In the end everything collides

Sonnet was surprised at how quickly the thief reacted. It was rare someone could even partially avoid such an attack from her. The punch succeeded in it's purpose however as Sonnet's target stumbled and collided with the wall of the alleyway. Their fall was 'cushioned' by a small collection of metal trashcans. They went down with him, several losing their lids and spilling contents across the floor of the alleyway. Sonnet took a dainty step back to avoid the spillage. These shoes were designer too.

The sound of clanging metal rolled off the walls of the alleyway, climbing until it escaped through the thin strip of blue sky above. It was quickly drowned out by the sounds of the city around them, as most things were. No one glanced into the alleyway, nobody cared.

Taking several steps towards the thief, Sonnet snatched the purse from his grasp, opening it to inspect the contents. Everything was there, phones, purse, makeup, keys. It was just about everything you might expect to find in a woman's purse, with the possible exception of two phones. Although there were lots of careers that provided their employees with a work phone. Sonnet kept digging however, as there was more in the purse of value, at least in this moment.

The click was somehow at once louder and quieter than the falling trashcans had been. The evil black device in Sonnet's hand was clearly a handgun, and it was something she most definitely should not have been carrying in New York City.

She stayed where she was, just out of reach of the thief. Her ability meant she could escape most situations, but it did not rule out being caught by surprise. She certainly wasn't going to let the thief to that a second time. Instead she levelled the gun at the man's face…

No.

A kid's face…

Sonnet hesitated. She hadn't been able to see the thief properly from behind. She'd thought them young, perhaps their twenties. She'd been wrong. This… this was a kid. A fucking kid had tried to lift her purse.

A kid…

The black pistol hadn't wavered, but a war was being fought behind Sonnet's eyes. She'd unofficially joined the Yakuza at not much younger than this… girl. She hadn't been lifting, others had done that, the street kids. Sonnet had been lookout, helped her dad with paperwork, always somewhere out of the way.

"Get the fuck up."

Her voice when she spoke was flat, with that strange mechanical quality you only get from learning English as a second language. She spoke quietly, and the red scar at her throat worked in an ugly manner, betraying the fact that she couldn't speak much more loudly than she already did. She put the gun away.

"Now tell me why you thought that was a good idea."

My childhood spat back out the monster that you see

In the end everything collides

Sonnet had spent some time picking out her outfit that morning. It was rare that she had the time to do so, acting as a Lieutenant in the Yakuza was considerably more than a full-time job. Even so, occasionally she got something close to a day off. She could relax a little, let her hair down, so to speak. It had been due to be an extremely warm day, so she'd dressed accordingly. A blue summer dress, shoes that were totally inappropriate for her day job, and one of over a dozen designer handbags. The Hermes wasn't the most expensive she owned, but it was one of her favourite.

If Sonnet had been the average owner of such a bag then the attempted theft might have gone differently. She might not be all too high up in the Yamaguchi-Gumi, but she was one of the chief lieutenants in New York, a metahuman, and very good at her job. That and her father had once held the role of Ojiki. What remained of her inheritance was not unlimited, but it left her able to satisfy her more expensive vices. She didn't go in for the drugs or heavy drinking that characterised her subordinates, preferring to find her thrills in expensive fashion houses than in the bottom of a bottle. Although her enhanced metabolism meant that it took an awful lot of alcohol for her to even get tipsy, leaving her with a slightly skewed perspective on what constituted heavy drinking.

She stopped for a light lunch, it would be her second that day, and likely not even that light. Another benefit of her enhanced metabolism. Or disadvantage. She could eat vast quantities of food and never gain a pound. Several people had expressed jealousy, but it also meant she had to eat frequently or risk her ability starting to feed off her own body.

We come back again to Sonnet's non-average qualities. Her quick, suspicious eyes, and her knack for picking the dishonest out of a crowd. Likely because she was one of them. That was why she spotted the suddenly disappeared handbag early enough to work out who had taken it. She was almost too shocked to give chase. There weren't many people stupid enough to try and steal from the Yakuza, and her dress ensured that her tattoos were visible. Although most would not recognise the true significance of most of them, she would have thought someone daring enough to make such a pass would at least have that experience.

The person walking away from her was doing so swiftly, but not so swiftly that it would draw undue attention. The… boy… it looked like was taller than Sonnet, perhaps five and a half feet tall, and very slender. Young then, even though Sonnet couldn't see the face of the thief, something about the way they moved and their slender form suggested youth. Their clothes looked second-hand, ill-fitting and rarely washed. They were wearing their hood up despite the warmth of the day, probably they'd ditch the hoodie once they were round the corner which they were rapidly approaching.

Ah.

Sonnet finally snapped out of her moment of contemplation, clawing the shock back and refocusing it into anger. She stood slowly, raising a hand as the waiter returned with the bottle of wine she'd ordered. In her clipped, mechanical voice she instructed him to keep it chilled, she would be right back. There was no reason to rush, after all, it wasn't as if the urchin could outrun her.

She might not be tall, and therefore lacked the long-legged strides of many women wearing heels, but she was a natural gymnast and had no problem keeping her balance, even in the tall heels as she began to walk after the thief. There was no need to alert him too soon after all.

My childhood spat back out the monster that you see

In the end everything collides

Sonnet swore in Japanese, here she was with a van full of women and children she didn’t know and another van of the same following close behind her. This was definitely not what she’d signed up for when she’d joined the Yakuza. No, it had always been exciting with her father, romantic almost. This, this was far from romantic. She glanced in the wing mirror, seeing the headlights of their pursuers behind them. They seemed uncaring about the condition of their stolen cargo, quite happily ramming into the back of the truck being driven by Spiderman.

Feeling the weight of the gun inside her jacket, Sonnet momentarily considered trying to fire back at the pursuing vehicles. She mulled over it for only a moment before deciding it was too dangerous. The chances of actually hitting her targets were too low, and of hitting her ally too high. It wasn’t worth the risk.

She skidded the van around a corner, with the much busier night time streets of actual New York city not far away. The docks were mostly deserted at this time, with only the occasional surprised looking security guard making their rounds.

There was a crack and the right side wing mirror exploded, spraying shards of glass and plastic into the cab. The woman sat in the passenger seat flinched, turning her head away from the window, but she didn’t scream. If anything the steely determination in her eyes seemed to increase. Sonnet would have raised an impressed eyebrow if she wasn’t so busy trying to work out what to do. All she came up with was probably stupid enough to get them all killed anyway.

Looked at the woman, jerking her head towards the wheel. ”Take over.”

It took a moment, but eventually what Sonnet was asking for seemed to click in the other woman’s head. She reached over towards the wheel, taking over as Sonnet let go and began to climb out of the window. The wind whipped passed, icy and biting, turning her fingers white and making it even harder to keep a grip. Fortunately Sonnet didn’t need to keep her grip for long.

The car following Spiderman’s van had been accelerating to ram once again, but the driver slammed on the brakes when a dark masked figure appeared on his bonnet. Behind the mask Sonnet grinned ferally, then emptied her pistol into the driver. He jerked, twitched, then slumped to the side, taking the wheel with him.

Sonnet glanced behind her towards the now retreating forms of the two vans. The one she had been driving had slowed without her foot on the pedal, but clearly now the foreign woman had moved across into the drivers seat and was managing to keep the thing going.

A second later Sonnet was atop that van again, sliding back into the cab and pushing the temporary driver back over to the other side of the vehicle. She slammed her foot back on the gas, glancing back into the wing mirror in time to see the results of her handiwork.

The second car had hit the first, obviously at some speed, now both were wrecks. One lay on it’s roof, components and shards of glass strewn out on the road behind it. She turned the corner, leaving the wreckage in the distance.

My childhood spat back out the monster that you see

In the end everything collides

Behind her mask, Sonnet frowned at the police station suggestion. After all, it was the last place she wanted to go, not that ending up at the station would really be too much of an inconvenience for her. It wasn't as if they could lock her up after all, not when she could be on the other side of the city in the blink of an eye. She hadn't encountered anything that could stop her yet, although with new metahumans showing up every day presumably one of them would have an answer at some point. She was just glad she hadn't run into Celerity yet, at least not for long enough for the woman to do whatever it was she did. The Hero was a teleporter as well, though with some sort of knack for following people anywhere.

She shrugged, "Well it's not like they can catch either of us very easily, but I don't know if we want their attention, or," she nodded towards the now full vans. "… if they do."

One of the women in question was standing before them, and Sonnet looked her up and down. She was thin, almost skeletally so, with dark skin, and black hair that had gone greasy for want of washing. She shook her head fiercely at Sonnet's last words.

"No Police."

Her accent was thick, but it was clear that she at least spoke English passably, if not well. A forest of frightened looking eyes looked at both of them from the backs of the two vans, flicking between the two metahumans and the woman who was apparently the elected spokesperson of the group. Or perhaps the only one that spoke good enough English.

Sonnet turned to her, "then what?"

The woman nodded towards the men currently imprisoned by… Spiderman's… webbing. "They promised us… home."

The Yakuza lieutenant shook her head. "No, you don't want to go anywhere they have to offer. Especially not now."

The woman looked at the man in the nerdy costume, then back to Sonnet. "Then you."

Sonnet had raised her hands and was about to protest when she heard the sound of squealing wheels and roaring engines. It seemed that the men they had accosted were not alone, and someone had come to check on the situation. She started moving to the van, "We can argue about this later."

She jumped into one side of the van, and was annoyed to see the woman jump into the other.

She shouted out the window to the man who had helped her tonight, "Try and follow me, if you lose me meet at the corner of Charles and Washington OK?"

She put her foot down.

My childhood spat back out the monster that you see

In the end everything collides

Everyone was already wound up, Sonnet because the last two deals she'd made had gone down the pan, the men she was dealing with because Sonnet tended to be the only one who walked away from those situations.

Everybody's head snapped round at the faint noise. In any other situation it might have been dismissed as rats or a hobo, but with nearly a million dollars worth of Heroin in the open, everything was suspect. One of the men with the duffels started forwards raising his gun. The thing was black and boxy, far bigger than you'd have expected the average street level dealer to be carrying.

Sonnet swore in Japanese, glancing in the direction of her own men, who slowly drew their guns. They certainly didn't want to be the reason this situation turned into a fire fight. Sonnet didn't bother drawing her weapon yet, knowing that there was a good chance it would only escalate the situation. Instead she spoke, "I've got it."

There was such a tone of command in her voice that the thug who had been advancing towards the dumpster hesitated. It was only for a moment, but long enough for Sonnet to close the distance between them and clap a hand on his shoulder to warn him before she disappeared.

Almost the moment she vanished from the air beside the man she reappeared behind the dumpster. It was tall, and at only five foot two it was only possible to see that she had appeared behind the heavy metal object, but not what she was doing.

What she was doing was staring with confusion, and then anger at the girl, no, the child crouched before her. She was holding a pair of binoculars.

"Shit is right."

Sonnet spoke quietly, quiet enough that no one else but the girl would hear her. This was not what she wanted happening right now. Knowing she was out of sight, she raised a finger to her lips, followed by a death glare that said in no uncertain terms that the girl should wait there. Confidently, she strode back around the dumpster.

"Just a rat, it's fine. We must wrap this up."

It was only another minute or so, enough time for the men to confirm that the money handed over was indeed the amount agreed upon. Then they all started splitting up. Sonnet gave her men a bag each, and instructed them to return by themselves. They looked curious, but knew better than to question their famously violent tempered boss.

When she turned back, she waited for the men to leave before she walked back to the dumpster. There was no way the girl could have left without being spotted, either by her, or the armed men she had been dealing with. As a result she was already glowering as she rounded the corner of the dumpster.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

My childhood spat back out the monster that you see

In the end everything collides

Sonnet had walked to this meeting. She could have been there in an eyeblink, but her man was carrying a large amount of money, and part of her responsibility was to ensure that money went to the right hands. She could have just teleported there with ease, carrying the case herself, but as a Lieutenant, she was too high ranking to simply be reduced to the level of a mule. No, someone of lower status would carry the money, but she would be present to ensure everything went according to plan. The last deal like this had been interrupted by a very drunk exmember of the military and had resulted in the deaths of one of the men they had been dealing with and the near fatal injury of one of her own.

This time they had chosen a location with a far lower chance of the deal being interrupted in such a way. It was more likely that a member of the public might stumble down the alleyway, but in the middle of the day it was unlikely anyone would. This was a dirty and run down part of town, with the kind of alley's you avoided even with the bright light of day filling the streets.

The men were there with two large duffels, though two of them were holding guns, obviously having heard about what had happened the last time a deal like this had gone down. Sonnet glanced at both bags. They looked about the right size, but there was no confirmation that the contents were legitimate.

"You have it?"

One of them hefted a duffel bag, slamming it down on top of a precarious stack of wooden crates, doubtless left here by a restaurant or business and now pressed into use as a makeshift table. He unzipped the bag, showing that it was full of plastic wrapped bricks of white powder. When he spoke it was with a thickly southern accent, gruff.

"You have yours?"

Sonnet nodded to her two men, the one with the briefcase opened it to flash the stacks of cash at the men, while the other stepped forwards to test Heroin, pulling a knife from his pocket and sticking the small but sharp blade into the side of one of the bricks.

He licked it, then smiled at Sonnet, speaking in heavily accented English, "Good shit."

My childhood spat back out the monster that you see

In the end everything collides

She raised an eyebrow as the vigilante called her out on her muttered Japanese, she responded abruptly, with a tone that suggested she was not going on to explain herself. "Yeah."

She left it there. No doubt the vigilante would realise that she was not going to continue, and in fact that what she had said was intended to be rude in some manner. She gestured to the frightened looking women, none of whom looked particularly comforted by her black masked visage. Pointing to the van, she did her best to indicate that they would be safe, but that they needed to get in the van.

"Get in and we'll take you someplace else."

The question however, surprised her, it wasn't as if she could just share her name with him, or any of the others. Instead her mind went to a few comments that had been made in the past.

"Shortcut. Call me Shortcut."

Feeling awkward at having to have made up a name on the spot, she turned away, vanishing once more. The last van was actually locked, and this time had no keys in it. No doubt she could have found them if she'd gone through the pockets of the unconscious or cowering crooks. But that would take too long. She teleported inside instead, mindful of her low energy levels now. If she kept pushing she'd start losing weight, and she would lose it fast.

Fortunately, it was an old vehicle, which made hotwiring it fairly easy. She silently thanked her father's old lieutenant, the man who had taught her how to hotwire a car. She felt momentarily guilty that she was using it to hamper crime, but took solace in the fact that she was hampering the activities of a competing criminal syndicate. The Yakuza did business with the Ukrainians, but they were far from allies.

She returned with the van only a few minutes after she had left, to discover that the women were clustered around the van she'd left with Spidey. It was going to be a tight fit, but if they all squeezed in they should be able to take the women somewhere safe. Where that would be though she had no idea.

"So… uh… where do we take them?"

My childhood spat back out the monster that you see