"No Life 'Til Leather"

"... And Justice for All"

Everything comes at a price.

Freedom, the sense of having your hands untied, unbound by any parasitic force that tries to force you under its reign, that’s one of those costly novelties. Food and shelter come at a close second. Something about the Sarkaz race lacking all three, something about the devils forever tumbling around Terra without a place to call home rings in your mind. Familiar? You were never an ace when it came to history, no. You barely even know how your own city came to be. Always had a knack for maths, though, haven’t you? Tell me then, what comes of this equation;

You take a grumpy, uneducated, unwashed, groggy, highly mentally unstable girl with a slight superiority complex, and a strong affinity for ripping apart any moron who dares oppose her, and you add a meek, weak little gray cat who dared wake her from a feverish slumber. You mush them together, what do you get?

Well, you get what you pay for. You get a cacophony of metal clashing against metal, pans clinking against pans, quickly followed by a few yells and tearing of tarp. After that, come a few meaty thuds and finally, you get yourself a purple patch under your eye and a frown forced upon your face. In the makeshift kitchen, under the gray tarps, with all the gas stoves, the fires and ori-flames burning high, you find yourself standing by the side of that disgruntled fiend-girl who now happens to feel a little bit better than she did just a few moments ago. An ass-whooping really does brighten one’s day, but ruins the other’s.

So, as Andy stood there, staring down at both his bent-apart pans, the white-haired girl by his side whistled out a little tune, preparing her potato-slaying kit. A little peeler and the real W’s knife.

“... Next time,” She began voicing one of her incredibly wisdomful anecdotes. “... Next time, Lawdog, think twice with that holy brain of yours. Next time I’m splattering you over the snow, got it~?”

Andy did get it. He nodded and sighed, casting both metal instruments aside. Gone were his days of playing “W’s” own alarm clock, she made sure of that. With a careful rub, he soothed the bruise on his face and murmured. “... Got it, yeah.”

“Good~! Good, though I did kinda like…-” She perked up again, with a chuckle. Halfway through her word-vomit, she stopped and dropped both knives into the snow. “What the FUCK happened to you??”

Andy jerked his gaze away from the pitiful, bent metal and met her eyes. With a tug of an eyebrow, he signaled his genuine confusion. “What?”

“What? WHAT? Look at you!” The girl whistled away and scurried over. Andy took a step back, so she pressed on even closer. “This! Look! Oh, I haven’t even noticed when beating the shit out of you…” Her hands shot forward and immediately latched onto his newly grown horns. Most thoughts had left his head by this point, as he was left staring at her with eyes wide open, unknowing whether the fiend wanted to finish him off or just touch those plaguing marks a little. “... Gods, look at this. Now you look like half a man, at least. How? How the hell did you…?”

“Can you let go?” Squirming in her grasp, he whimpered a little and took a step back. With genuine curiosity, “W” tilted her head.

“No? Never seen horns on a Lawie, much less a…” Her eyes went wide as the sight of his tail reaching mach ten in terms of wagging speed slipped past her gaze. “A tail, too? The hell did you do?”

“I fell, bite me.” Andy retorted and pushed the girl away. With a slap to the wriggling worm by his back, he calmed the tail down and brushed a few strands of hair back, behind those blackened horns of his.

“Fell?” As if in a trance, she forgot to punch him back for shoving away. “Fell, where? Into a vat with horn and tail growing chemicals? I don’t get it.” The girl blinked like a chameleon, first the right eye, then the left.