Mae smirked as Raine stepped in front of her left and right-hand men.

"They must not be worth a damn after all if you're-"

Before she could finish, before she could even register any movement, Raine had thrown a haymaker and instantly brought Mae to the ground, her head bouncing painfully off of the concrete. Raine looked down at her as if bored, waiting for her to get back up. About half a minute later Mae stirred, shaking her head as she strained even to sit.

"Shit, you had to be fast and strong, huh? Guess the gratuitous muscles aren't just for show..."

Mae tried to stand, wobbling on the way up, but Raine was upon her before she made it all the way to her feet, shoving her knee into the smaller girl's stomach without holding back in the slightest. Mae's body did a sideways flip in the air before landing sprawled out on the pavement. Killer looked on in amazement for a few moments before cheering.

"Hell yeah boss, that's what I'm talking' about! No one messes with us and gets away with it! But man, what the hell was her deal, anyway!?"

"My deal...!?"

Three heads snapped in surprise to where Mae lie. She hadn't moved her limbs at all, but her eyes were stuck open and she'd cocked her head to face their general direction. She clearly struggled to speak, her voice all malice wracked with pain and frustration.

"My deal is that nothing matters anymore... Not a single thing matters and nobody else sees it but me!"

The weight of her words hung in the air for a moment. Emboldened by silence, Mae continued.

"With the coming of Norma, we've learned that we don't know a goddamned thing about this reality, not really, not if she can get into our heads and remake us. But that's perfectly fine."

With obvious effort Mae rose, attempting to maintain balance as she spoke.

"What's going to happen to me? To you, Raine? To the entirety of humankind? It doesn't actually matter, does it?"

Mae opened her arms, gesturing dramatically to the world around her.

"We love her. That's all that matters. That's all that can ever matter again. And that means this can only end one way."

Snake eyed his boss's expression with worry. He was getting a sense of full-on crazy, and not just from Mae... All he could do was try to stop this before it got so much worse.

"Stay down, please! Nobody needs to do anything else they'll regret tonight... right, boss?"

Raine ignored him and walked slowly toward Mae. Her wild eyes mirrored Mae's own, except for one thing - there was no trace of concern with lofty ideals or difficult philosophy - only single-minded determination.

"That's right, Snake. Don't worry. I won't regret this..."

Raine pushed Mae back onto the ground and straddled her, raising her fist - and let it fly.

"Ghkkk!"

Her brutal swing connected with Mae's jaw, causing her to shudder in pain. As Snake watched on in horror, Raine's blows kept coming as if matter-of-factly, one after the other, each echoing louder than the other into the night. Even so, Mae didn't cry, didn't even try to dodge.

She couldn't stop laughing...

Everything's going just as I planned.

During the onslaught, Mae had been sliding her hand into her oversized purse and now had a white-knuckled grip on the handle of her machete. In the gap between this blow and the next she would retrieve it...!

"God damn it boss, stop it! Stop it already! This ain't like you!"

Snake's tone seemed to register with Raine, who paused for just a second. And even though Mae had her chance, she couldn't pull the weapon out. Her arm refused to move.

Am I too weak...?

Whether physically or mentally, she wasn't sure. But either way, the idea that in the end she had come this far for no reason was profoundly funny to her.

Snake took the opportunity to sprint to the two girls, pulling Raine off of Mae with great effort.

"The hell do you think you're doin'!?" Raine demanded, her golden eyes searing like embers into her second-in-command.

"I'm stopping you from making the biggest mistake of your life, that's what. You're not a goddamned murderer, Raine. You can thank Killer for that, remember?"

A flash of recognition passed through her eyes as the memory played out in vivid detail...

---

Decades ago her father, Cross Beau, had been involved in the mafia. He'd made a tidy sum for his wife and child, never mixing business with his personal life. By all accounts he had excelled in any and all jobs he was given, and it wasn't long before Don Sola Reclipse had taken notice of his penchant for going above-and-beyond. The Don made Cross an integral part of a massive operation to take down his rival, Mr. Grey, who didn't play by the unwritten rules that kept organized crime from falling into pure chaos. Intelligence told them that soon Grey would be nearly unguarded at one of his hotels, and Cross Beau was chosen to spearhead the team that would take him down.

While overlooking the plans for the operation, Beau stumbled across a document suggesting Mr. Grey had had some correspondence with the organization recently, which meant he had an insider - a mole. He asked the head of Intelligence - Don Sola' wife, Stella Reclipse - about it, and she assured him it must have been a simple mistake. Refusing to let this go, however, Cross Beau pursued the matter...

And that's where everything went wrong.

Stella had a reputation as a shrewd business woman, but in actuality she was a natural born genius. She supported her husband by running matters of intelligence for the organization, but had slowly and surely wrested more and more power from him without his noticing. Knowing she could run the organization far better than he ever could, she'd set up a deal with Mr. Grey - she'd ensure her husband personally attended the upcoming 'operation', making him an easy target for Grey's men. In exchange she promised a much more amicable relationship between their organizations once she took control.

Unfortunately for Stella, one of her trusted underlings wasn't thorough enough when wiping the plan's paper trail, and Mr. Beau had discovered one of their documents.

And unfortunately for Mr. Beau, he had chosen not to ignore the evidence despite Stella's insistence. Loyal man that he was, he told Don Sola about the potential coup. Despite all Beau's years of service, the Don just couldn't believe that his wife would ever betray him.

The operation went ahead. Cross Beau was taken off the mission, and Don Sola along with most of those loyal to him were killed. As if that wouldn't be enough to haunt him for life, Stella's vindictive sadism led to her having Cross' wife, Em, murdered by one of her hitmen, Al Legiance. Two letters were left at the scene - Em's forged suicide note, and another addressed to Mr. Beau:

What a lucky man you are, Mr. Beau. You still have a daughter!

If I ever see or hear about you again, she's next.

With love,

-S

And so, Raine had grown up with a shell of a man for a father and a need for revenge in place of a mother. Over the course of her life she looked through her dad's old files and learned enough about the mafia world to narrow down a small list of who might have killed her mother. She put together her gang for the soul purpose of widening her reach, power, and influence. And thanks to her extensive list of shady contacts, the same year she started high school she also found, at long last, the man she'd been looking for...

---

Raine and her closest friends Rex and Morty found the rural home Al Legiance had retired to. Rex had asked Raine to really consider if she wanted to go through with this, but the look in her eyes was enough to put an end to the question. Morty assured Raine that they'd have her back no matter what.

The three had thought to break into Al's house in the night and kill him quickly in his sleep. But three kids playing at hitmen would prove to be no match for the real thing.

Old and retired though he may be, Al heard them coming. Wanting to involve her friends as little as possible, Raine had entered the house alone and was quickly ambushed, held at gun point by her very target.

"Who the hell... Oh, you're her daughter, aren't you? And here I thought you might be her ghost, come to punish an old man for his sins."

The hitman chuckled darkly to himself.

"That's exactly what I am." Raine snarled. But before she could turn around she was floored by the butt of a pistol.

"Raine!" cried the boys as they approached the scene.

"Naughty children! I moved out here to get away from people, you know? I'm supposed to be retired. So how about you two run along and leave me to punish this bad girl while I'm still feeling gener-"

A sudden, acute pain in his arm caused the hitman to drop his gun. He turned to the side and saw that the girl had somehow stayed conscious and had sunk her teeth into him as hard she could.

"Ow, fuck! Do you like the taste of my blood, you little bitch!?"

He punched her in the face with his free hand, forcing her to let go at the cost of some of his skin. Rex ran to Raine's side, but Al ignored him in favor of securing his gun. He lunged for it... but Morty was already holding it with shaky hands.

"P-put your hands up! Now!"

Al raised his eyebrows.

"You're not calling the shots here, kid. I already offered to let you go, so you'd better take me up on that because I promise you that if you don't... You won't live to regret it."

Raine squinted through her blurry vision as Rex helped her stand, shaking with the guilt of having got her friends involved in this juvenile plan of hers.

"I-I'm not fuckin' around, okay? Put your fuckin' hands up, or else-!"

Everybody flinched as a bullet flew into the wall behind them, having passed less than an inch from Al's head.

Surging with adrenaline, Al grabbed the disoriented Raine, holding her by the neck in front of him like a shield.

"Squeeze that trigger again and that'll be it for her, do you fucking hear me?!"

Rex refused to stand by, however, and after backing up a few steps he sprinted into the hitman with a full-body tackle. Though Al was solid, trying to hold Raine up was enough to make him lose his balance. He dropped her, and at that moment Morty fired the gun again, hitting Al in the leg.

"Ah, shit, that hurts! But guess what, you stupid little bastard! That was the last bullet!"

Morty pulled the trigger again, verifying his claim.

"So now what? You kids gonna kill me with your bare hands, huh?"

A painful silence lapsed as the three considered his words.

"Well? You better make it fast. The police were notified the second you broke in, so hurry it up!"

He laughed to himself at their hesitation. Scowling, Rex took out some handcuffs he'd stolen from a cop a while back and between the three of them, managed to secure the hitman's arms. Raine closed her eyes and shook her head, clearly panicking.

"Shit. I fucked this up, I fucked up big time, guys. I'm sorry..."

She opened them again, and focused her breathing. After a moment she nodded to herself a single time.

"You two need to get out of here. Take the truck, and-"

"Stop talking, Raine. You didn't come all this way to leave now, which means you're gonna kill this guy as soon as our backs are turned. Well, I sure as hell ain't gonna let you throw your life away."

"Morty-!"

"I'm sorry, boss. I know it's selfish of me to take your revenge from you. But if they catch you you're as good as done for, and I couldn't ever forgive that. Ever since you started lookin' out for us losers you've done nothin' but good by us. Even if you say it was all just to find this asshole I know you still have so much left to give, and I'm not gonna let him take that away from you."

The blood loss had kept Al quiet, but he was clearly fed up.

"Oh my god, are you gonna talk me to death or-"

Morty had approached Al as he spoke and bludgeoned him with the pistol.

"Morty, don't-!" Raine cried, recoiling.

Crack. Crack. Crack! Crack!!

Raine rushed to stop him, but Rex put his hand on her shoulder, unable to look at the bloody scene in front of them.

"Too late... it's done. Let's go."

 'Snake' and 'Killer' had been by her side ever since they'd escaped from that place. Though the DNA evidence left behind should have been enough to convict them, no one had ever tried. Perhaps it was thanks to Al's reputation as one of Stella's most infamous killers that they had let the case die. Even more frightening was the possibility of retaliation from Stella herself, but it had never come. After all, to her a retired dog was as good as dead already.

---

Raine shook the memories away, suddenly feeling something like guilt for the first time tonight. But it was gone as quickly as it came.

"You're right, wouldn't want his sacrifice to have been for nothin'. Well then, Killer? Finish her off."

Snake was stunned, suddenly finding it hard to even keep himself standing. Raine had never forgiven herself for that night, for turning Morty into 'Killer'. Though for his part Killer had clumsily adopted the name and persona like a badge of honor in an attempt to help Raine move on, he too had struggled with crossing a line there was no going back from, even it had been for her sake.

For Raine to suddenly use him like this meant just one thing. Whatever this crazy chick was on about, this talk of people being remade? It was obviously true.

She wasn't the boss they knew any longer.