Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Taylor

Shadow Stalker lept from roof to roof and dashed from alley to alley. After the few days she'd been having, she needed to take some time to herself and blow off some steam. Can you believe it? Fucking Hebert's a Cape? And she'd apparently beaten Lung. Shadow Stalker could hardly believe it, but apparently, there was video and Armsmaster backed the story.

That wasn't the worst of it though. Sure, the fact that the twig had so much power but was still so weak-Seriously, Princess had been around for months but Hebert still wasn't even trying to fight back, not that Sophia couldn't put her in her place if the little bitch tried-but that Armsy and Miss Piggy had taken her aside and chastised her for her lack of caution with a fellow hero's civilian name.

And the little bitch was apparently someone that the bigwigs wanted to get their hands on and a whiner because now she was being asked to keep an eye on the beanpole and try to stop kids from messing with her. That meant that in the near future at least, she'd have to stop playing with her and her best friend's favorite punching bag. She was having trouble explaining to Emma why they had to lay off the pathetic waste of space for a while. Normally she would have just told her fellow survivor that Hebert was a cape, but she was on thin ice as it was right now and didn't want to take the risk.

Also, apparently the big baby had made it clear that she didn't want the PRT controlling her life. The fact that Sophia actually had something in common with someone so weak was infuriating, but something she could deal with.

All in all, it meant that the last few days had been very, very stressful for Shadow Stalker. And now that she had some time to herself to cut loose and work out her frustration, she was taking it.

Paydirt! Right around the corner from where she was now was a Nazi bastard holding up a woman at knifepoint. The woman was older, she seemed caucasian, but members of E88 had been known to assume that people were Jews on flimsy reasoning, like just happening to have dark curly hair and… Wait a second. Sophia knew that guy.

Blonde crew-cut, swastika tattooed on his exposed arm, only ever wore sweats. Stupid look on his face… The kid was a senior at Winslow. Name was Shoestring or something stupid like that. Sophia had been hoping to catch the Junior Nazi doing something that'd earn a good roughing up ever since she'd bloodied her knuckles on his face for calling her "Blackie the Track Running Ni-" to her face and expected her to let him finish that sentence. She'd had to share a detention with the asshole that afternoon.

She watched as he held up the woman. The weakling just gave the boy all her cash without even bothering to put up a fight, then ran for it as soon as he let her go. Pathetic.

Blondie the Retarded Nazi went off on his way, and Shadow Stalker followed him from a safe distance until he turned into a secluded alley. Shadow Stalker shifted into her shadow form and glided up to the top of a building just in time to see dumbass shaking up a can of spray paint. Who the hell goes out mugging and tagging at the same time? Or was the woman just a target of opportunity? It didn't matter. The point was that he had no idea that she was here and his back was to her. She solidified, loaded a bolt, took aim… and fired!

...And the dumbass chose that exact moment to turn around, so the bladed dart that was meant to pierce his shoulder hit him right in the throat instead. The young man collapsed against the wall and Shadow Stalker watched him gurgle, bleed, and eventually die.

"Well fuck," she said when the corpse stopped making noises. This was bad. If the fucking PRT found out she'd killed someone else… Okay, they only knew about the guy she'd bolted to a wall, but still, she was on probation. If this made it back to the jackboots, she'd be in juvenile hall so fast…

She shifted and glided down. She had to hide the evidence that she was involved in this. Becoming solid once more, she plucked her dart from his neck and hid it away. Then she searched his body, taking his knife, his spray paint, and the cash he'd looted earlier(waste not, want not.)

With a steady hand, Shadow Stalker dragged the knife across the man's throat to obscure the actual cause of death by making it look like his throat had been slit. Then, once he'd bled as much as he was going to, she stabbed him a few times in the chest and stomach, circled and crossed out his tattoo, and carved a smile onto his face. She smiled under her mask. This wouldn't hold up to dedicated forensics, but there was no way that some rando gang-banger would get the full PRT Miami treatment in a shithole like The Bay. However, it never hurt to be too careful. She hid the knife, to dispose of it elsewhere, and took his paint can.

It was when she was spraying "AZN BAD BOYZ" in big block letters above the corpse when she heard it. A dainty, feminine voice, like some arrogant rich bitch. A voice she'd heard the other night.

"Well, well, well," came the voice, "what do we have here?"

Sophia turned around slowly and found a floating winged star thing. "What do you want?"

"Oh nothing, nothing at all," Princess' magical trinket replied. "I was just out running an errand and stumbled across a young heroine tampering with a crime scene."

Shadow Stalker looked around. "And is Princess also running this errand?"

"No, young lady," the tool replied. "My Princess, like all well behaved young women, is getting her much-needed beauty sleep." Behind her mask, Sophia rolled her eyes at the thought of anything beauty related being associated with the ugly twig. "It is a school night, after all."

"That's all well and good," Shadow Stalker said, "but in a shithole like this, sometimes you can't afford to take the night off."

"I do believe that that's what the police, the Parahuman Response Team, Sir and Lady Pelman, Sir and Lady Dallon, and the full-time Heroes of the Protectorate are for." The tool explained politely. "A child shouldn't shirk their responsibilities or place their health or education at risk to do the work of those who are older and more able to dedicate themselves."

"I'm not a child!" Shadow Stalker shouted back at the tool.

"Oh, of course, I'm terribly sorry," the tool said without a hint of sarcasm. It then floated closer to her and began examining the body. "Tisk tisk, quite ghastly a sight."

"He deserved it," Shadow Stalker said quickly, "he was a fucking Nazi!"

"Proper young ladies shouldn't swear," the tool chastised, "and while I'd normally agree that scum like that is below consideration… You did murder him in cold blood and then rob and mutilate his corpse, which is quite excessive."

"He was like this when I found him."

"And you just decided to leave a graffito of a rival gang's name on the wall around his body for your own amusement?" The tool asked cheerfully and politely. It was honestly starting to wear on Shadow Stalker's nerves. "If you say so, Lady Hess."

"What did you-!?"

"Oh, I'm so terribly sorry," the tool apologized, "slip of the tongue… Oh, are you surprised that I know?" the tool chuckled, "yes, my Princess may not have recognized your voice, but I did."

Shadow Stalker glared at the tool. "What. Do. You. Want?"

"Right now, Lady Hess, there are but a handful of things that I'm concerned about," the tool said, still polite and cheerful. "My Princess, her health, her mental wellbeing, her potential and ability to achieve it, and so on and so forth."

"You're wasting your time there," Shadow Stalker dismissed. "Hebert's got no potential. She's a victim for life."

"I'm sorry," the tool said, "could you please explain that?"

"There are two kinds of people in this world," Shadow Stalker explained, "victims and survivors. It's natural selection, the animal that's big, and strong, and can fight, kill, and eat the others is the one that survives while the small, weak animal that just runs or hides under a rock eating grass is the one that gets killed and eaten. Hebert's the rabbit, but it sounds like you're looking for a wolf."

"I don't think that's quite what Darwin meant, but thank you for the explanation," the tool said, still unceasingly polite. Enough to make someone's skin crawl, not that Shadow Stalker was that weak. "However, I believe that you're mistaken: After all, my Princess has both gifts and burdens that you could never begin to comprehend."

"Yeah, right."

"Regardless, she does go through an untoward amount of abuse almost every day and she's still going, which I do believe by definition makes her a survivor," the tool said, clearly misunderstanding Shadow Stalker's lesson, "Which brings me to my main point: You, Lady Hess, and Lady Barnes, and Lady Clements, and all of your followers… You all seem to have some irrational hatred for my Princess. That makes you all a threat to her, her happiness, and her potential. And I have witnessed you committing a major criminal activity."

"You don't have the balls to do anything."

"If you say so," the tool continued, "but the fact remains that I'm simply giving you a fair warning. If you, Lady Hess, and the others leave my princess alone and this will be the last you ever hear of this."

"And if we don't?" Shadow Stalker said, getting up in the tool's face like the survivor she was.

"Then there will be no way to fight, no distance you can run, no one who can help you, and nowhere to hide from my swift and just retribution," the damned tool said in the same formal tone as the entire conversation, "and no one will ever find your inelegant corpse."

Shadow Stalker screamed and took a swing at the piece of junk. She'd show it what happened to people who threatened her.

The device then strafed to the right, avoiding the attack, before zooming off into the sky. "And perhaps you should work on your temper as well?!" it shouted back as though it hadn't just threatened her life.

Sophia cursed and plotted where she could dispose of the knife and paint can. She'd have to do it quickly because now she had to find someone else to take her frustration out on.