VIXEN - The Legend of the Five Totems

Chapter 23 - A Collection of Flame

"It is almost too easy, isn't it?" Hyena asks the cat standing beside her. They are gazing out over the main thoroughfare that Maksai has plowed through. The swath of destruction is only a few degrees away from being a perfectly straight line carved through the skin of the city.

"Easy for you to say. You can actually climb these things," Brutale complains. They are four stories up, and he is not used to climbing buildings, even with the ropes that Cheetah brought back from her early morning raid on Maksai's palatial compound. In his homeland of Hasaragua, he was not bothered by climbs in trees, but he was never much of an urban parkourist.

"Listen to Mr. Sensitive," Hyena says with a sharp titter. "Who would have thought that such a renowned assassin would be such a wimp when it came to physical action?"

"Shut up, you two," Cheetah says. She scans the ground below her, looking for some sign of her prey. "And there they are! Taking the long route."

The Titan Patrol are slowly picking their way along the broken road, helping people where they can, but mostly just moving inexorably towards the monster at the head of the madness. Of the two people leading the group, Cheetah does not think the female will be of much problem – especially as Vixen no longer possessed her totem. The male, on the other hand, would absolutely be a hassle in spite of his peculiar aura. She thinks there just might be something in him that she could exploit. As for the others, a human, a teleporter, and the Keeper of the Flame Totem.

"The sister will be the problem," Cheetah says out loud.

"How you want to do this?" Hyena asks her.

"Brutale, take the man. Hyena, you and I will go for the women."

"And what about that one?" Brutale asks, pointing at a women dressed in dark green fatigues, and armed with a number of automatic weapons as well as the strange one-sided sword that she liked to use.

"Tabu," Cheetah says with a low murmur of a growl.

"Looks like she switched sides," Hyena says. "That might change things a bit."

"No it won't. Brutale, before you take the one with the skull face, split them up. Drop some blades, put some space between them. Create confusion and I'll take the totem. We shall set our trap a few blocks ahead."

~

"Penny for your thoughts," Marionette says to Peekaboo, who has been staring ahead of her, at the dust and noise of a high-rise whose entire first floor façade and lobby have been transformed into a parking lot for a compact car whose alarm system is honking at the people who are slowly evacuating. From a three-story parking garage a little ways behind the Titan Patrol, a small line of cars are emerging and heading off to the right, on what remains of the wide road. Their obstacles are not just the normal debris of glass, stone, and concrete, but also of uprooted trees and bodies.

"Hmm? Oh. I was just thinking that we're the only ones who are walking up this path of destruction. We're the only ones who are going towards the cannon shots and the explosions and the gunshots. It's like I've stepped into a Cranberries song."

"What?"

"Cranberries. They do a song about bombs and tanks and guns and bombs."

"You said 'bombs' twice."

"So does the singer," Peekaboo says sadly. "I just can't believe that we're doing this."