Road Trip

While Badgerclops and Minori fought the Razorback in Pure Heart Valley, elsewhere another battle was taking place.

Tanya was waiting patiently on the back of her gold plated Aerotruck, as she was steadily losing patience with Violet. It's been three days since they left the Low Key Bar to head for Pure Heart, but every time they pass a town, Violet insists they pull over for supplies.

These kind of jobs ticked Tanya off big time. One minute Violet was saying it was urgent that they get to Pure Heart, the next their taking time to help a village in jeopardy.

Right now, Tanya lounged in the back of her truck, outside of a looming stone tower just on the outskirts of a small village. Violet was inside dealing with baddies like a hero straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon show.

At first the traveling warrior trope was cute, but now it's just a serious bother. Half of the time they didn't even buy anything, they just wasted time in a random town for nothing.

A shattering crash was heard up above about twenty floors as one of the baddies was thrown out a window. The guy fell all the way down to ground with a resounding thud against the soft earth a few yards away from the Aerotruck, followed by the shards of glass from the window.

The guy was a jackal wearing a sleeveless leather jacket with spikes on the shoulders, and a scar across his left eye. He was covered in bruises from his head to his toes, looked like Violet wasn't going to make it easy for the ne'er-do-wells to throw her out.

Tanya thought back to how Biggs reacted to her taking Violet's request, the giant panda wasn't all to pleased with the decision. After all, the wandering warrior had floored her in front of everyone, it wouldn't be long before word spread that the legendary bounty hunter Tanya Keyes had her clock cleaned.

But eventually Biggs caved in to Tanya's decision, he knew there was no changing the tanuki's mind after it was set. All the panda had left to do at that point was to wish Tanya luck on her job.

Ever since then, Tanya had started to wonder if this is what Mittens felt like whenever she messed with him. If so, she needed to apologize for all the stress she put him through.

After what felt like forever, Violet finally emerged from the front doors of the tower, carrying the boss over her shoulder. He was a gray wolf, and just like the jackal, wore a sleeveless leather jacket.

Tanya actually recognized this guy, he was Evans Lupis; he was well known for receiving money from small villages he was "protecting". His bounty wasn't very big, hence why Tanya nor anyone else hadn't already taken him down.

"You finally done, or do you want to go dethrone a tyrannical king while we're in the neighborhood?" Tanya asked rhetorically. Throughout the whole trip, Tanya hasn't exactly been trying to hide her disdain for all the detours they've been taking.

Violet, unresponsive to Tanya's quips, walked past the Aerotruck towards the town. Other than the occasional word, all the warrior ever did was sit crisscrossed silently in the back of the truck.

With a tired sigh, Tanya hopped over the side of her truck and made her way to the driver's seat. Starting the truck, Tanya drove it slightly behind Violet; for some reason or another, Violet wanted to be in the Aero-Vehicle as little as possible.

It didn't take long for them to reach the town. When they entered the town, the villagers gathered around the two, a soft murmur could be heard rolling over the crowd when they saw Evans draped over Violet's shoulder. The townsfolk consisted mostly of ovine, it was almost poetry, a wolf preying upon sheep.

The mayor of the village stepped forth from the crowd, he was a sheep like the rest of the village and wore a three-piece suit with silk gloves. His wool plumed over his collar, like smoke from a volcano.

"Y-you actually did it," he said, eyes wide with astonishment. "We're free. We're free!"

The townsfolk went into an uproar, happy to finally be liberated from their usurper. While Violet was receiving thanks and praise, Tanya still sat behind the wheel of her truck, examining her nails.

The townsfolk held their loved ones, and a few even started to cry now that the dark cloud has been removed from over their heads. Before the villagers could invite them to a celebratory party, Tanya honked the horn of her truck, signaling Violet it was time to go.

Giving the villagers a hurried goodbye, Violet made her way to Tanya's truck. After she hopped in the back, the truck lurched forward. When it had enough momentum, the Aero-Vehicle slowly gained altitude until it was above the trees.

"You didn't need to be so rude." Violet said as soon as the village was out of sight.

"I wouldn't need to be rude, If we didn't stop to help every child who dropped their ice cream!" Tanya said, annoyance making itself known in her tone.

"You're over exaggerating." Replied the warrior, lowering her golden hat to cover her eyes.

Tanya's brow ticked, her knuckles turned white from the death grip she was giving the steering wheel.

"Please," said Tanya. "If anything, I'm under exaggerating! Every third town has a problem, the others are gas stops at best."

"There's nothing wrong with taking a moment to look around."

The warrior's tone hasn't changed once since they left the Low Key Bar. It was impressive at first because it showed how levelheaded she was, but now it's just annoying. It was almost starting to sound like Tanya was having a one-sided conversation with an android.

"I want answers, now!" Tanya demanded, annoyance slowly turning to outrage.

"If it's within the privacy policy of our agreement, then sure." Before they left the bar, Tanya and Violet had set a rule: No invasive questions, any question deemed too invasive would not receive answer.

"Who are we going to see?" Tanya asked, even though she had her suspicions.

Taking a moment to ponder the question, all Violet had to say was, "That's classified."

"You said it was urgent," said the tanuki, reminding Violet what she told her when she accepted the job. "So why are we taking so many detours?"

The pattern simply repeated itself, Violet took a moment and pondered Tanya's question, and then replied "It's classified."

Tanya's outrage was like a cauldron whose contents were about to bubble over. However, after years of bounty hunting, one lesson she learned countless times was patience.

Back when she and Mittens had started bounty hunting together was when Tanya started going after big bounties. One thing all bounty hunters knew, the bigger the bounty, the harder the difficulty.

That difficulty wasn't always correlated to the bounty's combat ability, it was also a reflection of how hard it was to track them down. When terrorists didn't want to be found, they would do everything they could to disappear from the face of the planet.

So when Tanya and Mao Mao couldn't find their target as fast as they normally would, they would frustrate themselves, which worked against them more than it helped.

Tanya asked one more question, anticipating the same response as the others. "When you find this person, what is it you plan to do?"

Just like before, Violet pondered the question. But this time it was different, whereas before she thought for about five seconds, this time minutes had passed.

Tanya braced herself, waiting for what seemed like the unquestionably obvious answer. The anticipation for an action was always worse than the actual action itself. Ten minutes must've passed before Violet gave her answer.

"I suppose, I'm going there to apologize."

This struck a cord with Tanya, an actual answer this time, a clue to what this job was about. If Violet was going to Pure Heart Valley to see who Tanya thinks she's going to see, what exactly was she going to apologize for?

"While we're asking questions," said Violet, changing the course of the conversation. "Back at the bar."

"What about the bar?" Tanya asked, curious as to what the stoic warrior would want to know.

"Back at the bar," recited Violet. "Why did you hold back in our fight?"

Tanya was caught off guard from the question, she thought her acting had been decent enough to fool most people. Guess Violet wasn't most people.

"Well if you must know," said Tanya, keeping the rear view mirror of the truck in her eyesight. "You could say I was worried about Biggs."

"The barkeep?" Violet asked, peeking out from under her hat.

"Yeah, he was there when I got my first job," said Tanya, thinking about he had always been there for her. "He loves his bar, and I didn't feel like paying for repairs and hospital bills for anyone who got caught up in our fight."

"I see," said Violet simply accepting the answer. After that, the dynamic was back to what its always been. Tanya driving the truck, Violet sitting in the back, neither interacting with each other more than necessary.

To Tanya's delight, they had gone the rest of the day without crossing another town. When the sun was starting to set, Tanya set to search for a clearing to set down the Aerotruck.

After finally finding one, Tanya circled the truck above the clearing, slowly dropping altitude until the wheels touched down. Hopping out of the truck, the two women went to set up their sleeping arrangements.

Tanya used her leaves to make a make shift sleeping bag and tent, after her campsite was set, she looked over to check on Violet. The woman had taken off her hat, and was arm deep in it.

Tanya found it a bit unnerving, it was like that magic trick where magicians pulled an absurd amount of oversized objects out of a small bag. After a few seconds, Violet pulled out a duffel bag and rolled up sleeping bag, and then replaced the hat on top of her head.

As Violet started setting up her own campsite, Tanya found herself unable to suppress her curiosity anymore. That hat had to have either been some kind of advanced tech, or maybe a legendary weapon like the sword Mao Mao always used. The second was more likely, but Tanya still felt she had to ask.

"That hat," said Tanya, causing Violet to cast her gaze to the tanuki. "Is it by chance, a legendary weapon?"

Violet, who was setting up her tent, paused what she was doing. Her topaz colored eyes focusing on the bounty hunter.

"You know about legendary weapons?" Violet asked, answering a question with a question.

Legendary weapons were legendary for a reason, and not just because they were so few in number. Not many people know about them outside of wielders of the weapons, and the people who go against the wielders and live to tell about it.

"Yeah, I used to work with someone who used one," said Tanya, with a bit of pridefulness reflected off of her face.

"Hmm, to answer your question," said Violet, wondering about Tanya's ex-partner. "This is indeed a legendary weapon. It's power is that it has infinite storage space, so I keep anything I might find useful inside of it."

Tanya was impressed by the concept, this was a useful weapon indeed. Not just for storing an arsenal of weapons, but the possibilities were nigh endless.

"Wish I had one," said Tanya, voicing her thoughts. "I could just stick my bounties in that hat and wouldn't have to deal with the trouble of dragging them everywhere with me."

Violet decided to go back to setting up her tent while they talked. "Not necessarily, the hat won't store anything that lives."

Tanya was crestfallen at this unfortunate news. A small part of her was thinking of offering Violet a partnership for that one application, but now that dream was just shot out of the sky. But now...

"If you wouldn't mind me asking, what was your ex-partner like?" Violet asked as she finished setting the tent.

As a smirk made its way across her face, Tanya saw this as a perfect chance for some payback. "It's classified." Was all she said in her reply to Violet's question.

Violet, not expecting to be given her own medicine, was taken aback at the answer. She quickly hid her face behind her hat; not long after, her shoulders started to bounce.

Tanya saw this and was intrigued, she'd probably know what was going through Violet's mind if her face wasn't hidden behind the golden weapon. If Tanya focused hard enough, she'd swear she could hear... laughter?

That couldn't be right, Violet has shown little to no emotion. Whenever she did show it, it had been during dire situations, like when Tanya had initially refused Violet's offer.

Eventually Violet couldn't hold it back anymore, she even tried covering her mouth with her hands to hold it in. It wasn't long before the joyous sound of laughter erupted from the stoic hero.

Seeing someone who had been near emotionless the entire trip on their back laughing, was more than enough for Tanya to get going as well. The two women couldn't help themselves anymore as their laughs slowly turned wheezes.

When the laughing had finally died down, they noticed it had started to get dark. Violet went back to normal, as if someone had hit her reset button.

She reached her hand up into her hat and produced from it a handful of dry sticks, as well as a box of matches.

Seeing how Violet went back to being the stoic warrior, Tanya's smile disappeared as well. Any time she felt the warrior and her were growing closer, Violet would reset the social gap between them. It was one thing if this was going to be a long trip, but it would feel a lot longer if Tanya and Violet didn't get along.

While Violet set up the teepee for the fire, the two decided who would get which watch. Since Violet exhausted herself fighting Evans and his goons earlier, Tanya would take first watch. After she got rest, Violet would then take the second watch.

As Violet got herself situated in her tent, Tanya sat down and stared into the orange light of the fire.

As Tanya was gaze transfixed on the flickering light as she thought about the journey thus far. Three days, that's how long they'd been traveling, and they've only made a day-and-a-half's worth of progress. At this rate, it should take just over a week to get to Pure Heart Valley by Aerotruck.

This wasn't exactly ideal, but then again, Tanya didn't have any plans. Tanya wondered how Mittens and the gang would react when they saw her again.

Mittens would probably be aggravated too see her after she abandoned them in the ocean. The tiny one would probably be elated to see Tanya again. As for the ex-member of the Thicket Thieves, he hadn't shown any strong feelings toward her during her last visit.

Tanya could only chuckle to herself at the thought. However the case, a part of her couldn't wait to get back to Pure Heart.