“My name is Trycen Hasper. Fourteen years ago, my home was destroyed in the Drazah War when I was just a child. But now I’ve found a new home here in Cotagerie. When crime nearly consumed the city a few years ago, I was helpless. Luckily, a hero stepped forth. The Vivacious Vixen single-handedly saved this city from the brink of destruction.”
“But that same hero was revealed to be the daughter of the most hated humans in history, the same villains that destroyed my home. She can no longer be trusted. Who knows what evil she is plotting. This city needs a new hero to keep the darkness away. I will be that hero, I will save this city—AHHHHHH!”
Hasper’s body lurched forward as he was flung from the edge of the roof where was perched. Phon had taken his place, her leg still raised, having just kicked him off. Drim, who was standing off to the side, lowered his monocle he’d been using for reconnaissance, and demanded to know, “Did you just kill him?!”
“Eh, I’m sure he’s fine,” Phon dismissed it while waving her hands as if she was brushing something away.
A scream of “Ahhh my leg! I think it’s broken!” boomed from below.
“See, totally fine. Besides, did you hear the way he bad mouthed me? Plus, I hate it when people are all like, ‘I’m gonna save my city,’” she mocked while doing air quotes. “Nobody cares about their city that much!”
“It seems you do a little,” Drim teased her. “I’m guessing this is more about someone moving in on your turf when you’ve only been gone for a little more than a week. It’s a shame. I think you two could have gotten along. You both suffer from a bad case of monologue syndrome after all.”
“Stop saying annoying but truthful things!” Phon pouted. “Me not being trustworthy has yet to be determined. He shouldn’t be prejudiced like that. I mean, we’re about to do something that will totally make people not trust us, but couldn’t he have waited a day?! This job should be fun though, and it’s our first one too. I’m getting really excited!”
“Hmm… it’s a little more excessive than I would have liked for our first job, but I guess we need the publicity,” Drim expressed his doubts while he returned his monocle to his eye. The man was observing and analyzing the Cotagerie Museum with the new zoom feature Nathym had installed on its lens. It was their first target and first official job as the ‘Fiends For Hire’.
Though they’d received quite a few requests, it had taken a while for them to get a decent job worthy of being their first. A little over a week had passed since that night at Prosper. Immediately after, the police, under orders from the Central Peace, had done their best to confiscate all the cards that Phon had rained down. A few managed to slip through the cracks, however, and over the next few days that information leaked and spread online and through word of mouth.
There were two ways to contact the Fiends For Hire to make a request. The first was a website which took the person to a form they’d have to fill out. It asked them what their request was, what they were willing to pay for it, and required a preferred contact method if further negotiations or details were needed.
The phone number on the card would redirect the caller to an automated machine, requiring the caller to answer preliminary questions with button presses before they could leave a message with the details of their request. Such questions included things like, “Is there a specific time frame you need it to be completed in?” and, “Do you believe your request will require breaking any laws?”
The Central Peace had tried everything they could to either take down the two methods of request submission or uncover a location on the Drazah siblings from them, but failed miserably at both even with their vast array of resources. The website was definitely the more popular of the two for submitting requests because of its simplicity, but not everyone had internet access, though planned infrastructure would hopefully resolve that soon. Phone requests were more common among older demographics and people who lived in more rural areas. However, for both, the requests merely weren’t up to par over the last few days.
They were mostly joke requests, and the ones that weren’t, they considered too inferior for their big debut. There were also a few that were just hate mails or messages directed at the two, requesting that they turn themselves in or commit suicide. But there was one that eventually stood out, even though the submitter almost assuredly hadn’t been serious. What they most likely didn’t notice was the fine print on the website which stated that the Fiends For Hire could take any requests submitted even without notifying the client, and the client will still be required to pay upon completion.
Their glorious request was to steal the ‘World’s Heart’ from the Cotagerie Museum, a large red jewel that had been donated to it. It was called such partly because of the color but mostly because of the location. Cotagerie was the very center of the continent with the museum at the center of the city. The Heart was placed at the very center of that as well, making it the converging point of everything.
Regrettably, the payout for the request was almost nothing, definitely not something worthy of such a grand job, and it would even be less than the expenses they paid to complete it. However, they decided that the money didn’t really matter for this. Attention was what they were after, and this job was perfect for it. It would show the world what they could accomplish and hopefully lead to more steady clientele in the future.
For the past week, the Central Peace hadn’t just limited themselves to attempting to impede the Drazah’s business ventures. After the PCN broadcast, they tried to pass several new legislations, including trying to ban hair dye, tattoo parlors, and color contacts to make Fiends more recognizable. None of them managed to get enough support to pass, however. They also released an official statement on the existence of Fiends. It was quite long and needlessly wordy. To briefly sum it up, it basically just said ‘we acknowledge that Fiends are real, and we’re looking into it.’
The CP wanted Drim and Phon Drazah to be dealt with as swiftly as possible, so they wanted to nail them with as many criminal charges as they could. However, legally speaking, they hadn’t done much wrong. The evidence of the Mayor’s crimes would have led to him being on the DoA list, so they couldn’t be charged with his murder. Crihound refused to press charges under any circumstances, so they could not be charged with his kidnapping.
In the end, they were only charged with Disturbing the Peace, Destruction of Public Property, and Littering. Official criminal records were issued for both of them, but only a measly score of 140 for each of them was applied. Following protocol, a summons needed to be issued, but with no legal address to send them to, they were just sitting on someone’s desk indefinitely.
◆◆◆
The Drazah siblings strolled through the main hallway of the Cotagerie Museum. After it had closed for the night, they waited until Phon could confirm that not a single person was left in the building. “Ugh, this is so disappointing!” the woman complained as they casually strolled through a boring gallery. Her brother tilted his head at her in confusion, even knowing that she wouldn’t need someone’s acknowledgement to continue.
“I know we can’t turn off the alarm, so we used my power to get in, but they have no other security. There’s no motion detectors, no laser grids, there’s not even a Cosdamn security camera! I knew it would be super easy for us and all, but I wanted to go all like super-spy on this!” Drim’s mind wandered off a bit while she was talking. They had only been living together again for a little while, but this had to be at least her 30th monologue.
She never used to talk this much, he thought back to their childhood. I can’t say she was reserved when we were young, but she wouldn’t just talk someone’s ear off like this. Guess I’m not the only one who’s changed a bit, but I don’t hate it. I’m glad she’s found a way to enjoy life. Phon continued to rant and the boy simply enjoyed the time with his sister until they reached the end of the main hallway.
Like the rest of Cotagerie, the museum was a giant circle. It consisted of 3 rings that looped around back to the main hallway. The location of exhibits for countries in those rings corresponded to their actual geographical relation to Cotagerie itself. Horage was in the outermost ring on the West side and Segrevide was in the middle ring on the Eastern side. In the center of it all, which could only be entered directly from the main hallway, was the World’s Heart.
Where the siblings initially stopped wasn’t their destination, but rather the new Drazah exhibit being built just before it. Apparently, the thinking behind putting it in the center also stemmed from the idea that it impacted the entire world. “Wow, it really looks just like them, huh?” The Vixen remarked with her brother nodding in agreement as they stared at lifelike replicas of their parents.
The exhibit was a fair bit larger than The Slayer had been expecting. Clearly the museum staff had been putting a lot of effort into it. There were several artifacts, including the shell of a deactivated nuclear bomb that was never used. Drim walked over to a wall which had a timeline painted on it, containing information from the first battle their parents ever fought to the night of the Cosmic Boon, ending with the forming of the Central Peace.
There was an electric terminal in front of the exhibits which contained more dates and detailed events of each. However, after one look at the table of contents, the young man grimaced. There were an egregious amount of dates and events missing, countless untold stories of lives lost, likely because there was no one to tell them. Drim guessed that over half of the information he read from his parent’s records wasn’t there. He then made a mental note, Maybe when I have free time I’ll donate some of that information. There’s no physical records left I’m aware of, but I remember all of it, every word.
“Hey Drim, come look at this,” Phon shouted from the other side of the exhibit, continuing when he got closer, “Now these don’t look anything like the real deal.” The girl gestured to two smaller figures. Based on the nameplate, it seemed that they were supposed to be replicas of the child versions of Drim and Phon Drazah, but she was right. They looked nothing like the two of them when they were children.
I guess every photo of us burned up with the mansion, and our parents never really showed us off publicly. Mallea might have some, if she’s even still alive. Drim’s mind then drifted off to thinking about their former guardian. None of the servants who served under the Drazahs were charged with any crimes, but there had been reports of a few being killed in crimes of passion by people wanting to kill anyone related to their parents. The Slayer also thought briefly that a few of the townspeople might have photos, but doubted that any of them would be willing to help with such an exhibit.
“The people who work on this have been lazy too. It still has us listed with a death date under our names,” The Vixen mentioned before setting down the large duffle bag she had been carrying with her the whole time. She wasn't really the type to over prepare, but when Drim asked her about its contents, she simply replied, “Fun Stuff.” The woman unzipped the bag a little and pulled out a permanent marker.
She walked over to their father’s replica and began doodling all over his face; including things like buck teeth, an eyepatch, and a ‘Fiends For Hire’ logo on his forehead. When she was done, she handed the marker over to Drim. “You want to do any?”
The young man accepted and approached their mother’s replica, drawing for only a few seconds. He stopped after only applying a toothbrush mustache. Though he had thought about doing more, that one touch suited her just right for some reason.
Content with their vandalism, the pair headed through the narrow hallway that led from the Drazah Exhibit to the Heart Exhibit. When they walked in, they glanced around—clear someone had put a lot of work into it. The floor was a very detailed map of the main continent and the outlying islands. The domed roof was an ever changing skyline that was steadily transitioning the course of a day—from sunrise to sunset and back, the bright high noon sun and countless stars at night.
On the walls were the leaders of each nation, as well as children from every race, all holding hands. At the very center of the room, located atop of Cotagerie’s spot on the map, was a pedestal which held the World’s Heart sitting on top, encased in a glass box.
“It’s very pretty and super heartwarming… Makes me want to throw up a little,” Phon exaggerated as she pretended to gag. Drim shot her some sad eyes, about to say something, but was beaten to it.
“I know what you’re gonna say. I’ll do my best to not get a lot of blood on it, okay?” his sister promised as she stepped towards the center. When she’d finished picking her spot, she waved back at him, “I’ll get set up over here, you go take care of your preparations that I know you explained to me and I totally haven’t forgotten the specifics of.”
Drim returned to the narrow entry hallway for his own work. I know she actually paid attention and could probably recite everything I said word for word, but she just doesn’t want to admit it.
He paced along one side of the hall then back along the other. While he walked, The Slayer placed the fingers of one hand on the wall and slid them along. The wall then emitted a green glow that streaked behind his digits before fading away. Once finished with his quick task, the young man headed back over to the center and couldn’t help but inquire about the state of things. “I’m finished… but, err, what are you doing exactly?”
Phon had set up two folding chairs on either side of the Heart’s pedestal, the kind people would usually take to sporting events. She was in the midst of dividing up snacks between the two of them. Among the options were several flavors of chips, a few candy packs, a bag of trail mix, and a bag of pre-popped popcorn. There were also a variety of bottled sodas, water, sports drinks, and tea—fully prepared for any craving. “Well I didn’t know what you’d be in the mood for, so I thought I should bring lots of choices.”
“No… I mean why… why did you bring any of this?!” Drim was a little annoyed at the useless objects, but mostly just dumbfounded.
“Oh right,” Phon realized her lack of a proper explanation while she pulled out a large chess clock which didn’t help tie it all together. “I didn’t know how long we’d be waiting here, and I wanted us to have some fun in the meanwhile. Also, I didn’t know which one of us would be fighting, so I thought it would be nice for the other one to have a place to sit and something to munch on. Oh, and I kind of wanted to give off a nice nonchalant vibe for the broadcast.”
“Right, I forgot about the broadcast bit,” Drim sighed, feeling a bit nervous now. “It’s still going to take some getting used to, being in the spotlight and all. Also, why aren’t both of us fighting? Wouldn’t that make this a lot easier?”
“That’s exactly why!” The sister confirmed. “It would be too easy and be over too quickly if both of us fought. We need to put on a good show, after all. Oh right, I almost forgot something.” She began rummaging through her duffle bag again, pulled out a large stack of cards, and began shuffling through them. They didn’t look like the business cards she had thrown out at the celebration, closer to trading cards Drim had collected as a kid.
“So, what are those?” Drim asked, feeling a little annoyed there was something else she hadn’t told him.
“Crime Cards!” The Vixen exclaimed. “I thought it would be fun for the police to have something to collect while they’re chasing us. On the back is our logo, and on the front is a crime. I had ones made for every crime I could think of, but there are lots of crimes and duplicates of each so there’s lots to sort through,” she elaborated as she continued sifting through them. “Oh, there’s no sexual assault ones, though, since we agreed that’s something we’ll never do.”
Drim was a little happy that his sister had done something like this—going out of her way to do something for their goal. Most of it had been entirely his idea, so he wasn’t completely sure that she shared the same level of ambition. The boy was glad that she’d found a way to embrace it, even if it was a little eccentric. “Is there one for littering?” he asked, genuinely intrigued.
“Yo,” Phon lifted a card up between two of her fingers.
The Slayer took the card from her and looked it over. ‘Littering’ was written across the top in big bold letters. Beneath it, there was a little picture of a figure dropping something on the ground next to a trash can. At the bottom it said ‘Misdemeanor’ with ‘5’ written in the bottom right corner. He assumed that was the associated criminal score. When the man was content, he dropped the card on the ground, then looked back at his sister with a smile, “I like them!”
Phon finally finished finding the cards she wanted, and placed ones for ‘Breaking and Entering’ and ‘Grand Larceny’ by the base of the pedestal. They both then sat down in their chairs on either side of the pedestal. The Vixen placed the chess clock on the edge of the pedestal that wasn’t covered in glass and dug through her bag once more.
This time she pulled out a small orb. Drim recognized it instantly as the latest invention Nathym had just sent them. It was a specially made camera that would sync to an app on Phon’s phone. After she pressed a few buttons on the screen, a small propeller shot out of the top of the orb, and it began to hover in mid air.
She pressed a few more buttons and the camera let out a ray of red light which scanned her. Next she pointed it at Drim and had the orb scan him too. “Okay, I just enabled tracker mode. The camera will now track whoever I set it to,” The woman before pressing a few more buttons. Her brother guessed that she was just configuring a few more options before she asked excitedly, “You ready to get this started?”
“Yeah, I suppose I should try to be a bit more energetic like you, huh?” Drim replied while his sister gave a little nod. The orb floated a few feet in front of them with the camera facing at the pair. Phon pushed the ‘broadcast’ button on her phone and a little red light started glowing on the orb. It was now broadcasting to the internet. They currently didn’t have the right technology to hack every internet-capable device to force the broadcast onto them.
The best they could manage was making a little notification that said ‘Fiends For Hire - Live from the Cotagerie Museum’ pop up on every device. They couldn’t force anyone to click on the notification, but if someone did, it would bring them to a dedicated website with a livestream from the orb.
Phon waited a few seconds and smiled as the number of watchers rose quickly to a few thousand. When the number started to slow down, she faced the camera and addressed their audience. “Good evening, everyone!” the host greeted the audience with a big smile. “We are Drim and Phon Drazah of the Fiends For Hire, and tonight we’re bringing you an exceptional spectacle. We will be performing our very first job, and we wanted to share it with everyone. But before I go on, Drim, would you like to say anything to our viewers?”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Oh… errr uhh… Thank you for tuning in. We hope you enjoy the show,” the boy stammered while bowing his head.
“Riveting…” Phon mocked with a bored look on her face. She pulled the orb close to her and whispered, “Be patient with him. I think he’s still a little shy,” before pushing it back to its original spot. “Alright, let’s continue. The details of our first job, which someone definitely legitimately requested we do, is to steal the World’s Heart from the Cotagerie Museum.”
“But as you all can see, we’re already here, right next to the Heart. It was super easy to get here, and we did so without triggering a single alarm. We could just take it and go, but that would be boring. There’s also a good chance they would pin it on someone else, but we don’t want to give them that opportunity. So, we’re going to give the police a sporting chance to catch us. Tick tock ladies and gents, the timer starts now!”
The Vixen lifted her hand up to the chess clock and pushed one of the buttons to start the timer. Not even a second after, she flicked the glass case that contained the Heart. It probably didn’t look like much from the audience’s perspective, but it was enough force to shatter the glass into thousands of tiny pieces, some almost fine enough to be called dust. Without hesitation, an alarm started blaring.
◆◆◆
About 15 minutes had passed since the alarm went off. Drim had been regularly apologizing to the camera for it taking so long. Phon would keep looking at the chess clock, then her phone, and sigh at the steadily decreasing amount of viewers, with more leaving every minute. She was currently throwing popcorn at the camera, trying to hit it right on the lens to make things more interesting for the viewers and alleviate her own boredom. It was also to help distract herself from the constant noise of the alarm that she swore was getting louder.
The girl would also regularly close her eyes to check if there was anyone approaching the museum. So far, there had been just a random passerby or two, then a bit more seemed to gather. The alarm was likely getting attention outside. It was only on the 20th time she closed her eyes that she could finally sense people inside the museum. “Ooo yay!” Phon yelled, sitting up from her slumped position. “Thank you for your patience everyone, the show is about to begin!”
The alarm shut off a few seconds later, likely the work of their incoming guests. She grabbed the orb and threw it at the wall. Since it was a circular room, there were no corners to speak of, but she did her best to get it where she thought the northeast corner would be. The Vixen had the camera zoom out as far as it could go, leaving it with a nice shot of the pair of siblings from an angle that included a good portion of the hallway leading into the room.
Another minute passed and the siblings started to hear loud, heavy, slow footsteps headed their way. What approached was ten officers in full riot gear. The five in the front had large riot shields. They stopped at the end of the hallway, at the entrance of the Heart room, crouched down, and lined up their shields. This effectively formed a wall with only slight cracks between each shield, completely blocking any escape route.
Four more officers approached from behind the first wave. They were carrying automatic rifles and aimed them between the cracks of the shields. The last officer, who brought up the rear, was carrying a pistol in one hand, and two pairs of handcuffs in the other. Phon guessed he was the commanding officer, and by the lack of concern in the way he carried himself, she assumed he expected things to end peacefully, or felt very good in his odds of detaining them.
The woman looked at the clock one last time and shouted in annoyance at the group, “Eighteen minutes! It took you all eighteen minutes to get here! Do you know how many times we could have escaped by now?! What the mawhg took you all so long?!”
Surprisingly, one of the rifleman actually responded. Their voice was muffled because of their helmet, so the host hoped people could make it out well enough on the livestream. “There’s no need to cuss. We were just going to send a few officers when we got the alarm, but someone saw the notification on their computer. When we saw it was you two, and that you didn’t have any intention of going anywhere, we took the time to fully prepare.”
“You idiot, why would you tell her all that?” the commander chastised them scornfully while hitting the dome of the offender’s helmet with the butt of his gun. “Listen Drazahs. As you can see, there’s no escape. We can end this peacefully. If you surrender now, I can promise no harm will come to either of you. You haven’t actually stolen anything yet, so your offenses would be rather minor.”
“Nah, we’re good,” Phon dismissed his offer while crossing her legs and arms and sitting back in her chair. Drim was drinking tea at the moment, so he just responded with an uninspired thumbs down.
“What kind of a response is that?!” the commander belted his fury with a twist of utter disbelief. “Alright, we’ll have to do this the way that involves lots of paperwork then. Remember men, stun rounds only, our orders are to bring them in alive. No one fire until I give the order!”
“Yay, only alive, that means I get to have fun, right Drim?” Phon gazed at her brother with eager anticipation. Drim simply nodded and took this as his cue to open a bag of trail mix and relax. Then to get ready for the fight, The Vixen took the black ribbon off of her hat, wrapped it around her eyes, and tied it behind her head. In the past, she would use the button on her mask to replicate the same effect. In doing so, it triggered the second aspect of her Curse.
Whenever her eyes were encased in total darkness, a special room was created, one that existed only in her mind. In this room, there were only three things: a table, a chair, and another version of herself whose eyes now also saw through. There was nothing else around anywhere. It was an empty void. She could change the decor to whatever she wanted but felt like keeping it simple for now.
Phon sat down in the imaginary chair, and the surface of the table changed to a layout of the museum. She could see the Heart room in perfect clarity, as well as the hallway with the officers. Like with her vision, she could expand the range farther if she wanted but the details would also become less and less refined the further it extended. There were also currently twelve pieces on the table: two that represented Drim and Phon, and the remaining ten were the officers.
Each piece matched that person’s location in reality. She could change the appearance of the diorama’s layout if she wanted, such as making it a 3d model, but she felt leaving it as a 2d plane would be fine for now. As for what the pieces looked like, in the theme of the clock, she decided to go with chess pieces. She and her brother were represented the king and queen while all of the officers were enemy pawns.
Several floating screens lit up in a circle around her. They gave a full 360 degrees of vision outside of her body, in the same visual detail she got when she closed her eyes. She didn’t actually need to glance at any of the screens, however, and could look through any in first person without moving her head at all. Really, they were completely unnecessary, but she liked the aesthetic of it in her mind—serving more as a mental catalyst to aid in the process.
Phon could still move her real body while she was hanging out inside of her head. The two versions of herself worked independently of each other but shared the same thoughts. When talking to anyone, mostly Drim, about her Curse, she found it difficult to keep mentioning her mind-version without a proper name, so she took to calling it Phonscience. While she was aware that it sounded weird, she mostly just enjoyed the pun of it.
Ready to go, The Vixen stood up from her chair and began walking very slowly towards the group of officers. Two of the riflemen had been aiming at Drim, all of them switched their target to her. “Stop right there. If you keep moving, we will fire. If you wish to surrender, then get down on the ground and—” The commander’s words were drowned out by Phon who was now hysterically laughing at the fact that he was even saying such zjik. She was a Drazah after all. Surrender wasn’t in her blood.
The commander raised his pistol, aimed with the rest of them, and began the order, “On my mark! Ready. Aim. Fire!” While he had been counting, Phonscience had already put her plan into play. She had picked up the pieces for herself and the commander and had moved them, holding them above new positions. Just as the last words left her foe’s mouth, and the police were about to pull the trigger, she placed the two pieces back down.
Phon had vanished from her spot instantly. She was suddenly sitting back in her chair and picking up a soda to take a drink. In the exact spot where she’d been standing was now the commander. The Vizen felt kudos had to be given to him. His shot had hit a painting of one of the world’s leaders square in the forehead.
The man only managed to get off the one shot, though. Before he could fire any others, his back was riddled with stun rounds. Since he was in swat gear, it would have dampened them, but he was hit with enough in quick succession that it rendered him completely unconscious. His limp body then collapsed onto the ground. Phon couldn’t see their expressions, so she could only imagine the shock on the other officer’s faces—a thought she relished in.
Nothing happened for the next few moments while the girl continued to down her drink. The remaining officers looked at each other wildly, dazed at what had happened and unsure of what to do next. Finally, one of the shield-bearers took charge and addressed his fellows, “I don’t know exactly what just happened, but we do know that Fiends possess strange abilities. For now, focus on the brother. We have a better idea of what he can do.”
On that order, the riflemen re-aimed and let loose several shots headed straight for Drim. But before they could connect, the young man vanished, and a few of the rounds hit the chair instead, knocking it over. Drim, who had been meticulously picking raisins from the trail mix by the handful the entire time, barely even acknowledged that he’d been moved one seat over to his sister’s chair.
Phon then stood directly in front of the officer that gave the order while gripping her yo-yo in her sleeve, instantly closing the gap between them. She was close enough that the rifles couldn’t get a shot on her with the little room they had to work. Behind her ribbon, she glared at the offending officer with pulsing eyes of hatred and rage on her face that would scare anyone.
She screamed at them at the top of her lungs, “Don’t you dare aim at Drim again! This fight is between you and me, got it?! ...and because you upset me, you don’t get to keep your shields anymore!” Phon swung out her yo-yo in a horizontal slash. She had already morphed it into a buzzsaw which sliced cleanly through all of the shields, cutting each of them into halves that flopped to the floor. Before the riflemen could take advantage of the new room to aim, their target had popped away to a different spot in the room.
Phonscience continued to move her body’s piece all around, hopping from one spot to the next so the riflemen couldn’t get a shot on her. Eventually, they gave up trying to aim and dropped their guns. Both they and the now-shieldless shieldbearers pulled out stun batons. Phon stopped moving at a space near the center of the room, looked at them with a crooked smile, tucked her yo-yo back up her sleeve, raised her arms to taunt them, and yelled, “Now that’s more like it, come at me!”
The group of officers all charged at her together. One ran ahead while the others followed closely behind. Phon wasn’t reacting at all, so when the first officer reached her, he took a heavy swing at her, taking advantage of her lowered guard. Just before impact, Phonscience swapped the woman with another officer who took the hit on their back. It wasn’t enough to down them, but it would definitely hurt. Phon, who was now behind the officers, taunted them again, and they resumed their charge.
This continued on for quite some time. Whenever one of the officers took a swing at her, they would just be replaced with one of their own. While the fight trudged, Drim looked down at his hand, which was completely full of raisins, and raised his voice to cut into the noise battle, “Hey Phon…”
“Yeah, what’s up?” His replied in a genuinely calm tone, without a hint of concern with what was happening around her.
“Next time you buy trail mix, can you get the kind without raisins in it?” the young man made a completely serious and legitimate request.
“Really?! You who will hunt and eat literally anything with a pulse doesn’t like raisins?” Phon asked dumbfounded as she dodged another attack. The officer that replaced her let out a loud yelp before collapsing, seeming that it was the last hit they could take.
“Well, it’s not the taste really,” The slayer elaborated as he continued to stare at the handful of raisins, dismayed. “It’s more the texture, I just don’t like how they feel when I chew them. I don’t know why, but it really bothers me.”
“Alright alright, no more raisins. The kind without is a bit harder to find, but if it makes you happy…” the girl’s voice trailed on. Truthfully, she would have done as he asked even if he didn’t have a good reason. Phon genuinely liked doing anything that would make him happy, even if it was small. She then had to snap out of those complacent thoughts to respond to an impulsive move made by one of her attackers.
They had run back towards the guns in an attempt to take a shot at the chatty girl while she was distracted. It didn’t work of course, and she replaced herself with the officer who fired and was hit directly in the neck with their own stun round. As time went on, the police began to fall one after the other, either from just complete exhaustion, repeated injury from the blunt attacks, or the stun effect had finally gotten to them.
Eventually, only one officer was left standing. They were breathing heavily and seemed to just barely be keeping themself upright. Phon moved back over next to the clock and checked it. She had pressed the button on the other side when the fight started to record the length of their bout. She teleported back in front of the debilitated officer and retrieved her yo-yo from her sleeve once more.
The Vixen flung it down towards the ground, and the blades just barely scraped against the floor, sparking as it whirred. “So, it’s down to just the two of us now,” Phon pointed out the obvious with clear condescension in her voice. “In sixteen minutes, you all managed to defeat yourselves one after the other, and I didn’t even attack once. Would you like to see what I could do in sixteen seconds when I actually fight?”
The officer just stood there, beyond exhausted, not saying anything. Phon guessed that they couldn’t think clearly enough to find the words, or that they were just too stubborn to give up. “Alright, I’ll make this easier for you,” The Vixen shared a proposal while she teleported over to the commander and let her yo-yo spin next to his head. “I’ll change up what this one said earlier. I can’t promise that no harm will come to any of you, it’s a little late for that. But if you surrender now, I promise I won’t kill anyone. If you don’t, I will kill him, then you, then everyone else here.”
The officer raised their hand as if they were trying to tell her to stop, but couldn’t seem to vocalize anything between their heavy breaths. Phon stopped her yo-yo, tucked it away for now, and continued, “If you understand and accept, then knock yourself out.” This led the officer to a confounding conflict. They raised their stun baton and looked a few times between it, the commander, and Phon who was now prodding at him with her foot. The officer took the baton, jammed it into their neck, and passed out on the ground.
With the fight reaching its inevitable end, the woman took the ribbon off of her eyes and retied it in a bow around her hat. She headed back over to where Drim was sitting with a little skip in her step. Her brother was shoving a giant handful of trail mix into his mouth when he saw her approach. The boy looked at her, then looked around at all the unconscious officers, and mumbled with his mouth full, “Oh, are you done?”
“Yeah, you should probably work on your situational awareness,” Phon replied snidely.
Drim swallowed and rebutted, “Well, normally I’m very attentive when I feel threatened, but I didn’t get that feeling at all. I knew you’d have it handled.” He finished off speaking with a sweet smile, one that caused Phon to have a swift flashback to him as a kid. The smile was exactly the same as when he would rely on her in the past. This flooded her with a feeling of warmth, completely overtaking the satisfaction of having manipulated a bunch of people into hurting each other, which was something that pleased her to no end.
Phon began to hum happily as she started packing things back into her bag, seemingly oblivious as to where she was or that she was still being watched. “Uhh, Phon, aren’t you forgetting something?” her brother asked while he stared at her with a confused look.
“Oh right, the Heart, can’t forget that or this all would have been pointless,” she said as she reached up for the shining red jewel.
“No, not that, well yes that too, but I meant that,” Drim did a bad job at clarifying before he pointed at the orb still floating high in the northeast part of the room.
“Oh, duh of course,” Phon got back on task, pulling out her phone. She checked the number of people watching, smirking when she saw the current tally. It had multiplied several times over from when she’d last checked. The woman pressed a button that caused the orb to come soaring over to her. She pulled the camera right near her face and began to address everyone watching.
“Thank you everyone who watched our livestream tonight. I hope you enjoyed coming along with us on our first job. I doubt we’ll really broadcast many of them in the future, but keep up with the news. I’m sure you’ll hear a lot more about us and…” Phon had taken a brief moment to blink, and during that split second, she sensed more auras closing in on their location.
“Now wait just a second folks. It would seem that the show is not over. Apparently, the police want to go another round.” She looked over towards her brother and offered, “I’ve had my fun, do you want to wrap this up quickly?” Drim nodded as he stood up and walked towards the hallway, stopping about halfway. Phon repositioned the orb so people could watch him while she went back to packing up.
The girl took a longer look with her vision while bagged things up and relayed, “Looks like another ten. They’re armed differently, though. Looks like canister launchers. I’m guessing they’re going to try to use tear gas on us.”
“Would that actually affect us at all?” Drim wondered, having never experienced it firsthand.
“Don’t know, don’t wanna know. More importantly, it would likely make it harder for people watching the stream to see, so it’s probably best to avoid it.” Phon failed to properly answer right before her prediction came true. Seconds later a canister came flying into the room.
But before it had time to release anything, a plant shot out from Drim. It was a fly-trap that flew over to the canister, leaving a long vine trailing behind it that connected to a glowing dot near his wrist. It scooped up the canister in its mouth and clamped down hard, sealing it away. A second later, the sound of pressure leaving the can reverberated inside the trap.
Likely unaware that their canister had failed, new officers came charging in after it, wearing the same gear as the Fiends’ earlier enemies, but now with full gas masks. Just as the squad was about to reach the end of the hallway, Drim snapped his fingers, and thorned vines came leaping out of the walls from the glowing lines he’d placed earlier. They didn’t actually break through the walls, but rather spawned into the room right next to them.
The plants wrapped around the police and pulled them to the sides of the walls, completely incapacitating them. Phon watched them writhe for a little bit until she got bored and grabbed the orb. “Once again, thanks for watching. Bye bye for real this time!” She pressed a button, ending the livestream, then chucked the orb and the World’s Heart into her duffle bag and zipped it up.
After she slung the sack over her shoulder, The Vixen began walking around to every collapsed officer, placing ‘Resisting Arrest’ Crime Cards on top of each of their unconscious bodies that she had picked out earlier. When the young woman wrapped up her completely unnecessary work, she headed over to the restrained officers, muttered, “I guess this technically counts as assault,” and tucked the appropriate cards into the side of their gas masks.
She also dropped two ‘Aiding and Abetting’ cards on the ground for good measure, one for herself and one for Drim. When Phon was satisfied, she waved at her brother, and the two headed out. For good measure, they made sure to drop ‘Vandalism’ cards next to their parent’s replicas on the way. A large crowd had gathered outside the museum, drawn by the commotion, but not a single person saw the siblings leave.
Discord, , and Amazon Release (Pending), can be found on the Fiends For Hire .
Would you deface a piece you didn't like in a museum if you knew there'd be no repercussions?
