“Oh my gosh, I look like a princess,” Violet said before doing another spin in front of the mirror. “Swishy swish!”

The dress was absolutely stunning, the top a bright red and shifting to a delicate pink at the bottom, the pattern changing with a flowing swirl design. Sure, it was a little tight in some places and an inch or so too small, but she didn’t mind. It was going to look amazing on her.

“Are you sure this is okay?” Scarlet asked the woman at the register. “You can do this?”

“It’s fine,” the woman said, not even looking up from her magazine. “You’d be surprised just how often we get individuals asking for this kind of stuff. We don’t just make costumes and props for plays, you know.”

“Okay,” Scarlet said. Well, finding a tailor hadn’t exactly worked, but it seemed Jasmine had, once again, come up with a solution. If with quite a bit of sarcasm. A small shop that made custom costumes and props for plays. It was more expensive, but considering they were looking for something that had gone out of style centuries ago, Violet wasn’t surprised.

“So, this for some kind of larp or something?” the woman asked.

“What’s a larp?” Scarlet asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Violet said. “And yes. Kind of. More like method acting.”

“Ah, one of those things, gotcha. Yeah, we get that all the time. That the one you want?” the woman asked.

“Yes,” Violet said, suppressing the urge to squeal with giddy excitement.

“It seems so,” Scarlet said before whispering something to the woman.

“What are you doing over there?” Violet asked.

“Nothing,” Scarlet said. “A surprise.”

“It better not be a bad thing,” Violet said.

“I’ll need to take some measurements,” the woman said before walking over and pulling out a long cloth measuring tape. “Stand still.”

Despite her desires to do anything BUT stand still, Violet managed to suppress herself just long enough to get the measuring done. She couldn’t help being disappointed when she had to take the dress off and return to her more mundane clothes, but at least it meant she had her knives again. Those were nice. Of course, once they were out of the store she could only barely suppress the urge to twirl and dance while they walked down the street.

“Have fun, lil Miss Hunter?” Scarlet asked with a smirk on her face.

“Shut up,” Violet said. “I just don’t get to dress up like this often. Or ever. Stop smirking like that.”

“I will just as soon as this stops being cute,” Scarlet said with another snicker. “I just think--” She then stopped.

Violet frowned. Wait, what was-- Her instincts flared to life and she realized what it was a few moments before she heard the scream. She turned and ran towards where the source. Luckily it wasn’t hard to track down.

Mostly because everyone was running the opposite way. Local park. Wonderful. It only took a few seconds to find the source of the commotion, primarily because it was gouging massive claws into the trunk of a tree.

Werewolf. Great. Basically an angry wolf the size of a car.

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Wait, it wasn’t a full moon tonight. Was it? She glanced up and, sure enough, the moon was just a sliver. So not a feral werewolf, a werewolf intentionally shifting for who knew why. Well, at least at the moment all it seemed to be doing was clawing at a tree. Maybe they’d just gotten over emotional and--

A scream from the tree knocked that thought from her mind. Even better. She could just barely make out a bit of blue through the leaves of the tree. Someone was up there. “Hey! You! Furball!” Violet yelled.

The werewolf glanced back before returning to clawing at the tree, ignoring her. Not that she’d expected much of a reaction. Maybe if it was feral, sure. But whoever was in that tree it desperately wanted.

Well, fortunately she had ways to get its attention.

Violet drew a small silver dagger and, with a gentle flick of her wrist, she threw it.

The best thing about Violet’s job, at least in her opinion, was that in most cases being a boy or girl didn’t matter. Muscles meant very little when most things were a hundred times stronger than you and ten times faster than you. There were plenty of hunters who loved to brag about how they could fight a werewolf with just a sword or punch out a hydra or shoot a dragon through the eye before it incinerated them. But in the end? In most cases it was about accepting the fact that the things you hunted were cheating little bastards and so you needed to cheat just as much if you didn’t want to end up dead. Guns were useful for that, of course. The biggest issue she had with them was how loud they were and how a few stray shots could cause untold damage. Her personal favorite had always been enchanted silver throwing knives.

Even though her throw would have been barely enough to make it land a few feet away, instead the knife took off like a bolt of lightning, flying through the air and embedding itself deep in the back of the werewolf. She could almost hear the sizzling of flesh where the silver dug into its body. It let out a howl of pain before turning to face her.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Violet said, already drawing a second and third, one in each hand. “How about you stop disturbing the peace and we just have a nice, calming sit down. Listen, go back to being human, we can get some coffee, maybe get you some pants or a blanket or something. Then--”

She could see its back legs tense up and a moment later it lunged at her.

Violet was already in the middle of diving to the left before it had finished tensing up and so she just barely managed to avoid its strike, the razor claws moving so close she could feel the air from them. It took her a moment to realize she’d actually thrown the knives and she had to draw two more.

The werewolf hadn’t stuck its landing, instead its front legs gave out and it toppled, rolling along the ground. Violet, on the other hand, hadn’t landed much better, quickly crawling away while wildly flinging two knives back. “Shit shit shit shit!”

As much as Violet wished she could use a gun, there really were too many advantages to having a weapon you didn’t really have to aim and still not worry about hitting a civilian. She scrambled to her feet and behind a tree, peering out a moment later.

The werewolf was on the ground, giving soft, pained whines. “We done?” she yelled out to it. She really hoped the answer was yes.

The fur began to be absorbed back into flesh and the hulking mass of muscle and fur began to shrink down. Good. They were done. With a light sigh she dropped to the ground and let out an exhausted sigh.

“Are you okay?” Scarlet asked from behind her, making her shriek.

“Don’t DO that!” Violet yelled. “What part of any of that made you think SNEAKING UP ON ME was a good idea?”

“Sorry,” Scarlet said softly. “Still, though. That was amazing. Your aim is incredible.”

“Yeah, I’m amazing like that,” Violet said. No way she was going to tell her little knife trick to Scarlet. Why ruin her moment of awesome? Though she suspected it was going to be ruined anyway because of something else. She was pretty sure she’d peed herself a little bit.

Of course, NOW she heard sirens. About time. Well, at least she had a license for this. But she was not looking forward to filling out another report. “You may want to go back home,” Violet said.

“Hm? Why?” Scarlet asked.

“Security force will be here soon,” Violet said. “I’m going to be filling out reports for half the night. I’ll get a cab home. Okay? Just don’t bite anyone.”

“Are you sure?” Scarlet asked.

“Yeah,” Violet said. “I’d have to fill out another report if you bit someone.”

“I meant about me going home,” Scarlet said.

“It’ll be fine. They love hunters,” Violet said. Well. Sometimes they did. Usually not. But sometimes. Who knew? Maybe she’d get lucky.