Location: Unfinished L.E.A.P* , London, England, UK.  

---

Zack’s fingers were straining to retain its grip as he muscle-uped* his way off the ledge and onto the roof of the fake  building.  He rolled a couple of inches closer to the center before getting off and brushing himself off.

It was only because Zack was an ACME agent that the owner of L.E.A.P. allowed him to used the already finished portion of the park for his training.   Also, the owner was an old acquaintance of his, and knowing that Zack had taken a serious interest in parkour and owed him one, he was more than happy to allow the younger half of the Monaghan duo some time in the park.

Zack’s palms were getting sweaty, he had been at the park for hours and his breathing was starting to become slightly laboured.  He looked at himself, his white shirt and blue shorts full of dust. His bare feet were starting to turn red and raw from all the training he was doing. Zack glanced at this next destination - another rooftop, thirty feet away, and ten feet higher.

He walked over to the center of the rooftop that he was on and closed his eyes and concentrated on his primary target.  He allowed himself to imagine himself easily getting onto the rooftop with a cat leap.

When he opened his eyes, they were focused, and his body acted in a single fluid motion. Within seconds, his feet had kicked off of the ledge. His lower legs were slightly bent  and his hands were in a claw- like position. His feet hit the wall first, absorbing the impact while his hands caught the ledge.  He pulled himself up onto the second rooftop.

Success.

He smiled and sighed happily before commencing his decent. Fortunately for him, there were three consecutive artificial rooftops dropping about ten to fifteen feet in between each, and there were no gaps.  Zack walked up to the ledge that was adjacent to the first of the three rooftops, and propelled his body over the ledge, while still gripping on to it. Once he stabilized himself, he safely dropped to the rooftop, and did falling roll upon impact. He repeated this until he was on the ground.


Then he heard something.  It was a familiar,  and absolutely torturous.

♪♫ “7am waking up in the morning, gotta get dressed gotta go downstairs. ” ♪♫

Zack’s left eye began to twitch. This was one of the few songs that he couldn’t stand, and he needed to stop the source of the music, and fast.  His eyes followed what his ears heard and saw at the tallest usable rooftop, a flashing light.  

“That’s weird... there was no one else here but me...”, he murmered to himself, “It’s probably a cell phone... whomever made that their ringtone needs some new taste in music...”

Getting there was not all that simple.  With just using some muscle-ups and cat jumps, he was able to get back to the second highest rooftop - the one he had cat jumped onto earlier.  He faced the tallest rooftop, which was only another ten or so feet higher, yet it was at least triple that in distance.  Fortunatley, there was a smaller roof top, halfway in distance and only five feet higher than his current height.

Zack cracked his knuckles.

“Time to be a Cat and King Kong this.”

He backed as far as back as possible and ran forward and propelled himself off of the ledge.

♪♫ “It’s Friday, Friday, Gotta get down on Friday!” ♪♫

With a safe cat leap to the middle platform, he pulled himself upward slightly differently.  He actually propelled himself slightly higher so when he landed on the smaller rooftop, he was able to quickly run and propel himself again while still on all fours, before landing another successful Cat Jump on the highest ledge.  He pushed himself up with a Muscle-Up.

♪♫ “Yesterday was Thursday... Tomorrow is Friday (Friday) We, we so excited.”♪♫  

When Zack looked up, he glared at the source of the noise, it was a simple Nokia Bar phone.  He picked it up and hit the red button on it, killing the song that had been causing him to come up here.  On the lock screen, it had a pop up with a little envelope saying:

“1 New Message.”

He looked around the rooftop, there was no evidence of someone else being present.  He shrugged and unlocked the phone with ease and read the message:

FROM: OXIDE

"Assemble small team; get to Panama.  Further briefing en-route."

Then the phone just shut off.  The battery mustn’t have been too charged, and playing Rebecca Black’s single probably drained the battery.

The traceur*** in training thought about what just had happened.  While it wasn’t like Euge to normally do something like this, it could easily have been him. Plus, only him, and Tanya knew where he was.

Zack pocketed the phone and looked at the path that he came.

He’ll ask Euge some questions later.  Right now, he was off to Panama.

---

*London Experience of Art du deplacement and Parkour
** Muscle-Up - when handing onto a ledge, doing a push up motion to propel yourself onto the ledge. Always followed after a cat jump.
*** Traceur - one who does Parkour.

-- This is a collab with Chase and Myself via Email. Permission was granted by both parties for it to be posted here.--

After having met up with Ivy, Chase Devineaux made his way towards his office, a small stop before heading out to meet Eugene Grovington and the 777 bound for Luxembourg. There were things to navigate around today, everything from minor bumps to big bends on the road. He strategized how he might get answers from Missy Wayward without damaging her career--which was still bright as far as he could see--but every wave of thought was clouded by the image of a woman and her caramel skirt in his leather chair. She had somehow managed to taint his office, and while walking down the halls of ACME, he began to ponder why that doesn't bother him.

A familiar sound echoed into Zack’s ears as he sped down a nearby hill outside of ACME Headquaters in San Francisco. The sound of his turning red Spitfire wheels on the pavement plastered a smile of joy on his face as he travelled down the hill. He weaved through the crowd “expertly”: he spilled peoples’ coffee and had their papers gain altitude. Zack got yelled as a response to his trick.

After making a sudden sharp turn in an open space, his hands pushed the glass and he went through ACME’s revolving doors. He slowed down his speed. When he looked into the building he hadn’t been in for the past couple of years, his eyes locked onto something that your average late teenage male would see: the short skirts of ACME’s receptionist. A softer faint smile formed on Zack’s lips as he eyed the receptionist’s new attire.

Unfortunately, he did not realize that he had not come to a standstill. While he was staring at one of the receptionist on break talking to the one on duty when his vision was suddenly blurred by the collision of him and another person. Zack fell to the floor and his skateboard silently continued on and gently hit the desk right beside the woman on break.

All it took was a step on the skateboard that sent the off duty employee flying forward and she collapsed on top of the receptionist on duty. While she was flying, she hit the computer monitor and it crashed to the floor as well and caught on fire- so did the desk. The fire sprinklers began automatically at the first sign of smoke, and anyone on the main floor within a fifty food radius got a cold, cold shower.

Zack was not even in the building 30 seconds and he already caused enough damage that would cost him his tuition for the next year. He caught the flying skateboard as he got up so it wouldn’t hit the person he collided with. When he finally got a view of the other’s face, his eyes widened.

He had collided with Chase.

“Great…”

Devineaux had seen the disturbance and braced himself. The impact moved him a few steps back, but left him numb, an affect that magnified with the downpour. In seconds, the sprinklers turned off after dousing the small fire, and the receptionists regained their footing. Chase studied the area's damage, and then turned his attention to the skateboarding catalyst. Recognition came eventually.

It was Zack, Ivy's younger sibling. Devineaux met the young detective in Moscow, while returning the Tsar Bell--a recent Sarah Nade case. Realizing that this person wasn't his problem somehow made things better.

"Russia was great. I got some good air at Adrenalin on the half pipe and Tatyana and I hung out a lot. The Russian Office though is too cold- they have their AC on way too much!"

"Believe it or not, things are generally quiet," Chase said plainly, taking the elevator. "Your sister came back from Hong Kong only weeks ago, and so far, she's been keeping herself busy.

"There could be an international case coming up," he continued, "I'll let you know as soon as we need a linguist in the field."

"An international case? Sounds interesting."

On the floor of the gym, he held the door for Zack. "Ivy should be finishing up in Room C -- Good luck surprising her."

"Keep me updated- I could also just be put in the field, I'm a lot stronger now." He exited and waved thanks to Chase Devineaux before heading towards Room C to surprise Ivy.