"So, two Gundams oppose me. Me, the vessel filled with the collective will of the people."
- Full Frontal, Gundam Unicorn
"Booker T, let me axe you a question."
- Bret Hart, WCW
"Mwahahahaha."
- The Green Ranger, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
"What's the matter, Futaba? Cat got your tongue?" Noir's voice giggled in small, frantic breaths. Her fingers wrapped tightly around the pole of her axe so it wouldn't slip out of place.
The Palace of Orderly Responsibility had fallen into a frenzy of vicious chaos. The chandeliers were blazing bright red. The floors were awash with savage brutality. The intercom played a pounding synth beat with a zoned out female vocalist mumbling something about making the music louder. The butchered corpses of the Phantom Thieves were strewn through the hall like a tornado had swept through an opera house. Someone's severed arm was lying in a corner. A mangled body with a hacked apart ribcage was on full display over here. A couple of severed heads rolled down the carpet over there. The once posh and regal Palace had turned into the set of a sci-fi slasher movie that wasn't Alien or Jason X.
Only two Phantom Thieves still had a heartbeat. They were standing amidst the carnage like two queens from opposing ends of a bloody chess board. Panther's red catsuit made her silhouette almost become consumed in the nightmarish world surrounding her. Noir stood out with solid her black and violet musketeer profile against the Palace's glaring crimson halls.
Haru Okumura. Teenage schoolgirl. Successful restaurant heir. Gardening fan. Friend. Cybernetically conditioned axe murderess. A little too much hair fluff had grown into Haru's brain and crossed wires with her behavior reprogramming, giving birth to one very emotionally unhinged Palace servant. She now operated under the wicked philosophy that being a "Phantom Thief" meant you ran around stealing everyone's souls. Turning a convict with superhuman powers into a vessel for bureaucratic Shadow AI could lead to some nasty unintended glitches, it seemed.
Panther was standing with an axe shoved through her stomach. Her pigtails were slightly disheveled and her intestines were hacked up like remnants of a strawberry smoothie at the bottom of a blender. Her life was dripping out on to the floor in front of her. The wet red leather texture of her Phantom Thief costume helped hide a lot of the mess, but it wasn't exactly what most respectable felines considered a "tummy rub."
"How… how did you know?" Panther gasped with blood pouring down her mouth. Hearing Noir call her by her real name left her so shocked that the chill creeping up her spine overtook the pain in her gut.
"Just a magic trick." Noir shrugged innocently.
"How can you be doing this?" Panther demanded to know. "I owned your butt! I put you through the electron shower with everyone else! You're just a security doll now! A data dumpster! There shouldn't enough neurons left in there for you to even recognize me!"
"Baby got back," Noir whispered with a demented smirk.
"You filthy rotten little hus-…" Panther started to growl.
Noir thrust the pole of her axe downward, bringing up the bladed end like a lever and splitting Anne-turned-Futaba's body open from her waist to her right shoulder. Panther stumbled backwards spraying a bloody arch and toppled over dead.
"Takes one to know one," Noir said as she flicked her tongue. Her gloved hand brushed away a bit of blood spatter from her cheek.
Noir playfully twirled her axe and let the pole rest against her hip. Her eyes were maniacal and wild under her mask. Her posture was limp and lopsided from the weight of her weapon, almost like she was standing in a trance. The malfunctioning neural pulses in her brain blinked on and off as they tried to decide who or what they should go wrecking next.
Noir started to giggle again. Her giggling rose and broke into mindless hysteria. She stood alone in the scene of carnage she had created, filling the halls of the Palace with high-pitched diabolical laughter.
Author's note: "Collective will of the people" in this case translates to "That one guy from a few months back who wanted this to be a more Haru-centric fic." You willed it, so you got it.
Author's note 2: I was stuck between describing her as a musketeer or a highwayman. Musketeer works better I guess.
Author's note 3: I bet Elton John told her he didn't want to be the feather in her cap and she killed him.
Author's note 4: Do you remember that part in Alien when the critter just kinda reaches out to give the guy a hug? What was that all about?