It was already almost dark when Marcus made it back to the prect, and judging that it was already quite some time after his normal off-work hours, he just decided to leave a quiote on his monitor and make a mark on his dar. But before he could finish his note, he saw Detective Shrevas Pahaik esc a young woman into the prect.

  “What happened?” Maroticed that Shrevas seemed quite upset and frustrated, so he decided to go over and ask.

  “Theft. Petty theft, most likely.” Shrevas shook his head: “A rather clumsy o that. The victim insisted that she be prosecuted, so I had t her in.”

  “What’d she steal?” Marodded, he could uand Shrevas’ frustration, he was the lead in the iigation of the murder of the emergency repair team, and dealing with this would just be nothing but a giant waste of his time.

  “She was accused of stealing a pouch of talismans from a giant turd of a clergyman.” The young woman rolled her eyes and said: “Stop talking as if I’m not here.”

  “So you admitted it?” Marcus rubbed his own temples.

  “No I didn’t, I was just guessing what Detective Tight-ass here was about to say.” The young woman scoffed: “e on man, I haven’t got all day!”

  “ you keep an eye on her while I go in and log a few things? Should be around twenty minutes.” Shrevas looked to Marcus while cuffing the young woman to his desk, his eyes full of weariness and numbness from overw: “I know you o go bad take care - ”

  “That’s fiake your time.” Marcus waved his hand: “The neighbors will take care of him.”

  “Thanks.” Shrevas nodded and rushed to the evidens.

  Marcus pulled a chair over and sat beside Shervas’ desk, then opened his notes while still paying some attention to this young woman with an attitude. There was something different about her, though her attire and general demeanor were somewhat generid even cliche’ - she had natural bck hair, with several locks dyed with the colors of blue, purple and golden; she was wearing some cheap eyeliner, a slightly torn vas jacket, a pair of old jeans and a pair of cloth ft boots. There seemed to be very faint traces of energy radiating from her, which piqued the i of Marcus. For some reason, Marcus had the feeling that her crass attitude and her somewhat obnoxious behavior had a of pretense.

  The young woman also seemed to have bee somewhat ied in Marcus, as her eyesight lingered on Marcus a up and down a few times, but in an examining and iing kind of way.

  “Do you work out, cop?” The young woman asked.

  “No.” Marcus shook his head.

  “Why deny it, those arms don’t lie.” The young woman giggled and leaned forward: “Tell me, what a girl do to get out of here?”

  “Sign a fession.” Marcus shrugged: “Or ask the victim of your crime tive you and save us the paperwork. It’s petty theft, if you don’t have a record it’s likely just a fine. Even if you do, you probably would just get a few days in a detentioer.”

  “Tsk, people don’t always do things for money.” The young woman id ba her chair.

  “Then what’s a pouch of talismans worth?” Marcus grabbed a notepad from Shrevas’ desk and asked.

  “Nothing - ” The young woman shrugged and scoffed: “To that fat toad of clergyman at least. Those talismahe collective work of the unity, he lives iemple so he has nothing to worry about. But the unity is in need of it, especially - ” She stopped before she would speak too mud implicate herself more.

  “Go on, I’m listening.” Marcus smiled as he wrote down notes oepad.

  “You pigs are all the same.” The young woman snorted and crossed her arms.

  “Okay, let’s start over then.” Marcus also sat bad put on a rexed ale face: “What’s your name?”

  “Gloria Lee.”

  “Age?”

  “28 - but be a dear and mark me down for 26, 25.”

  “Home address?”

  “I live in the uered area of South-Eastern District, I could take you there for a trip but ’t tell you the street number.” Gloria Lee spoke with a smirk: “So, yeah, no address for ya.”

  “Alright.” Marcus shook his head, he knew full well the troublesome process he or Shrevas would o gh should he really would like to process this young woman: “Why’d you steal from the clergyman?”

  “I didn’t steal from him. But if someone did, that bastard had it ing.”

  “Alright, alright. ” Marcus sighed and put dowepad: “You know, if the clergyman insisted on you being prosecuted, there was not much we could dht? A clergyman and his influences - ”

  “Oh, I know, trust me.” Gloria nodded: “He likes to remind everyone of that everyday, like he’s got something to pensate for.”

  “Alright, and I will go a a cup of coffee. And you keep in mind that the petty theft still be a pain in the ass if you’ve got priors AND the victim expressed s about the object being stolen.” Marcus stood up and walked towards the kit area, which was just at the back of Shrevas’ desk: “Trust me, I thiive Pahaik would agree with me on this - if the victim insisted, then it’s better if you’d just sign a fession and deal with the fine.”

  “Eh, pass. ” Gloria waved her right hand in front of her face like she was shooing off a fly: “But you enjoy your coffee, okay? Be sure you don’t lose any sleep tonight.”

  Marcus walked towards the kit and poured the st bit of coffee ihermal pot into his mug. But just during this brief moment where he did not have his eyes on Gloria, he heard the sound of something jingling, and then the sound of the metal s on handcuffs being loosened falling onto the ground.

  He immediately turned back, and found that Gloria, the young woman whom Shervas asked him to keep an eye on, had somehow uncuffed herself and goside of the prect door with some dots rolled up in her hand.

  “Shit!” Marcus cursed as he leapt through the room and rushed after Gloria, his Qi speeding up inside his meridians, greatly increasing the level of power he could exert through his muscles and bohus boosting his speed and momentum in his chase.

  But it seemed that Marcus was not the only oh their own special skills - Gloria, upon seeing the speed of Marcus’ charge, immediately jumped onto a tree on the side of the street and nded on a bran all fours. Something coated her exposed skin, making her whole body seem darker with a glimmer of dark blue glow.

  “Stht there!” Marcus stomped his legs on the ground and unched himself up at the tree. His movement was much less graceful a several degrees more forceful and violent. The leaves and small branches oree were blown to the side from the gush of wind ing from his lunge, and Gloria could see a faint e glow ing from Marcus’ pupils and arms.

  Several branches around Gloria were torn a into the air when Marcus tried to grab her. But she had already leapt off the bigger bran which she was standing when this happened, and with a short string of after images, her figure nded on the far side of the empty street, aiming for a narrow and dark alley.

  Marcus kicked the poor tree, leaving a gia on its trunk and ung him at Gloria once again. This time, Gloria chose to fight back aside from evading Marcus - when Marcus got into the alley and the envirourned dark all of a sudden because of the ck of light sourside, she turned around right after hopping onto a metal dumpster and unched a handful of small hard wood pellets at Marcus.

  These hard wood pellets were not too dense, and were mostly rounded without any sharp ers, which gave Maro difficulty in blog most of them just with his arms and taking the rest with his forehead and chest. The pellets cracked and burst when they came into tact with him, some pieces of which flew off and tore up little holes on his clothes. And it was at this moment that Marcus realized what felt special about this young woman Gloria - she must be another martial arts practitioner, not just because of her almost superhuman cat-like maneuvers, but also because he felt the presence of Qi in these wood pellets. This was a different kind of Qi from his - his Qi had some elemental properties of fire ah, which meant that his Qi was “warm” and “strong”, a more “Yang” kind of Qi; while the Qi of Gloria was “cool” and “soft”, a more “Yin” kind.

  With this realization, Marcus immediately pushed his Qi harder, used the wall oher side as a stepping stone and lu his target trying to catch her oop of the wall on which she was now standing, with his right hand forward in a cw position and his left retreated and ready for a follow-up attack.

  Though Marcus was quite fident in his speed, his defenses and his refle that he could take down Gloria without res to using too much force, he was still careful about fag off against this young woman of unknown martial arts style. Thus, whe to a closer distance, he immediately pushed his left arm forward areated his right arm. His fingers, infused with his Qi, mao grab the ers of some of the files in Gloria’s arm.

  But the moment, Gloria’s back arched like a cat, her lower body slid slightly to her left and unleashed several kicks in rapid succession. The kided on Marcus’ forehead, his left and his chest, which, though not causing him much pain if at all, did knock him off band make him fall off the wall.

  With the pulling from both Marcus and Gloria, the rolled up files were immediately torn, and Marcus got only the smaller pieces of them.

  Gloria’s body was elevated up in the air riding the refle force of the kicks, and with her right hand grabbing onto the edge of a roof and pulling up, she mao hop onto the roof of a two-storey building.

  She took a quick look at the damaged roll of files in her hand, and after a short moment of hesitation, she said to Marcus: “It’s almost 15 years - you better watch out, not just for yourself.”

  Before Marcus could ask her why, Gloria left without anything more.