After a year or so of wandering, young Yvette had managed to make it as far as Paris on foot. Tired and hungry, she walked the streets of the great city alone, with nothing in hand but the unopened briefcase and the money Alexis had saved for her, which was quickly dwindling. Unable to afford the ship to London, she ambled aimlessly about the city, hoping for an opportunity to surface. She stayed in Paris for two more years, until she was thirteen, and her life as Yvette ended.

Yvette was walking, disparaged, down a Parisian street one night, wondering what on earth she was going to do. Suddenly, a man's hand reached out of the shadows and gripped her wrist painfully tightly. She shouted, but his other hand wrapped around her face and the man dragged her into a dead-end alley. She struggled futilely as she saw eight or nine shadowy silhouettes appear in the dim orange light of lanterns at the end of the dark alley road. More men, some sitting, some standing, and a few smoking cigarettes.

"There you are, Pons," one of the smokers greeted Yvette's kidnapper. "Where the hell have you been?"

"He brought us a present," another man chuckled wickedly, noticing Yvette.

"I hope you were intending to share," a third piped in. By now, all the men were standing and had formed a large circle with Pons, who threw Yvette into the middle of it. The girl was terrified. She didn't know what they were going to do, but she knew it would be painful.

Two men grabbed her arms, and another two forced her legs apart, while the remaining four took turns raising her skirts and forcing themselves onto her. They didn't bother covering her mouth; they left her to scream in agony and horror, mocking her cries for mercy.

"No! No! Stop it! Please! No..." Suddenly, Yvette felt a new emotion overwhelm her terror: rage. Rage like a fiery storm pulsing through her veins. A rage that could only be satisfied by destruction. Rage that thirsted for death.

"Wh... what's wrong with her eyes?" one of the men holding her arms questioned nervously. Yvette barely heard him. She let out a vengeful scream, and everything went red.


She awoke as the dawn's rosy fingers began to streak through the sky, at first only aware that she was sitting in something wet. She swallowed dryly in an attempt to rid herself of the bitter, metallic taste that had settled in her tongue. She could feel something caked under her fingernails. She was panting and exhausted. She tried to stand, and something gushed under her foot. She looked around. She was surrounded by what seemed to be heaps of bloody rags. The smell reminded her of a butcher's shop. She had succeeded in standing, and tried to walk, but something caught her eye and she froze: A face petrified by terror peeked out of the heap of blood, a face she could never forget: the man who kidnapped her. His face stared out from what Yvette now recognized as his body, mangled and disfigured though it was. But that would mean... the piles... She gazed about again, and found it to be true – she was surrounded by the mutilated corpses of the men who had attacked her. The bodies were savagely torn apart, clawed, and bitten, as if by an animal. Yvette realized that her dress was covered in blood spatter. She slowly lifted her hands to get a better look at them. Her arms were soaked in dark blood. The realization of what she'd done dawned on her, and she screamed.

A prostitute was on her way home from work one morning when she heard the screaming cries of a young child. Curious, she followed the sound into an alleyway, and met with a horrifying sight: a crying young girl surrounded by mutilated corpses. Her softer side got the better of her, and she rushed to the child's side.

"Are you alright?" the woman asked. "What happened?"

"M-monster..." the child sobbed. "Monster!" She started crying even harder.

"No no no no shhhh..." the woman comforted. "Don't be afraid. That monster's not going to hurt you anymore." She looked around and the bodies, and recognized a few of them as clients. "But what's a girl like you doing with..." She stopped as the realization dawned on her. "Oh my God, you poor child! Here... let me take you home and get you cleaned up." The girl looked up at her with tear-filled, ghostly eyes, and eventually nodded, shakily trying to stand. Once the girl reached her feet, she panicked.

"Where's the case?!" she shouted. "I have to find the case!" The little girl ran out to the street on the other end of the alley without a second thought. The woman, surprised and a little worried, ran out after her. She found the girl rummaging through some boxes on the side of the road, near the alley they had just left. The girl smiled and pulled out a brown briefcase. "Thank goodness! I thought it was gone forever!"

"Why is it so important?"

"It's... well... it's all I have." The woman nodded, understanding.

"Alright then. That's taken care of. Let's get you cleaned up."


The young girl sat silently in the tub while the woman who found her was looking for clean clothes that would fit the child. Despite the finding of the case having cheered her up, she had settled back into a ghostly silence, her bright blue eyes once more cold and dead.

"So..." the woman began, attempting to bring the girl out of her stupor, "what's a young lady like you doing out here all on your own? Where are your parents?"

"London," the child answered simply.

"London?! Whatever for?"

"They live there. I was stolen as a baby. My maman... wasn't really my maman at all..."

The girl was on the verge of tears, so the woman made an offer: "Oh, don't worry about that! I'm sure you'll real parents'll love a sweet little girl like you! You know what, I'll take you to London myself. I'll have you on the first ship out, soon as I can get the money together. How's that sound?" The child paused to swallow her tears before she nodded, agreeing. Clothes having been found, there was another long silence as she dressed herself slowly and sat down on the floor.

"Mademoiselle?" the child squeaked quietly. "I see so many boys my age running around on the streets, but there aren't any girls. Why?"

"I think you found out for yourself why," the woman replied. "People don't tend to mess with boys that way. Yeah, there are a few perverts out there, but for the most part it seems people leave the boys alone."

"Why can't I be a boy?"

"Well... well that's just not the way you were made."

"So? If I dress like one, and I act like one, no one will know the difference."

"That's not the way it works!"

"Why not?! Boys can travel on their own, and swear, and wear pants, and they never cry, and they can beat up the bastards who mess with them!" The child had raised her voice to a furious shout, and that's when the prostitute first saw it: an angry young man's eyes glaring out of the little girl's body. The look was so startling, and so... familiar... the woman hardly knew what to say.

"Listen... child..."

"Don't call me child!" she shouted. Spotting the cooking knife on the table in the room, she ran over and scooped it up before the woman could stop her. She raised the blade to her head, and with one swift motion her golden hair was cut from shoulder length to just behind her ears. "My name... is Yvon!" The newly-named Yvon shouted difinitively, looking, for all the world, like an angry young boy in a pink, frilly dress. "And I'm going to London – with or without your help!"

"Um..." the woman said, nearly bursting into tears, "a young man like you shouldn't be running around in skirts like that. It's not proper." She began to rummage around in a trunk in the back of the room. "Put these on," she told him, offering him a slightly worn-out boy's outfit. "I had a son about your age. Died of cholera a few years back. I'd been keeping them to remember him by but... I think you'll wear them better. Go ahead and get dressed. I have a friend in London. He'll take care of you until you find your family."

"How do I find him?"

"In the east end there's a big burned out factory. Of course, you probably won't get that close without running into a few of his boys. Just tell them you're looking for Duke. When they take you to him tell him Roselle sent you."

"Thank you," Yvon told the woman.

"Good luck, Yvon."

"Yvon?" another woman's voice was whispering to him as he slowly regained control of himself. "Yvon, are you ok?" Yvon suddenly jumped and reached for his sword. He didn't know where he was, or who was with him. Everything was moving for some reason. A gentle hand kept him from drawing his weapon, and he found himself staring into a beautiful pair of emerald-green eyes.

"L-Louise?" He stuttered, finally starting to recognize her.

"That's right, it's just me. You started having a fit in the street, so we started taking you home. We're almost there now."

"Oh..." Yvon mumbled, remembering. "Oh... right... sorry."

"No, it's alright. Baldroy just scared you is all." Yvon sighed, leaning over and holding his forehead with one hand. "You weren't responding at all. I was really worried about you." Louise continued quietly.

"No, no I'm alright, I was just... remembering. I'm fine. Really."

"If you're sure..."

"Hey, don't worry about me," Yvon insisted. "I just need to relax a bit now. No big deal."

"I know something that'll help you relax," Louise offered, smiling seductively.

"Louise," Yvon chided jokingly, "That's dirty."