The trip to California was relatively uneventful. Jack had insisted on driving for the majority of the ride, only because he wanted to say to the police that Vanessa had held him hostage if they were pulled over and caught. He didn’t say that, though. Not like he had the chance to, anyway. Vanessa had fallen asleep thirty minutes into the ride with that cat she loved so much in her lap. Jack found himself thinking about the past once again as he drove. How did Vanessa end up like this?
By the time they got to Los Angeles, it was 5:30 PM. The woman who was supposedly a ‘captain’ of the cult was in an apartment complex nearby. He had actually seen her around on social media sometimes. She wasn’t exactly anything new in terms of streamers, though. Just another dime-a-dozen trendhopper that had a metric ton of allegations against her, but always got out of them somehow.
He parks the car in the lot of a cafe. The sun was still out, falling slowly. He sighs.
He hopes he doesn’t get caught helping Vanessa do whatever she’s going to do. The last thing he needs to happen is getting fired. He’d gotten so far from those years ago- he wouldn’t know what to do if all of that was undone.
The floor was pure, absolute black. The sky was an empyrean white light. Vanessa looked up to the sky. She admired it. It was all that was beautiful, all that was great. It was everything she couldn’t be, everything that she aspired to be like.
As she gazes up to the sky, black lines like shattered glass suddenly manifest within the pure white. Her eyes grow wider. Suddenly, a piece of heaven falls from above. A shard of heaven in the shape of a woman.
The shard’s dress flies through the air. The sound of fabric flapping fills the silence. Her arms, legs, and hair reach upwards, incapable of resisting the drag of air resistance. Vanessa stares upwards towards the shard. She couldn’t let the shard hit the floor. She doesn’t know why. It was like it was engraved into her soul. So her soul gives her mind and body one, simple command, that overtook all rationality:
“Catch her.”
She jumps up into the air high enough to soar above the clouds. The sound from the impact her jump made upon the floor echoed throughout the world. Vanessa’s arms reach out, trying to grab the shard of heaven by its arm. But, despite her ascension, it’s not enough. On the precipice of the only thing she wanted, Vanessa begins to fall. She still reaches out, though, as if it would change anything.
The shard of heaven turns back to her, her hair still flying upwards. She expected to see something on her face. Maybe despair at Vanessa’s failure to save her. Vanessa would believe that. But she only sees two blackened eyes with red dots for pupils staring back at her. The black poured down the shard’s face like ruined makeup.
She opened her mouth to try and say something,
“Hey.”
Her eyes begin to open to the sound of Jack’s voice.
“Wake up.”
Vanessa sits up after hours of being slumped against the window. That was the first time she’d slept in a while. She looks back at Jack, blinking, not exactly sure where she was now.
“Welcome to Los Angeles.”
She hears the car door open and, without another word, Jack’s walking into some restaurant they’re parked at. She scrambles to get up. Egg wakes up and jumps into the backseat in surprise. “Crap, wait!-” She panickedly opens the door and jogs towards Jack.
After a few minutes, at a circular, wooden table, sat down on stools. She’d gotten a mocha frappuccino while Jack had gotten a sandwich. Jack began to explain the plan he had in mind to her,
“According to her Twitter, all her streams start at 3 and end at 9. Assuming you get in at 7, that gives us about two hours where she’s distracted. What do you wanna do?”
She sipped on the straw of her coffee for a moment before answering,
“You need more information on them, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, I’ll steal her phone or something then get out.”
Jack looked back at her. He opened his mouth to say something, but it took a second for the words to come out. “Are you gonna like… you know…” Vanessa looked at him weirdly for a second. Jack didn’t feel like saying what he was going to say, so he just closed his fingers and ran his thumb against his throat.
“Oh. Yeah, probably. I don’t know.”
Jack frowned. Vanessa looked back at her coffee, not seeing the look on his face. “...Do you have to? I mean, what if you get on their radar and they focus on killing you?”
Vanessa didn’t believe she could be killed in the first place. “I’ve been doing this for months. If they wanted to do that, they’d have done it already.”
“...Okay, well, what if it causes all the leaders to go into hiding? Wouldn’t it be better to take them all out in one go?” He rubbed his neck.
She considered it for a moment and decided he was right. She wanted this to end as soon as possible, but she also wanted to savor the feeling. Taking them all out in one room like they were lambs to slaughter would be the best way to do that. Just the thought of slicing through them made her feel warm and fuzzy inside. She nodded. “Alright, sure.”
Jack sighed. He took a bite out of his sandwich. When he was done chewing, he spoke, “Also, I’m gonna put a wire on you when you go in. That okay?”
“Yeah.” she sipped from her coffee.
After they finished their food, they walked out of the cafe. Vanessa threw her coffee into the trash, before spotting a motorcycle with an unattended gray helmet. She tore it off of the bike before putting it under her arm.
Vanessa walked across the apartment halls. The lights were yellow, and the carpet was green with a white circular pattern. The walls were white. Each door had a keypad on it. She considered going through the window, but it turned out that the woman she was looking for lived on the eighth floor. She eventually got to the door that Jack had said was her address-- room 829. She leaned against the wall next to it, not wanting to look too suspicious, even though she was wearing all black and had a motorcycle helmet in her hands.
“There’s a code. What do I do?” she asked Jack from the earphone in her ear.
“916874.” Jack said it as if it were common knowledge.
“Wh- Huh? How do you know that?--”
“She was dating the guy you pulled the cartridge out of. Like, I looked in his account and all of their DMs are just sappy lovey-dovey bullcrap-”
“Okay, that’s enough. Thanks.” she entered the code into the keypad. He was right. The door unlocked. “I’m in.”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Alright. She should still be streaming, so make sure you stay quiet.”
Vanessa put on the helmet.
The phantom walked into the apartment, closing the door behind her slowly. Her navy Converse shoes tapped against the hardwood floor. The lights were off. Next to her was a gray futon with a white fur blanket on it, with an assortment of Sanrio plushies strewn across it. Parallel to it was a flatscreen television. She heard the constant voice of the streamer and the incessant clicking of her keyboard on the side, followed by the monitor’s light beaming onto the floor. It seemed as if she was fairly far away. Good.
The Marionette stared at a drawer next to her. She crouched down and began to open its compartments to try and find something slowly. They slid out smoothly, giving her a fresh breath of relief. But she couldn’t seem to find anything. Either there was nothing worthwhile inside or it was too dark…
And then, Jack yelled from the earpiece-- “HER STREAM JUST WENT ON BREAK, GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!-”
The lights turned on to an orangish pink. Vanessa turned back.
“Have I seen you before?” The streamer’s honeyed voice asked.
The phantom stood up, grabbing the machete from her jacket. The streamer’s glowing, hot-pink eyes, which were surrounded by thick winged eyeliner, pierced right through the visor of The Marionette’s helmet. Her hair was a light lavender and was tied into a messy bun. She wore a black, high-neck tank top along with high-waisted jeans. She didn’t seem at all concerned about the armed intruder in front of her.
The Marionette stood still, not exactly knowing what to do. But she didn’t get the chance to do so as the woman began to speak once again. “Oh! You’re that Marionette that everyone’s been complaining about, right?”
A small smile formed under her helmet upon being recognized. “...Yeah-”
Before she knew it, the front of her helmet had been shattered open by the woman’s fist. Vanessa didn’t even get to process what happened. She felt her back hit the wall. But, she was quick to pick herself up and swing her blade into her enemy. She felt it make contact with the woman’s face. But, as she looked back at the machete, she found that almost two-thirds of the blade was gone. But she doesn’t get much chance to rationalize what happens before a kick to her side sends her stumbling back and the following punch completely destroys what was left of the helmet, along with the earpiece Jack was talking to her with.
Vanessa stumbles and trips into a wall. She didn’t feel the pain from the strikes whatsoever, though. Maybe it was adrenaline. Maybe her nerves had been destroyed in the fire. She looks back at the woman to see the broken piece of blade between her teeth with a smug grin. She opens her mouth to let the blade fall and sticks her tongue out at her.
The phantom jumps up to try and pounce on her, only to be caught by the wrist and throat and slammed onto the wall with a thud. Her feet dangle in the air, unable to find any footing. The woman’s hot pink eyes stare into hers.
“You’re pretty cute under that helmet, you know.~”
“What?--” Her cheeks flush at the unexpected compliment. But she doesn’t get time to process it before she’s thrown into the futon hard enough to make it slide back. She slides down off of the furniture, the plushies on the futon following her. Hello Kitty falls onto her face.
“It makes sense now, actually.” Vanessa tries to get back up but is met with a kick to the head that causes her to tumble back and to the floor. “I thought my guys were somehow getting taken out by a normal person.” Vanessa tries to go in for a punch, but it gets caught, and before she knows it, she’s been slammed on her back by her arm. “But you just ended up being one of us.”
Vanessa picks herself up, on one knee, and scoffs at such a nonsensical statement, “We aren’t comparable. You’re fucking scum. I’m j–” She catches a kick to the face that sends her back into the apartment door.
“What? The messiah? The will of god? The past back to haunt me, or whatever? I’ve heard it a thousand times, baby. Tell me something new!” she giggled like the phantom had told a bad joke.
Vanessa was going to say she was ‘justice incarnate.’
She picked herself up, gripping the broken machete like it was part of her. Her opponent crossed her arms and smiled, “So, what’s making you do this? Why fight the inevitable?”
She didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, but the words flew out of her mouth as if they were engraved into her soul. “Love.”
“Ew.” The woman frowned in disappointment. “You’re one of those? God, I hate your kind.”
“...What the hell do you mean my kind?”
“Egotistical dime-a-dozen gǒu niáng yǎng de who pretend they’re doing it for someone else.”
Vanessa’s teeth grit. Her face scrunched up. It was the first time an insult had gotten through to her in a while. She sprung up at the woman in her rage, only to get tripped over and fall back to the floor. “You… shut up. You don’t know a thing about me!-” Vanessa stood up and coughed. She felt her heart for the first time in a while, but all it was doing was dropping.
But then, the woman smiled, tilted her head, and told the phantom in her sweet, saccharine voice, a terrible truth that she was not ready to hear:
“What makes you think they’d still love you after you killed all those people?”
“Huh?”
Vanessa’s eyes widened. It takes a moment for the words to register, but once they do, something inside of her snaps. Or was it a puzzle piece that entered its intended place? Desperate puffs of breath begin to fly out of her mouth. Her heartbeat quickens. A choking feeling begins to make its way up her throat.
It wasn’t until this point that Vanessa dared to question her motives. Because they were the only things she wanted. But, as the woman’s words set in, the Ashley in her memories that she loved so much began to look less and less like the one she imagined in her happily ever after, the one she’d clung to as her only reason to live. And like a roaring flame reduced to sputtering embers on its last bits of fuel, her mind tries to pathetically irrationalize the revelation to no avail.
For the first time since she arose from the ashes of her home, Vanessa Storm’s humanity begins to rear its head.
The woman kicks her back against the wall and doubles down, laughing, “Sounds to me like you only miss their attention!~”
Like a desperate, wounded animal, the phantom raises her shattered blade once again and runs towards her opponent. Her teeth grit. The sound of glass shattering fills the air. The woman’s eyes widen in surprise. A bright, white blade shape places itself upon the broken machete, as if The Marionette had been blessed by the heavens above.
SLICE
The holy blade of light strikes true. The woman is sent aback. A black liquid falls to the floor. Half of her hand, which she’d tried to use to block the blade, had been completely lopped off. But she didn’t seem all too bothered by it. She just looked at her hand, surprised. And it wasn’t long until The Marionette’s efforts were undone, as Vanessa witnessed the woman’s hand grow back within less than a second. The only evidence that Vanessa had chopped off her hand in the first place was the lack of black paint that used to be on her nails.
“I changed my mind. Maybe you are pretty unique, after all~.”
The phantom only panted in response, confused, frustrated, and her mind running amok.
A pink outline around the woman’s arm formed, and, a second afterwards, black armor filled with glowing tapestries of multi-colored light formed around it. A heavenly form that the phantom couldn’t hope to understand. Her armored hand pointed towards its target. A bright pink orb that lit up the entire room formed on her index finger. Like a star about to collapse.
“You’ll make a good toy.”
Vanessa’s eyes dart to the orb, and then over to the side. She remembers what she was supposed to get here and knew that she was outclassed for the first time. The phantom blasts behind her and goes into the room to her right, before yanking a laptop away from its charger and throwing herself outside of the eighth-story window.
And, like it never happened, the woman frowned disappointedly, yawned, and went immediately back to her stream.
Jack let out a curse as he tried his best to find Vanessa. He’d tried calling her, checking back on their target’s stream, and even getting into the apartment complex’s security cameras, but to no avail.
What if Vanessa was dead, he thought? For real this time. What would he even do, if she came back to life, dragged him out here, only to die so early? Even though he knew he shouldn’t feel any attachment to her anymore, he couldn’t stand the thought of her dying. It’d be his fault somehow if she did. The cat in the backseat meows. What would he do with the cat if Vanessa dies? He doubted her ghost would approve of him taking care of it–
BANG
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Jack watches as something falls and makes a crater in the roof of the car in front of him. Its headlights flickered and its horn screamed as if it were an animal alerting its pack. His eyes widened. He couldn’t get a good look at what it was, as it was far too dark outside. He stepped out of the car, trying to get a good look–
He saw the same monster from that video crawling out from the wreckage. She walked towards the car, laptop in hand and what looked to be a machete with a blade of light in the other.
“V-Vanessa?-- Are you okay?!” What was she, invincible? Who survives something like that and walks it off like it didn’t happen?
She walks up to him, and for a second, he fears for his life. But she only sighs and hands the laptop to him. He gets back into the car, afterwards, still looking at her. After putting her machete into the trunk, she entered the passenger’s seat and put her head into her palms.
“...What happened?” Jack’s voice showed genuine concern and confusion. The corpse of a car in front of them still beeped and flickered its lights madly.
Vanessa wants to say a thousand things. “I’m sorry for doing this to you.” “Do you think I’m a good person?” “I don’t think I’ve ever actually loved her, you, or anyone else.” “I don’t know if I want Ashley back or if I just want the attention she gave me back.” But her mouth only speaks two words:
“...Just drive.”
She spends the rest of the night crying silently against the car window.