What a cool night - Duncan & Roger

"Nothing to tell on my part. I'm guessing you already heard bout the car chase from earlier. And I'm willing to bet the word has already gotten out about the fight at Fight Club tonight. But anyone with balls enough to come sashaying in here with a blade like that has my attention."

I looked over at Duncan and scanned him from head to toe in a poor attempt to detect where his piece was hiding. I found it odd that one second he was telling me about the poor weather and not fitting in with the locals from his hometown and now he was telling a slightly different version. Maybe it was nerves from someone calling him out in the open like that, or maybe he was just really bad at covering his tracks. Not wanting to be humiliated by wrong assumptions I watched as the two introduced themselves.

Duncan tried not to look a little shaken by the man's question. At least this guy was good enough to call him out openly. He looked at his options. 'I can't insult the guy's intelligence. But if anyone runs a background check, they're not going to find a pseudonym in police files. I guess I wouldn't be the first Kindred to use a false name though. Hell with it.'

He smiled and shook his head when he realized he really did a lousy job of hiding his old habits. "Awe, was it the navy coat that gave me away, or the piece? I guess that makes two of us who have a sharp eye. I'm Duncan, and I was just explaining to Ember here that I moved here because I needed some breathing room." 'There. A nice answer that says next to nothing. I'll probably have to give them something sooner or later if I'm going to get any friends here. And for all I know, this guy's the Sheriff. But I'm not about to spill my guts to someone who hasn't even introduced himself yet. This guy's sharp, he'd probably get the point.' "What's your name?"

While the two of you played your caged game of cat and mouse that led both of you to inevitable boredom and dry nights. Other kindred had things to do, associates meet, enemies to pester, and hearts to break. One of the other kindred who had been eyeballing you both the whole time spit on the ground and then pushed himself away from the conversation he was having with someone else. He made direct eye contact with Duncan, then Ember, and then finally power walked to your position.

The whole time he moved, he kept his hand on the hilt of a knife on his belt. "Don't think I'm right familiar with neither you two folk. Heard ya both got stories. You'n'n particular." He glanced at Ember.

"But it's you I'm more'n'n a little stuck on. Why is it you come here from New York or wherever you said you was from lookin' like you're a detective detecting stuff?" The big guy in a brown shirt and khakis looked down at Duncan as he finished.

He shrugged. "Maybe I like to fight. I'm sure I wouldn't be the first Kindred who makes a fool out of people who judge too quickly." He let that sit for a moment, then added "I once met a Neonate brat who had power over shadows usually reserved for Elders. Why would you go?"

I blinked at him with a total confused look on my face, "You want to go to Fight Club? Are you serious? Why in the world would you want to be thrown into the mix of the possibility of getting your ass handed to you?" His other information I was filing away. So far he was giving me some interesting facts about him. Still just because he was giving up information to me didn't mean I had to give information back to him.

Duncan looked a little confused. "Sorry if that was too personal. Should I be avoiding that though, or skipping the pleasantries? Not sure it works both ways." He paced a little bit and then faced you again. "Well, the smalltalk answer is that I'm here for the weather and the nightlife. It was always raining where I use to live. The real answer is that's only half the reason. The other half is, I didn't really get along with the locals. And the impersonal answer is, suffice to say I've learned from my mistakes and am looking for a good excuse to win some friends here. That fight club case sounded possibility." He paused there and waited for her turn to be cagey.

I looked about the room and wondered to myself exactly how many of these people I could trust. Answer... not a damn one of them. At least not for now. I hadn't been in town for more then a week and already my name was being mentioned. This could be both good and very bad. Good in the sense that it helped build myself a name, very bad for exactly the same reason. Yeah the walls were coming up and the cynic in me was about to come out.

"You ask some of the most personal questions of someone you barely know Duncan. How's about we skip the small talk of pleasantries of just be real." I cocked my head to one side sending my hair down over a well exposed shoulder. "So, what brings you to the west coast? I'm guessing it isn't for the glorious tan jobs on the beach."

'It's hard enough pressing someone for info when you have a badge. It's even harder when the badge is something to hide', he thought. Duncan went around collecting as many pieces of the picture as he could, without giving off that old vibe that makes this kind of crowd a little less welcoming. But it quickly became apparent that either no one knew anything, or no one knew him well enough to say anything. 'It's hard to get someone to open up when they have no reason to trust you. Catch 22.'

At the very least though, getting to meet two of LA's most notable Kindred in person was worth the trip. He made sure the Kingpin knew he was willing to lend a hand. For now, he just found himself in a room with someone new enough to have as much reason to want to prove herself to the locals as he does. So he decided to switch gears and get to know a potential ally

'Ember, right? Are you from an Anarch town, or Camarilla? I'm still getting my bearings here. Compared to home, this seems so relaxed.'

It was just after the initial briefing with the Kingpin and Edge and the other kindred in the makeshift elysium, but it sure seemed like it took forever to get out of repeating the same answers to the same questions just worded differently. The general consensus was that somebody at Fight Club had tipped off the police, but for the moment things were going to be handled by the Kingpin. Once things started breaking up, or at least went back to mingling in small groups, Sean found himself sucked into a game of pool downstairs while Erin got a call or two.

That left the two of you, new in town, in a strange Elysium, ready to not introduce yourselves to people wanting to ask a million and three questions...