glory before people arrived here, people were quick to back into stabilized routine life.

Like being in a smoke hazed bar. Betting some dust, stars or other valuables. At the skill of playing cards.

And what so happens on one of such tables, a generous pile of such had already been stacked up. The four gentlemen sitting at the table playing poker let a moment of silence hang over time as they valued their hands.

One of the men, wearing a breastplate, having his hair dropped in front of the right side of his face and a cigarette in his mouth, taps the table. 

“Call.” he says in a relaxed voice, raising his stake to match the current bet amount with a few dust chips.