The Chay Ong Casefiles, Volume One: Always Chasing Rainbows.

Chapter 9: Wild Cherry

When the dust cleared, one of Hell's most infamous crime lords stomped out on the broken concrete.

She was a cyclops-demon, about six feet tall, pale skinned with blonde hair (with pink and white highlights) tied into a rough ponytail and one single bloodshot eye. Her skin was sprinkled with pink freckles, and her clothing was haphazard and torn, like a Less That Zero reject or a coked-up extra from a Cindy Lauper video. She wore torn leggings, a torn red miniskirt, an off-shoulder crop top (that was worn over a black bra), and a single red boot. She was juggling an unlit bomb between her hands

And she didn't look happy.

"Are none of you fucking cowards gonna answer me?! Is Cherri gonna have to blow more shit up until she gets a fucking answer?!"

Then she turned her single eye to Chay, who stood alone among the rubble.

"You. I don't know you." She jogged up to Chay, bearing a sneer sharp enough to cut granite.

"I think I have an idea who you are, though." replied Chay. "I'm going to guess you're the one they call Cherri Bomb, right?"

C herri skidded to a halt mere feet away from Chay. "Good, you recognize me. That still doesn't tell me who the fuck you are, or why you're standing in the middle of a fucking warzone in my territory!"

Chay raised an eyebrow. "To be fair, at least half of this was from your bomb."

"I didn't cause those fucking bullet holes!", Cherri angrily waved her arm at the chipped bricks and broken windows caused by the assault vehicle's mini-gun. "I also didn't dump a giant piece of trash out on to the-wait, who is that?"

Cherri slowly walked over to Shakie's unconscious form, still lying limp on the sidewalk.

"You recognize her?", Chay asked.

"Yeah. I've seen her working out here a few times before." Cherri bent down and moved a piece of black cloth away from Shakie's hair.

"You're the second person I've encountered who recognizes her. Angel Dust was the other."

That got her attention.

"This is Shakie, isn't it?" Cherri jumped back up to face Chay. "This is the girl Angie has been telling me about for the past week. Who the fuck are you? How do you know Angel?"

Chay brushed dirt and debris off of her shirt.

"My name is Chay Ong. I'm a private investigator that was hired by Valentino to find some of his employees who had disappeared...well, only one now." She tightened her scarf around her face.

"Angel Dust was the one who first brought it to Valentino's attention. I met him outside of the Studio to learn more."

Cherri whipped out her hellphone and starting tapping away furiously on the screen.

"I'm texting Angel now. Let's see if you're...."

The phone vibrated. Cherri read Angel's reply.

"Huh...so you were telling the truth."

"You should probably tell him that we found Shakie."

"Yeah, I'm working on it...wait, he's calling me."

Cherri hit the 'answer' button and put the phone to her ear.

"Hey Angie! What do ya need?"

Chay stood awkwardly as Cherri continued a conversation she wasn't in on.

"Yeah, she's still here. What? You wanna talk to her?"

Cherri handed over her phone to Chay. "He wants to talk to you. Don't use up my minutes, dammit!"