Valerie stepped off the subway to the middle of Brooklyn, with a destination in mind. She went to an arcade that had been her favourite haunt for quite a while. But she didn't enter the arcade. She went straight to the back door, which had a poster on it that said, "Midnight gaming wars! Open every night, highest bet thirty dollars." and entered through there. The back door of the arcade led to a moderately sized room with off-white walls. A speaker system was plugged into to a corner. A large flat screen TV had been set up on one wall, a Wii attached to it. A large plate weighed down by a painted rock was on the table, various coins and dollar bills scattered over it, and several unclaimed controllers resting beside it. Four other people were there as well, but Valerie only recognized one person. She had short spiky brown hair with purple streaks, black eyes, and tattoos scattered all over her arms. Tonight she wore a Kingdom Hearts t-shirt, tight hotpants that Val could never look good in and her usual green visor. She walked up to her and shook her hand, "Hey, Danielle, how're things? What's up today?"

Danielle shrugged, "Exactly the same as always, unlike you. My life never changes, my brothers think that we should bring in another game on the roster, but they can't agree with which one. Personally, I'd go with Splatoon, but it's not like they'll listen. Anyways, this time, because of the vote you missed" Dani said significantly, "we're playing Mario kart."

Valerie nodded, "Thanks! I'd definitely go with Splatoon. I wish I was you, it must be exciting living with seven cousins and two brothers!"

Danielle rolled her eyes, "How? You're a superhero. No annoying little kids and you get to be a teenage vigilante. It's a win-win!"

Valerie looked around hurriedly, "Keep it down! No ones supposed to know!"

Dani laughed sheepishly before whispering, "Sorry. I'm not good at keeping something this big to myself."

Valerie shrugged, "Doesn't matter. But if your brothers need persuasion for the Splatoon thing, give me a call. We both know they've got a crush on me. Anyways, I've been meaning to a ask you if I can get a job at your arcade. Need to save up for a Switch."

Danielle nodded, "I'll see what I can do. But if you've still got your working papers we'll have no trouble. Now show 'em who's boss!"

Valerie nodded, turned around and headed to the table at the front. Then she picked up a controller before dropping a twenty dollar note into the plate, possibly the highest bet placed. That got everyone's attention. "I say twenty. Can we start this round, now?"

Three hours later, she was thirty dollars richer. She wasn't awesome at Mario kart, that's why it took the better part of three hours to get thirty dollars more but she liked to think of herself as decent at it. She walked the rest of the way to her apartment, the trip mostly uneventful . . . mostly. She was passing through an unlit back alley that was a shortcut to her place when she heard a figure walking toward her. The fact that he smelt like a brewery was enough to confirm her suspicions, but she turned around to look at the slightly swaying man anyways. He gave her a drunken grin, "Hey, foxy, you new around here?"

Her only reaction was to continue walking to her destination. The man grabbed her shoulder, "Hey, sweetie, don't be like that. Just grab a few drinks with me! It'll be the must fun you're ever gonna have!" the drunk continued, his words slurring.

Valerie froze, "You know, I was gonna let you off easy. But the second you opened your mouth, you were done," she said quietly, before swinging around and hitting him squarely on the jaw. She could've sworn she hadn't hit too hard, but the creep staggered back on contact, mouth bloody, instantly falling in a dead faint, face-first onto some half-full trash bags. Valerie blinked, she had lost control of herself. . . again. She looked the guy over for any major damage but he just seemed asleep, even suddenly snoring, shocking her from her worry. She sighed with relief and quickly ran off. This wasn't the first time something like this had happened. The quickest route was through here, and some pubs were too, which meant lots of guys tried to chat her up. She usually ignored them or rejected them in her usual sarcastic manner. Sometimes, though, someone would say something really stupid, like treat her as if she was an easily seduced baby then they were in for it. She didn't even bother pointing out how creepy it was that they thought she would enter a bar, since she didn't look anywhere near twenty one. She walked up the stairs of the building she lived in and found the place nearly spotless. Valerie didn't understand what was with Derek and places being spotless- his lab was the messiest room in the apartment. Derek looked up from his laptop when she knocked on the door-frame of said lab, "Oh, hey, Vee, you're here. Get ready, we're leaving for your appointment in twenty minutes. Meet me downstairs." He said all this nervously - he was always nervous before an appointment. Sometimes she wondered why - she never minded them too much, so why should he? Valerie put her hero suit back and stowed away her weapons under the bed. She grabbed her phone in case she had time to look through the pictures she had gathered, and she probably did, considering how far away it was. Then she put on a hoodie and walked down to the parking lot where Derek was. He was nervously twiddling his thumbs but grinned when she showed up, "All set? Let's go." She nodded in response and slid into the back seat, entirely focused on the pictures she had taken now displayed on her phone. The first few were pictures of weapons, stuff she had already seen, but would come in handy later. The next were panoramic pictures of each room to get the layout of the area. The last ones were scans of the forms she'd found in the cupboard. They were records of weapons, where they had got them from and a hint at a money laundering scheme. The last one was what peaked her interest, it was the only order form she had found in the entire place. She supposed they were one of the few smart ones, and had burnt their used forms. It mentioned grenade launchers, rifles, vibranium bullets and an unknown substance written in a mostly illegible scrawl. The whole order was listed to. . . HYDRA." Her blood ran cold, HYDRA was far and away beyond her level. She had never faced anyone, or any organization with their kind of strength before, much less their reputation for merciless evil- this was bad. Very, very bad. Derek never really had a problem with her going out and fighting crime after she'd pushed hard enough. He had gotten cold feet the first time she was shot, but she had convinced him to let her continue. Ever since then he had given her a list of rules she had to follow:

1. Stay away from HYDRA and anything connected to it.

2. Stay away from the Avengers.

3. Don't be seen.

4. Don't be caught on tape.

5. Hide all things related to Dark Fox, just in case.

6. Don't stick out, learn to be normal.

She mentally went through her options. Her ordinary approach was very obviously breaking rule one. She could tip off the Avengers, but that would break rule two, and if she continued the strike against the weapons place, she was still breaking rule one. Her head hurt - thinking about disappointing Derek, who only wanted what's best for her, made shivers run down her neck. She thought back to those bullets, they were specialized ones. If she didn't do something, a lot of people were about to die. Vibranium was so unstable, it wasn't safe with HYDRA. Nothing was safe with HYDRA. She thought back to the unknown substance, what could it be? She looked again at the blurry scrawl in the photo. She could partially make out at least six of the letters, three of which were definitely a's. There was what she thought might be an m, and a possible n on either side of one a, and an m at the end, so, optimistically, it spelled, a_aman_m. Before she could figure out any more, Derek stopped the car, "We're here, let's go," he said, sharply, his nervousness not abated at all by the drive over. Valerie nodded and climbed out. They were in the suburbs, outside a modest house. There was a collie walking around the yard who walked up to Derek for a pat on its head. Valerie hated dogs, so when Derek bent down to coo over it she went to the door to ring the bell. An old woman around her early fifties opened the door. She smiled when she saw Valerie, "Oh, hello dear. Is your... brother here?"

Valerie nodded, "He's petting your dog. DEREK GET OVER HERE!" she called over to him. Derek looked up and walked over to the two.

The woman smiled ruefully, "Hello, Derek. How nice to see you again. Lets start her check up, shall we?" She led them through the hall to a sterilized doctor's office. It had a bed, some charts about Darwinian evolution and hybridization. A dentist's chair was in the middle of the room and a section had been put aside for eye testing. Valerie was used to the procedure and hopped onto the bed. The woman bent down, "Left ear check," she said as she shone a torch into her ear. Valerie turned her ear around, then repeated the action with her right ear. (A/N: Valerie has only one pair of ears. I know the avatar wears headphones like a normal person, but in the last chapter I mentioned her enhanced hearing compensated for that. I mean can you imagine her trying to put earphones in like that? And considering how big they are, what if ear buds go into her inner ear and hit the ear drum?) "Your ears look good. How's your tail?"

Valerie twirled it around, "Good, never better."

The woman nodded, "That's great. Have you been following your diet?"

"Yup." She replied, popping her lips, bored with this series of too-often-repeated questions.

"Wonderful. Now just let me check your eyesight, take a blood test and give you a shot then you're done."

Valerie nodded and the woman took out an ophthalmoscope. She pressed it near her eye and a purple light shone out from it. The color changed first into green then orange then blue. The colors changed faster and faster until they blurred together. She thought she could see a fuzzy red-tinted image where she was curled up in a cell, surrounded by faceless men, one of those men was standing close to her cell, he had a lab coat and black hair. Everything was so fuzzy and confusing, the only thing she was certain of seeing was the skull with four tentacles enclosed in a circle. In a second, the image was gone. She shook her head, trying to clear her mind. This happened during every test. Derek and the doctor woman said that they had to use a special ophthalmoscope for her, but her fox genes didn't seem to react well with it. Derek said that the ordinary one was more painful, so she didn't argue. Strange hallucinations were better than pain. She let the woman take a blood sample and let her inject a substance into her bloodstream. They'd had to increase her shots, lately. They were to counteract the effects of the adrenocorticotropic hormone that filled her bloodstream whenever she was even slightly didn't mind them - they kept her from snapping at every little thing. She didn't pay attention to anyone as she walked back to the car in a daze. All she could think about was HYDRA. She didn't understand why, but the very name filled her with anger- well, it would, if she hadn't been injected with something to stop her getting angry- and all she wanted to do was destroy it, or at least slow it's progress. There was no doubt about it, she was gonna stop that delivery. Derek smiled back at her, "Vee? Are you ok?" he asked carefully, he was always much nicer after an appointment-as though she was a time bomb. She looked up and nodded before falling silent again. Derek left her alone, probably thinking she was too loopy from the shots to be very talkative.

When they returned home, Valerie rushed into the privacy of her room and opened the image of the HYDRA form. It said that the transaction was taking place on fourth of June 2019. Three days from now. As much as she hated to admit it, she had to let the arms dealers off until after she crashed the transaction. Until then, she needed a plan. She was still missing some information, mainly the location and the transportation. She sighed, she was always tired after a visit to the doctor, she'd have to sleep on the problem.

Soon after she woke up at one , she had formulated a plan. Derek had already gone to work, so she helped herself to porridge, sausages and toast before sneaking into his lab. She opened his computer and logged in. A little digging around in the criminal records of the three men she had captured on camera via the facial recognition software in Derek's computer revealed they had connections to five other criminals. She seemed to be on the track of something, so she went to the DMV- it took must of the day but it was crucial for her plan- which revealed that among the eight, six cars were owned. Two were tiny cars that couldn't fit the weaponry, three were large vans perfect for this sort of thing. The last turned out to be a bike. It took several rounds of Pokémon battles to think of the perfect solution to the location problem. She could just put a tracker onto each van. She was able to found some trackers in Derek's lab and had helped herself.

Two days had passed and Valerie was getting more tense by the second. She had prepared and planned meticulously and now there was no backing down. She was afraid that Derek might have noticed something, but he had been wrapped up in work projects. It was nine-forty-five at night, nearly an hour and a half before the transaction was due. Fortunately, Derek was working late tonight, so she had ordered a large pizza and nearly finished it. She would have eaten it all but Derek would be hungry too, and after late nights he didn't feel like making breakfast either. She sighed and rubbed her hands, to prepare herself. She missed having all the time in the world to talk with her brother, nowadays he was so busy, and she wasn't comfortable talking to Danielle about her life very much either.

She went back into her room and took out her weapons. This time, she wasn't holding back, and took everything she could find that had highly destructive capabilities. That including shoving a bottle of air freshener and a lighter into her utility belt, it had been her first weapon when she became Dark Fox, so bringing it now had a nice sentiment as well.. Her Taser was charged so she stuck it in the pocket of her jeans, her flare gun was to be left at home because she couldn't see much use for it in this mission. That and she had a finite number of loops in her belt. Her two tranquilizer guns were ready, refills of darts were already stored in her belt, and a pouch full of smoke bombs hung from her belt next to them. She slid on her warp tech, plugged it into her collar and put on her sunglasses, her pupils easily dilating to make up for the darkness. Next, she pulled out a loose floorboard from underneath her bed and pulled out a jar of colorless sweet-smelling liquid, chloroform. She wanted to lower the chances of her victims waking up before she was gone, so she had decided to douse pieces of cloth in the sedative and tie it around their noses. She lifted her phone to check on the locations of the vans. They were heading to one specific area by the looks of it. She didn't have time to think about anything, especially not the tingling sensation that was intensifying by the minute. All she could think of was the arsenal of weapons that was gonna be in Hydra's possession if she didn't move against them. And she would die before she let that happen.