Baby, it's Cold Outside (Mega)

Of course the first snow in Jump City would be happening the week Case moved to the city. Worse yet, it was before he'd even decided on a permanent residence. That would be a problem, and fast. He needed a place to crash, or at least a place to steal from to pawn enough to get a motel. Point is, he needed to break into a place. That was easy. All there was now is picking one.

"And that house... is really calling to me."

He said to himself as he spotted the fancy looking house. A long driveway, but that just made this more of a challenge. In his mind, it was clearly the house of someone paranoid. He spotted several cameras and more than a few guards. Some even armed and in... the hell is that? A mech suit? Jesus, that's suspicious.

"But with the right backup, this should be a cinch."

Why was he talking to himself so much lately? That would have to stop. The guards were in the yard scrambling around a bit at the 4 hooded little... gremlins that seemed immune to all damage. The guards were more focused on ushering the bastards out of the yard. There wasn't much they could damage out there.

That's where Case came in. He spotted a coat rack inside the house and smirked a bit. There were four hats on it! Perfect. Now it was only a matter of seconds. Soon, the guards trying to herd the Steves would be surprised as they suddenly vanished, coats taking their place. Then a loud crashing sound from inside. The Steves had infiltrated the house!

In a few more seconds, a shingle would be swapped with Case himself and he'd be on the roof. He'd push open the window and step into the bedroom on the top floor. No cameras in a bedroom, usually.

AND YOU KNOW WHAT?- that was still true now. Case would find the bedroom very minimalist though, surprisingly unless you actually knew the owner. On the outside it looked like a wealthy enough home but the inside was so far a stark contrast to that after just getting through the window. There would be quite the clatter arising downstairs from The Steves Case had warped inside. It didn't know how it got there but there were big stinky meanies trying to catch them! So they did the only Stevable thing and ran away in their little poofy snowcoats. Were they Simple Steves or a Serious Steves? Well if they were Serious Steves, the guards would be coming down with 'snowball-to-the-face' syndrome. As in they would've been shot in the face by a high speed snowball.


Weaver meanwhile was in her living room, currently playing one of her Fighting Games on her massive television- yes this room had more personality than her own bedroom. Fortunately for the moment she also had headphones on, and was CURRENTLY blissfully unaware of the Steve running amok elsewhere in the house. Or the Steves outside pelting her guards with snowballs with reckless abandon.

As Case looked around the room, he frowned at the looks. Who lived here? A robot? He started rummaging around a bit, opening drawers and whatnot looking for valuables. There was almost nothing worthwhile, except for some lace underwear that made him wonder what the owner of the house looked like. Specifically in those panties.

Not the time.

He went to the door, pushing it open naught but an inch to peek out. Of course there was a camera in the hallway. He'd have to creatively solve that, unless he wanted a poster with his face on it. He went back to the drawer and grabbed the pair of panties he'd been fixated on before. With them in hand he went back to the door and looked at the camera. The lens was swapped with the panties in only a second or so as he kept his face in the shadows.

Why didn't I bring a mask, again?

Always forgetting the mask. Oh well. He stepped into the hallway and quickly found that this too was very spartan. He really picked the worst house on the block, it seemed. All this security and no goods. He ran his finger over the camera lens he swiped as he started walking through the house. The guards were busy with the Steves, so he could go downstairs and peek, right?

Or I can just cut losses... nah. There's gotta be something.

He stepped down the stairs and saw a girl playing video games on a GIANT television. Now this was possibly thief worthy... right? Before he had time to think, one of the Steves ran into the room like a chicken with it's head cut off.

"Shit."

Weaver was clearly playing the latest game from Dragon Ball Z. You might be wondering why when there was all of this vengeance and payback in store for DOMA after they started giving her gang a hard time, and it was precisely for that reason she was trying to "destress." She needed a clear mind to put to good use the resources she had on hand to ensure that she could limit the amount of potential loss. This was easier said than done though, as while she was playing, she couldn't help but feel like something wasn't right.

As if fate was rewarding her paranoia, a small creature dressed in a poofy light blue snowcoat and a white mask came barreling in at high speed- scrambling over her cofee table and knocking everything out as one of her guards inside was in hot pursuit. Her eyes widened as another creature ran by the foot of the stairs into the room next. Well, that meant bad things for Case if he was STILL on the stairs as the running footsteps of another guard was hot on the Steve's heels. Weaver removed her headphones and considered the... humiliating sight of her guards literally chasing around these tiny, useless creatures only to fail as they pulled off cartoon inspired escapes. When one got to close, she casually reached out and grabbed ahold of the back of it's head and picked it up with zero effort. The Steve made panicked Steve sounds and flailed around hopelessly. "Why are there tresspassers on my property?" She demanded with forced calm as the other Steve in the room ran back the way it came passed the stairs, leaving it's buddy literally hanging.

"We uh... don't know," one of the guards said sincerely, not even bothering to try and make an excuse to try and save face. It was just not going to help him at all as Weaver handed him the Steve and pointed toward the door before she got to her feet. If they broke anything, her home security was going to have several job openings in the morning...

Case was quick minded enough to head back from the stairs as the Steve came running by. He heard the woman lecturing the guards and for a moment the mental image of her in that underwear appeared in his mind and he took a moment to enjoy that. Naturally that led to the image of her OUT of those panties. That was even better, really.

Focus! This could end badly!

Right. It could. Those guys were armed and the lady seemed unforgiving. He'd definitely be chased out of here if he was spotted. Or worse, but he was confident in his abilities. He looked back into the room as Weaver was starting to get up. God that - no! Not again. He held the camera lens in his palm for a second and looked at the controller on the couch. A few seconds later, they switched spots and he was holding the controller to the game.

Could probably pawn this at least? This house sucks.

Well, some high school nerd would be happy to get a deal on this at least. He went upstairs, planning on searing a bit up there before leaving the way he came in... but he failed to realize that the gaming console announced that the controller was out of range. Practically saying that it was being taken out. Hopefully not prompting a house search.

And that would be his ill-fated mistake! Weaver had been about to go deal with whatever Steves were still running amok in her home when the console did make that distinct "out of range" sound. After confirming that another Steve hadn't somehow slipped by to take it, she found a camera lense where her controller had been. Removing a camera lense meant trying to avoid being seen, which based on the fact these creatures were just running around they couldn't be the culprit- how'd they even get in here at all? No, someone else was here and for some strange but still irritating reason, they had taken her controller... and vandalized one of her cameras. Reaching down beneath the couch she'd been sitting on, she pulled out a handgun that had been taped to the underside- she actually had a few of these little hiding places throughout the house just incase of situations just like this where her guards were useless to her- what do you mean why have guards at all? It's called a backup plan.

And yes, with as much gaming as she did, she did have a good idea about how far the controller was- assuming they were still in her home. After switching the safety off, she would catch a guard chasing a Steve. "Tell everyone we have a thief- ignore the pests. Everyone outside should be on high alert and everyone inside is to search the house. Now," she said firmly as she would start her search upstairs, the guard reaching his headset and passing on the orders. The guards outside would then try to ignore the annoyances of the Steves and turn their attention back toward the house while the ones inside would begin searching on the ground floor. The Steves now free of being chased would... try to find something else to do.

Upstairs, Case was in a different room. It looked like a guest bedroom or something, but keeping in line with the rest of the house it was sparse and barren. How annoying. He had no idea that the house was on guard now. If he did he might have been a bit faster in his search. In the bathroom, he found an electric toothbrush that looked expensive. Was that resellable? Probably not.

When Weaver came upstairs, she'd probably notice that her camera had a pair of her panties stuffed where the camera was supposed to be. What strange and specific vandalism. With a bit more of a search, if she was being sneaky she'd probably catch the intruder in her bathroom, looking in the mirror and fixing his hair.

Really a master criminal. The controller was on the counter.

Sneaky was part of her more criminal lifestyle as she noticed what had been done to her camera. First there was cold seething anger at the fact it was her panties, and that someone had touched AND seen them- then confusion as to why it was there at all. She noted the light from the bathroom and pushed the questions to the side for the moment as she quietly made her way closer. Once she knew where he was, she did a quick surface "scan" of his brain and... was only further irritated. So much so infact that a vein was actually throbbing slightly in her head as she raised her pistol up and moved into view with it aimed at him. "Don't. Move," she said simply, her tone not conveying the seething rage of her piercing eyes. There was a good chance that this guy was a meta, though she'd deal with that when she came to it.

Case jumped a bit when he hear the words, looking over to the cute lady pointing a gun at him. Well... that's not good at all. He held his hands up and took a half step back. Well, this was about as bad as things could go. He knew the girl had an attitude, but he'd try his hand anyway. He could be charming when he tried... well, at least he thought so.

"Woah there. Is that thing real? Let's all take a second here, aye? My name's Cason, you can call me Case."

He smiled a bit. She wasn't much older than him, and that was reassuring. How many teenagers were ready to shoot a person?

"Clearly I've come to the wrong house here. Couldn't read the address with all the snow is all. I can just go about my day and we can pretend that none of this happened, yeah?"

An obvious lie, for sure. Weaver had plenty of security and he clearly intentionally avoided it. Nobody could accidentally get into this house unnoticed.

Weaver immediately considered firing a warning shot... or shooting him in the arm... or the leg- gut shots were nonlethal right? The former issue would be that she didn't want to pay for fixing the wall- even if it WAS insignificant. That would also alert her guards, which were useless in trying to chase down what may as well been christmas elves... or goblins. If he was a meta which was was willing to consider betting money on, they'd probably be even more useless. "You're one sentence from being shot for breaking into my home, and touching my underwear," she warned him icily- the fact she mentioned it at all was already bad enough in her mind and she really wanted to shoot him for that fact alone.

The sentence did little to put Case at ease. She was a legitimate crazy person, it seemed. Just whose house did he break into? A random upper class psycho, or was this like Gotham where he pissed in Two Faces cheerios and earned himself a lifetime enemy? Either way, this situation was going to devolve to violence soon unless he talked his way out of this.

"You noticed that, huh? I swear it was nothing perverse! Just needed 'em for an old switcheroo."

He laughed lightheartedly, despite the situation, then decided to just wing it and go with his gut. His instinct was to talk, really.

"Gotta say, really strange someone in a house like this would come investigate the bump in the night on their own with a gun. What's all that security for anyway? You know, if you shot me here, you'd probably alert the neighbors. They'd call someone and the cops would be poking around quickly. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would wonder why you have all this security and nothing valuable... and more curiously a gun, and a need for justice... they'd look into it."

He reasoned quickly. He prayed the woman had something to hide. She had to, right? No way she hired guns to protect the nothing she had here. They were either there to protect her, or she was paranoid.

"Not to mention, California isn't a stand your ground state. You'd get time for shooting me."

Unfortunately for Case, it was both! Even before she took over her father's criminal empire and legitimate businesses, people were always looking to have some of what she had. It was only after the fact and self reflection that she noticed how people treated her in hopes they'd earn what was rightfully hers. That side, the only reason she hadn't shot him yet was purely because he had said something which started to explain why her camera was vandalized in such a weird manner- she still didn't know about the coat rack or if those things were related to him, apparently they had started popping up all over but she only had heresay to go off of. "There are companies which produce and supply companies with security drones. I'll be fine," she said flatly, silently enjoying the squirming concern coming from Case. It almost made up for the underwear.

Really, by this point he should've definitely considered the gravity of his situation. Clearly someone who had the money to hire guards was not someone whose house you should break into. Unfortunately with what he said a moment ago, she didn't think she was going to actually keep him from getting away without likewise revealing what she was. Actually she was banking on that at this point. "Unless you have something useful to tell me, I think I'll call the guards now," she added seriously.

Diplomacy seemed to fail here. Well, you win some you lose some right? Case would shrug at the threat, not really having anymore he could add to this to make it seem better. Instead, he looked between the gun and the controller as if he was deep in thought. "I guess all I gotta say lady, is it was a real pleasure meeting you. Thanks for letting me watch the house."

Then the gun would be on the table and the controller in her hand. Case would run towards her, but vanish himself and appear a few feet behind her.

"And I love your choice in underwear!"

He said simply as he ran to the window. It was time for the great escape.

Out of the possibilities that he would try to escape, even with her being able to sense his surface thoughts, it was still surprising to see in action when it finally did happen. Then he mentioned her underwear again, and she went to grab the gun before running after him toward the window. Fortunately she didn't need to strain her voice, as per her orders the ones outside had turned their attention back toward the house once the troublesome Steves got bored of pestering them. So he'd have some of them to deal with as she would reach the window, getting ready to take a potshot or two at him if she still could see him. He really should learn to keep that stuff out of mind in the first place.


Meanwhile... The Steves inside would be bored and rummaging through her fridge for snacks. The thieving little monsters! This was vital to the plot, I assure you.