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New Volume 3 Chapter(s) Weekly. Volumes 1 and 2 now complete!

“Ugh, my feet are killing me,” a woman groaned as she sat down at a table outside of a café. She took off her shoes and began massaging the pain away, to little effect.

“Isn’t Cotagerie the best?! Don’t you think so, honey?” A man sat down at the table across from her, setting down the drinks and treats they’d just ordered. The man was her new husband, and they were here on their honeymoon. He had a big dorky smile that hadn’t left his face since they’d arrived yesterday. Admittedly, that smile was part of why she’d fallen for him in the first place.

“It’s okay, I guess,” she answered with a brief smile of her own. She’d often give argumentative answers as a joke, but there was a bit of truth this time. Cotagerie certainly hadn’t been near the top of her list for ideal honeymoon spots. It was impressive for a hub city, but the theme wasn’t even close to her interests.

She much rather would have gone to the hub city of entertainment and gambled their honeymoon away, even though she knew that was never an option since her new husband would have hated it. The hub city of athletics and wellness was also out since he was a scrawny man without a drop of interest in sports.

Her husband was a history teacher at the hub city of academia, so of course he wanted to come to Cotagerie, the hub city of culture and history. While she never really had a passion for history, she’d found it growing on her. They could have skipped going to a hub city entirely, but they were all the rage ever since the Drazah war ended. Due to government funding, these cities were unlike any other. Each one represented a different theme, a different part of humanity to be celebrated.

Cotagerie was a bit special in that way, as it was the second Hub City ever built. After the turmoil of the war, the combined governments wanted a way to preserve history and to celebrate and honor all of those histories and cultures that were now lost. While the woman appreciated the sentiment, it was prime bait for her history geek of a husband and basically a tourist trap.

“Oh come on, you got that Virabeldan bag you always wanted, right?” the husband playfully teased her.

“Yes, and thank you for buying it for me, darling,” the woman couldn’t hide her happiness as she gently caressed the top lining of her new purse. Cotagerie had shops from all over the world, with every country, even the ones that no longer existed, getting their own slice of land to put whatever they wanted so that their history and culture could live on. Most of them were run by surviving refugees.

Virabeld wasn’t a dead country in that regard. It was actually only a village, but it was in a remote location and well behind the times. She’d had this particular bag on backorder from several websites for literal years. Shopping in Cotagerie was only second to actually visiting the country itself. The excitement of the bag was slightly dampened by the fact that it was now stuffed full of historical artifacts that her husband had purchased. The woman guessed at least half of them were fake, but wasn’t going to tell him.

“Why did you want to stop at this café, anyways? It’s a bit out of the way, isn’t it?” her husband inquired. “We just had a big lunch and have eaten so much good food since we’ve gotten here. I’m stuffed,” he continued as he took a bite of his pastry anyways.

Besides shops, Cotagerie was filled with cuisine from all over the world, where someone could try delicacies they’d never even heard of. They had eaten well, that much couldn’t be denied. They’d also stopped to see several shows and street performances that were common throughout the city. “I just wanted a break before we headed to the museum,” the woman assured him. “This café looked relaxing on my phone, so I wanted to try it.”

Her husband had ignored the rest of what she said the moment she’d uttered the word museum, his eyes sparkling in anticipation. The museum had been the main reason for their trip, and would most likely be the entire rest of their day if her husband had his way. While he would have wanted to visit it anyways, he had received tickets to preview the upcoming Drazah exhibit from a colleague who had worked on it.

This new exhibit was quite contentious since most would still avoid trying to talk about the Drazahs, with their wounds still fresh even after a decade. But the idea of wanting to preserve history had won out, even if it was one most wouldn’t want to remember.

While her husband wasn’t a Drazah-obsessed fanatic, if there was new history to learn, he wanted to know it. This exhibit boasted a lot of previously unrevealed information, particularly about their homelife such as the layout of their compound and details on their often unseen children that had burned along with them.

“What I’m most looking forward to is-” The woman spaced out as her husband started rambling what they were going to see at the museum, something he’d repeated several times over. Her eyes started to wander and then shot wide open. Doing her best to be discreet, she scooted her chair over to her husband. He had stopped talking and just looked confused.

The woman grabbed her husband's head and pulled it down close to the table. “Oh Cosmos! She’s here, she’s actually here! And she’s wearing her getup too!” she whispered excitedly, almost transported back to her days as a teenager seeing a celebrity for the first time.

The woman had actually lied about her reasoning for wanting to visit the café. While preparing for the trip, the woman had looked up interesting places to make the honeymoon more fun for herself. She stumbled across this café with a blurb mentioning that it was often visited by someone she idolized.

The ‘she’ the woman was referring to was sitting a few tables away, enjoying the afternoon with a cup of tea. She was often the victim of long gazes and the couple weren’t the only ones staring at her. She was used to it and barely noticed, and wasn’t going to let it ruin her mood. After all, her appearance and reputation made it hard for anyone who noticed her to not stare awkwardly.

As for her appearance, she was a young woman; most people guessed around either late teens or early twenties. She wore long brown boots covering black thigh-socks just below a plaid pleated purple skirt. Her top was closer to something worn in the military, but colored white with a tint of purple. The shoulders were cut, and the sleeves were oddly loose.

On her head she wore a purple newsboy cap that matched the color of her skirt. Wrapped around the bottom length of the hat was a black ribbon which was tied into a bow on the left side. All of her hair was tucked up into her hat without a single strand showing.

On her head she wore a purple newsboy cap that matched the color of her skirt. Wrapped around the bottom length of the hat was a black ribbon which was tied into a bow on the left side. All of her hair was tucked up into her hat without a single strand showing.

While all of this certainly wasn’t considered normal attire for the average citizen, it wasn’t what drew attention. While she drank from a teacup held in her right hand, attached to a finger on her left hand was a metallic yo-yo that was constantly spinning up and down. It never seemed to stop except for when she put it away. Onlookers would often see her tuck it up her right sleeve where it seemed to vanish.

Without a doubt, what drew the most attention was the mask she wore. It was a white porcelain mask with purple accents, similar to those worn in the theater. The mask was divided into two parts just below the nose. The bottom part, which boasted a slight smirk, was currently detached and resting on the table as she sipped from her teacup.

The top part, which no one had ever seen her without, was completely solid. There were no holes for her eyes like those found in almost every other mask. Instead there were fake blank eyes carved into it. If one were to look very closely, a small button could be seen on the left edge of the mask near the fake eye.

There were a few rumors about the mask, such as if she was actually blind or if there was some form of one-way mirror embedded in it. No matter what people believed, that didn’t stop them from continuously staring at it, trying to figure out the reason she wore it.

In regards to her reputation, she was known as the world’s greatest bounty hunter, given the title ‘The Vivacious Vixen’ since no one knew her actual identity. She would only go after top-class criminals, and every time she would catch and kill them without fail. This is where the ‘Vixen’ part of the name originated.

As for the ‘Vivacious’ part, that came from her personality. Her appearance, especially her mask, gave off the feeling that she was some sort of cool beauty, shrouded in mystery. However, she also had a reputation of having surreal and irregular conversations with her victims before she killed them.

The Vixen took one last gulp of her tea, gently put the cup down, and said aloud, “I’ll miss this city.” As the unprovoked comment drew strange glances from those around her, she began to reminisce. For the past few years she had considered this city her home. She traveled a lot, and did not have a permanent residence, but she always found herself back in Cotagerie, having a pleasant afternoon at this very café.

The Vixen slipped her yo-yo into her right sleeve and pulled a wallet out of her skirt pocket to pay. After she laid a few bills on the table and was about to stand up, she felt a sudden tap on her shoulder. “A flower for the lady,” said a sudden voice as a hand holding a green rose with black thorns appeared before her.

The Vixen took the rose and just like that the hand was gone. She hated that voice, because she had never been able to find the person behind it. They always appeared and vanished in an instant, and the people around her didn’t even seem to notice either; even though they never took their eyes off of her. She returned her attention to the rose; curled up in the petals was a small rolled up piece of paper. Written on it was simply the word ‘Ok.’

“Ok… OK! That’s all he wrote?!” The Vixen yelled, jumping up from her seat and slamming her fists down on the table. Ignoring the shocked looks from everyone around her, she continued her one-sided spat.

“I went through all that trouble trying to jazz it up since it was our final message. I took the time to put in a super cool secret encrypted message and trained an ugly ass bird to fly it to him. Well, I didn’t train it, but I paid someone to do it and I’m sure it took them a lot of work! And all he wrote was ‘Ok!’.”

The Vixen let out a long sigh as she sat back down and said, “Dammit… but I can never stay mad at him.” Seeming to have calmed down, she sat in silence for a few moments, staring at the piece of paper. “Well I’m all riled up now, guess I will go do one last job after all.” The Vixen stood back up in a huff, picked up and reattached the bottom of her mask, and trotted off.

The husband of the peeping couple leaned over to his wife and asked, “How could she have possibly known what was on that paper, y’know, with the mask and all?” She was annoyed for a moment, but wasn’t going to let his constant need to overanalyze everything ruin what she’d just witnessed.

◆◆◆

“When will this shift be over?” Deborah lamented as she listlessly stared at her pile of work, only having just started her shift. She worked as a clerk at the Cotagerie city hall. Not all areas of Cotagerie were dedicated to celebrating culture. A few sections were reserved for public works facilities required to run the city and government offices.

The city hall was small as not much governing was done there. There was no mayor to speak of, and technically her boss was one of the city planners; not that she heard from them much as long as she did her job properly. She only regularly saw them at the once-a-month meeting in the large conference room where the section leaders would gather to discuss how the city was fairing.

Deborah had just gotten done updating the bulletin board in the lobby which would normally be relegated to a town’s community center. Since Cotagerie didn’t have a community center, it was tacked onto her workload. Granted, without it, her job would pretty much just be organizing files and issuing operating licenses, and she’d yank her hair out from boredom if that were the case.

Even though Cotagerie wasn’t a traditional city, the bulletin board was basically the same as what could be found in any town. It was filled with community notices, special requests from citizens, monster bounties, and public warrants. Public warrants in particular were the cause of her current strife. They were warrants for criminals when someone reached a high enough Criminal Score.

“Cosdammit, this one is only 970! So close!” Deborah swore as she leafed through the huge stack in front of her, frustrated. Essentially, every crime someone committed had a score attached, and when they reached certain thresholds of points, a few different things happened.

At 100, they were sent a summons to their known legal address informing them to come pay their debts. Points accumulated from misdemeanors could be paid off by community service or various fees corresponding to the infraction committed. Points from felonies could only be removed by serving jail time, or paying off the right person.

Deborah had actually been a victim of one of these summons once, almost causing her to have a stroke on the spot when she received the letter. All the charges were for small 5 point parking infractions that added up over time. However, she didn’t even own a car. After a bit of investigation, it was discovered that someone had used her address to register a stolen vehicle. In the end, the summons had proven beneficial to her, but it added about a month of stress to her life.

At 200 points, an official investigation would begin and a police officer would be dispatched to bring the person into custody. Deborah dealt with the police more than most did in her line of work since they’d often come to city hall to pull records. She was happy to help them since they were more civil than the bounty hunters that she regularly worked with.

“Only unproven murders… When did criminals start getting so soft?” Deborah complained as she neared the bottom of the stack. An unproven murder was the easiest way for someone to get 500 points, the limit needed for a Public Warrant to be issued. These warrants were made available around the world to bounty hunters who’d capture criminals for money. The only stipulation being that they had to be brought in alive. If an accidental death occurred, though, the bounty hunter’s repercussions were minimal.

“Seriously, if I don’t find someone whose head can be chopped off, it might be my head!” Deborah started to panic as she dug through the entire stack again, hoping there was one she’d missed. At 1000 points, a warrant was upgraded to a Dead-or-Alive, DoA warrant. The criminal could be killed without repercussions and only proof of their death needed to be provided. They also paid significantly more since the reward scaled exponentially with a criminal’s score.

The only crime that would immediately jump someone up to a DoA warrant immediately was a proven murder without capture. Deborah had only seen that charge a handful of times, but was hoping her luck would pan out today. The reason Deborah was frantically searching to find a DoA warrant was that there was a particular bounty hunter she’d heard was back in town. The Vixen scared the ever loving zjik out of her when she didn’t get what she wanted, and she only took DoA warrants. It didn’t matter to her who the criminal was, as long as she could kill them.

In that manner, The Vixen was one of her less picky clients. A lot of bounty hunters had personal preferences and it was part of Deborah’s job to cater to them. A few tried to live by a moral code while others would indulge in vendettas. Some would go after murderers, people who committed sexual assault, and some only went after criminals who had harmed children. Deborah did her best to organize the bulletin board into easily identifiable categories and would pull certain warrants for regulars.

The amount of different ways she filed the multiple printed copies of warrants was a bit ridiculous. She had them organized alphabetically, by score, by crime type, and by height since that mattered to a few of the weirder bounty hunters for some reason. She also had to regularly check the criminal database for new warrants, close out any that were reported at her office, and check the reports for warrants closed elsewhere and match them against her printed records.

“Hey, counter lady… oh you’re not the usual counter lady. Where’s Deborah?” That voice caused Deborah to almost leap out of her skin since she’d run out of time much earlier than expected.

“Err... umm, I couldn’t find her, so I’m currently covering for her until she gets back.” Deborah overhead her colleague. There was an unmistakable trembling in her voice that Deborah had to sympathize with. This coworker was fairly new, and hadn’t yet met the Vixen, but Deborah had probably terrified her with stories of The Vixen already.

“Is that so...” The Vixen’s words drifted off for a moment. “Ohoho,” she continued with a slight laugh, “It seems she’s hiding out in the backroom… and she’s reading some trashy romance novel too.”

How does she always know?! Deborah wanted to scream. And I’m not reading my trashy romance novel yet! Yes, it’s sitting here next to me and I was going to slack off for a bit with it but--!

Deborah couldn’t finish her thought before her coworker barged into the room. She was still shaking and a little teary eyed. Before Deborah could say anything, her coworker grabbed her, and forced her over to the door with a surprising amount of strength, pushing her out and over to the front counter.

After a quick stumble, Deborah composed herself and straightened her outfit then looked at the person in the lobby. “Oh, Vixen, it’s you. It’s been quite a while,” she said as she forced a wry smile.

The Vixen turned her head away from the bulletin board and strolled over to the counter. “Ah Debby, I’m sure you wished I would never come back.” As she said this, Deborah glanced away slightly. The Vixen continued on with a slight impatient tone. “Anyways, why are there no DoAs up on the board?” she asked as she began tapping her fingers on the counter.

Deborah began to sweat lightly, and was still refusing to look at the mask straight on when she muttered, “Well, since you had graciously taken it upon yourself to wipe out all of the most wanted among them, the local police began to feel envious of your... proficiency. While you were gone, they all rallied together to catch the rest of the criminals who were posted.”

“I see, I see, not wanting to be outdone by someone clearly better than them. How typical of the police,” The Vixen replied as the clerk clearly struggled to keep her smile. Continuing with a sigh, The Vixen lamented, “And I wanted to go out with a big bang for my last job too. Oh, what’s a girl with with an itchy murder finger to do?”

Deborah immediately perked up at those words, not the ones involving murder, as she was used to that from The Vixen. “Wait, last job, as in you would stop coming here? For good?!” Deborah spouted excitedly as her hopes started to rise.

“Yes, yes,” The Vixen replied. “Sadly, it seems that this will be our last time working together. Well, for the foreseeable future anyways.”

At those words, Deborah’s face changed from a wry smile to one of absolute elation. She had to think of something quickly, some way to satisfy The Vixen even if it meant altering some documents. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that as a memory from a few weeks ago came flooding to the front of her mind: her saving grace. It was one she had been asked to take down but could never properly file away again due to its complications.

“Well, in that case, we may have just the thing,” Deborah finally responded before turning to rummage through the stacks of papers on a table behind her. A few moments later she turned back towards the counter and handed a single sheet of paper over to The Vixen.

It was a standard DoA warrant that The Vixen had always seen. At the top of the page was written the name ‘Damon Finkle’. “Hehe, Finkle, what a stupid name. So why wasn’t this on the board with the rest?” she asked.

“Well, this was originally just a regular warrant, but the person who initially accepted it was never seen again.” Deborah answered. “Finkle was suspected of murder so the bounty jumped up to a DoA one. Since the reward jumped with it, it drew a lot more attention. Multiple bounty hunters attempted it, but they all turned up missing, presumed dead. We eventually took down the warrant and stored it away in fear for their safety. We still receive updated copies every so often, but they’ve always just been tucked away in the pile behind me since.”

“How noble of you,” The Vixen responded in a slightly sarcastic tone as she continued to read down the page. “Let’s see... a score of 3320. Not bad, not the highest I’ve seen but it’s definitely up there. Next is a list of charges… Yeah I don’t care.”

There was no picture, so the last thing on the warrant was the criminal’s last known location. The Vixen read it aloud, “North-East outer ring huh. I think I know exactly where he is.” As she headed towards the door to leave, she announced, “This shouldn’t take long, I should be back before the end of the day. Have my payment ready.”

However, after a few steps, The Vixen spun on her heels and rushed back towards the counter. “Ya know…” she said as Deborah’s heart dropped. “Since this is the last time, I think we should do something special. I demand a cake!” The Vixen then leaned in towards the clerk, her mask just a few inches from Deborah’s face. She then ordered in a very serious tone, “And not some crappy store bought cake either. I want it handmade.”

The Vixen eased away and continued, “Actually, let's do more than that, get some drinks too. I’ll come back after your shift is over and we’ll have a full on farewell party in the conference room. You can invite the other clerk lady too, it looks like she could use a nice break.”

Deborah had a very worried look on her face; most likely wondering how she could refuse, and if she couldn’t, how she could explain it to her boss. The Vixen saw this and added, “Don’t worry, I’ll let you use funds from my reward money to pay for all the expenses, and to top it all off, if I enjoy myself, I’ll let you keep 50% of the reward for yourself as a tip for all the hard work you’ve done for me over the years.”

After a moment of shock, Deborah’s face changed to one of serious contemplation. After all, even just half the money from the bounty was more than she would make in several years. After about a solid minute of silence, she looked towards The Vixen and said with her first genuine smile, “If that’s what the dear client wishes.”

The Vixen began to head towards the door, to actually leave this time. “I look forward to it.”

◆◆◆

The outer ring on the warrant referred to an area just outside of Cotagerie. It was a circle of buildings that encompassed the entire city. It was mostly filled with warehouses and production facilities so that some goods could be made and stored locally. However, none of it was technically part of the city, everything was privately owned and operated.

Since most of the city was fully constructed, Cotagerie’s funding was now being used on digging out an entire area beneath it; in order to provide official operations space for a small rental fee. Since this would be in the city proper, it would have the benefit of additional security.

Since the outer ring wasn’t under their jurisdiction, the local police would almost never patrol there unless they had a specific reason. A few years after the outer ring had begun development, it became a cesspool for crime. It was almost impossible for a normal citizen to go there without being mugged or forced to buy something they didn’t want.

In time, major criminal organizations had taken over the outer ring. They implemented a toll on anyone who wanted to enter or leave the city and forced a heavy fee on all imported goods. The criminals wouldn’t dare to enter the city because then they would suffer the wrath of the entire world, but everything around it was free reign.

The city was about to reach a breaking point, with officials running out of options short of declaring a full war on the ring. The bounty hunters who frequented Cotagerie did their best, but full blown organized crime was too much for them to handle. This was all until The Vixen arrived.

She appeared in Quadruneber of 2070, about five and a half years after the Cosmic Boon. When the masked girl first walked through the doors of city hall in her early teens, most of the employees there thought her a lost child or one pulling a prank. Their caring or suspicious eyes turned to shock as she went and took every single warrant off the DoA section of the bulletin board and walked out. As she reached the door, she waved the papers in the air and said in a quiet voice, “Don’t worry. I’ll make this city great again.”

Rumor quickly soared throughout the city of the crazed mask girl and her declaration. The rumors quickly switched from insults to pure awe. In just one week, the girl who had now been named ‘The Vivacious Vixen’ had dismantled all major organized crime in the outer ring, killing every single one of their leaders.

A few small groups and individual criminals remained, but it was nothing compared to the disease that choked the city to its near end. A few new leaders tried to take over in the following weeks, but The Vixen swiftly snuffed out every one of them. When she left the city to seek work elsewhere, the now newly motivated bounty hunters would do their best to keep it under control until she returned.

After about two years, criminals had given up trying to take over the outer ring. Crime still existed but on a much smaller scale. The only criminals who sustained long term success in the outer ring were ones that operated covertly without interrupting the lives of common citizens. Some of the longer standing ones would cease operation entirely and lay low when word reached them that The Vixen was back in town.

At present, The Vixen was currently heading towards a fairly large facility in the North-East section of the outer ring. The place she had in mind as the most likely location of her target was one she had taken notice of several times in the past. She had often seen many suspicious individuals enter and leave the building, as well as large shipments taken from and loaded onto trucks, but almost none of them ever drove off in the direction of the city.

It was most likely a smuggling operation of illegal goods: either knock offs of goods, products or materials that had been outlawed for various reasons, or drugs. The Vixen had considered storming in there to find out what was going on, but she never bothered until now because she wouldn’t be paid for it. She could have easily staked it out from a safe distance as well, but figured it wasn’t worth the trouble, and subtlety wasn’t really part of her nature.

As she approached the building, instead of finding a way to sneak in like any other professional would, she walked through the door to the front office. Inside, she found a receptionist who took one look at her, then immediately stood up and began to pack her things. It was as if she had expected this day to come and had been preparing for it. “I suggest you find a new place to work,” The Vixen said as she walked up to the desk and leaned on it, watching the receptionist.

“Yes, I do believe you’re right,” the receptionist replied, a little flustered but keeping her cool. “I’ve been wanting to quit for a while, but this isn’t the kind of place where you can just turn in your resignation and walk out. The constant sexual harassment was enough to make me consider just ending it a few times.”

“Sounds tough,” The Vixen said in a slightly sympathetic tone. After a few moments of silence and shaking her head around, seemingly examining the blank wall in front of her, she continued. “Ooooo, there’s lots of them back there. Anyone in particular you want me to hurt?”

The receptionist tilted her head, stuck a finger to her chin, and thought for a moment. “All of them?” she said in an almost joking tone, with a slight smirk.

“Can do!” The Vixen replied enthusiastically. After a brief pause, she asked, “So, is Finkles the one in that fancy security room in the very back?”

“Hmm, yes that should be him. Oh and be sure to call him that, he loves it when people make fun of his name,” the receptionist said as she swung her packed bag over her shoulder and headed towards the door. Just as she was about to exit, she turned back towards The Vixen and asked, “Oh, would you like me to turn the alarm off for you before I go?”

“Nah,” The Vixen replied while shooing her away with a hand gesture. “It’s less fun if they’re unprepared.” Without further warning, she flung open the door that led further into the building and headed inside while a loud siren began to blare overhead.

The Vixen found herself in a long narrow hallway. She took this opportunity to slip her yo-yo out of her sleeve and put the white ring around her right middle finger. She threw her yo-yo down towards the ground a few times and let it spin as she began to tap her foot impatiently. A few seconds later, three men in suits barged through the door at the end of the hallway. They stared at her for a few seconds. Then, the man in front shouted, “This is your one chance, turn around and leave and we won’t hurt you.”

The Vixen chuckled a little while she continued to play with her yo-yo. She then sneered crudely, “Oh good, the cannon fodder is here. I guess you guys must be the lowest on the totem pole, huh?”

“What’d you say, you Draz?!” the man in front yelled as he pulled a gun out from his jacket, the other two quickly doing the same, all pointing them straight at her. As The Vixen caught her yo-yo in her hand, she charged at them with blazing speed. Before they could react, she had slid under the first man’s legs and leapt up towards the second’s head.

The Vixen wrapped her legs around the neck of the second man and spun him into the ground. She then threw her yo-yo behind her towards the still stunned first man and wrapped it around his leg. She pulled hard, flinging the first man past her and directly into the third, slamming them both into the wall behind.

The Vixen stood up, retracted her yo-yo and headed into the door behind her, skipping over the men groaning in pain. It lead into a small empty corner room with two large double doors to her right. She kicked open both doors and walked in yelling at the top of her lungs, “Finkles, I’m here to play!”

The large room she’d entered was filled with several piles of boxes and crates. Behind each pile were men leaning out with guns pointed towards her. A voice clicked over a loudspeaker. At first it was just a few inaudible grumbles followed by a man yelling, “Don’t call me that!”

After a few seconds, the voice seemed to calm down and continue, “Ah, if it isn’t The Vivacious Vixen. I wasn’t sure if you were ever going to come for me. I heard the wimps in the city got scared of me and took down my poster. Well, fortunately for me, I’ve been preparing for this day. My men will destroy you.” The voice finished speaking with an evil villain laugh straight out of a movie that The Vixen couldn’t help but roll her eyes at.

She then shouted out, “Oh Finkleburg, is that you? It’s hard to hear with the siren blaring and all. By the way, promise not to get mad if I break all your toys? I was often scolded as a kid for playing too roughly.”

The loudspeaker voice yelled in response, “Enough chatter! What are you waiting for men? Shoot her! I want her dead!” The men in the room began to unload countless shots in The Vixen’s direction. She dodged each shot with ease. The more infuriated voice began to shout taunts over the speaker, along with encouragements to his men; something along the lines of ‘whoever brings me her head will get lots of money’. It was hard for her to make it out since it really was quite noisy.

“Ugh, I’m sick of this!” The Vixen yelled as she continued to dodge. The men had all emptied their clips around the same time and were reloading. The Vixen took this chance to spin the ring around her finger with her thumb. It changed in color from white to yellow. She threw the yo-yo towards the ground. As it spun, electricity swirled around it.

After a quick second of fear from the sparking orb, the men raised their guns to resume firing. The Vixen then skirted around the outer wall towards a power box. She flung her static covered yo-yo at it and then there was a loud pop. All of the lights in the room went out, the siren stopped blaring, and the voice on the loudspeaker was cut off.

One of the men, assumedly the leader, began to yell to his comrades. “Just hold your positions, the backup generator will kick on in a few minutes. We can’t see her, but she can’t see us either!”

A loud laugh echoed through the room. The Vixen then calmly spoke out, “Oh, I wouldn’t count on that,” with a slight hint of sadism in her voice. The men couldn’t tell the direction the voice was coming from. As they spun their heads around, trying to pinpoint a location, they heard a loud electric zap followed by a jolted scream.

The Vixen dashed around the room, taking out the men in a seemingly random pattern. The only time the men could see was when the yo-yo lit up to strike one of them. They would take that chance to fire a few shots in that direction but missed her every time. A few times they managed to hit one of the others which caused a different type of scream; which was immediately followed by a lot of cursing.

◆◆◆

After the lights kicked back on, Damon Finkle peered out from his window in the security room that looked over the warehouse. What he saw was a few toppled over boxes and all his men lying on the ground unconscious. Most of them seemed to be alive and breathing. The only casualties seemed to be from gunshot wounds when one of them shot another.

What the hell… What the hell is she?! Finkle screamed in his head. And where is she? Just as he finished his thought, the door behind him was blown off its hinges and slammed into the wall across the room. The Vixen strolled a step into the doorway, stared at him, and said in a condescending tone, “Hello Finklestein.”

Finkle lifted his hands up and walked to the middle of the room as if to surrender. Just as The Vixen was about to take a step forward, he swung his arm behind him and pulled a pistol out of his pants that was hidden beneath his coat. He aimed the gun towards her, which was shaking wildly in his hands. Even if he was panicking, from this distance, there was no way that he could miss.

As Finkle moved his finger towards the trigger, The Vixen lifted her left hand and pushed the button on the side of her mask. Right as he pulled the trigger, she vanished completely. Thinking that it was just his mind playing tricks on him, or possibly some form of tactical cloaking, he unloaded the full clip in the direction she had been standing.

Finkle continued to pull the trigger long after the gun had clicked in annoyance. He lowered his arms as he panted wildly. As he took a deep breath to try to calm down, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He rapidly spun around in a panic and began whining at the Vixen who was now in front of him.

Finkle chucked his empty gun at her as he bolted towards the doorway in an attempt to escape. Just before he reached it, The Vixen suddenly appeared in the doorway and pushed him back into the room. He scooted back into a corner as far as he could, trying to get away from her as she slowly walked towards him, and looked in every direction for any possibility of escape.

“Just, just who the hell are you?!” Finkle cried out in a panicked stutter. With that, The Vixen stopped in her tracks and stared at him for a moment.

She lifted her left hand towards her mask once more, this time wrapping her hand around it and grabbing hold. “‘Don’t let the world see your face’ those were the last real words he said to me.” With that she took off her mask and let her arm droop back to her side.

Finkle was dumbstruck at what he saw. The first thing he noticed was her hair. Her bangs were showing, and they were white, pure white like an untouched snow. He felt that if he stared at it for too long, he would go blind.

The next thing he noticed was her face. After one look, he began to panic even more. It felt as if all sanity was draining from his mind as he stared at the impossibility in front of him. He began to stammer out a bit of nonsense then finally managed a coherent sentence. “You, you look just like her. Could it be you’re…”

The Vixen spoke loudly as she interrupted him, ignoring his words, and as she spoke, she spun the ring on her right middle finger again, turning it from yellow to red. “But I can let you see it, since you’re not going to be part of this world anymore.” As soon as the last word left her lips, she flicked her wrist sending the yo-yo flying directly at him.

As the yo-yo flew through the air, the thick sides began to shrink and its circumference expanded rapidly. The outer rim shifted to a ring of sharp curved points. The sides of the yo-yo were now two buzzsaw blades flying directly at him, spinning rapidly.

Finkle raised his arms to try and block and began to plead. ‘Narf’ was all he managed to get out before the sawblades sliced through his neck in two places.

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The Vixen pulled the still spinning yo-yo back towards her, and it reverted to its normal form before reaching her hand. She then stared at the new corpse sprawled out in front of her with a confused and slightly annoyed expression. “Narf?” She belted out, “Oi, what kind of last words are those, Finkly? Is something wrong with your brain?!”

After sighing at the realization that Finkle could no longer respond, The Vixen began to fumble around for something in her skirt pocket. She pulled out a thin screened box that resembled a smartphone. However, it currently had no cellular or internet capabilities, but she hoped that would be changed soon. It was given to her by a certain friend of a friend who had also developed her yo-yo for her. She had never actually met him, but he often sent her fun things to a specified location.

She used this device to keep notes and files, as well as to take pictures of her victims as proof for the warrant. The Vixen had a reputation of messing with her victims before taking the photos; frequently putting them in poses or dressing them up. She often liked to include herself in the picture and pretend as if she was conversing with the corpse. She didn’t really have a particular desire to do any of this, she did it solely for the reactions of the civil workers to whom she would show the photos. Deborah tended to have particularly good ones.

However, she was in a bit of a rush to return, so she pulled out a bundle of collapsible party hats from her other pocket that she had bought on the way. She put one on Finkle’s head and pulled the string under his chin, doing her best to avoid the blood that was still gushing out.

After she took the photo, The Vixen straightened herself up and opened up the calendar on her device. “One week huh, I can’t wait,” she said to herself with a smile on her face as she scrolled through the entries. “Oh wow, I’ve got a lot to do… Ugh, I still have to plan a kidnapping. Oh well, that should be fun too. But for now, Cake! Can’t forget the cake.”

As she turned towards the door to head out, she lifted her mask to reattach it. Just before the mask covered her eyes, streaks of light could be seen flowing out of her pulsating purple eyes while she turned her head. After she put it back on, a dim purple glow could still be seen through the mask before vanishing entirely as she closed her eyes.

 

 

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