“Gooood morning Xoxia! We’ve got a new question for the curious folk today and that is…what would you do for a stop to the Vie epidemic taking our streets? Or are you a fan of it? An avid user? We revealed its true sources last week so what are your thoughts on this toxic drug? Yay or nay? Our call lines will be open throughout the day so feel free curious folk, Query and I await your response!”

***

Swiping through his various accounts Erich took note of the numbers displayed on the screen of his laptop. Debit, debits, debits and more debits colour his screen red but it's alright; his wages at the mart provided him a steady stream that kept him alive and he took opportunities Steve provided whenever he caught the man’s time.

Those opportunities funded the fattening wallet of XCredits that are his hope, his entire lives savings piled up in one account and ready to be withdrawn at any day. There is quite a bit Erich needed to work on, his dingy apartment for one keeps falling apart, the heater died some months ago, he’d already changed the locks on his door twice this month and his landlord was four months away from legally extorting him for more money on the shit place. And while the XCredits he saved will be more than enough to afford him a better standard of living, he had a greater purpose for it.

Wiping the dew from his window, Erich stares out at the cold, white city beyond. The thick smog of industry and labour melded soot with snow that sprinkled all over the cramped neighbour he’s lived in for years. He didn’t always hate Xoxia. The memories that fuel his passion now remind him of what a joy living in the city could be or maybe that's just how everything feels when you have someone to love you. The city is cold in every meaning of the word and as expectant as his landlord is for his eighteenth birthday, Erich is just so to find warmth outside Xoxia.

Four more months. I’ve got to double, no, triple this by then. The XCredits sitting in his account have been piling up ever since he turned thirteen and rented the apartment with the charitable investment from Steve and the crew. Appalling as it is that his four years of savings scarcely amounted enough to achieve his great escape, Erich surges with pride every time he looks at it. The growing interests on the XCredits help a bit but not enough that he can sit idly by anymore.

There's a world out there he needs to explore. A better world that isn’t buried in snow every night and didn’t care whether he was a meta-human or not. Maybe don’t put so much hope on that last part. But most importantly, the world beyond Xoxia is where he’ll find his mother again, he's certain of it. At the thought of her he looks over at the mirror shrouded behind the pile of clothes on the couch. Walking up to it, he plucks out the one image of himself and the woman that fills his waking thoughts. She holds him to her chest with a grin that rivalled his cotton-candied smile, gold earrings droop underneath her short bob of curly black hair— a style he’s begun to imitate— and her lips are cherry glossed even after marking his face with several kisses before and after the photo was taken.

Everything about the photo is visceral, her scent lingers from it and the chaos of the Ferris wheel and amusement park behind them echoes in his ears. He still tastes the last bits of cotton-candy he was so fixated on devouring as much of, strawberry blast it.  

His wrist vibrates him away from the deep reverie. Gasping at the message on his watch he slams the laptop shut, grabs the beanie he’d modified with holes for his eyes and ears and snatches the BlastKnuckles from his desk drawer. He checks his side pocket for his knife and glances at the mirror and photo one last time, forcing a grin, thumbs up and finger blasts at the photo before another ping startles him into motion. Pulling the beanie over head he sets out of the dingy apartment— with any luck, this opportunity will land him all he needs to get out of Xoxia once and for all.

***

Erich walks out his apartment building with a bounce in his step. Careful not to slip against the slick snow-covered streets, the serrations in his boots help as he bounds across the street to the deteriorated and waterlogged buildings that makes up the view from his apartment.

It’s a bright, sunny day in Xoxia’s Downtown and even as Erich struts out with a mask over his face and his BlastKnuckles on full display, none of his neighbours bother with a word of greeting or better yet, alarm. It’d become instinct to mind your business until business came to you and Erich loves that about the shitty neighbourhood.

It enabled his wallet to grow fatter as Steve gave opportunities here and there over the years. It might not have always been like this, though, Erich wouldn’t know for sure, but since he started living here his shitty Landlord only paid him a visit once to fix the heater the first time it broke and never again. His neighbours, riddled with a bounty of children near his age and older, yet all fell prey to uselessness and addiction only bother with him when they are desperate— which is often but it isn’t often that Erich helps after the first year of drowning his hard earned XCredits feeding their addictions.

Crossing into the row of browning homes, reminds Erich of the other ways he enabled the drug addled community formed around the sick neighbourhood. With his next door neighbours, he only tried to help them get on their feet. Their mother, Patricia is a kind looking woman when she needs to be and his first impressions when he moved in were pleasant but like himself, that was a two faced lie she told to have her way. With the ‘residents’ of the alley he strolls through though, he enabled only to help himself.

“Ughh!” a hand stretches out from underneath a pile of wet cardboard boxes, reaching out for him with filthy gloves and broken fingernails.

“Not today boys,” Erich booms as he hurries down the alley— he tries not to show his aversion to the begging addicts lying among trash heaps but it's there and clear enough that many of shamelessly preyed on his guilt to have lower prices.

“I have credits this time boss. I swear I do!” One steps out from behind a dumpster to block his path. He's a shrivelled man long into his thirties but still wearing the dark coat and red beanie Erich met him with some two years ago.

“Yeah but I don’t have any Vie. How about some new clothes instead?” Snarling, Erich pushes past him in time for a nondescript van to pull up on the other end of the alley. He shakes his head and mutters to no one, “Why call me out when you’re not even here yet?”

The backdoor slides open and Erich waves hello as the front passenger seat winds down its window on his approach. Neil leans out the window and beckons Erich with a finger. Buzzcut, permanent scowl and a serpent tattoo twirling around his neck, Neil remains one of the most difficult people to deal with.

“You give them anything?” He says, nodding at the trail of addicts forming behind Erich.

“No, I don’t deal Vie anymore.” Erich says, sticking his hands in his pockets and feeling over the knife hidden within. It’s a recent change but a good one. The addicts regularly default on payments and took beatings, nefarious jobs and other bullshit to cover the debt. Besides Erich not earning more than peanuts and the rare full payment, the addicts wouldn’t stop no matter how many times he reported their defaults to Neil for consequences that escalated in their disappearances and that doesn't sit right with him.

Neil sniffs and spits, “Come here. Closer you fuck.”

Erich steps close enough to smell the stench of syrup on his breath and as expected, Neil lurches at him, snatching up his beanie and a handful of hair underneath, “Look at this fucking fuck, Jean. Who wears a ski-mask in board daylight? Idiot!”

He rips the makeshift mask off and tosses it out, beckoning for Erich to come closer still, “See, I don’t know what you said to Vertigo to make him agree to this, but if you fuck it up—”

“Yeah, I get it. I’m going to spit venom, right?” Erich says, staring Neil in his eyes; the left a pale green and the right scarred white in its cornea with an ugly slit iris that cut down his cheek in red.

Neil looks incredulously at Jean, the bulk of a man in the driver’s seat. They shake their heads and scoff, “You’re growing wings kid, careful now.” He looks in the back of the van and yells at his crew, “Yo! What the fuck are ya’ll waiting for? Move some Vie to any of these fuckers that’s got the creds and let’s get on with the meat!”

Feeling done with, Erich moves to take a seat in the back when Neil snatches his shoulder and shakes his head, “Not done boy. You got the right idea but the wrong method. You know how to handle one?” Neil waves a finger gun at Erich and snarls when he shakes his head. He pulls a nylon bag from under his seat and shoves it at Erich’s chest, “You’re gonna learn today, get in.”

Erich goes to get in, grateful that all the others have stepped out so he could sit at the back. As he climbs in, he locks eyes with Cynthia, she chews gum in deliberate slow motion that placed her glossed lips, wet tongue and pristine white teeth on display. Erich tries not to react but he probably already has as she smirks and looks out the window beside her, pressing her pale blue hair against it.

“Mind if I…” Erich starts before forgoing the thought and seizing the space next to her. He gets right into the nylon bag, pulling out a small, old-fashioned pistol and a swirling mask that distorts a smile and eyes in a static maelstrom. There are some loose bullets too and Erich quickly figures those aren't extras— he'll need to load the gun.

Asking Neil or Jean for help was out of the question and the others, well, he wouldn’t trust the others to teach him how to wipe his ass. That left Cynthia, the Frost Bitch beside him. Erich is far from being crass, she could be a bitch and she was self-aware enough about the fact to name herself Frost Bitch but not enough to care to do anything about it.

Cynthia was the name he knew her by when he joined up with Vertigo some four years ago. She came along a few months later and was angry all through, heck she’s still angry now. Erich considers himself an anti-social person at the core, he would engage and sometimes he even found some fun in the process but he didn’t seek it out. Cynthia was more extreme, her name fit the bill as her powers put her among the most useful and sought out Metas Downtown Xoxia and likely Uptown too. Whatever reason brought her here she's never in the mood to talk and only seemed to derive enjoyment from making people squirm, in more ways than one.

Erich takes a breath, pulls his jacket close together as the temperature to drops at his left side. Frost Bitch, the obvious culprit, doesn't pay him any mind and continues on loudly chewing gum. She couldn’t have been much older than Erich and already Vertigo brought her to the fold, had Neil of all people watch her with his crew— though when he thinks of it, she fits in well with the crass bunch and would get along with Neil if she wasn’t more useful to Vertigo than he was.

“Hey, Cynthia? Cynthia?” Erich stops himself from sighing and with reluctance says, “Frost Bitch?”

“Yes?” she answers without looking away from the window. The van begins to fill up with the rest of the crew and as one of them falls in seat beside Erich, squashing him against Cynthia all the more as he scowls. Cynthia growls, “Wanna die?”

Elbowing the man away with a glare of his own, Erich says, “Sorry, this guy…never mind, could you help me with this?”

She glances at the pistol as Jean starts the van and Neil hoots, slapping the door as the van races into the streets, “You’ve never loaded one before? Ha, I wondered why Vertigo wouldn’t do anything with you.”

Erich would say something to that, but he knew better that to antagonize her or any Metahuman for that matter. Instead he put on a weak smile and levels his gaze, “I don’t know how to shoot either.”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

A sharp chill creeps up his shoulder from where they touch as she sneers, propping her chin with a fist, “Fucking…just snap the barrel open and slide the bullets in. Keep your finger away from the trigger until you have your eyes on the person you want to kill and then shoot. Otherwise don’t pull it out at all.” She snatches the gun from Erich and slides in four bullets in rapid succession, two slip out of her hand as the van flies over a speedbump and she curses, “Jean! Don’t make me bite my tongue.”

A mischievous cackle roars over the van's groans, “Stop chewing so damn loud and I will.”

Frost Bitch scoffs and shoves the gun back in Erich’s hand cold as dry ice, “Thanks?” he mutters, barely having learnt a thing. When he came out he didn’t expect to handle a gun; his BlastKnuckles and pocket knife are all he’s ever needed to protect himself— and occasionally bully others— the gun in his hand felt…lethal, it is lethal.

“Don’t mention it. I mean it.” Frost Bitch seethes.

Left with the loaded gun in his lap, Erich takes another sharp breath and deigns to bother the Frost Bitch some more, “By the way, we’re robbing a store, right?”

She looks over her shoulder, eying him like he licked her neck, “A store? Neil who the fuck had the bright idea to—!”

***

Erich strolls down the street of a tightly packed neighbourhood like his own. The sidewalks of the modest townhouses are wet and snowy, though they’ve seen some care from the hot water sprinklers and dissolved enough for Erich to afford not to pay attention to pace.

His eyes drift about the neighbourhoods walls covered in graffiti depicting graphic images of bestial rage, violence and as well as anthropomorphic sexual passion. Of all the beasts and animals depicted along the peeling walls of the townhouses, the Lynx is the most prominent, sticking out like a sour thumb in a dark— other times bright— purple colour. The main street with dissolved snow parts the way for a free canvas and is full of the Lynx’s image; broad muscled shoulders, sharp carnivorous eyes leering right up at pedestrians and drivers alike.

Making sure the weight of the pistol strapped between his trousers is still there, Erich eyes his assigned target, pacing himself as he approaches the three-storey townhouse Neil pointed out from the van parked a block behind him. Heavily fortified, reinforced metal door, barred windows and four members of the Lynx lounging at the stairs leading up to it. Their laughter resounds throughout the neighbourhood alongside revving motorbikes speeding down the nigh empty streets. The cars parked to the sides have all suffer flat tires save the bikes and single luxury sports car sitting in front of a traffic light like it owned the street.

They kind of do. Erich reminds himself as he makes a pass by the house, keeping his head down he only glimpses two of the Lynx members seated on the stairs— both having skin riddled with spots or perhaps stripes. Erich let out a sigh as none say a word as he passes. Now comes the hard part.

He stops, taps his head and mutters at the chill sky like he forgot something and walks right through their line of sight again. His eyes dash for a glance at the four and he notices one of them eye him— her eyes slit like a vulpine. Erich gulps, straightening his jacket over as he strolls back down the sidewalk and to his surprise and growing dread, they don’t say anything or call him back.

A few paces back the way he came and he spots the van, Neil in the front seat waiting for the signal. He nods and the van starts up as he stops in his tracks, checks his pockets, points randomly at the houses and turns back.

Slowing his pace as he walks through their line of sight yet again and does a mental check of everything essential. Vertigo mask, back pocket. Gun, strapped between trousers. BlastKnuckles and knife, jacket pockets.

“Hey you!” Third times the charm. “You lost or something?”

Halted at last, Erich stops and takes a full look at the four guarding the house, the metal door behind them and the shuttered windows. All four present classic animalistic traits; fangs on all of them, spots and stripes of white and black on two and a full on tail dancing behind the one calling him out.

“You know where you are kid?” The vulpine woman asks, puffing a cloud of smoke down at him as she leans forward, leering with bloodshot eyes, “You know who we are?”

Erich puts on a sheepish smile as he backs away, his hand reaching behind him as he says, “I thought I was heading towards an animal shelter, I want a puppy you see, but Beastards like you give dogs a bad name.”

All four spring to their feet, baring fangs at him, “What did you say to me?” the vulpine woman sneers, stamping out the butt of her cigarette as her mane of hair flares with her anger.

In a swift spin, Erich retrieves the mask behind him while digging his pistol out of his trouser. Before either of them can move he fires a bullet in the air and wears the mask as they reel at the sudden bang.

“The fucks part of Vertigo! Get him!”

Ignoring how his entire arm trembles Erich bursts into a sprint, running across the slick street with the Lynx members hot on his heels. He can barely breath in the stuffy spiral mask but he powers through the shudders running through his arm and shoulders, still gripping the pistol. A roar bellows behind him, the stank breath of tobacco and Vie finds his nostrils but he doesn’t dare look back; if he does he’ll trip, slip or just give up on running from the beasts of Lynx and that isn’t the plan.

In the corner of his eyes he catches the van approaching and double times his sprint. It screeches behind him, narrowly missing him as he leaps over a guardrail. The hard thud of metal bashing into a person is immediately followed up by a flurry of gunshots. That was it. That’s the plan. Daring to turn around Erich finds two of the Lynx beasts crumpled and bleeding; one underneath the van itself and the other thrown several paces into the main street and the sparse oncoming traffic.

“Good work now get over here and man a spot!” Neil's voice rings over the continuous shots of bullets. The crew jumps out with rifles in hand, riddling the door and windows with bullets as figures on the inside scramble to enable their defences, slamming the shutters of each window and returning fire where possible. “Erich!”

Snapping out of his reverie, Erich hops back over the rail and reaffirms his grip on the pistol. Looking up the defensible townhouse he curses under his breath and falls in place beside Jean and the crew, aiming where they aim in a mindless huff. Blood pools from underneath the van and the short steps leading to the large metal door of the house; the two other Lynx members lie strewn along the steps and by the gate, their bodies riddled with bullet holes, eyes wide and empty.

Don’t puke. Don’t fucking puke.

“Frost Bitch get it now!” Neil barks at Cynthia and she surges out of the van with a chill that freezes the puddles of blood she steps through. Her hands froth a cold mist as she steps over the strewn corpses to get to the reinforced metal door in our way. She places both hands on it and the frost eats at the door, covering it in a coat of ice that splinters throughout the building and down the steps in an ever evolving crystal sheet.

Jean and the crew fire indiscriminately at the windows, scaring off whoever still lurks within from sticking out their weapon and shooting a bullet through Cynthia. After a tense minute of her standing there with her hands in place she steps back and fans her hands out like they’re hot. She gives Neil a nod as she returns, cracking the bloody ice beneath her feet.

Neil cackles, enjoying every moment of this as he straps the rifle over his shoulder and retrieves a rocket launcher from the front passenger seat. Smacking the rocket launcher, he kisses it before going down on one knee and presses his eye to the scope.

This…this isn’t what I asked for.

“Fire in the hole!” Squeezing the trigger, Neil fires a rocket at the frozen door. A thunderous roar erupts from the launcher’s maw. A streak of fire and smoke shoot forth, trailing the projectile towards the door and for an earth-shattering explosion.

Fire and debris erupt in all directions, raining down on their heads and for a second Erich fears the building itself is coming down. But as the billowing smoke and dust begin to settle to the crackling flames, Erich sees the door blown wide open, hanging off one of its hinges with the right side of the building torn apart like a bulldozer went at it.

“Alright let’s move in and get that bag!” Neil orders right after, a huge grin splayed across his face as he appreciates his handiwork. The crew follows his eager order and troop with Jean trailing right after them with his rifle.

A hand smacks Erich’s shoulder, tossing him forward. He looks up and finds Neil’s grin fading, “Did you go deaf or something? Burst an eardrum? No? Then move!”

Gripping his pistol Erich steels himself as gunshots echo throughout the building, lighting up the ground floor windows as Jean and the crew took care of the remnants within.

Rob a rival gang safe house. Take their Vie and whatever else looks valuable. What a mission.

 “Fuck.” Erich curses under his breath as he steps over the now burning and frozen bodies of the Lynx members he met alive only minutes ago. The door into the house swung ajar for him but it still looks like a bad idea even with Jean and—

“Aarrgh!!”

A bloodcurdling scream startles everyone in place, Neil pushes past Erich with his rifle back in hand. He steps foot into the house only for several of the crew to rush past him cursing all the while. Snatching one by the scruff of the collar he demands, “What’s goi—”

Another chilling scream cuts him off as one of the crew is flung out the shuttered window, taking concrete, wood and metal with him as he slams onto the street unmoving. Blinking at the still man and the twisted smile of the vertigo mask hanging off his face, Erich suppresses a shriek as he shudders, “Where are his legs?”

Before an answer can come from anywhere, a deafening roar bellows above the cacophony of gunshots rattling within the house. Erich and Neil start backing away from the stairs, sharing an unsettling look of terror.

A burly man with a bloody Vertigo mask leaps out of the side, “Get out of the way!” Jean yells without ever turning back to look as he rushes, climbing over a fence to get the van started.

Not waiting to be told twice, Erich and Neil run to the van, Cynthia’s wide-eyed and confused frosting away bleeding bite marks and tears running along the few crewmates that got out.

“What the fuck Neil? Did you not get any intel on this place!” She screams at the top of her lungs.

The dying sounds of gunshots didn’t escape anyone’s notice and just as the engine roars to life the house loses its second floor as a dark, furry ManBeast pushes out of it. Fur as dark as midnight, piercing green eyes and a beard tied into braids, wet with blood dripping from the limb it has hanging out the side of its wide mouth.

“Oh my fucking god!” Erich loses it, pushing himself to the back of the van he grasps onto the handlebars as Jean slams the gas and sends them zooming down the street, “That’s Lynx! The Lynx! Why did you bring me here?”

“Shut the fuck up back there!” Neil screams back at him, sending out a slew of curses as the van rolled over the corpse of the Lynx member Erich lured out into the street. “It’s bad enough we’ve lost half of everyone for nothing! I don’t need you chewin—”

“Hey!” Cynthia yells, eyes wide at something behind Erich, “Hey is he chasing us? Is he chasing us right now?”

Hot on their trail is a leaping Lynx, not a roar comes from it, only a determined glare that catches Erich’s eyes. He’s never believed in a god but the sight of the Lynx; the Metahuman crime boss well known for his notorious acts of cannibalism hunting them with his tongue dangling out his mouth and visibly growing with each bound inspires a brief belief in one.

“Can this go any faste—” The van tilts as Lynx’s claw strikes the backend, swerving it out of control and whipping Erich hard about as it smashes against a lamppost and tumbles down the street.

Erich’s world goes dark. When his senses return they do with enduring screams, sirens and persistent gunshots. Groaning awake he pulls himself upright, slamming his head into a seat cushion he finds the van upside down with neither Neil, Cynthia or Jean anywhere in sight. Crawling over the broken bodies of the crew, Erich strips his mask off for a breath of air and wipes the sweat and blood off his forehead before yanking at the van’s sliding door.

Gasping his way out onto the streets he finds chaos and murder continues on the outside. Civilians run frantic from the site, getting themselves out of the way as a man yells defiantly whilst emptying a magazine of bullets at the looming ManBeast.

“Stop! Get away from me!” Another round of shots. “Get back! Get back!”

Jean. Erich recognizes his voice even with the stain of terror on it. Getting onto his feet is a challenge but he does. Fighting dizziness, the wailing sirens exacerbated to search the surrounding mess of flipped cars and bloodstained snow for Cynthia or Neil. No luck on Neil but he spots Cynthia limping away on the main road with a rifle strapped over her shoulder.

“Fuck.” He looks about, the Lynx has his back turned on him; he could go the other way, escape this madness and be—

“Aarrgghh!”

Jean’s cry halts both his thoughts and Cynthia’s escape. The Lynx snatches him up in his paw and Jean’s measly pistol does nothing but shorten the ManBeast's mane of hair even at point blank range.

Cursing yet again, Erich picks up a random gun from the van—his lost amongst the chaos— and pulls the trigger. The shot does nothing, not even distract the Lynx but Cynthia lets loose a flurry of bullets from her rifle, screaming defiance, “Drop him you fucking hellcat!”

To his credit, Lynx complies. Slamming his hand down against the pavement and smothering Jean to a flesh, bone paste. Cynthia’s flurry of bullets halts in shock and Lynx looks over his shoulder at Erich, sharp green eyes leer down and paralyze him for a moment before he snorts and turns back to Cynthia with a growl.

“No, no, no!” Erich starts running towards the Lynx as he clears the distance between Cynthia and himself in a few strides. Erich whips out the pistol and fires out all its rounds as he runs, trying not to look at what became of Jean as he passes, “No, no!”

Cynthia seems to have lost the will to fight back, her eyes dead to life as Lynx picks her up by her feet, whipping his head back to swallow her whole. Erich flings the empty gun at the Lynx and screams, “I said NO!”

A searing pain stretches throughout his temple and arches around his head, jaw and teeth rattle in agony till he feels his gums and joints loosely hanging onto themselves. Erich knows this feeling and its consequences well but he holds it in place, he holds the Lynx, Cynthia and everything within the spherical bubble present in both his mind and reality in place.

Just until the sirens come, just until they come! Give me a minute, give me thirty seconds! He pleaded with his mind and body but he’s only ever managed ten seconds at most and already his vision is fading out, his legs giving away beneath him.

His body screams to stop, to let go of time but he persists, counting down the seconds, “One, two…three, four, five…six…seven…eight, nine…no... no.”