Nocturne/Stalker: In the Serpent's Jaw Crystalline particulates hung in the air, seductive in their slow decent descent towards the warm rooftops and streets. It wasn't snow. It late April, and there was a metal tang to the miniscule flakes that simmered uncomfortably on the tongue. Hot, thick, barbed, these flakes streamed out in every direction from the adept pack of men and women cloaked head to toe in loose gray fabric, their faces hidden behind full iron face masks with tight looping lenses. These lenses emanated a darkness, vantablack, an incomprehensible dark. Observed from a distance, the presence of The Iron Serpents stirred enough worry to open up a nauseous pit deep inside the gut of Bethany Hunter, Nocturne. They acted as assassins, as ninja, working contracts for various levels of pay, usually in the seven to eight figures range, though if anyone had a war to wage they shelled out eight or more to secure the aid of The Iron Serpents. But really, they were a death cult. A group literally obsessed with the act of murder. They just knew well enough to draw a profit from it. As the Serpents took unnatural, effortless strides across Fortune City rooftops, a warm bead of sweat slid down Nocturne's heart-shaped face. What she didn't know about The Iron Serpents could fill a book or two. They were mean, ornery, and unsympathetic creatures prone to leaving a trail of dead in their wake. Most law enforcement agencies tend to stay clear of them, depending on the target. The farther up the good chain you were, the more likely the local P.D. or the Feds would give a damn. Middle management, the bag-men and paper pushers? They were fair game, thrown to the wolves. Nocturne felt her chest tighten up. She had carefully tailed the pack of assassins, five in total, by sticking to the streets. Shadowy alleyways and corners, just outside their senses. Ducked behind a underneath a rusted through fire-escape, the masked brunette kept a solid bead on the Serpents, unable to get an accurate read off their intent. Chin up, Bethany. This is your job, Nocturne tried to keep her head in the game. These were men and women who not only killed for fun, they eviscerated most everyone and thing they came across. There were scant few reports of people actually staving and warning these monsters. Bethany Hunter, Nocturne, was no slouch herself. The exceptionally attractive, fit 25 year old had fought off crooks, killers, and worse. Bethany wasn't just a mask or a costume, she was The Mistress of The Night. Her hazel eyes kindled with a fiery intensity behind sharp, dark mask that ran across her face. Nocturne's alluring, attractive figure was secure in a long-sleeved, black leotard that sported a tantalising plunging v-cut neckline. Two silver beaded on each arm, taut fishnet tights pulled over her considerably toned legs, black calf-length boots, and a dark flowing cape, Nocturne had struck fear into the hearts of the worst often with a simple glare. It didn't matter what The Iron Serpents wanted. The citizens of Fortune City, for better or worse, were under the protection of The Mistress of The Night. And they would learn this lesson the hard way, if need be. The fear subsiding, Nocturne took off in earnest pursuit, keeping to the streets. Detective Bianca Philips started sleeping with a gun under her pillow a month after moving to Fortune City. Something about the city felt off to her, something that bubbled underneath the streets. It wasn't just the capes, criminals, thieves, and murders, Bianca was certain she could handle that. It just felt like there was this maw at the heart of it all, a chaotic whirlpool that could consume everything at the drop of a hat. Deep, dark, cold, thick. You couldn't see it, not with your eyes. It could only be felt. Maybe Bianca was just paranoid. To be fair, she was beyond stressed. The moment she took up work with the Fortune City P.D. she was handed an insane case-load. Missing persons, unsolved murders stretching back a decade, some active investigations. Too much to pour through for any one person, but they hadn't assigned her to a partner yet and her superior said she should "learn to cope." Learn to cope with the crap pay, the long hours, the shadows only glimpsed in the corners of her eyes, the constant existential dread which had bled into her every thought, seeped into her brain. Bianca was new, these were just "growing pains," an uncertainty and stress that came with a new job and a new home. If the paranoia persisted, the P.D. had an excellent healthcare package which covered a substantial amount of sessions with any of twelve local therapists. Bianca was rail-thin, tall, pale skinned, with raven black hair styles into a smooth, bob. Bangs shaped like crescents hung over her brow, an inch above her cold, black eyes. She walked to and from work everyday, her apartment within four miles of the precinct. The heels on her Suede Over-the-Knee Boots scraped the sidewalks during her exhausted shuffle home. Her chic, beige trench coat ran over her standard issue sidearm, well into her tight black leggings. She was still plagued by the uncertainty, by the maw she felt underneath her feet. Odd flakes swayed seductively above her, a thin blanket being slowly pulled over the city. Bianca looked to the sky above, to the full, clear moon in all its glory. There wasn't a cloud in the night sky, the bright orb shining a pure ray of soothing light on the city. It wasn't a comfort, for Bianca. It only made her forget of the anxiety churning inside her. As Bianca passed an alleyway, one she had passed a hundred times by now, one that was always damp, seething, with overturned and rusted trashcans, a dumpster that smelt of mildew, cleaning products, gun oil, but never of the thick waft of spoiled and discarded goods one would associate with such a thing. The detective came to a stop, her hand inching for her sidearm. She swore she could see the shape of a person, perched in the dark, watching for her. "Hello? Anyone there?" Bianca unholstered her weapon, a 9mm she had more than enough practice with. She took three hesitant steps towards the alleyway, feet lined up ahead of the shadowy threshold between the streets and the dank corridor. "My name is Detective Bianca Phillips. Fortune City P.D. If you do not exit the alleyway with your hands in the air I will be forced to open fire!" A voice made of gravel and thorns balled inside concrete called to Bianca, from the dark. "That would be a mistake," The figure stepped forward, the shadow bent to reveal a tall, feminine figure, hard curved and athletic. Bianca kept her gun low, trying to stop her hands from shaking. For a moment, she thought it was Nocturne, The Mistress of The Night, Fortune City's own protector. Instead, she laid eyes on an out-of-towner. The way she moved was deliberate. The sway of her hips, her delicate stride, it was supposed to give the illusion of comfort. She was a gorgeous Latina squeezed into a sleek, latex-kevlar composite black bodysuit with black eyes that felt like daggers. Black Kevlar-lined gloves, similarly constructed wedge-heeled boots. Bianca tried not to stare, but the supple, deep neckline capped off with a sharpened sliver of gray nanotube was too inviting. Her long dark hair fell over her left shoulder, held in a loose ponytail. She had a mask -- most of them always wore a mask -- black and pointed, it looked like porcelain mask, and covered the upper half of her face and poked through the bangs of her long, dark hair. "You are marked, Bianca," The Stalker coldly informed the trembling detective, the words leaving her full lips ringing hollow in her ears. "What does that mean? 'Marked'? " Bianca raised her gun up, keeping a bead on her open chest. The shadows, the maw, the anxiety, what if it was all The Stalker? The hot flakes began to pepper them both, sliding between strands of hair, over their skin and clothing, even creating a tiny mound across the barrel of Bianca's gun. It didn't feel right, it didn't smell right. Bianca thought it was snow, but it was too dark and too warm. It was more like an ash, though shaped perfectly into a sharp, barbed flake. "Does it sound good to you? Bad people are coming and they intend to take you," Stalker stepped closer, close enough to wrap her left hand around the barrel of Bianca's gun. The masked woman could feel it shake, feel shutter from inside the clip. Stalker noticed the bags under the detective's eyes, a deep, sickly purple. The black in her eyes was spreading into the white like a punctured yolk. "I think I'm too late." Bianca felt something, a hum from deep inside her body. It was all she could feel, it was all she was, the world going sideways around her. Stalker peered over her shoulder and Bianca could see the color draining out of her face. The shadows crept into her vision again, the maw widened like a lazy yawn from below. "Let me borrow this," Stalker politely relieved Bianca of her weapon, brushing past the detective to act as barrier to the darkness. Two men, decked out head to toe in gray robes and full metal face masks with looping, pulsing black eyes-- that drained away the light from the moon -- stood in the middle of the empty street. Hands at their sides, large blades on their backs. They were silent, unreadable, ambling towards Bianca, unconcerned with the presence of The Stalker. The heroine opened fire, the kick of the gun a slight disturbance in her right arm. She held Bianca behind her with her left, inching towards the back of the alley. The bullets penetrated the skin, shredding muscle and bone. Stalker grouped all her shots around their chests, lethal placement for any normal human beings. But The Iron Serpents didn't falter. They pushed through the gunfire, pain a distant sensation, even as their thick, hot black blood oozed and sizzles out from the fresh wounds. "Give us the girl," The spoke as one, issuing an order to The Stalker. "We can make your death painless." Stalker kept firing until the gun made a startling, empty click. A whole clip spent, and it didn't even slow them down. Nothing would divert them from their current course of action, not a single thing Stalker could do would stop. So maybe Nocturne would give it a shot. The two iron serpents ignored the rustle and flap of a cape on the wind. They were consumed in their task, so laser focused, that they left their backs exposed. Nocturne dropped from several stories above, cape spread out and legs chambered. She'd only get one shot. She planned to make it count. When her boots collided to the base of one of their spines, Nocturne felt pain shoot through the bottoms of her feet to the back of her skull. It was too dense, too solid to be human. The Serpent fell face first onto the street, Nocturne crouched and pained atop his back, her breath strained and tight. "What are you people made of, metal?" Nocturne felt the low, deep breath of the serpent she stood on, the dark rasp filling his mask. It dredged up a sour emotion from the farthest part of her mind. It was every pain she choked back, every sliver of sadness and fear she ever experienced, every horror she faced down. It was nothing. It was everything. It left her vulnerable, disconnected from the world for a single heartbeat. The broken serpent's partner raised his blade underneath Nocturne's chin, cold and controlled, not a hint of anger in his movement. "Leave it alone, little girl," He acted as if he was Nocturne's superior. "You rail against the inevitable. Fate. The woman you seek to protect is marked." "I won't let you kill her," Nocturne's breath fogged the blade, a humongous broadsword etched and worn from consistent use. How many people has this one man killed? How many more would he if Nocturne didn't stop him? "Now who ever said we were going to kill her?" She couldn't tell, but Nocturne was certain the man was smiling from behind his mask. He was ready to slice her throat, all it would take is a jerk. Instead, he spasmed, the sound of flesh and cloth ripping. Nocturne pointed her gaze to the grapple line piercing his chest, a long tensile cable leading into the alleyway vibrating as the wind began to pick up. The woman in black, the one protecting the detective, held a black grapple-gun, her face wolfish and wry at the same time. The Stalker flicked a switch on the side of her gun, causing the line to go taut and spin back into the barrel. It started to drag him towards Stalker, though he fought. His heels dug into the asphalt and concrete, wearing down from the pull of the sturdy line. He swiped blindly at the tensile line, practically flailing in the open air. "Come to Momma, big boy," The Stalker sneered menacingly, her chin pointed down. "No." He finally cut into the line, the fibers fraying apart. He was free, a new gaping wound in his chest, certainly. But it would mend. Nothing man-made could keep an Iron Serpent down for long. He held his blade out, marching towards Stalker and Bianca at a leisure, plodding pace. A hand clamped down on his left shoulder, hard and commanding. The Serpent turned his head, just in time for Nocturne's fist to click against the metal, dead center. He reeled backwards, staggered. He absorbed too much damage too fast. Nocturne closed the distance between, swing her left leg around his head and throwing him face first into the street. The Iron Serpents, both of them, released a breath, a wheeze, before going completely, unnervingly still. Nocturne's hands started to shake from a surge of adrenaline. She felt amped up and exhausted at the same time. An odd sensation. "There are more on the way," The Mistress of The Night panted, approaching Stalker and Bianca with caution. She didn't know them, either of them. She only recognized Bianca from her interactions with the police. She was at a few crime scenes, nothing significant. "I trailed at least five of these freaks. And they clearly don't go down easy." "They can heal from just about anything," Stalker reach her hand out, a glimmer of respect in her eyes. Nocturne met it, but briefly, pressing matters at hand. "Stalker. It's a pleasure." "Sure," Noctune sighed, spotting Bianca. The detective was wracked with....Well, she couldn't tell. She looked flushed, she wouldn't stop shaking. Bianca didn't look scared or angry, she looked sick. It was unsettling. "What's wrong with her?" "She has been marked." "Alright, so what does that mean exactly? Are they going to kill her? Has she been poisoned?" "Worse," Stalker moved in close to Bianca, the rail-thin woman swaying with the slightest breeze. Her eyes were black. Completely black. Watery, reflective, streams of hot liquid leaking from her face. Stalker did her best to support her, allowing Bianca to lean her entire weight against her. "It means-- Okay, when the Iron Serpents go after someone who is marked, it means they're special. That they're like them." "What does that mean?" Nocturne wasn't in the mood for games. A death cult was patrolling her streets. It took more than she had to take down just two of them. This was too big, Nocturne required clarity. She watched Stalker's eyes tighten, recede, the severity of the situation a tension inside and out. "It means that she's like them," Stalker pointed to the defeated Serpents, her hand shaking only slightly. "They want to turn her into an Iron Serpent. Or worse." "That's right," A voice, playful and scratchy, like static, called to Nocturne and Stalker from above before dropping like a rock between them. The ground beneath their feet pulsed, both heroines looking on in confusion at the sight of the women before them. She was small, maybe 5'4, at best. Her petite figure was wrapped in a grainy, form-fitting steel colored body suit with a high collar. Black plating around her shoulders, forearms, midsection, and thighs served as a thing armor, and black rubber soles capped the fabric underneath her feet. This woman had tightly braided brown hair that flowed down her back, porcelain skin, thin black lips, and glowing black eyes. "And she is ours." The woman moved on Nocturne first, floating through the air at an impossible speed. The Mistress of The Night had just enough time to bring up her guard, just for this brunette to pat it down with a hard, open handed swipe. "Hello, Noctune. I am The Butcher." The Butcher offered a derisive curtsy, leaving herself open. Nocturne swung her right leg up to meet her chin, this Butcher character standing as if unfazed by the attack. Much to Nocturne's surprise, The Butcher dodged it at the last possible moment, through the smallest of margins. Nocturne blinked, and The Butcher was on her left, delivering palm after palm into her midsection. Air was expelled from her lungs, open hands continued to pelt Nocturne faster than she could react. Nocturne, Bethany, tried to recover, tried to get her bearings. It became unfeasible, impossible to retaliate. Every move Nocturne tried to make, The Butcher interrupted. The Butcher was ferocious, efficient, taking the formidable Nocturne apart as if she was simple fodder. Stalker saw this and let Bianca drop, charging at The Butcher full tilt. Stalker was fast, but Butcher had a knack for being faster. Her hands shot up to Nocturne's lapel, easily lifting the stunned heroine off her feet. "I think someone else would like to dance with you, sweet, sweet mistress," Butcher smiled, whipping Nocturne through the air in Stalker's direction. All she could see was a blur, Nocturne's back colliding into her midsection. Both women fell to the floor, dazed and battered within seconds of The Butcher's showy entrance. Stalker was unconscious underneath Nocturne, who was finding it difficult to fight off herself. Several more Iron Serpents dropped at the mouth of the alleyway, behind The Butcher, who basked in the glory of her triumph. "You work in recruitment long enough, you get a little bored," A chuckle sank into her chest as she bypassed Nocturne and Stalker, pointing herself straight for Bianca. "Then you two drop a couple of my boys and I'm like 'Hey, a challenge!' And you're both flat out hot too, which is a plus." Butcher crept over Bianca, eager to examine the latest inductee to The Iron Serpents. Bianca Phillips had already begun to change. It wasn't just her eyes or the blood. It was written on her face-- The uncertainty, the fear, the paranoia, ans anxiety. Death was coming for her, changing her. She swung her left arm back and gestured to the pack of five serpents. They nodded, in unison, and started to close in on Nocturne and Stalker. "We're taking them to go, ladies and gentlemen," Butcher scooped Bianca up with ease, cradling the delirious detective in her arms as if she were a precious cargo. Delicate, significant. "Bring them to my safe house. I think I earned myself some fun." Nocturne knew she didn't have a shot at escaping. Between Stalker and Bianca, the relentless killing machines loomed large over them. The darkness funneled over their haunting figures, following them as if it was there's to command. They were the shadows that walked out the shadows. The stuff of nightmares. They circled around Nocturne, as her head began to swim, as it started to sink into a pool of fragmented thought. Before the lights blinked out, before Nocturne's mind faded, she took one last frightful look into their eyes. The deep, incomprehensible black. She thought she could stare it down, be greater than the darkness. Nocturne, The Mistress of The Night, would make them pay. Eva Lucia, The Stalker, found it difficult to ignore the pain. The Iron Serpents were brutal and skilled, a step too fast and far too strong. She had fought them once before and barely walked away with her life. Why would tonight be any different? Her soft laugh was silenced by thick layers of white tape wound tightly across the lower half of her face. Her arms were stretched above her head, crossed and bound in compound cuffs to a pipe. The tips of her boots scraped against a concrete floor as she worked at them. Nocturne was still unconscious, head bobbing, her groans muted by a heavy gag. Like Stalker her wrists were affixed to a pipe, only Nocturne seemed to sway back and forth, limp in her current state. "Huhh! Wwk um!" Stalker called to Nocturne, The Mistress stirring, the sound of her voice something for her mind to hone in on. "Nnnn!" The room was spacious, large, but ultimately bare. Concrete walls, concrete floor and ceiling, pipes crisscrossing through the ceiling, a single wooden chair next to a faded maroon door. It was hot, heavy with pungent odor of sweat. It seeped into her suit, probably Nocturne's, too, warming Stalker's chest. Not a comfortable warmth, though. It slickened and clung to the skin, a squeaky sloshing noise tickled the ear with every defiant twist Stalker offered her restraints. Stalker pulled and shook, the pipes bending under her efforts, her weight. "That's enough of that," Without warning, a serated knife slid over her knife, The Butcher pressed behind Stalker. She didn't even know Butcher was in the room. She didn't breathe, she didn't make her presence known in any obvious way. How long was she watching Eva twist in the wind? How long did she watch Nocturne sleep? And her heart...Stalker felt Butcher's heart pound like a storm one moment, go completely quiet the next. It pumped the same black blood the rest of the serpents had, but stronger, harder. She was different from the rest, an obvious pleasure in the way she spoke, moved, even the way she held a knife. The Butcher enjoyed this. "I take the gag off," The Butcher moved the blade to a seam in the layering of the tape. All it would take was a flick to rip it all apart. A little harder, she could start carving into Stalker. "You keep your voice low. We can chat all civil, if you want, but I don't want to wake Nocturne. Mistress needs her sleep, I say. She's been through quite the ordeal, you know." Stalker nodded, begrudgingly, the knife climbing up her face in a deliberate, tense manner. Bands of tape unfurled around her neck, hanging tantalizingly above her neckline. "Wouldn't happen to have any water, would you?" Stalker coughed, her voice hoarse. The Butcher shook her head from side to side, circling away from her strung up captives and plopping down into the weak, whining frame of the chair near the door. "Is this-- Ha-- is this the part where you take some pithy jabs at me? Throw me off guard with a 'I'm a grim-serious badass' routine when you're really 'Piss-your-pants scared'? Because I can just find something to gag you with, again. Or break your jaw," Butcher slid her arms over her thighs, knife still in hand, leaning over intently. "That's an idea," Stalker pursed her lips, eyes fixed on the pipes above. "I'd try civil conversation but--" "--I'm a psycho-murderer with a tenuous grip on the concept of rational thought?" "Yeah." "Man, you don't have a high opinion of me at all," Butcher leaned back against her chair, forcing it to balance mostly on the back legs. "Let me tell you a story: About a girl from a dysfunctional family, whose mom was screwing the poolboy and whose dad...was also screwing the poolboy, oddly enough." "Must've been some poolboy," Stalker rolled her eyes, going limp in her cuffs. This one's a talker-- Super. "Now, this girl, she's scared, you know? Mom and Dad are always fighting. Throwing plates, tearing into each other, waking the neighbors. Real drag out fights. The girl, she's only just a kid. She-- Nina -- started having fits-- Panic attacks. Mommy and Daddy are driving her up a wall, heading for the big-d-- Y'know, divorce. The future was this big, ugly question mark." "I'm guessing you were this 'Nina,' hmm?" Stalker saw Nocturne go still out of the corner of her eye, her expression blank. All the sluggish groans she made into the gag had ceased, not that The Butcher noticed. "Aren't you a smart cookie!" She snaps her fingers, leaning forward again. Her chest is nearly pressed against her thighs. "Years pass, Nina is a barely functional adult who likes to self-medicate. For anxiety, sure. But mostly she doesn't want to feel anything anymore. Because she wants the pit opening up inside her to stop. This deep, swirling maw that swallowed everything that was ever good inside of her. One night, I-- I mean, Nina, got low. Real low. Her insides had become toxic. Maybe she had a bit too much to drink, maybe she took some pills. But she was about to die. And part of her is ready for that, accepts it. Nina was ready since she found out she would only see her mother every other weekend. And she was close-- She was on the verge. But it wasn't her time. Somebody saved her, Nina, and fixed her up. Turned that mess inside her into something better. Something productive. Made her into a living, breathing weapon, the farthest thing from a scared little girl." "The Iron Serpents saved you." "No, Weight Watchers did," The Butcher's lips, Nina's lips, parted to form a crooked, unhinged smile. Her teeth were all sharp, like a shark, her tongue coated in a sickening white film. It twisted and lapped the lower wall of her mouth, sliding against her teeth, bleeding on the tips. She rose from her chair in a blur, a sharp, vibrating trail of darkness. The knife was on Stalker's throat again, harder than last time. Skin creased around the serrated edge. "That Bianca chick, the one you failed from the get-go, she's at the home office now, hidden away, where they take you, rip the feathers we call guts out and replace it all with steel. And now, I get to have some fun as reward for a job well done. I get to carve into until you're nothing but a scrap of bone and meat." A snap pulled her attention away, a glimmer of a noise, straps on corroded metal. The Butcher looked to where Nocturne was bound, only to find empty space and a set of broken compound cuffs. Before she could scan the room, the closed space, Butcher caught the scuff of boots against the floor. She swiveled, just in time to meet the back of her chair. It crashed and snapped against her body, two wooden legs held in Nocturne's hands. Butcher stood unfazed, lips curled inwards, fists shaking. "Huh. Thought for sure that would work," Nocturne nervously laughed. She took a few steps back, Butcher took a few steps forward. "Did it hurt? At all? What was it on a scale of one to ten?" "Four." Butcher rushed into Nocturne, slamming into her at full force. Nocturne couldn't be sure, as she was sent flying into the maroon door, but she thought she felt a rib slip. The door fell under her weight, a sliding platform that sped midway through a narrow, moist hallway. "How did that feel?" "Definitely a ten," Nocturne's voice was low, a raspy groan. She picked herself up, the taste of blood in her mouth, fists raised to protect her head. The Butcher's face turned into a smile again. She playfully twirled her knife, once again excited by the prospect of a fight. Stalker resumed her struggles in earnest. Nocturne earned The Butcher's anger, which gave The Stalker, Eva Lucia, ample opportunity to escape. They were outclassed, The Iron Serpents too powerful a force to take on without proper planning. They absorbed damage like sponges, shrugged off bullets and trauma like a gentle a breeze. The Butcher was no different, in fact she was worse. Faster, stronger, darker. The pipes were corroded through and through. A decent enough tug, it'd snap to varying degrees based off placement and integrity. The strange part was how dry they were, drier than bone. Water hadn't churned through those pipes in years but all the damage was recent, she could tell. Stalker jerked and swung until the pipes groaned and cried, scraped and slid. Nocturne was holding her own this time. Or Butcher was toying with her. It was hard to tell. She started to land more punches than were blocked, Butcher taking it on the chin. It felt like hitting a block of iron, but the feel of her body denting with the blows, even as it bruised her fists, was satisfying. The knife whipped past her throat, slicing a few ends of hair, prompting Nocturne to retaliate with a stiff kick to Butcher's throat. "I guess you're all talk, talk, talk," Nocturne playfully swayed her head from left to right. She stayed on her toes, flitting back and forth. She was so sore, so out of it, that she had grown afraid that if she stopped, even for a second, The Mistress of The Night would keel over at a moment's notice. "Girl gets a little go juice in her, she thinks she can take on the world, I guess." The Butcher came to a complete stop. Her face black, but for only a moment. An elation flared somewhere deep inside her-- It coursed through her stomach, chest, and head, the nerves on her skin dancing in a tangle of emotions, dreaming of escape. The brunette assassin let her knife fall to the ground, a tender pang a thin echo through the empty hallway. Nocturne didn't allow the moment to unsettle her, it barely registered in her mind. She was concerned with the fight, with the detective who was God-Knows-Where, undergoing God-Knows-What. She kept dealing out punishment, wearing down the skin on her knuckles, the lining of her boots. Bone shifted, bended with every blow Nocturne landed, convinced that everything had a breaking point. The Iron Serpents-- The Butcher-- they were still human. Twisted, perverted humans, certainly. But they needed to breathe. They felt pain. They bled. It was when the tip of Nocturne's left boot clicked underneath Butcher's jaw-- teeth snapping against teeth-- when she started to feel odd. The flakes of warm metal that pelted the streets earlier started to fill the corridor. They swirled and churned in the narrow space, circling both Nocturne and the Butcher. The Mistress of The Night felt iron sitting in the bottom of her lungs, stifling and suppressing every exhausted breath. The world spun and twisted, sand filled her joints. "You just can't help but rail against it, huh?" Butcher laughed, Nocturne's sluggish blows slipping across various points of impact on her sleight frame. Body on the mend, the declining rate of damage Nocturne could inflict was in a nosedive, bleeding into the red. "The emptiness. The pointlessness of it all. You put on a mask and a costume because you think you can fight the natural order-- Death. Plagued by the constant worry that you can't make a difference." "Doesn't sound like me," Nocturne could hear her lungs crackle, her heart thrash against her chest. All she could do was keep swinging, keep fighting. Nocturne threw a cross, leaning in a bit too hard-- Butcher parried it, Nocturne's momentum carrying her forward. It simple enough to get behind her, to pull Nocturne's back against her chest. "It's over," Butcher hissed into Nocturne's ear, her arm pressed over the heroine's throat. "It was fun while it lasted, I let you get your licks in. You just have to accept that I am simply beyond you." Nocturne writhed and Shuffled in an attempt slip her grip. It was harder than steel, coarse and dark. The Butcher could feel Nocturne fade. Feel her breathing slow, her struggles lessen as her face turned a throbbing, intense shade of red. "It's over," Butcher laughed, her head craned backwards. "It's over." "Damn right it is," A dark blur tore through the storm of unnatural particulates piped around Nocturne and Butcher. It a thick, sharp mound that sliced skin, choked air from lungs. Stalker powered through it all, a sharpened rusty pipe in hand. Too busy gloating, basking in her moment, Butcher was unprepared for the hard hand snagging her braided ponytail, a pull that forced her head back even further. Before she could get a word out, the feeling off uneven, jagged metal piercing the tender flesh of her neck sent a shock through her entite system. It wouldn't kill her, Stalker knew that. A sliver of metal jammed through the windpipe would certainly make things difficult, though. "That--kff-- wasn't very nice," She released her hold on Nocturne, who fell to her knees to choke down hard gulps of air. The flakes settled on the floor, clearing away. Butcher staggered and swiveled, wanting to take a long, hard look at The Stalker. Her neck started to heal around the pipe, knitting flesh into a puckered crater. "How 'bout I jam something into your neck, hmm?" Stalker stood surprisingly relaxed, hands at her sides, a calm inside her eyes. "I'd like to see you try. Sadly--" Nocturne sprung to her feet, renewed, understandably angry. She had been beat up, knocked out, tied up, and choked in the span of a few hours. She had every right to her rage. Nocturne hooked her leg around Butcher's head, right above the pipe, and used every bit of momentum she could conjure to send the monstrous assassin to the floor, a strip of concrete kicked up by the impact. "--I believe Nocturne isn't quite finished with you." The bones in her face shifted back into place almost immediately. Butcher thought it was hilarious, how they kept hitting her and hitting her expecting a different result. These heroes, they're nothing. They're fleeting. The Iron Serpents were eternal. Or at least they wanted to be. Butcher tried to stand, eager to rip into the two women. That's when it started. What little color left on her face drained away, every muscle greased by a acidic syrup. "Seems like you're about done," Nocturne breathed a sigh of relief, ready to take a knee. "See, you can heal from just about anything. Whatever has been done to you, whatever makes your blood and eyes black, it is powerful. But you go around thinking you're a walking talking bullet-sponge, completely ignorant of your own limits." "Okay," Butcher snickered in disbelief. She underestimated The Stalker. She underestimated Nocturne. A costly mistake. "You got me! Yay." Stalker stepped over Butcher, inching down and sliding her knee against the base of the assassin's spine. "So. Nina," Stalker's voice was hard, a low rumble in her chest. "Where's the girl? Bianca? Where have you sent her?" "Oh, pretty far away. By now, she's a couple of states away. Tomorrow? She'll be outside the country for some good ol' fashioned re-education at Iron Serpents Sleep away camp. So good job, ladies. You caught yourself a real meat-and-gristle killer. You won. But you couldn't protect an innocent woman. You lost. What a mixed bag." Nocturne looked to Stalker, disappointed, meeting the stunned and apologetic face of the leather clad latina. Fortune City had a different energy from Stalker's home, Chicago. A beat, a pulse all its own. It was wasn't worse than Chicago, it wasn't better. It stood apart, unique. Stalker crouched perched on the edge of a rooftop, the sun flashing a smooth, seductive orange against the dark blue sky as it rose. Nocturne's exhausted feet scuffed the poor roofing job of the several stories high building, either to grab Stalker's attention or because she was completely out of it, drained. It didn't matter. "Talked to some buddies of mine at the P.D.," Nocturne started, edging in close to Stalker. "Butcher will be kept chemically restrained for the foreseeable future. They're not sure she should be lucid given the extent of her abilities. A few specialists are looking into neutralizing them, but they're flying blind." "Hmm." Stalker kept her eyes locked to the sky, lost in the beauty of it, the majesty. It was better than keeping her mind weighted by the reality of the evening. "And Bianca?" "That's where things get strange," Nocturne sighed beside the Latina. Her breath steady, tense. "Her desk and locker were cleaned out. Her bank accounts have been emptied. Her apartment was ripped down to the studs. Save for the files Human Resources kept on her, The Iron Serpents did a rather thorough job of wiping her time here away." Stalker went quiet. She had failed. Utterly, completely. The Iron Serpents were powerful, efficient, and seemingly unstoppable. They are incapable of true failure. A piece could be taken off the board, but they always found a way to win in the grand scheme of things. "Perhaps I shouldn't have shown up in your city...unannounced." "True," Nocturne could see it in the way Stalker moved, the way she spoke. She was a loner, anti-social. Stalker believed her authority reached past herself. Consent and fair warning weren't exactly standard operating procedure, in her mind. Nocturne understood that, to an extent. "We may not know each other but when near-immortal death worshipping assassins are bearing down on my city, I'd appreciate some kind of warning." "I don't own a phone." "Well that's...strange." Nocturne tenderly placed her hand on Stalker's shoulder, the knots, the tension riding her every fiber, riding up Nocturne's arm like a wave. "Look, you're a bit older than me, by a couple of years, but you're new to this world. I can tell. And I can promise you, sometimes you take it in the teeth. Sometimes you leave the mat bloody, and frustrated. But you can't stop. You can't stop grinding. Because if you falter, if you give in, people like The Butcher win. Beat yourself up if you have to. Hate yourself. But don't ever stop fighting. Got it?" Stalker hesitated. As Eva Lucia, she had done wrong before. She had done it in the service of country and the men and women with agendas that warped such notions. Becoming The Stalker was like a calling, a way to redemption. It wasn't just about stopping the killers, crooks, and monsters of the world. In a way, Nocturne was right. She couldn't let it break her. "Got it," Stalker smiled, a delicate smile on her face. Nocturne smiled back to comfort her, a part of her mind on Bianca's fate. One problem at a time, Bethany, Nocturne maintained a happy face for Stalker. One problem at a time. Epilogue Bianca Phillips didn't know what to feel. She didn't know what to think. Women, wiry and tall, with soft porcelain skin and a gentle, loving touch, began to fold length after length of gray cloth over Bianca's body, from the ankles up. Nothing felt right. She couldn't see anything but she could feel everything. That maw she felt, it wasn't underground, it was inside her. It settled and relaxed in the care of these women, these maidens. "You've ascended, dear girl," One whispered proudly into Bianca's ear, tender and soft, a wisp of honey that oozed into her brain. "Do you know now? What you are?" Hands passed over Bianca's chest, over her shoulders. They projected a kind of haze, a euphoric rush. Clutched in the care of these women, Bianca trembled, her chest-- No, her very being, tight and throbbing. A mask was held out, heavy and icy to the touch. It terrified Bianca. The deep, black holes where her eyes would be, the fullness of its straps laid out across it. "Y-Yes," Bianca brought it in, her face sinking against its uncomfortable innards. There was no padding, hardly any space to breathe. "I am a Serpent." The End.