VIXEN - The Legend of the Five Totems

Chapter 24 - Cheetah and Red X

"Do we follow him?" Brutale asks Cheetah.

Below the pair, the battle between the fragments of the Titan Patrol and Maksai rages.

Vixen's attempts to reclaim the totems from Maksai's chest have failed. Cheetah is almost lamenting this. Without the totems, Maksai would lose his powers, and then the three would be easy prey for her. A glimpse of her attack on the weakened general and the former Keeper danced in her head: bloody, uncompromising, brutal. A handful of quick cuts and both of the cat's enemies would be dead, and all five totems would be hers.

If only Vixen had succeeded.

Maksai tossed the Zambesan heroine into a ubiquitous green dumpster and fled to lick his copious wounds.

It was becoming clearer to Cheetah that if she wanted those totems from the bovine man, she would have to do all the work herself. That meant a strategy, one that would actually provide her with the opportunity to gouge into him. It is a thought that does not interest her much.

"We leave him for now," she finally says to her South American ally. "Much as I hate to say this, I think Anansi was playing this one true. There is no indication that the totems' power has degraded at all."

"What does that mean?" Hyena asks.

"It means that he apparently has full – or near to – access to all three totems. According to the legends, this should not be possible. Anansi is a trickster god. This could be part and parcel of his jest."

The three watch Maksai amble into a neighboring commercial building, where they lose sight of him.

"He's alone. We can take him," Brutale says, though his body shows no indication that he is eager to do so.

"I think not. You are skilled, Barrera, but I think we need a tactician more than a simple assassin like you. Follow me."

Cheetah dashes to the other corner of the building, where she leaps over the road and onto the roof of the building opposite. She does not even bother looking behind her to see if the other two are keeping up. She figures that if they can't, then she no longer has need of them. It is a cold thought, especially after admitting that she needs help, but she has never been one to make apologies. She has places to be, and Maksai's damned dense hide is interfering. The reality is that desperation pushes her to leap up a wall and hurtle over roof.

Her enhanced senses soon brings her to her target, unconscious and half-drowned.

"Hello, gruesome," she says, looking down at the waterlogged body of Red X draped under the wheels of a car, swept here by the raging waters that Maksai unleashed.

~

"Red X!?" Barrera shouts at her. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Not at all. He is a man. I am a cat. And I am a woman. Everyone wants something. And I'm willing to bet persuading him to help us with be an easy endeavor."

"Good luck with that," Barrera says crossing his arms over his chest. "You seen him out there, no? Hombres like this has more secrets than reality. They're guarded, judgmental, mental, and they got problems. Problemas de locura."

"Look, he wants Maksai stopped. We want Maksai stopped. What are you afraid of?"

"Oh, I don't know... maybe the fact that we've fought these losers every single chance we've gotten!"