Old/new pad (katsuo)

Katsuo had always found that manual labor or at least something physically strenuous helped him think. It cleared the mind in his case and pushed all unnecessary thoughts away to allow him to focus on the task at hand. He and Kyoko had only gotten the apartment building back a few days ago, with Kyoko herself staying behind in the Underground for most of that time squaring away her set up in preparation for the move. Katsuo had taken that time to scout ahead so to speak. He knew that Kyoko already had claim to the entire top floor of the complex, as was her right he supposed, so Katsuo saw no reason to leave the floor directly below her to go to waist. The initial clean-up had taken the better part of the day on it's own, not exactly glamorous work, but necessary all the same. Then came the real work. 

A quick stop at a local hardware store and one fully laden van latter, all thanks to Thunder-Duds credit card of course, Katsuo had all the tools he needed to start tearing the place apart, ready for some serious refits. What had once been a floor of individual dwellings was now much, much more open, in some places at least. For now Katsuo had to leave a fair number of undesired walls standing until he could brace the area in other places. The approach from the elevator itself was still relatively untouched, it served as a near perfect funnel for any would be invaders. Other than that though things had changed drastically. Kyoko had given Katsuo free reign to take whatever he needed from the Underground to help and he had been all too happy to take anything not bolted down. A number of silent running generators dominated a far corner of the space, supplying power to the myriad appliances and electronics that Katsuo had seen fit to install. 

One of the remaining rooms had been retrofitted into a security hub for the building, it's space taken up mostly by a large bank of monitors that displayed feeds from all throughout the building that Katsuo had installed. Many residents had been hesitant to allow him to do so, but it wasn't an issue a little intimidation couldn't solve. He had also converted a few rooms into essentially a command center, a large illuminated table sat in the middle of the space, hooked into a bank of computers that Katsuo hoped Kyoko hadn't needed by way of numerous thick bundled cables. Though the entirety of the floor hadn't been turned over to more practical necessities. The remaining space was more dust and ruble at this point but Katsuo had more than a few plans. The last few years he had been living in rather...disappointing conditions. This place presented an opportunity for him to finally make a space his own, just how he wanted it, and he was going to take every opportunity he could.

In his pocket his phone vibrated softly, it seemed Kyoko had gotten his message and was on her way down. At the moment he was only wearing pants and boots, his torso covered in dust and dry wall, so he quickly ducked into one of the few remaining rooms that served as his bedroom, dusted himself off quickly and threw on a loose fitting singlet. When he emerged Kyoko was already knocking on the door, a door that when she wrapped her knuckles against it pushed itself out of it's housing and fell to the floor with a dull thud. Katsuo stood and stared at both it and Kyoko for a brief moment before shrugging his shoulders. 

"Eh, I was going to get rid of that anyway. Saves me some time I suppose." he said in greeting before Kyoko commented on just how busy it seemed he had been. 

"Pretty much. This place needed, and still needs, plenty of work to meet my standards. Oh, those stairs your came down on are getting axed as well. The stairwell will end the floor below us." he explained. He wanted the top two floors of this building to be as secure as possible. A stairwell was much easier to simply remove all together than it was to fortify and secure to Katsuo's standards. 

"But thanks for coming, got something I need your opinion on." he said, his tone more subdued than normal, something Kyoko would undoubtedly pick up on, she just knew him far too well. He waved her to follow him and made his way to the 'Command Center', brushing a thin layer of dust off of the illuminated table. A brief moment passed where the screen that made up the tables surface booted up, streams of code flickered across it's surface as the program booted up. 

"You've asked a few times now what actually happened all those years ago," Katsuo began, not making eye contact with Kyoko just yet, "about why I suddenly dropped off the radar and, well, left you alone." he said, finally meeting Kyoko's gaze. Katsuo's fingers tapped quickly at small keyboard on the tables edge. 

"This is the reason why." he said, accentuating it with a singular button press. The table flickered to life, a holographic image building itself in the air above the surface. Starting from the feet up it soon became clear the image was that of a man wearing a white and blue striped outfit consisting only of a pair of pants, forearm sleeves and a neck-head and shoulder covering. The exposed skin of the man was a deep blue, bordering on black with specks of white that resembled stars and galaxies shifting ever so slightly across its surface. The mans eyes were beacons of pale blue light. Slicked black hair covered the top of the mans head. 

"This is Starlight, you may or may not already have heard of him. He's a Hero, if you want to stretch the term that far." Katsuo explained, venom dripping from each word. 

"He was a very good friend of my Father," he said, his face contorting briefly in rage at the mere thought of the man that had sired him. "And that alone should tell you all you need to know about him." 

Katsuo began slowly pacing back and forth along the edge of the table.

"He's also the man that essentially sold me into Slavery for 3 years." he finally said, the words hard to push past his lips.