"Hey, wait up," I shouted to the younger girl speeding ahead.
"How's she so quick?" I muttered to myself as she whipped around the next corner.
With the sound of her hysterical laughter taunting me, I put on an extra burst of speed and nearly crashed into her as she paused for breath. The second she realized that I had caught her, she burst into giggles again, twisted out of my grip, and jumped two-at-a-time down the staircase to the underground.
"Oh god, not again."
Suddenly, a very muscular, tattooed arm snaked out from an alcove in the dirty brick wall and grabbed her, quickly dragging her into the darkness. Her laughter turned to screams, abruptly cutting off as the burly stranger grabbed her throat. The last thing I saw before she was completely obscured by the darkness were her glowing pinkish eyes slowly closing.
As I opened my mouth to scream for help, I woke up.
The second she gained consciousness, Vi knew that something was wrong. Her tiny room, usually dim at all hours, was bright as day and she could sense the presence of someone silently watching. She turned over, still feigning sleep, and stuck her hands into the improved gauntlets that she had taken to hiding under the sheets while she slept. As soon as she heard them power up, Vi jumped out of the bed and assumed a ready stance.
There, in her cramped single room, stood the five members of her former gang. Sitting on her table, standing over her bed, sitting on the floor; regardless of where they were, all seven sets of eyes followed her. She didn't like that she couldn't look into all of them at once.
"So, I see you ain't had trouble sleepin', eh, Vi? Not after dippin' out on yer brothers-in-arms?" grunted a one-eyed giant with knife scars covering his forearms.
Vi kept eye contact with him as she slowly turned her head to the side, then spat. "I don't owe you nothin', Jimmy. You scumballs haven't done me any favors, neither, leaving me to die in that tunnel."
As Vi finished her brash announcement, Jimmy grinned and cracked his knuckles. "I can't say I weren't hopin' for this, girl. You been too smart for your pants way too long," he growled as he began to advance on her. Just as a fight seemed inevitable, a clear, cold voice cut through the tension, quick as a bullet.
"Cut the shit, we have business to do," stated a tall, muscular man with one eye and a scar ripping down his face from the empty socket. "So you seem to have gone back on our previous arrangement, Six. I thought you were smarter than that," he murmured softly, almost sensually, as he gently curled a stray piece of hair behind her ear. Suddenly, his mouth shifted from a casual grin to a straight line of tension. "Why would you do that to me, Six?"
Vi shook her hair back out of place and snorted impatiently. "I don't have time for this shit. Let's just fight already, yeah?" she said as she charged up a Vaultbreaker and rammed straight into Jimmy's chest. When she pulled her gauntlet out of his quivering corpse, there was a giant, fist-sized hole straight through his chest, leaking smoke. A faint red mist began to settle along the floor.
With that, the rest of the gang charged, attempting to force her to the ground and overpower her. After a few minutes of prolonged struggle, she lay on her dirty floor, completely worn out and struggling for breath through two broken ribs and a throat bruised from multiple people attempting to asphyxiate her. Even though she managed to take out one more guy, who was lying face down in a pool of blood, five was too much for one girl to handle. Once she was finally subdued by his remaining lackeys, the boss approached her.
"Now that I've got you where I want you, I have a little secret to tell you," he murmured sweetly. "Remember that girl you told me about? Your little friend from the streets?-"
"Don't you DARE talk to me about her," Vi raged at him. "You know you can't do that, C." Vi struggled uselessly against her captors, to no avail.
"Well, she's still alive," he stated very simply. A grin curled his face into an amalgamation of evil and mirth. "I just figured I'd let you know before I take the blood price out out of your skin and use the rest of it as a rug."
My world suddenly became tinged with blue. The burly men restraining me suddenly seemed like rag dolls as I threw them off of me effortlessly. I began to laugh, truly laugh, with wild abandon. I hadn't felt this good since she… well, for a very long time. As I noted the two men I had just smashed into the walls were slumped over, unmoving, that laughter began to take on a hysterical edge. My vision suddenly blotted out as everything became a stream of solid blue; I stopped laughing and slowly advanced on C with an insanely wide, manic grin.