The sun was very nearly set as Freyja found herself within a few blocks of the mercantile district she was looking for. A low yellow line just barely peeked up from its hole in the horizon like a radiant meerkat, dying the sky a darker, metallic twilight verging on darkness at its corners. She didn't mind being out after dark so much, but the seedier parts of the city tended to also be more trash-strewn and polluted, making it difficult to navigate by her trusty nose. It wrinkled as she passed a crowded alleyway, her eyes scanning the street signs.
Almost there, I think.
Her ears, however, weren't impeded, the traffic having died to a low echo, along with the ambient chatter. After curfew went into effect, and people began to fear the dark again, the night life was way quieter, except outside of the Carnival Top area. Perhaps that was why her ears twitched, picking up a low, almost inaudible beat. It was the patter of very small, very fine wings, followed by beeping that was lost on humans, but obnoxious in the ears of canines. Freyja squeezed an eye shut, annoyed, and looked over her shoulder to see a telescope dragonfly buzzing up the walkway.
"Fuckin' surveillance bullshit." Freyja growled to herself. She had already overdone it in that last fight, straining her back, and now she had to make an on-foot pilgrimage to the shop while hauling two heavy pieces of solid silver over her shoulder. The craziest part about believing in Santa wasn't his flying reindeer, going down chimneys, or his relativistic travel time - it was the longevity of his back, lugging all that junk around.
Rolling her eyes, Freyja ducked into the alley.
Appropriately, its interior was as sketchy as it smelled. A few paces in and she was already confronted with a posse of muscled motorcycle hoodlums blocking her way. Their gaze fell on her as though a doe had just strolled into an open field.
"Uh, hey." Freyja said, sweating quietly. "You boys able to point me to the pawn shop?"
A tatted dude in a black muscle shirt with spiky red hair cracked out his neck and shot her a glare. "Right through here. But there's a toll."
Freyja's ear twitched. "Well, in that case, I'll take the scenic route."
A hitherto hidden biker closed off the mouth of the alley, his polished hog parked lengthwise. A custom boot with a cowboy spur flipped the kickstand down.
"Now what might you have in that bag there? Looks pretty heavy."
"Yeah." said the redhead. "Let us lighten your load, sweet thing."
Freyja sighed and flipped her hair over her ear. "You wanna see?" she dropped the bag and plunged her hands into it, withdrawing fists clad in silver knuckles.
Shocked gasps and a few whistles echoed.
"There. You can look, but you can't touch." she replaced the dusters in the bag.
"I'll be on my way then." she said. "Move it."
They exchanged glances. "I don't think you under-"
"Yeah yeah, gonna have to go through you. Got it." Freyja said.
"So, knowing you have a brawl blowing your way, you discarded your weapons why, exactly?" the ringleader said.
"Are you retarded? I'm on my way to sell them, they'll drop in value if they get dented on your ugly bottomfeeder pissant faces. This is all about to be one long, blurry nightmare for you meatheads." Freyja snarled. A foolish, ring-clad hand reached for her shoulder from behind...
Lupine jaws smashed around the extended digits, and a sharp tug severed all but the thumb, the biker's shrill screams kicking the other gangsters into action. They rushed in to help the bleeder squirming on the ground, stopping short when Freyja's gaze turned their way. "What the fuck?!" Redhead shouted. The leader of the group stopped short too, an uncertain look of fear and anger plastered across his leathery, bearded face. "Quit standin' there, kill the bitch!" A shaky voice called from down low. Freyja looked over her shoulder at the prone man who gambled with a losing hand, spitting out his rings at him, the metal bands thudding against his leather vest with little bits of attached viscera. "You heard the man, come get some!" Freyja roared, hunching her shoulders and extending her claws as she bared her bloodstained teeth at the rest of the gang.
The thugs exchanged uncertain looks, then rushed her. It was a bit blurry for Freyja as well, tuning out to the hypnotic white noise of her own snarling wrath. She dodged swinging chains and crowbars, slammed heads together, crunched a shoulder to pulp in her jaws. She remembered later the distinct, acidic scent of piss down someone's leg when he ambushed her from behind. He tried to sucker punch her with a wooden baseball bat upside the head. It broke on Freyja, and she slowly turned to the guerilla, face twisted in tranquil fury, eyes burning.
Ridiculously, the hardened criminal said "I'm sorry." without thinking. His teeth went flying in different directions, save a golden one, which Freyja yanked out manually.
"Apology accepted." she said, rubbing the back of her head.
Snapping fingers, tearing leather and flesh, cracking skulls - same shit, different day.
She shuffled out of the mess of groaning bodies laying miserably in the gutter filth.
"This is my territory now." she growled.
She drew in a sharp breath as she felt a switch blade bury itself in her back.
"Not yet, whore!" one of the fine gentlemen rebuffed Freyja's claim.
Playing dead. How clever.
Freyja shrank away, clutching her stab wound, her nose wiggling at the metallic scent of her own blood dripping from the steel.
Those that could still stand took advantage, all pummeling onto Freyja at once. She was thrown to the ground, run through a standing gauntlet with boards, crowbars, and stomps.
The biker crowd were breathless at this point, shrinking back to regroup and survey the freak. Did she really sprout fangs and claws and shit?
They heard laboured breathing, and collectively went slack jawed.
"No fuckin' way..." Redhead said, sent full circle into detached shock.
Freyja slowly and deliberately stood up, cracking out her back, and hissed. She regarded the gang with scorn.
"Enough. I'm tired and my back hurts."
Slowly, a few nervous giggles trickled out, like grains of sand from an hourglass.
"Tired, you say? Ready to get down on your knees and beg?"
Freyja licked the flowing blood from her forehead.
"That's not what I meant. I'm tired of dealing with this. So I'm gonna go ahead and slaughter you all now."
An orange glow flared in her gut, traveling up her chest and to her throat. She grinned, little fire tails flicking between her teeth as she unleashed a hellish arc of fire, setting alight nearly everyone crowded around her as the jets of flame consumed patch-laden leather and ripped denim, eager to eat away at the tender flesh beneath. Overhead, the dragonfly drone's ocular camera feed showed the remaining dozen bikers fleeing away from who they'd mistakenly identified as easy prey. One particularly distraught and foolish biker attempted to flee aboard his red and chrome Indian bike, only to cause a small explosion as the trailing wisps of gasoline fumes that wafted from his leaky gas tank were ignited by the fire still trailing up his pant legs, sending shards of motorcycle fragmenting at high velocity and stabbing into several bystanding gang members, more than a few having vital organs or arteries slashed by the projectiles. The remaining few in enough shape to run away did so, illuminating their retreat with the flames that still clung to their duds.
Only the ringleader remained, his road-hardened skin scarred and shiny with blood on his right arm, which he'd blocked the brunt of the blast with. He brandished a nickle-plated pistol from his waistband, his other hand fetching a cigar from his vest and lighting it on the flaming corpse of one of his comrades. He took a deep puff, cocking the hammer on his sidearm and leaning against the wall. "I'm impressed." his gruff voice echoed in the alley.
"Did I ask for your approval?" Freyja growled. She regarded the bag of knuckle dusters, ripped, singed, and stained with blood. Chances were the weapons themselves got scuffed. If she hadn't been trying to protect them in the first place, this little scuffle wouldn't have lasted a minute. She frowned - how was she supposed to walk into the shop like this? These clueless bastards probably ruined her night. So much for keeping things discreet. Goddammit, she didn't want to make a scene. She could already tell that the bug had gotten more than its fill of her little performance.
"Hey! Earth to werewolf!" the boss pressed the gun to Freyja's head. "Let's make a deal. Y-"
"No to the rest of your sentence." Freyja growled.
The man balked. "Look doll, you really ought to quit while you're ahead."
"Right back at you." Freyja sneered.
The gun glowed red hot, and the thug screamed as it sizzled his flesh like bacon. He dropped it, falling to his knees, then watched as Freyja made her way to the man's flame-red motorcycle, the only ride remaining intact in the alley. With a deep breath, Freyja picked the hog up over her head, and walked back to the man. The gun had begun to cool, but Freyja stomped on the man's hand as he reached for it, eliciting another squeal.
He was totally pale now, his cigar fallen to the ground, forgotten. Freyja slammed the bike down as hard as she could - slightly next to the gang leader. It shattered to bits, making him flinch.
"You're going to give me everything of value you have, then you're going to run home naked, squawking like a chicken, and finally, you're going to go lick the assholes of every last person in this city you've mugged, threatened, or otherwise inconvenienced."
The biker coughed, bitterly accepting defeat, ears ringing from the boom of his bike being smashed right next to him. Swallowing the urge to scream that she’d scuffed the paint on his chopper, to say nothing of blowing it literally into pieces, the man let out a ragged sigh, letting his head rest against the blacktop.
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"That pistol there is the one my Granddad carried in world war two.” He pointed a finger at the cast-aside handgun. “Should fetch a pretty penny. The bike you just hulked into pieces was the most expensive thing I had. Not sure if anyone will want it now, in such condition.” Freyja nodded slowly, scooping the pistol off the ground carefully, so as not to scuff the finish, and tucked it in her bag.
She turned to leave, satisfied for now. “Oh and don’t forget Jimmy’s rings. Should clean up nice once you pick the finger chunks outta them.” The biker laughed, coughing again.
Freyja nodded. "You can keep the bike."
She rounded up the remaining valuables, Jimmy's rings among them, and likewise parted other trinkets of attached gore and scraps of flesh. Course, she wasn't going to look very innocent strolling into the shop with a bloodied sack full of equally bloody merchandise. It was almost Halloween, maybe she could play it off as part of a test run of her new costume if she assumed her hellhound/human hybrid form?
Her thoughts were interrupted by the wall of police sirens.
Silly me, Freyja thought, already able to hear Richie bitching her out, why wouldn't a chain of explosions raise some red flags?
She booked it out of there, then grimaced as she came to a crosswalk and saw a flashing blockade. Frantic shouts echoed as the SBPD moved in on foot. Freyja, thinking on her feet, saw a fire hydrant.
"That will work." she nodded.
She hugged the hydrant, claws digging in, and yanked. The fixture was ripped right out of the ground, erupting an angry spray of high pressure water. Grimacing at the strain on her back, she tossed the hydrant aside and belched hellfire into the jet. The area exploded into heavy, spreading steam.
One ether fog bank, on the house.
She disappeared into the vapor, knowing she wouldn't be followed.
In her wolf form, she traveled the rooftops till she came to the pawn shop.
Then she snapped.
It was closed, night having fallen, and locked up tight.
Freyja balled up fists as she returned to human form, and began grinding her teeth.
"NOT TODAY, KAREN!!!" she screeched, and tossed the bag of goodies straight through the display window. She was too angry to even hold her ears against the blare of the security alarm as she assumed canine shape again, resilient paw pads traipsing unbothered over the shattered glass. She dumped the bag out over the front desk, then ransacked the place for every scrap of cash she could find. It probably didn't match the value of her goods anyway.
"Buy yourself a better security system." Freyja told the hypothetical store owner.
-
Despite taking random twists and turns to distance herself from the scene of her little spree, Freyja happened to walk into the sights of an off-duty cop strolling the water front. She knew this because he flashed his hidden badge and told her to freeze. At a glance, Freyja realized his features matched those of the interrogator Richie described stomping on his foot back in the jail.
"What's your name and badge number?" she asked.
"What?!" the mustached man said incredulously.
Freyja spontaneously caught fire, growling, hackles raised.
The cop told her.
"You're the piece of work who abused my friend." Freyja said.
She was already in this much trouble, so she may as well go all in.
Flaming skeletal hands erupted from the ground, like damned souls from Hell as they had to hold Luchesi in place back at the complex. Their red hot grips clutched the corrupt cop around his wrists and ankles, elbow joints, knee joints, and every focal or leverage point across the body. Their bony fingers dug deep, but curiously did not burn. That would distract from what was to come. Conjured paws clasped around the man's neck, under the chin, while a row of arms pressed into his back and stretched him out straight. He began to be bent backwards, unable to call for help or vocalize his pain beyond inarticulate groans.
"Sorry, Richie." Freyja said, hoping he wouldn't be too mad at her.
The limbs moved in sync all at once, and broke the cop's back. Then the demonic limbs retracted, spilling the paralyzed, unconscious man.
"Sorry, but you caught me in a bad mood." Freyja's fire went out.
Bloodied, beaten, flooded with cortisol, Freyja trudged home, the empty bag fluttering in her grip. She was detached, drifting off into autopilot as that flood began to recede, and frothing rage crashed into a low burn of calm anger. At the very least, she'd made off with more than either she or Richie expected to get for their wares. Robbery tends to do that, when it doesn't get you shot.
Speaking of which, Freyja saw a figure under a coming street lamp, leveling a pistol at her.
"That's far enough." - it was one of the biker thugs who had survived Freyja's rampage. His jacket was torn back, ripped to shreds along with the skin of his chest, roadmapped with claw marks and burnt at the edges. He had a broken nose, and a grazing bite was taken right out of his left leg, above the shin. His eyes were furious.
Freyja didn't break her stride, walking resolutely forward.
"I said stop!" the thug roared, and gripped his gun in both hands. "After all that, you can't just walk away!"
"Move." Freyja said in a low, soft voice.
As she came within five feet of the man, he saw that her eyes were blood-red, pupils dilated and pitch black. The bloodied bag in her hand was beginning to smolder.
An intense, unreasoning fear gripped the biker, and his hands began to shake, breaking the steadiness of his aim. He broke into a cold sweat, felt mired to the spot, like a deer must feel when they freeze up under the headlights of an oncoming car.
"I don't care..." Freyja said, almost a whisper, "who I lash out at right now..."
There was a terrible moment he thought she would plunge her paw into his chest and rip his still-beating heart out. But then, she was past him, loose strands of her hair caught in the breeze tickling his nose on the way out. The bag in her hand burst into flames and burned away to scattering ashes that snowed around him. He dropped his gun and fell to his knees, shaking and panting as though he had run a marathon.
Freyja arrived home a while later, depositing the bundles of cash on the kitchen counter and sliding to sit on the floor, catching her breath and trying to center herself. She pondered if her course of action had been the right one. Sure, the biker assholes deserved everything she dished out, and the cop probably did too. But robbing the pawn shop felt less justifiable. Sure, maybe the owner of the place would've tried to lowball her out of the real value of the brass knuckles and her nickel-plated pistol earned from defeating the bikers, but maybe he was just a guy trying to keep his family afloat, and she'd gone and emptied the register. What if the rolls of cash she'd liberated were crucial to feeding his kids or paying the rent? What if she'd just put someone into the same shitty struggle she'd been in up until recently, homelessness and lack? Freyja sighed, feeling the familiar ping of regret at her propensity for total, mindless destruction. "I've got some shit to figure out." She muttered, heading over to the couch and flopping her bruised, tired body onto it. She slipped into an uneasy sleep, the night's events playing back in her dreams.
The morning came quietly, muffled birdsongs audible outside the living room window that shone little streams of light between the blinds over Freyja's waking form. she stretched, sitting up off the couch and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. A door opened somewhere in the apartment, and Freyja heard the skipping stride of Cuppy's approach.
"Morning, Freyja!" Cuppy chirped like the morning birds.
"No. I refuse." Freyja groaned.
"Come on, don't sleep the day away. We've got lots of neat stuff to do." he pet Freyja behind the ear.
"Uggghhhh." Freyja groaned. "Come on, man, I've been through the ringer, let me sleep in."
Cuppy threaded Freyja's sleeping bag and began dragging it behind him like a sled, carrying Freyja outside. She yipped when she went over the concrete lip of the back porch, striking her back.
"The hell?!" she barked.
Cuppy moved to the edge of the forest, where a box-like shape was concealed under a large tarp.
Freyja cocked her head.
Cuppy yanked the tarp off, revealing a vibrant red and white doghouse with a gabled roof and stained glass windows.
"Ta-da!" Cuppy beamed.
"You made me... a doghouse..." Freyja twitched.
"Not just any doghouse!" Cuppy dropped to his knobby knees and scrambled into the tiny shed. After half a minute, Freyja stooped down to peek inside. "Cuppy?"
Cuppy tapped her from behind. She startled, whirled around, and shot a fireball, which Cuppy casually sidestepped. The sliding glass door was still open, and the projectile whistled inside. They both heard "OWW!!!" from Richie a second later.
"How did you...?" Freyja began to ask.
"It connects to a subterranean clubhouse I dug out, which has access points to the apartment from beneath the floor. There are other special entrances I set up scattered here and there, in the event we get caught outside base by a critter, like that lion. Neat, huh?"
Chikita groggily walked outside as well, stretching in the morning sun. "Twinkletoes woke me up with his whining." she grumbled, glaring at Richie, who had a scorch mark on the butt of his pajamas. "But now that I'm awake, s'pose we should get to work training up the next dimension hopping reject." she said with a wry grin. "WHO VOLUNTEERS?!" she shouted, rustling birds from their nests in the treeline as her voice cut through the tranquil soundscape. Plopping herself down in the front yard of the apartments, the blue-haired sensei began to sharpen her sword while she waited for the rest of the crew to gather around.
"What does this feel like for you, Yuki?" Chikita asked, regarding her own reflection in the shiny finish of the blade as she rubbed the sharpening stone along the edge.
Yukihana took an uncharacteristic pause before responding.
Answering that question honestly will be uncomfortable for all parties involved, so I'll be keeping it - and my distress - to myself.
Holly strolled out onto the lawn, holding a steaming mug of coffee. Among everyone here, she was the only participant who didn't look like their soul was being drained by the earliness of the hour. Even the busy body Cuppy had a frantic, mad scientist bloodshot to his eyes by this point.
Richie looked back and forth between the contenders. "Well, Cuppy's pretty much a natural, apparently, so that leaves me, the potato, and the immorally-dressed secretary."
"Excuse you?!" Holly cocked her microwave pistol.
"Huh, that's weird." Cuppy noticed and misidentified the scarlet blush across Richie's face. "Holly already shot him without me even noticing."
Freyja's ears folded. It was too early for this shit. She also wasn't sure how to delicately break the news that she may or may not have committed mass murder and robbery last night. Maybe no one would ask?
"I'm not in my underwear because I want to be!" Holly protested. "I'm waiting for Cuppy to finish my suit!"
"Oh, it's done." Cuppy chirped.
Richie and Holly sandwiched the space case with kicks.
"I get the feeling you'd like to see it." Cuppy surmised.
He dropped down a trapdoor in the grass no one realized existed before then.
"What the...?" Richie scratched his head.
A few seconds later, Cuppy popped back out, startling Richie.
"Jesus!" the thief jumped. On the heels of his calm, a bemused expression furrowed his brow. "My roommate has become a groundhog..."
Cuppy held up a plastic bag with a snap-lock handle, presenting it to Holly.
"Ta-dah!" Cuppy said.
"Thank goodness." Holly gave a sigh of relief.
It was short-lived.
"Cuppy..." Holly said through a caul of somehow-visible depression.
"Ya-huh?" Cuppy tilted his head.
"Why is it a schoolgirl sailor uniform..." Holly said in an utterly demoralized, pleading voice.
Chikita's failed poker face and snickers revealed the foul play.
"BITCH!" Holly shot a microwave at Chikita's feet, making the assassin jump.
Freyja growls. "Cut the shit, it's time to focus." she said, quieting the rowdy crowd. Chikita clears her throat, nodding. "Right. How about we start with you, wolfy one?" Freyja nodded soberly, sitting on the grass in front of Chikita. "Lemme try and get a read on where you're at, it'll help me gauge where to start." the swordswoman said, taking Freyja's hand and closing her icy blue eyes for a few moments. "You've got some...baggage." she eventually said. Freyja's grip went vice-y, making Chikita cringe. "N-no offense!" she backpedaled. Freyja reluctantly relaxed, huffing a little plume of smoke from her nostrils.
"What I mean is, there's stuff in the way of you being able to muster control in the backyards. If you head in as you are, I'm afraid your darker tendencies will overrule anything you try to do. We need to deal with your demons, the literal and metaphorical kind." Chikita said, wrist flapping as she attempted to get her numbed hand to wake up. "We'll need to go into it together, and I'll need your trust and cooperation, got it?"
Freyja thought for a moment, and eventually nods. "Good. Let's take a walk." Chikita grinned, standing up off the grass and starting to march over to the treeline.