She started up with a cry, and saw the boy, and somehow she knew at once that he was Peter Pan. If you or I or Wendy had been there we should have seen that he was very like Mrs. Darling's kiss. He was a lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees but the most entrancing thing about him was that he had all his first teeth. When he saw she was a grown-up, he gnashed the little pearls at her.
"You decided to rescue her by yourself? From a whole gang of traffickers?"
The disbelief was quite audible.
"It… was the only good idea at the time," Velvet said, pushing an empty plate to the side. The sandwich was enough to keep her stomach quiet.
"You didn't consider going to the police with your information?" The interrogator asked.
"I did. And I realized it wouldn't work."
"You don't trust the men and women who swore to protect its cities and its inhabitants?"
Velvet sighed, and realized the truth, "No. I don't. They wouldn't have believed in the first place."
"You don't know that."
"I'm a faunus, sir. If I went up to a police station with that damaged car, they wouldn't listen to me. They'd just arrest me for stealing and damaging the car, and throw me into a cell. Case closed. Who would believe a girl who says that a huntress had been kidnapped after spending an afternoon with her? Even if they did listen, I knew the smugglers would be leaving sometime that very night. The police would waste time doing… paperwork. I'm sorry, but I had no time. I only had one chance to find those men again, and it was at Seven Bridges."
The interrogator flipped through the files, humming to himself.
"Where you met one of your… accomplices. This girl certainly has an interesting record. A noticeable history of causing disturbances, vandalism, and damage to public property, though she denies it. But I doubt she can deny being complicit in sinking a cargo liner this time."
"We had similar circumstances. The smugglers bothered her one too many times, and she decided she wouldn't take any more."
"I can only say that given the circumstances of last night, you were lucky to find the sort of allies you did, including this thrill seeker," the interrogator hummed, and tilted his head, glasses reflecting the shallow light of the room.
"Like I said, we had a common enemy."
"You certainly must have disliked them very much, considering that you set Seven Bridges Station on fire."
Velvet could feel her ears droop again at the charge, and she could feel sweat form on her brow, and along her back. It certainly wasn't from the heat of the lamp, this time.
It had taken some awkward direction asking from the locals, either because she was poking her little rabbit head out of a car that had just emerged from a gunfight, or because she was asking for the location of Seven Bridges Station.
She quickly learned it was located inside the old half of Vale's industrial district. It was the sort of place people thought about twice before casually waltzing in. During the day, it was respectable area, just like any other, with blue collars working along the wide expanse of harbor front, or in the factories. But with Vale's modernizing, the area had continued to decline in use. Like a tide controlled by the moon, after dark, Vale's civility withdrew, and left behind its less reputable elements in the crags of its underused factories and grim faced industrial offices.
Even with the police managing things the best they could, Vale's little dark spot was a true concrete jungle, welcoming only those who were ready to partake of the dangers for its rewards, be it fool hardy partiers seeking out the next warehouse rave, or businessmen playing a coy game to fatten their profit margins.
Velvet drove on into those old streets, keeping an eye out. Despite what she heard, at first glance, the industrial zone still seemed quite tame. Cars still drove through, and it wasn't like there were bands of hooligans at every corner, throwing insults. Still, the buildings showed their time, with their dated store fronts, and the many brick walls that were rounded off with layers and layers of graffiti. Light was not all pervading here like it was in the modern residences. Streets here glowed only on the street level with their economic fluorescent lights, while complexes towered above as shadows on shadows.
Having driven her car slowly and carefully, the rabbit faunus finally arrived at the entrance to Seven Bridges Station, yet another casualty Vale's modern years. The city did have a bustling underground rail system, both for civilian use, as well as a line for transportation of good across the city. But as technology improved, as did the city, some of the train lines became diverted, and the leftover tunnels were either walled up or simply left to be forgotten.
And apparently, someone who dealt with those kidnappers lived here, beyond the station entrance Velvet had parked in front of.
Seven Bridges' entrance was a yawning opening, a long concrete tongue that led downward gently, with a metal sign above proclaiming "Vale Underground". However, whoever was living inside certainly had a possessive streak, and the first three letters of "Vale" had been painted over with loud colors, re-designating the facility for personal use:
HOMe Underground
Classy.
Velvet sighed, trying to psyche herself up for the task ahead. She wasn't even sure what was going to happen. Reaching beside her, she picked up the handgun that had been discarded in the car earlier.
She paused, looking at it.
She knew it by model name, the Zamiel Model 489, a highly profitable model that was used by all. It had a unique two stage ignition, with its magazine of bullets pushed forward up, while a battery of Dust was mounted inside the handle. The explosive power of Nature's Wrath was more than enough to propel the bullets beyond the distance the shorter barrel would have normally allowed. It was such a simple thing, a 'gun'. In Remnant, guns and swords came side by side with living at all, with all the monsters that roamed at the boundaries. But Velvet looked on it again with fresh eyes. To "shoot" with the gun, at other people…
Velvet looked down at her chest, and could see her dried blood caked on the shirt. The faunus wanted to be willing to use this weapon of destruction on her enemies, but all she could remember was that stark sensation of the violent injury, the pain, and the pitiful gasps for breath.
Knowing what she had experienced, could she really bring that onto another? It wasn't just a bullet passing through a target. It was pain and suffering, pure and simple, no matter how economical or hands off it seemed.
Velvet stared, but eventually swallowed, and steeled herself. The answer had to be "yes". It wasn't pleasant by any means, but with the situation as is, she had to fight back, with whatever options there were.
If only it didn't have to involve bullets…
Velvet stepped out, into the cooling night air. Above her, the sky was pure night, save for the shattered moon. She awkwardly crammed the gun into the pocket of her jacket, the entire pistol grip poking out loudly. With the lack of holster, this was the only option left. The rabbit only hoped that the safety on the gun wouldn't be switched off with all the jarring it would receive, and that the inhabitant of Seven Bridges wouldn't see the naked gun as hostile intent.
With all the bravery the girl could muster, she walked down the gray tongue into the depths. The gentle slope eventually turned into a short hallway with disused turnstiles, that led to a set of stairs that went down sharply.
When Velvet had arrived at the bottom of the stairs, she was rather taken aback. What she had expected was perhaps, some dim gray tunnel with a platform to the side, and somehow, living space was crammed in. But this…
This…
It was a train yard. Or something like it. It was a large underground chamber, with four train tracks beginning their journey here as they plunged into tunnels on either side of the room. Subway cars sat on each track at different distances. Some were parked right up against the buffer stops, while others were entrenched inside the tunnel entrances, blocking them up. Disused control rooms sat inside the remaining sides of the station, while a massive display board hung from the ceiling, with a enclosed booth sitting underneath.
This was Seven Bridges Station as it was. Then there were the personal touches that were added to create Home Underground. Furniture had been poured into the room. A bed, a desk, and all other living necessities were present, but beyond that, more oddities were included. Thick electrical conduits were strewn around the room, providing electricity to everything in sight, including innumerable lamp lights firing their bright beams every which way. Long tables were drawn up in no particular order; their only use was to prop up the countless strange machines, computers, and piles of papers scattered across them, some humming, some fizzing, and some rattling with use. Echoing through the room was the bass line of popular hip hop music, songs slamming against the concrete, while a rapper's deep voice snarled out insults and dreams of grandeur. Sitting in the corner of the subway station was…
Is that a bank vault!?
Velvet rubbed her eyes incredulously, and confirmed that yes, a whole bank vault had somehow managed to be situated in the Home Underground, a steel crate lying around like someone's cabinet set, with its wide steel door swung open haphazardly, while more thick electrical cables spilled out from its interior.
This was the strange world Velvet had walked into. As she uneasily walked between the tables, no sight of the subway's inhabitant could be seen. Eventually, try as she might, she could not hold back her curiosity, and her gaze idly jumped between all the frenetic little tools that sat on every table.
Canisters of molten gold liquid, set half orderly, with more than a few haphazardly lying around. Velvet read the labels.
Dust Compound 82D, "Xanthus" , AKA, "Fairy Dust".
On another table, a fabric of some kind had been stretched between a frame, with a plastic reflective sheen and a hexagonal honeycomb pattern adorning its surface. A strong lamp was next to it, shining directly onto the material. Velvet looked on the otherside, seeing small cables connected to the underside that fed into a small light bulb that was also glowing. So a lamp was used to power another lamp, like some child's experiment. Another placard lay beside it.
Light absorbing material prototype 3 (+4% efficacy, waterproofing capable, implement to Fairy Operating Xylem? Remember to test.)
Further on, the next exhibit was a glass jar containing more of the so called Xanthus Dust, with some sort of pipe attached to it. Starting from being immersed in the liquefied Dust, it carried on until it connected to another mechanism. At the bottom, three brass colored cylindrical knobs, looking not unlike like thimbles, sat around a circular lens, and spun, while a similar set up sat upside down. Yellow lightning jumped between the two at a continued tempo.
Velvet watched, engrossed at the result. With each spark, a momentary flash of an animated shape appeared, burning into the viewer's iris. Like a series of photographs, the three dimensional silhouette of a butterfly brought its wings up and down, flapping in still life.
The signage on this one was more long winded.
Hybridizing Fairy Dust with light waves: Still in progress. Hardlight still needs work. (To do: Shapes cannot sustain independent between emitters, colors not changeable, need to manipulate wavelengths.)
Warning: Current hardlight highly volatile: DO NOT TOUCH (This goes double for you, Phthalo, you dork! I don't care how drunk you get, I'm not digging your face out of the train car AGAIN!)
Besides the loud warning and the brilliant display of light, sheets were stacked, and Velvet caught stray sentences atop one.
Dear Madam,
While we at Schnee Dust Developmental maintain interest in your Dust variation, 82D, AKA Xanthus, AKA Fairy Dust, we do not find sufficient basis to provide further funding to the research into a hypothetical "solid state light wave form"…
The rabbit faunus surveyed this wonderland, and wondered. When she had overheard the smugglers talk about a girl who was making bombs, she had faint images of some angry little anarchist, piling up little steel balls with fuses hanging off them deep underground. But this place was like some out of control science fair.
So where were the bombs?
More importantly, where was the bomb maker?
Velvet followed the experiments, seeing everything from chemistry equations scribbled out on sheet paper to strange half completed harnesses, fitted with so many more cables before abandoned.
As she squeezed between two more contraptions, Velvet found the target of her quest. Against one wall of the station, almost out of sight thanks to one of the trains was a large project of some sort. It was a nightmarish combination of fiber optics and scaffolding that rose several layers, growing like some crazed plant. Suspended on the outside of the contraption was a girl. In time with the booming hip hop, the girl bobbed her head and sung along while swinging herself across the network of cables. She was wearing a harness, with ropes that hung from the ceiling, but seeing anymore was next to impossible when she held a plate iron mask to her face and a welding torch to a section of the cables she was bothering over, bathing her image with bright white sparks. Velvet had to look away to avoid being blinded by the display.
Instead, she started calling loudly, "Excuse me…?"
Alright, so the "loudly" part needed a slight warm up.
"Hotter than the sun, feel my fiaaah! Pyromaniac, my desiaaaah!"
"Excuse me, miss!"
"Strike 'em quick, lightning fast! Melt 'em biznatches down to asssh!"
Velvet finally warmed up her lungs, "Hey! You up there! I need to talk to you!"
The welding torch sputtered to a halt. The suspended girl above then wedged the toes of her boots into the scaffolding and leaned backwards as far as she could, looking down and upside down at her addresser. There was a momentary visage of surprise, before it quickly melted into sheer mirth.
"Oh, a new face? Coming down, darling!" She chirruped, voice like a door jamb oiled with melted sugar.
The girl righted herself, jammed her working tools into another wedge somewhere in that confused mess (something Velvet found more than slightly unsafe), and kicked off it and into the air. The harness suspension stretched as the rapper sailed and descended rapidly towards the rabbit faunus and the ground. Near the bottom, the harness drew taut, holding the girl's horizontal body only a few inches above the ground for a second before it began pulling her back up. The girl, slapped a latch at the last second, causing the harness split and fly off her body while it snapped up into the air. She, however, was lifted several feet by momentum, and flipped in place to land on her feet.
Velvet watched the girl turn around. She looked older than the faunus, perhaps by a year or two, with the half a head she had on her to prove it. She was dressed in a black tank top, and pair of thick shorts with mismatched leg lengths and digital forest green camouflage patterning. It showed off her lithe frame, with its healthy tan and tight cords of muscle poking faintly under the skin. Red-brown hair was cut short and clung to the girl's skull, as she looked at the faunus with dark blue eyes, the color of late evening.
"Oh, you got rabbit ears! Oh my god, that's so cute!"
Before Velvet could even speak, the girl had all but latched onto her, a cheek nuzzling the top of her head, while sweat stained hands rubbed her chin and her cheek with gross affection.
"Yosh, yosh, yosh…Oh, I'd go diabetic for you, widdle bun-bun. So what brings you here, darling? Need a dinner? Need a bath? Or perhaps… me…?"
The girl's tone suddenly changed at that last word, into something ridiculously breathy and sensual, and Velvet felt a finger trace one of her ears gently.
That spike of electricity going up her spine was certainly because of her fight-flight response activating, and the rabbit all but leapt out of the other girl's grasp, and a few feet forwards, away from her.
"What's with you!?" Velvet shrieked, swiveling around, arms wrapped across her chest protectively.
"Think of it like a really, really, really, roundabout compliment," The girl grinned, with a jaunt of her hip while lifting both her hands to point her fingers at the Beacon hopeful.
Velvet fought back a groan, and tried to focus, "Are you the one who created all these things?"
"Am I!? Well isn't that totally obvious…" The girl began, before pausing, "…Because I totally forgot to do this."
Swirling around, she stamped her foot on a switch on the floor, causing molten light to begin flowing through the network of tubes behind them.
"I made this whole thing to see how Fairy Dust would function when being sourced to multiple channels!" The flirtatious girl explained on her own, "Well, convinced by my brilliance? You can rent out some of my smaller gags if you got a rave going! You need a lightshow for a party? I can program sequences, too! I'll give you a discount rate, all you have to do is be my pillow for one night!"
"That's not funny."
"Oh, I couldn't make light of a gorgeous dish like you."
Velvet's face caught fire. These were the flimsiest of flatteries, and she hated that she was letting it affect her so easily. Was she that gullible, or was she just so pitiful that she'd value these cheap pick ups as the first time in years anyone ever told her she was pretty? Trying to push past the heat in her ears, she forced herself to keep talking, or at least try to, "You use Nature's Wrath… for party decorations."
"Oh, it's just a little something to spread the word and pay the bills! It's not like I focus on that as my calling, though I admit it's fun! But, you know, people like to go 'ooh, pretty shapes'."
"So you're saying you're in it for the chemistry itself."
Dust chemistry, chemistry with Dust, whatever you called it. As long as the fantastic power could be reproduced and controlled, the scientific process did its thing to try and eke out more of its potential uses, by stressing Dust, combining Dust, testing Dust, and generally using Dust, until something new could be released into the wide world, and most likely sold by the Schnee.
This madcap girl claimed that in spite of everything, her interest was in the substance behind the style. But somehow, Velvet didn't find that idea so implausible. Home Underground was an eclectic gallery, but one filled with the frenetic air of experimentation.
"Ah, mine darling can see the method to the madness…!" The strange flirt laughed, rubbing her nose, "Yep, fully certified to play around with strange glowing things. I'm even insured against blowing myself up!"
Blowing herself up. Velvet almost wanted to hit herself for how blind she was. Wasn't Dust's earliest uses for the sake of warfare? Fire, water, and lightning... how potent was this yellow substance compared to the rest?
"…Have you ever been asked to use your Dust to make bombs?"
At that, the chemist's playful grin drooped into a deeply interrogative frown. Velvet backed up a step from the force of the change, irrationally feeling sorry.
Hand framing her jaw, the redhead leaned forward to stare hard at the Beacon applicant, "How'd you know about that? Hey, waaaait a minute… did those nasty smugglers send you?"
Velvet's head jerked back, as if physically affected by that accusation, "Never! I'd never work for them!"
She received another finger jabbed at her for her trouble.
"Ah ha! Instant denial instead of confusion! I've got your number, succubus! Ha, if they think they can bribe me via copious amounts of nubile young maidens to seduce my tender virgin soul, they've got another thing coming!"
The rabbit groaned, feeling this was a regular train of thought this girl had, "What about you? Are you telling me that you make bombs for criminals? You're as bad as they are, then!"
"Tch, it's not like that!" The chemist petulantly retorted, hands on her hips, "Look, I don't know where you came from, but what I do down here isn't exactly cheap!"
She walked on, past the tables, and Velvet followed her ranting.
"When I discovered this Dust… when I discovered what I could do when it interacts with light...! But I don't have the equipment to really push what hardlight can do! Everything here is just retreading old ground. The institutes won't take my work seriously. I can't afford further research even with the money I make. So yes, out here, if a few shifty fellows dropped by saying they would cover the costs if only I listen to a few of their 'suggestions', it's an investment like anything else!"
"And has it worked out for you?" Velvet blandly asked, clearly unconvinced. The chemist rolled her eyes and whined loudly.
"Don't ask me that. The philistines have no appreciation for possibilities! I've tried to send them off with some of my flashier tricks, but every time, all they ever say is, 'make bombs!', 'make bombs!' Pah! A scientific breakthrough is at hand, and all they want is brute force!"
"Dust is still a weapon, and you're the only one at street level who can supply them," Velvet answered. Perhaps the situation was not as clear cut as she imagined. This girl wasn't entirely pleasant by any means, but it seemed her self absorbed standards were still on a level above the kidnappers. Then there was still a chance…
"So you're not with the smugglers, but you know them, and you came all the way down here, so what do you want?" The redhead asked.
Velvet steeled herself, "I need your help tracking those smugglers down."
"You're looking for them?" The girl asked, perplexed, "You think they suck, and now you're looking for them?"
"They kidnapped… they kidnapped a girl I know. I have to save her."
The girl stared at her for several seconds, before her eyes widened in shock, dots finally connecting.
"Wait a minute, they sell people!?"
"Of course!" Velvet said, practically exploding with indignation, "They're buying bombs off of you, you think kidnapping people is somehow below them!?"
"They said they were smugglers! You know, I thought they just sneaked watches and video games and stuff!" The girl said, defending herself with hands raised, "Sure, they're jerks, but I thought it was… uh… the relatively nicer sort of illegal activity. How can you prove this, anyways?"
This was the opening she had been waiting for, Velvet realized. This is where the information she had became her bargaining chip.
"Ask them yourself. They'll be coming here sometime tonight. Perhaps soon. I overhead them, and they're getting fed up with their deals with you. They'll arrive with a combat automata and they'll take everything here."
The chemist, as all scientists should, put a finger to her cheek and observed Velvet for any signs of incongruity, "That's an interesting story."
"Oi! Anyone in here!?"
A hoarse male voice echoed from the stairwell entrance above, causing the two girls to turn towards the source. They were hidden behind one of the trains, out of sight, and were only able to look in the general direction, where the echoes of footfalls were approaching.
The chemist turned towards Velvet, "Alright, then, I'll ask."
Turning towards the subway car, the chemist grabbed one of the doors and pulled it open, before jerking her head towards it.
"You better hide, darling. Wouldn't want an outside source to contaminate the test."
Nodding, the faunus spared no time clambering in, and the doors slid shut behind her. Cautiously sidling up next to a window, Velvet watched her walk away, and towards a group of men that approached from between the tables of experiments she herself had come by.
Preceding them was a mountain of a man in another cheap black suit, with tanned skin and a wild mess of brown hair.
Velvet recalled a very similar pair of burly arms that tried to pull a girl through the window of a car, and unconsciously bared her teeth.
"Brownie, darling!" The chemist's voice chirruped, and Velvet saw her wave at the man, practically skipping over, "Here to pick up my wares again, boyos?"
"Don't 'brownie' me, kid," The suited mountain snorted, "I ain't here for games."
"Aw, but you really do give the impression of a great big bear, you big hunk of cuddly manliness! What brings you dudes over here tonight?"
"Same reason as ever. Tell us you actually have some weapons worth using this time."
The girl, even though she was comparatively dwarfed by the men, sighed loudly, throwing her arms above her head dramatically, "Always with the bombs! I've said it again and again, I did not bring Fairy Dust into the world just to do more of the same with it! I need to explore possibilities! Push the boundaries! And you people expect me to be pleased by being ordered to make… molotovs!"
This rant seemed to have been one too many for Brownie, who was immediately in the chemist's face, jabbing one of his thick fingers into her chest.
"Listen here, I didn't come here for more excuses! You're not as important as you think you are, and our boss is on a time table! So stop fucking around and give us something to prove your investment was worthwhile."
The chemist wisely decided to raise one of her eyebrows in pure skeptical contempt, "I'm supposed to say, 'or else', right? Or else what? Maybe you'll sell me overseas, trafficker? I heard you boyos are into kidnapping little girls, now. They make you feel so good?"
Brownie's meaty hand wrapped itself around the mocking girl's bare neck and hoisted her upward, bringing them face to face. Despite her feet dangling in the air, the girl maintained a strong, sneering façade, not even bothering to grab Brownie's wrist to bring her weight off her neck as her hands remained pompously fixed at her waist.
"Where'd you hear that? Who told you about our operations!?" The smuggler spat into her face.
"Oh, the little bunny told me," the chemist grunted.
"Bunny…? The rabbit faunus!? She's still alive!?"
"Oh ho, so you do know her!"
The giant thug shook the girl, eliciting a sharp hiss as her neck was throttled, before snarling again, "Tell me where she is! Tell me now!"
The chemist made a face and shrugged. Brownie, incensed already, slammed her into the side of one of the subway cars. Velvet gasped fearfully, watching everything happen from a distance, helplessly, again. One hand immediately grabbed for the gun poking out of her jacket pocket, and she waited, hoping she could intervene at the right time.
Brownie shouting at the men behind him, "Come on! She can't have gone far! Tear this place apart for clues, and grab all the Dust you can see while you're at it. I'm gonna soften this bitch up, see if she's more amenable then. Go!"
Like the energy of a gang of immature children broke loose, the smaller gangsters cheered and began plucking the canisters of yellow Dust and overturning tables full of fragile scientific equipment, while more began looking around for the missing faunus. Machinery smashed onto the concrete floor, scattering glass and circuitry.
"Hey! You bastards! Stop messing with my stuff-!" The chemist began to protest, before she was slammed back into the subway car.
Brownie glared, "I'm on a short fuse here. We're already taking all your Dust, since that's all your retarded science fair projects were worth, anyways. The only thing you got is the blood in your body, and you better answer my questions, or the only thing left here tonight will be your smear the police will have to pry off the wall just to identify you!"
"Brownie, darling, you're appeal is lowering quite fast. Are you threatening me?"
The fingers squeezed around the girl's neck.
"Is that a dare? Let's see how far your precious Dust gets you when I snap your neck like a twig!"
However fierce Brownie's expression was, it was rooted in a belief of superiority. It had nothing on the girl's glare, born of a threat to her world, her den. Something animal was welling up in her, as the small figure leered at the bear.
"You can't kill me! You know why? Because I quit!"
With that, the chemist brought her boot up between the legs of the smuggler.
Brownie felt all the air escape his diaphragm at the sheer blistering experience of pain. His eyes bulged, and he made a noise comparable to "Uoounngggh…!" as he began to lower, and his grip on the girl began to slacken. With that, the redhead kicked off the steel wall she had been planted in, and darted over Brownie's shoulder, carrying his wrist with her smaller hands. The great thug yowled in pain, and dropped to his knees and leaned back, trying to make room for his arm that was being pulled behind his back and downward. The fingers of the chemist's other hand darted up and dug themselves into Brownie's soft neck, just about ready to burrow in.
Groaning in mind numbing pain, he could only listen to the gentle sneer beside his ear, "You may have more muscles, Brownie-kins, but you still have the same nerves and bones like the rest of us… and we're all subject to the same natural forces… forces like light… or physics."
The pressure on his locked shoulder increased, and Brownie gave a cry of anguish that alerted the smaller men to his plight. Dropping their cargo, they immediately spilled back towards the girl and her hostage. The mass of them seethed, and reached into their jackets, pulling out electrified batons and hand guns, and trained them on her. In response, she rolled back, forcing another gasp of pain from Brownie, hiding herself behind his large body.
"Go ahead and shoot, you bilge scum! Fill your pal with bullets!"
"You're dead, bitch! We were playing softball before, but you had to go and act like some hero! You're not leaving here alive!" One of the men spat.
The chemist rolled her eyes, even with the smile on her face still in place, "Oh good, at least we know where we stand with each other! Now I don't feel bad at all about pulping you doofuses!"
Planting both her feet against Brownie's broad back, the chemist kicked, sending the smuggler through the air and slamming onto his stomach and sliding several feet so that he crashed into the ankles of more than a few thugs, bowling them over. In an instant, the redhead's limber figure flipped backwards and turned herself into a somersaulting blur, while she heard Brownie all but scream, "Kill her! Fucking kill her!"
Before the rest of the smugglers could raise their own guns, the window of the subway car next to them suddenly burst apart, as Velvet rose up and fired frantically through it. She had no intent on actually shooting at the men, as much as she hated them, but her bullets leaving pockmarks in the ground and pinging of the subway cars was enough to send them scrambling back from her denied area long enough to let her new ally duck out of sight.
Until she ran out of bullets. Velvet's training didn't go very far. Her finger slammed down on the trigger several futile times, before she looked down, almost dumbfounded that her wild rapid fire would end so soon.
She took one glance up before yelping and throwing herself to the floor just in time for the cabin interior around her to start sparking and shrieking as bullets were emptied into it. She didn't even notice herself growling in irritation as she crawled away, under the hail of fire, crawling until it turned into a low crouch, until it turned into a half ducking sprint as she raced through the train cars, while bullets crashed through the windows around her. As she reached the last passenger car at the end, she leapt through one of the broken windows. Jagged edges cut at her thick coat and at the edges of her skirt, but she cleared it all the same, slamming onto her stomach outside inelegantly with a little "oof!"
As she landed, she heard a high pitched whistle, and saw the chemist ahead of her, halfway inside the open bank vault, fingers in her mouth, and her other hand waving at her.
"Oiyo, darling! In here!"
Velvet grunted, and picked herself up, running as fast as she could, while experiments, sheets of papers, and tables exploded around her from smuggler gunfire, throwing plastic and wood every way. With one final cry of effort, Velvet dove inside the vault, while her companion slammed it shut behind them, the heavy steel doors easily cutting though the thick rubber cables that fed inside to seal the two of them inside.
Outside bullets slammed into the thick metal, and the thugs approached, before Brownie, mostly recovered shouted at them to stop.
"They're not going anywhere. It's a vault, not a panic room. They'll run out of air soon enough. I want half you guys to start packing the Dust. The rest of us, we're waiting them out. The moment those doors open, the only thing I want to see is them gasping for breath and mercy right before I put a bullet through their brains!"
In the pitch blackness, two figures faintly shuffled around. Even the faunus' night vision could do nothing in a complete absence of light.
"Man, that was really badass, darling! You just popped out and unloaded on their asses! Are you a huntress? You totally are a huntress, ain'tcha? I bet you use a scythe and everything! You sexy beast!"
"Look, I don't use… I mean, I'm not… ugh. How do we get out of here?"
"…Out?"
"…We came in here because there's a second exit out of here, right? I mean, a way to escape?"
"The heck you talkin' about, darling? This is a bank vault you know. It's not gonna very secure if there any other hatches in here, 'cept the one we came in through."
"…Are you telling me we're trapped in an airtight vault!?"
"Just for a moment. Now, where did I put it…"
"A moment!? We probably only have a few minutes of air in here! Ugh! I'm hyper ventilating!"
"Ah ha!"
With that proclamation, something managed to find something, and a sharp cracking noise emanated, followed by the inside of the narrow vault being illuminated by a pale green glow as the chemist held a glow stick before her. Velvet could make out that same savage grin of amusement she always had.
"Only a few minutes, darling? I only need one to get changed, then I can really entertain the kids outside."
"Change…?"
Velvet's eyes followed the chemist as she made her way to the back of the vault, where something was hanging in front of a pair of large lamps. Had the power not been cut off, they would have been constantly shining burning light onto the fabric…
Brownie grinned to himself, looking at that closed vault. It was like a little Schrödinger's toy for himself. His imagination took him to fantasies of watching the two brats inside gasp and fight for air, trying to hold out from the inevitable tide…
The slick fabric slipped over the girl's shoulders, hands slipping through the sleeves, and her head popping up through the neck hole. She could feel weight of her invention, the Fairy Operating Xylem, the network of durable, flexible tubes that the material atop concealed…
More men gathered outside the vault, their guns trained on the closed door.
"Any minute now!" Brownie laughed.
"It's getting a bit hard to breathe!" Velvet fretted.
The gloves were on next, and the connectors at the wrist slid under the sleeves, slotting into waiting points.
"Think they can screw with us… I'm not gonna let her die quick…"
And the best part was the hat. You couldn't call it a set without that comfort of fabric around her brow. Two more cables draped down the side of her head, so she could slot them into the ports sitting at her collar area.
All of Brownie's posturing only served to pick at his wounded pride, and his anger burned hotter with every promise of revenge.
"You hear me, you bitch!? You and the rabbit are spit roast! There's not gonna be enough left to fill a tin can when we're finished with you! You picked the wrong people to mess with, you hear me!?"
She ran a finger down her new clothing, testing the weight and rigidity. She could feel the internal channels heavy with the fluid they contained, flowing freely inside her clothes.
"Absorption rate is optimal, fuel supply is topped out… alrighty, then…"
The girl swiveled around.
"Show time!"
She raised her palm at the vault door.
The smugglers gathered around the metal box weren't sure what happened, but there was a noise, and then an explosion ripped the massive vault door from its hinges and locks sending it flying forward. The men were only lucky enough to leap out of the way as the door smashed halfway into a subway car.
From the black expanse of the opening, the chemist stepped out, and snapped her fingers. At her command, a flood light snapped open, preprogrammed for the exact occasion needed to bath her silhouette in an attention catching white light, and she grinned and swung her hand out to the side in a flourish.
She was wearing a forest green jacket, engraved with the endless hexagonal honeycombing that pulsed gold as it drank in the light. The sleeves were not conforming, but instead the material on the underside webbed out to stretch along the sides of the jacket like canvas. Her hat, with a brim shaped like a sharp diamond with long tips to the front and back, was made of the same material, and did its part to keep eating light, pouring energy down the lines on either side of her head. Her gloves were fully concealing, each finger tip ending with a brassy emitter, like thimbles, and on the palm and back of her hands were large disc-like lenses.
"If you boys had asked politely, I might have shown you my new toy! Well, actually, I still am going to show you my FOX-Skin and FOX-Gloves… just not from the angle you'd guys like, right?"
"Shoot her! Goddamn it, someone shoot her!"
Brownie's order was five words too late, as the armed chemist stretched her hands to the side, palms facing down. Liquid Fairy Dust and absorbed light that the FOX stored both of, surged towards the gloves, and blasts of solid, hybridized light and Dust fired downward. Two brilliant columns sent the redheaded girl shrieking with revenge tainted glee and upward above the crowd of men. In the air, she pointed her palms down, and the FOX Gloves spat light again, bolts of solidified hardlight barking out and slamming into the chests of two of the men, punching them into the ground. The two emitters on the back of the gloves fired up next, and the bizarre exhaust propelled the Gloves' owner into the center of the crowd like a comet, where she immediately set to work with more wild shrieks.
By that time, Velvet had emerged from the ignored vault next, and was watching her ally fight.
Guns were useless at that range, and inexplicably, it seemed everything else was as well. The green fighter laughed, darting and slipping between men and missing their furious strikes, twisting her body to and fro like she had no bones left, fight before she as equally snapped from limp noodle to a whipping iron cord. She threw out her palm, hardlight exhaust propelling her entire strike across the ground into the chest of a smuggler, sending him tumbling back, before she kept striking one man to another in an array of martial arts. Knife chops, knife hand stabs, elbow strikes, and palm thrusts struck with surprising efficiency.
One of the thugs managed to swing at the chemist with an electrified baton, before his downward strike was interjected by the girl's raised arm blocking the man at the wrist, right before the brassy finger tips in her other hand glowed and grew golden claws that she swiped at the baton, cutting it into four pieces. The man stared dumbfounded, before a hardlight propelled double palm strike to the chest sent him flying across the room.
Velvet watched this melee, but was also observing where the redhead had failed. From where she stood, the rabbit could see a battlefield. The green girl was engaged with many, but failed to pay attention to stragglers at the edges, who were trying to get a bead on her with their handguns.
"Watch out! They're going to shoot you!"
The chemist, warned just as she kicked away another thug that left her alone and exposed, immediately swirled around, swinging her hands around her as her FOX Gloves fired up. Men fired at her, but the bullets instead only collided with a thick curtain of light, golden butterflies exploding from the girl's hands, illusionary, yet solid enough to deflect the gunfire. The chemist's gloves fired downward, flinging the girl away from the field of fire, while her opponents chased after her.
In that moment, more than a few of the smugglers remembered there were two girls they were supposed to be gunning for, and turned their eyes and their arms on Velvet, who ducked away as bullets rained on her again, scrambling away to hid behind the control booth in the center of the impromptu arena.
Velvet swore dirtily to herself, caught up in the fight. Angelica and her manners was far away, but the gun men were taking a step with every shot fired. She had to fight back, but she had no bullets. She might have well have no weapon at all, then.
But even as that dark thought passed through her head, along with more than a few narrowly missing bullets, Velvet's mind was already calmly reassessing.
No, I still have a weapon, it has a supply of Dust. It just needs something to focus through…
The gunfire dulled in her ears as she looked at the ground, at the dozens of scattered experiment parts that had been broken over the course of the battle.
…Something which is patently obvious.
Velvet grabbed for her gun, memories of self education helping her remember how to tear out the useless magazine, and after, the fore-barrel and slide. All she needed was what was in the back, while she grabbed for the replacements she needed.
The suited smugglers slowly edged forward, guns raised, though they had stopped firing a few second ago, when they realized their target behind the booth had made no sound or movement since. More than a few sneered, believing that the rabbit eared subhuman was either dead from the bullets passing where they should have gone, or simply cowering in a ball as her kind was wont to do.
They were thus unprepared as they saw Velvet jump up to aim through the windows of the bullet pocked booth, hands wrapped around a mish mash of gun grip, Dust emitter, and wiring, all jammed together. It shouldn't have worked.
Velvet pulled the trigger. It still did.
There was a thunderous noise, as explosive Dust channeled through co-opted machinery, and into the emitter replacing the gun's barrel. The triangular array channeled the power, and discharged white lightning from the prongs.
Perhaps not as lethal as a bullet, but the men watched stunned as the bolt of converted Dust struck one of their number and sent him backwards, gagging and twitching as he slammed to the floor.
Whatever composure they had left rapidly drained as Velvet began her rapid fire once again, each trigger pull this time spitting loud, violently visible lightning that jumped from her into each of them, one after the other. Then she began to advance on them.
Brownie, amid all this, watched in growing horror as two girls, two slips of a girl were now on the attack, wiping out what should have been a small army of larger, better armed thugs. But now they were falling left and right, blasted and smashed senseless.
Choking, he turned around to one of his still sensible minions, shouting at him, "Go and get the Bandersnatch! Go and get it right now-"
"ATCHYAAAH!"
As the man left, Brownie heard the scream behind him, and twisted around to watch the chemist he was supposed to be intimidating, slide into view while surfing atop the face of one of his men, arms stretched behind her to direct a burst of gold light.
Brownie choked, and reached into his jacket to pull his baton of his own out, and did his best to ignore the slight shaking in his wrist.
The chemist hopped off, and paced towards him, one brilliant blue eye visible from under the sharp angled brim of her hat, "Brownie-kins? Is that you? Come and give me a kiss!"
The mountainous smuggler roared and charged towards her, his arm strength able to turn his swinging baton into blur of blue electricity. All the same, the green girl snorted, ducked, and weaved around each wild and enraged strike, forearms and hands expertly deflecting and parrying others. A thrust finally allowed her to trap Brownie's arm with her wrists, dragging him forward and off balance, allowing one of her feet to slam into the side of one of his knees, making him drop onto them. Furiously resisting, the larger gangster swung as he could, only for his arm to be caught by the chemist and swirled around, until his meatier limb was pinned under her arm and armpit.
Her palm pressed into the small of his back. He stared at her helplessly. She shrugged, right before her palm fired a blast of light.
Brownie cart wheeled through the air, tumbling feet and head and spinning off the chemist's arm. Helplessly suspended, there was nothing he could do but look upside down at the small girl, whose palm was raised, back of the Glove firing light with enough force to spin her in place right before she planted her Dust powered hand into the large smuggler with enough force to send him hurtling through the air and into the side of the subway car with enough force to bury him deep into the metal, which bent and contorted to form a subway angel. Brownie, upside down and consumed by agony, choked, while his eyes rolled down, leaving white pupils and froth leaking from his mouth, all but brain dead.
"Who's the smear on the train, now!? HA!"
"Holy crap, Brownie's out…!"
Whatever conscious thugs left muttered in disbelief. The chemist laughed loudly, and pointed around.
"Ya betcha! So you losers just drop my shit and clear out now!"
Men groaned and carried themselves and others away, while a few more pried their unconscious leader out of the subway, and carried him over their shoulders. As the room cleared, Velvet regrouped with her, panting, nerves shot.
"It's over?" The rabbit faunus gasped, relieved.
The chemist shrugged, "Actually I dunno. I think the big bear said something about a Bandersnatch…?"
Velvet's eyes widened, "A what…? Oh no, I hope it's not the-"
The faunus' vain hopes were dashed by the sound of heavy galloping, before the entrance stairwell broke apart, steel and concrete flying every which way, as a familiar gigantic, multi armed combat machined crawled its way into the subway even when its human allies were quickly escaping. Towering over the two girls, it menacingly stretched out its arms, all of them poised to attack.
Velvet took an uncertain step back, while the hands wrapped around her Franken-weapon tightened until they were bone white. She could recall the sight of the silver girl, being thrown and broken against the earth by this Bandersnatch.
Her compatriot, however, laughed, "Ha! So Brownie was only worth a mid-boss, huh? That must suck for his ego," Reaching behind her back, the chemist withdrew a small canister of Fairy Dust which was tipped at one end with a short syringe, which she jabbed into her other sleeve, puncturing the first layer and into the xylem underneath. The FOX-Skin rippled and bloated for a second, drinking in the reloading fluid, up until its owner threw away the emptied canister, and fixed herself into a stance, "Alright, tin can! Show me what you got, but I'll have you know I'm trained in the mystical art of Kung Fuck You Up! Come at me!"
Velvet did not share the same enthusiasm, and just as well, since she started retreating as the Bandersnatch charged. The green fighter, however, matched the war machine's challenge, running straight for it and its whipping arms. At the last minute, the girl kicked forward, her FOX Gloves firing just enough to keep sliding her across the ground, narrowly missing several fists that punched into the ground after her, while she slid between the Bandersnatch's legs. Gold claws sparked from her finger tips as she passed underneath, and the chemist slashed at the leg on either side of her, scoring red hot gashes in its armor. Grabbing one of the less used arms, she used her momentum to swing up and off the ground like on a rope, arcing around until she slammed her boots onto Bandersnatch's shoulder from behind. Holding on for her life, she nonetheless used the opportunity to fire several point blank blasts of light from her palm, pure force smashing into the fortified head armor, before trying to simply pry the thing off with her hardlight claws. She lasted all of five seconds, before one of the arms segmented into a whip again, whirling around to bat her off the war machine, sending her crashing onto the roof of the subway cars.
The Bandersnatch swiveled to face the stunned green fighter, arms raised to smash their weight down on her, before gunfire sounded, and something like lightning bombarded its chest with enough force to send it into the subway train opposite, crushing the cars. Velvet, behind the car her companion had landed on, fired her modified gun through the train, through the windows, blasts one after another rocking the trapped machine. The chemist shook her head, spat, and then raised her palms to join Velvet in the hail of shots, yellow hardlight and white lightning force raining down onto the Bandersnatch. But even as its armor buckled and rattled, the machine continued to slowly sit back up.
"This isn't working! Our weapons aren't armor piercing!" Velvet shouted over the din of their combined firepower.
"Bah! It's not like we can do anything else!"
Couldn't they? Or were they just not looking hard enough for the answer. Velvet fired, while her eyes danced around, trying to find something fast enough, or heavy enough to-
Well, of course.
Velvet looked up, and shouted, "Can you distract it?"
"Distract it? What am I not doing, bunny!?"
"Look, I have an idea, but I need to leave for a moment! I need you to drag it over to the tracks on the opposite side of the room!"
"…Aw man, that's going to make such a mess!"
"Just do it!"
The chemist leaned back, narrowly avoiding a multi-ton straight punch that shot over her nose, while she shouted back, "Fine!" Without further encouragement, the rabbit faunus turned on her heels and ran for her life, while the remaining fighter continued to fight the upright Bandersnatch, its spade like blades stabbing and slashing at her. The girl ran across the subway carriages, one hand on her hat, while she flipped and dodged out the way, her free glove firing hardlight thrust every few moments to extend her air time, while the Bandersnatch's rapid strikes shredded steel around her.
As the chemist leapt for it, one segmented arm fired out and slammed into her chest. The girl choked loudly from the impact, but in the same instant growled, and wrapped her gloved hands around the limb, clinging to the arm as it sent her through the air, until her weight brought both her and the outstretched limb back onto the subway train, boots first.
The Bandersnatch noted the oddity on its limb, and began to retract it, trying to pull it free from the little meaty thing that was holding on tight. The redhead gritted her teeth, and kept her grip, even as her feet squealed across the roof.
"You wanna play!? You won't win… a game of tug of war when I'm wearing the speed of light…!"
It was a heavy exaggeration, of course, but whatever power the FOX contained, it was more than sufficient, as its owner pinned the Bandersnatch limb against her arms and side to free her hands. Roaring alongside the sound of her firing gloves, the chemist became a hardlight powered rocket, a green blur that flew off the subway with enough force that the antagonistic machine was dragged along for the ride, pulled off its feet and across the wrecked room until both of them crashed onto the train tracks on the opposite end of the room, as Velvet had ordered.
The chemist almost landed almost comedically, falling on her back and rolling once or twice before stopping, her arms and legs flopping onto ground, while her cargo simply scraped onto the tracks. The two stood at the same time, the girl kicking up with her legs to jump back onto her feet, while the giant war machine slowly, almost drunkenly, jammed its many arms underneath itself to right itself.
With a long suffering sigh, the redhead brushed the surface of her jacket, and repeated with her hat after she unplugged the cables and pulled it off her head.
"Well, you were lots of fun tonight, darling. But I think we should stay as friends, after we finish our business relationship, you know?"
She could feel the vibrations of the tracks under her feet, and she put her hat back on.
"So, I think it's time to show you out. Don't worry, though, the train runs very close by my place. Ciao!"
With a loose salute, she leapt off the train tracks, so that the Bandersnatch saw the empty subway tunnel before it rapidly fill with high speed steel.
The collision was nothing short of epic.
Home Underground's subway, still miraculously working, had been backed up as much as possible in the intervening minutes before sending it careening back into the station, and into the armored droid. Tons of civilian transportation smashed headlong into the Bandersnatch, the front end all but crumpling away, while wheels skipped and automatic breaks activated too late, sparks flying every which way, as the train speared the Bandersnatch and pushed it onward, smashing off the end of the tracks and into the air for breath stopping second, until the derailed line sandwiched the machine into its wrecked, parked sibling back on the other side of the station, mixing all together in a liquefied pile of wreckage. Everything else was continuing chaos, as more train cars followed after, pitching off track and jack knifing every which way, smearing whatever was still upright across the ground, scattering lights, and tearing down cables. The booth Velvet had hid behind was now complete gone, and something caught onto the giant display board and tore it down, impact folding it in half and sending glass and plastic letters and numbers everywhere.
Finally, everything stopped. Here and there, a rivulet of exposed circuitry fired off a shower of sparks, but otherwise, Velvet Scarlatina uneasily left the control room in the side of the station and surveyed the carnage.
She stared for the longest time, jaw dropped, until she uneasily asked.
"Uh… miss…? Miss…!? Are you okay!?"
Shrieking laughter answered her, and Velvet saw the girl's familiar shape approach, ducking under Something That Might Have Been Something, completely beside herself.
"Holy shit, Darling! Holy… holy… you just… we just… You just killed a giant robot with a train! I knew what we were going to do, but holy hell, look at all this!"
"I'm so sorry! I couldn't think of anything at the moment, and I thought maybe the remote controls still worked, and…" Velvet began to babble and apologize, before the chemist raised a palm to halt her. The rabbit was half convinced the redhead was about to shoot her in the face with her fancy machines, but then she realized she was just making a motion universally recognized as "stop". She would have to work on figuring out the cues.
"Look, what happened here was just a logical progression. If you didn't arrive to warn me about those jerks outside, this place would have been a lot cleaner, and I would have probably been a lot… deader, I guess. Never quite sure where Brownie is concerned. So I'm just going to focus on the fact you killed a giant robot with a train. We are officially the two most badass people in all of Vale! I'm going to kiss you-"
"Don't," Velvet flatly answered, the ridiculous flirting immediately halting her panic.
"Alright. This place is a mess pretty much, but since you helped me out-"
"Wait, do you smell smoke?" Velvet asked, worriedly sniffing the air. That noxious scent was growing amid the mixture of steel and grease, and it smelled not unlike the sort of smoke started by burning paper…
"Smoke? Wait, that means- AGH! FIRE!" The chemist shrieked, looking behind her. Velvet then noticed the smoke she was smelling, which was coming from a pyre that was starting to grow uncomfortably high.
"Oh crap, is that fire gonna get into my-" The unfortunate home owner complained, right before the far end of the train station exploded in a brilliant flash of gold light. She gave another shriek of horror.
"Daagh! My Fairy Dust! My schematics! My experiments! My Science!"
Velvet, at the very least, had her head screwed on straight, having been a responsible care taker at her orphanage. She knew exactly what to do in the situation of a fire. Especially ones that was setting off stray canisters of highly potent Dust.
She grabbed as much sleeve as the other girl's jacket had, and pulled, hissing, "Where's the emergency escape!?"
Outside, the open mouth of Home Underground began to belch black smoke, first in fine rivulets, then a whole endless cloud, catching the attention of by standers here and there, that approached, curious yet uninvolved.
A block down, a sewer manhole had its lid blown off, a raised palm raised into the air before grabbing for the edge of the portal. Within seconds, a girl in green grunted and pulled herself out, followed by a rabbit faunus in a messy brown dress.
There were a few uneasy wheezes and coughs, before the ex-occupant of the underground station lamented.
"My science… MY SCIENCE! It's all gone! They killed my science!"
Listening, the two of them could make out the sound of squealing tires, and Velvet saw a number of nondescript vans leaving the scene. Her companion made the connection easily enough, chasing after the departing vehicles a few steps before shaking her raised fists at them.
"Pirates! Mountebanks! Bashibazouks! Assholes! I'll have your living hides for this, you hear me!? AAARGH!"
She turned back to Velvet, who was still catching her breath, gun practically glued to her right hand by this point.
"Darling, we're going after them! We're going after them and kicking their asses! All my science is gone thanks to them! Now I'm gonna have to start all over again!"
"That's why I came to you in the first place," Velvet said between breaths. Her latest rush of adrenaline was leaving and it was starting to make her head hurt, "I need your help against these smugglers. We both have something to gain from this. I need to save someone, and you need to stop them from harassing you when they come back."
"I'm with you! Don't doubt me at all, darling! I am totally behind this!" The chemist growled.
The rabbit nodded, "Good. Then I need some information. Do you know where their base of operations is?"
The girl opened her mouth, ready to answer, before she closed it, eyebrows furrowing as she tried to think, "Uh… er…"
"…You don't know?" Velvet said, dumbfounded.
"W-well, it's at a dock, right? They ship overseas, yeh?"
"How can you not know!? I thought you did business with them!"
The chemist reared back, hurt, "Hey look, bunny, we weren't that close. I just made stuff and the picked it up and left! That's how it worked!"
Velvet truly wanted to be angry at this ridiculous, promiscuous, dancing fairy of a hardlight using clown of a scientist at the moment. She was angry, in fact, just plain angry. She had to put up with this girl, then be shot at some more, thrust into more life or death situations, crash a train and set a place on fire, and at the end, there was no reward. Not a single clue. How much time had she wasted? Those smugglers were sailing away tonight, with that girl in it, and she just chased after… nothing!
"Look, lady, I'm really sorry! But, uh, I'm gonna help you, right?"
Velvet groaned, and ran her hands through her face, trying to push her rage away. Not knowing the location was not this girl's fault, like she said. The faunus should have known better than to raise her hopes up so highly. Yes, there was a business relationship, but she herself saw how one sided it was. It wasn't surprising the smugglers wouldn't tell their supplier where they holed up.
It was a lead that didn't produce results. That was all. Breathe, Velvet, breathe. Wherever they were, they hadn't gone just yet. There was still time.
"It's alright," Velvet sighed, bringing the weight in her lungs back under control, "It's alright. I still can't do this alone. I do need your help."
The chemist grinned, before grabbing Velvet's free hand empathically, "You got it!"
Velvet smiled, for reasons she wasn't sure herself, before thinking aloud, "If you don't know… there's only one other place left I can go for leads. Do you know any park in Vale with a large homeless population? One with an infamous resident?"
"Famous hobo encampments…" The chemist hummed to herself, "Wait, there is one. With this lady. This is all very hear say, but I hear she's like… I don't know, a real hardass."
"Do you know where she is? Can you take me there?" Velvet asked, intensely, eyebrows furrowed.
The girl nodded, "Sure, you got a car?"
"Follow me, and hurry, we don't have much time."
Velvet dislodged herself from her ally, and beckoned to follow, back towards the growing column of smoke. Only now did sirens begin to wail in the distance.
The girl fixed her hat and sighed as she approached her disintegrating abode.
"Place totally burned down… Aw man, my mom's gonna laugh at me when she finds out. 'I knew you couldn't take care of yourself, you idiot…!' Meh."