*Knock*

Joy startled awake. She must have fallen asleep while planning, it had been a pretty exhausting couple of hours. Machine, had it really only been a couple of hours? It felt like a lifetime.

Well, it wouldn’t do to keep a guest waiting, even if they are gutter trash. There was a small whisper of paranoia in her mind saying, It’s a trap, assassins are here to kill you, but that was silly. If Thanatos’ blades were here, she wouldn’t have needed to wake up to answer the door, she’d just be dead.

As Joy opened the door, she was met with the signature stench of a typical gangster. Oh, was that a NOD-19.10? That’s a fairly advanced neurooptic device, the boss must have sent the big guns.

“Sorry to bother you, ma’am, but we were told that you’ve had a run in with one of our enforcers, would you mind confirming that?”

Gentlemen, are they? They are pretty polite, they must be the ones that are actually high up.

“Why yes, I did. I do hope you haven’t come looking for more trouble? I just finished disposing of the last one, and I’m still quite tired.” She tried saying as daintily as possible.

It created a strange dichotomy in the minds of the gangsters and caused some confusion among them.

“We- well, ma’am, we’re sorry to hear that. Our boss has formally invited you to our base to make amends, we hope you’ll take the offer.” He finished off as politely as he started.

It was refreshing dealing with people with manners, it seemed to be a foreign concept in this city.

“I’ll hope you’ll give me a moment to prepare myself, but I’ll be quite happy to accept, that is, as long as you promise to not look at the body. I’m afraid I got a little carried away, and I don’t want to offend your gentlemanly sensibilities.”

“O- of course, ma’am. We’ll await your call.”

Hmm, they were pretty good at this. Maybe a noble bastard took over the gang? She’d see soon.

Not long after, they were on their way through the miasma of the city. It only got worse, too, as they headed to the bad part of the Undercity. When she first arrived, she found it hard to believe that there was somewhere worse than the normal part of the city, but oh how wrong she was.

If there was one thing this city was good at, it was making someone think, ‘it can’t possibly get worse’ and then getting worse. It was like a cruel joke, but the only people laughing were surface dwellers.

The background music on their pleasant commute was screaming, explosions, and gunfire. Oh, was that an energy weapon she heard? Talk about an exotic orchestra, they were pulling out all the stops.

After about ten minutes of walking, an H.V.C.E.V. picked them up, of course standing for, Heavy Vanguard Class Energy Vehicle. It was a tank. With energy munitions. They really let them have anything down here, but why not? It’s not like they could use them above ground, a single Class 2 War Mage could take down fifty of them, and we all knew it.

Someone had to be the king of nothing down here, though, and there were a million wannabes vying for the position, so they didn’t really care about the surface, not like they’d ever see it.

Finally, we’d arrived.

Their “Base” was as wretched as could be expected from a group of miscreants masquerading as gentlemen. This was their base? Really? It looked like someone had taken an old-world warehouse, and destroyed half of it with ballistic missiles and then covered it with crude graffiti.

What a disappointment. Are they even trying? Playing along with their little game was fun, but if they're not even going to put in any effort, why should I?

“Is everything alright, ma’am?” Her “honor” guard asked, noticing her sudden shift in demeanor.

“Quite.” She said shortly.

The escort, not knowing how to deal with the sudden shift in attitude, used the most obvious solution, ignoring the problem.

Joy, on the other hand, took in everything she was seeing with a critical eye and ear.

“Did you hear about the new rule the boss just made? Apparently we aren’t supposed to be ‘needlessly cruel’ to the people we’re extorting. How fuckin’ stupid is that? If people aren’t afraid, why would they listen to us?” One random goon said.

“Do you know anyone actually following those stupid ass rules? Just ignore it.” Random goon two responded.

“Why do we even fuckin’ deal with the new boss? I say we just fuckin’ kick his ass then shove his stupid fucking rules up his ass, too!”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

How… colorful, joy thought disdainfully.

“Are you fuckin’ crazy? He’s got R-4 physical augs and enough weapons to blow us to the fuckin’ surface!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m just saying, he couldn’t take all of us.”

“Yes he could, you fucking idiot!” Goon one said, exasperated.

At this point, Joy was stunned. How could someone be so terrible at running an organization? He just let his men openly disrespect him? This wasn’t a corporation, this was a band of violent morons, he needed to rule with fear and respect! And the complete disregard for his rules! What the hell was he doing?

If you wanted rules to be followed, you needed to enforce them, what kind of gang leader was this man? He was either extremely naive or setting up a demonstration. She would like it to be the ladder, but by the looks of it, it was the former.

This wouldn’t stand. How could a man like this gather such a large following? Just from the ongoing conversations around her, she could tell he was an idiot, but from some of the rules Joy had heard, he had some good ideas.

There was a genuine need for protection in this area, and by treating their clients with respect they were more likely to come to them. Of course, you could just force them to pay you, but a willing customer is much easier to manage.

So was she just dealing with a naive, relatively strong, idiot, with experience in extortion? Maybe, but it seemed unlikely.

Well, Joy would find out soon.

Walking through the heavily protected front gate, which was weird as people could just fly in through the many holes in the roof, she finally saw the boss. Bosses. Ah, that explains it, the brains and the brawn, a classic combo.

The first man she saw was a shirtless seven-foot tall behemoth of muscle and machinery, and the second was a slight man dressed in a makeshift suit that held himself with remarkable dignity. They seemed to be having a quiet argument in the corner until someone informed them I was there.

“Ah, hello! Joy, was it? We heard you had a small altercation with one of our men, what was his name again… oh yeah, Devon. Listen, I’m terribly sorry about what you had to go through, to disrespect you in such an awful way, simply terrible, but you must understand that we can’t just let someone kill one of our men with no repercussions.” Gearing up to continue his spiel, Joy interrupted the small man.

“You listen, I’ve been incredibly patient with your ‘Organization’ here, but I did not come here to be condescended to by some upstart under-dweller that somehow learned how to read, so here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to apologize to me, you’re going to give me suitable reparations for the emotional damage you’ve caused, or you’re going to die.” Joy finished snappily.

Stunned, the shorter man couldn’t speak. The bigger man had no such reservations. “Don’t talk to Omar like that unless you want to die, and I don’t want to hurt a lady.”

Realizing where this was going, Omar tried to stop his compatriot, “Alex, no. Think about this, she just waltzed in here and disrespected us to our face. She’s clearly trying to goad us, she must be working for another gang.”

“Cute theory, Omar, but no. I actually just came here to see what kind of show you guys were running. I’ve decided that you need a change in management, Alex, I challenge you to a duel.” Doing this was a risk, but they seemed to be imitating noble culture down here, and nobles dueled all the time.

Before Omar could say a word, Alex accepted, “Fine! You asked for it, lady. Omar, get me my sword.”

Not able to talk him out of it anymore, he languidly reached for a surprisingly fine-looking blade. Well, fine looking for down here, no one would be caught dead wielding that cyber-ninja bullshit up top, but the craftsmanship wasn’t poor by any means. The bright blue glow could be toned down a bit, though.

Now surrounded in a circle by the cheering gang, she said, “Now, this hardly seems fair, he get’s a sword and I don’t even have a weapon to defend myself with?”

From the crowd, someone tossed a knife at her, and she caught it with practiced ease, they said, “Take it, not like it’ll save you!”

This will do.

Without realizing it, a small grin lit up on her face. All these people were underestimating her, and she reveled in imagining the face they would make when their leader was defeated.

They said something about R-4 augs earlier, Rank 4 Physical Augmentations, but Joy wasn’t too worried. It was supposed to make you equivalent to a Class 4 individual, but the tech down here always overpromised and underdelivered.

Getting into position, she lowered into a defensive stance. Best to see how accurate that claim was before rushing in blindly.

“The duel starts in 3… 2… 1… GO!” Omar counted down.

Alex POV:

This little girl had tried to challenge him, and as bad as he would feel for killing a woman, it must be done. He would not let his honor be spit on. Standing at a decidedly un-intimidating 5’9, this woman couldn’t possibly beat his reach.

In the background, past the shouting and cheering of his loyal gang, he could hear his brother counting down to the start of the duel. He would end this fast and brutally, it would send the message that his brother kept saying he needed to deliver. Betray us and die. Alex didn’t see why that was necessary, but his brother had always been the smarter one.

“GO!”

He rushed forward as fast as his natural and augmented speed would let him, and to his shock, Joy only looked mildly surprised. Was she dumb? It didn’t matter anyway, so he continued with his plan and tried to cut her in half vertically with a mighty overhead chop… that she sidestepped gracefully while giving him a light nick on his chest, then back stepping out of his range.

Must have been a fluke

He charged in another mad rush and tried to hit her with another brutal slash, this time horizontal, but she ducked under it and rolled underneath his legs before he had even finished the maneuver, leaving a nick on his inner thigh and then his back before he could turn around.

Now beginning to get thoroughly pissed, he attacked with a series of fast and fatal strikes in rapid succession… she flowed around like them like liquid while leaving scratches on his arms and chest.

“Wow, is this it? I thought the big, bad, ‘Alex the Giant’ would be more dangerous.” She said bitingly.

Alex’s face flushed at that, and with a great shout, he launched his fastest set of attacks yet, and yet still none of them hit. Alex was starting to sweat, and not just out of exertion.

Downward left slash, she had already crouched beneath it before it started. A stab at her center, she sidestepped. Whirlwind attack, she just got out of his range. All the while slowly bleeding him dry.

“Well, I think this has gone on for long enough” Alex could hear her whisper to herself.

Putting himself in a defensive stance, he prepared himself for an onslaught. Therefore, when she became blurry to his vision shortly before disappearing, he was quite perplexed. Then he felt a sharp pain at the base of his skull, and darkness followed shortly after.

Joy’s POV

Her muscles were screaming at her, and her adrenaline had never pushed through her with such force. It was only thanks to [Stealth] that she wasn’t choking on her breath.

That was close, very, very close. Those R-4 augs clearly were no joke, he was so fucking fast, and if even one of those slashes had hit her she would be so fucking dead. Thankfully, she got the kill off with her [Stealth]. That meant more energy to bring her back up to class 4. In fact, it might have been just enough.

Total Energy: 1493

Holy shit! 600! For a Scorned that was ridiculous, killing them was supposed to give next to none!

“The winner is…” Omar interrupted her thoughts with, “Joy!” Cheering met this new proclamation.

With a slightly bitter look, he said, “Congratulations on the successful change in management.”

Well, Joy didn’t really think that one through. It looked like she was the new boss of a gang.

What now?