Epithet Erased, page 2
“Oh, you’re far from alright,” the wolf snarled. She gestured towards the upturned backpack, which was now sitting stained in an alleyway puddle. “You just cost me full price on that new backpack! And you aren’t leaving until someone covers the difference.”
“Like I said, I have $5,000,” Phoenica repeated. She reached into her skirt pocket, took out a tiny purse shaped like a sheep, unzipped it, and produced five thousand-dollar bills.
“Feenie!” Molly hissed, “Put those away!”
“Why? I might as well get rid of them. My next allowance is coming up and I can’t seem to use these anywhere. You’d be surprised how it is to break a thousand!”
“No, I wouldn’t!” Molly said, slamming the bills back into Feenie’s purse, “I work a cash register for a living!”
“Hold up,” said the mugger, closing the distance. “Was that a stack of kilos? . . . Those real?”
“Uh! Haha! No! No, not at all!” Molly flailed. “These are . . . props! For a school play! Feenie is playing a rich girl!”
“Oh Molly, if I were playing a rich girl I think I’d have far more on me than a measly five thousand dollars—”
Molly elbowed her.
“Ow! Oh. Um. Yes! They are props!”
“. . . Never seen a real live kilo before,” the mugger said, inching closer. . . . “I hear if you put one of them in a vending machine, it just sprouts mechanical legs and walks home with you.”
“Yes that’s right” Feenie chirped. “My father bought one once. In fact, some high-end vending machines have programming where if you give them SEVERAL bills at once they actually sprout little arms alongside the legs and and serve you like a waiter—”
Molly muted her.
She had the ability to instantly silence both people and objects using her epithet. Feenie’s mouth was still moving and her hands continued to gesture, but no sound came out.
“S-she’s practicing her lines!” Molly explained. Feenie continued talking silently. It seemed she hadn’t noticed. “Most of the play is pantomime!”
“Uh huh . . .” the mugger said. She didn’t seem to buy it, which wasn’t a huge surprise. Muggers don’t usually buy things if they can steal them. “Well, even if they are just props, I bet I could pass them off to some schmuck for a quick buck. Why don’t you just . . . hand those over?”
“Uh! Um!!!” flailed Molly.
“!” “!!!” flailed Feenie.
“Hey. Back off.”
A new voice spoke from somewhere, squeaky and strange.
“Ehh?” The mugger checked behind her. A third child stood at the entrance to the alleyway. This one was even smaller than the other two. Standing in the distance with her head down she looked barely three feet tall, more like a garden gnome than a full-fledged person. But there was something about her . . .
“Oh great. Another one?” the mugger rolled her eyes, flinging her body around like a wet sock to face the newcomer. “Get outta here, kid. You’re interrupting business. Scram. If you know what’s good for ya.”
The mugger casually flashed the switchblade as a warning. The newcomer spoke up.
“Oh? If you had any real sense . . . then you’d be the one running.”
The mugger squinted.
This new little girl had strawberry-pink hair scrunched up into a single, off-center tuft over her right eye. She wore an oversized purple sweater with sleeves that extended past her tiny arms. Her voice was small and scrunchy, like a toy somebody had stepped on. By all accounts she should’ve looked ridiculous. But there was something about the way she moved . . . no, something about the way she wasn’t moving that made her feel . . . off, somehow. Stock still. Too still, like a crack on a broken television screen, casting long shadows down the alleyway. Far too long for her tiny frame. Her face was still tilted down and invisible. She spoke again.
“You seem pretty confident . . . so I’m guessing this place is your stomping grounds, right? That means I don’t have to explain the name ‘Roughhouse’ to you . . . right?”
Roughhouse?
The mugger raised her eyebrows.
Of course she knew the name Roughhouse. Everybody in this part of town did. The Roughhouses . . . They were an infamous family of thugs that dominated the shadows of Sweet Jazz City a few years back . . . though at this point they were more like an urban legend.
Rumor had it the oldest sibling was nigh-indestructible. They said that he got his face gashed open on a chain link fence in the middle of a brawl. A wound like that would normally be enough to take someone down instantly, but this guy fought through the pain and beat up ten more street punks before walking himself to the hospital like it was nothing. Another sibling was a bomb junkie. Word on the street was he’d wound up in prison after bombing the STEM building. Then there was the chick who went through town smashing up things with a giant baseball bat, and another one who apparently had an epithet that could turn you into her slave for the rest of your life if you pissed her off . . .
But those were just rumors! Stories that thugs told to their little thuglings at night to scare ‘em crooked! Backstreet boogeymen! They weren’t real! The wolf growled and spat.
“Tch. Yeah. Sure. I know Roughhouse. What’s that’s got to do with anything?”
“Oh, it’s got a lot to do with me,” said the little girl. “After all . . .” She lifted her head, looking the mugger directly in the eye for the first time.
“I’m one of ‘em.”
Trixie Roughhouse.
Half of her face was completely covered by her bangs. There was an X-shaped hairpin where the right eye should’ve been. But it was her other eye that the robber was staring at.
Black.
Her gaze was almost impossibly black. Cold. Dark. Absolute. Like staring into a hole so deep that you couldn’t help but imagine what it would feel like to fall in. The air around her started to feel tight. The mugger was just as still as the new girl now, two alley cats frozen in a staredown.
“T-that’s horse-baloney!” she managed to choke out. “What I hear, them Roughhouses are all in their teens at least! They don’t got no kid sister!”
“That’s news to me,” Trixie responded, uncomfortably still.
The mugger felt like she was being stared through. She reflexively checked behind her. No one there. She wasn’t being flanked. Just her two marks, cowering on the ground. Did they know this girl? The mugger turned back to Trixie.
“‘Ey, what’s it to you, huh? They your friends or somethin’?”
“Never met ‘em before in my life,” she said flatly, “But from the sound of things they’re worth about five thousand bucks.”
Damn. She heard that, huh?
“There’s a reason, you know.”
“Huh?”
“Why you haven’t heard of me. There’s a reason. See . . . My siblings all have a reputation. You know why that is? It’s ‘cause people see what they do. Because after they scrap with someone . . . they let the other guy walk away.”
Then, for the first time, she moved.
Her oversized purple sleeves swung back and forth like a pendulum.
Suddenly—snkt!—something appeared from her left arm. Something with a silver edge. At first the mugger thought it might be a knife, but as her eyes focused she realized it was actually the tip of a box cutter. “See . . . I’m different. The reason I don’t have a reputation . . .”
The pendulum swung up! The metallic tip of the box cutter dug into the blue wall of the alleyway. Trixie began to walk forwards, dragging the edge of the knife against the wall so hard that it began sparking.
“. . . I don’t like to leave witnesses.”
It was a ridiculous statement. Especially coming from someone of Trixie’s stature. But the way she said it. Her absolute conviction.
The menace.
The rage.
A sudden thought raced through the mugger’s head:
I’m going to die.
She tried to shake it off, but the feeling was perched on her heart like a heavy black bird and wouldn’t let go. The child kept walking towards her, eye contact unbreaking. With each step she took the walls of the alleyway felt like they were warping, closing in towards her the way they do in a nightmare. The mugger had only one option.
“S-stay back!” she cried! “I . . . I have an epithet!
If someone ever threatened you on the street, the best thing to do was to pretend you had an epithet, especially if you were a mundie. It was common knowledge. Even the Ztreet Smartz VHS mentioned it. An epithet was a wild card in any battle. The word alone was often enough to throw an assailant off their rhythm.
. . . But not this time.
Trixie didn’t hesitate for a second. She didn’t even blink. She just kept closing the distance with constant, rhythmic steps, like the timer on a clock ticking down. Tik. Tik. Tik. Tik. The blade of her boxcutter sparked against the wall with each footfall, casting shadows and sinking her face into even deeper darkness.
“You’re lying,” Trixie said. “Any inscribed with a real epithet would never lead with a knife. That’s a mundie move.”
“B-but you’re using a knife too! Doesn’t that make you a mundie!?” The mugger smiled in a desperate, sweaty way that would’ve lost a poker hand. “Do you really wanna tangle with an inscribed!?”
Trixie paused. The sparking stopped.
For a second the mugger thought her bluff had borne fruit. But then . . . Trixie laughed.
And for the first time . . . she smiled.
It was an ugly smile. A deep, unsightly grin twisted across her face, like a doll stretched too far.
“Hah hah hah . . . and what makes you think this isn’t my epithet?” Trixie raised her other sleeve, then flicked it downwards.
Another boxcutter tip appeared.
Then two.
Then three.
Then five.
Bladed silver shot out from her sweater like claws where her hands should’ve been and scraped against both sides of the alleyway. Dual spark showers exploded on both sides. She walked forwards again, arms outstretched, welcoming the rain of bright yellow light backlighting her body. The youngest Roughhouse looked like some sort of cultic priest, walking towards a sacrifice, ready to carve. Her single eye was wide open and invincible. Four and a half feet of monster.
“So . . .” the grin twisted, “What do you think? Am I bluffing? Can you defeat me with your imaginary epithet? Huh? Are you willing to make that bet?”
The mugger shrunk back. W-What . . . what the hell was she supposed to do in a situation like this!? Her eyes darted over towards the two girls cowering next to the backpack. Desperately, she grabbed the fluffy-looking one and held her at knifepoint. She pantomimed in mute protest.
“S-stop right there!” she shouted, “Don’t you care what happens to these two!?” Trixie’s grin didn’t falter for a second. In fact, it might’ve grown wider.
“You think a hostage can protect you? Go ahead! I don’t need them alive to spend their money! Right now, I’d say you still have enough time to get away . . . but if you stand there behind two meat shields while I slowly walk up to you . . . what’s going to happen? What do you think is going to happen when I reach you? Do you really think I’ll stop? Is $5,000 worth it to me? Is it worth their lives? Is it worth your life? Well? Go on. Try it. Gamble. After all . . .” Their eyes locked. A ring of hungry, silver-edged light cut across the dark of Trixie’s eyes like a reaper’s scythe. “I’ve killed for less.”
It didn’t even take the wolf a second to decide.
She exploded out of the alleyway, howling and ragdolling through the streets much to the confusion of nearby pedestrians. That mugger wouldn’t return to this part of town for years, and she’d never venture into that particular alleyway ever again.
Trixie watched after her as the attacker’s footsteps faded into the distance.
Dead silence was all that remained.
Once they were sure she was gone, the two victims on the ground looked up at the demon who had just saved them. There was a clattering sound as several boxcutters slipped from her sleeves and bounced against the concrete.
Trixie Roughhouse did not have an epithet.
Trixie Roughhouse had never been in a real fight in her entire life.
Trixie Roughhouse began to hyperventilate.
“Oh gosh,” she sputtered, “Holy smokes! That was so scary. Hhh! Hhhhh.” The hardened expression from before had vanished. In its place was the shaking face of a small child who had been separated from her mother at the grocery store
Trixie hadn’t lied to the mugger about her background. Well, kinda. She’d never killed anyone before, but she WAS the youngest member of the Roughhouse family and she had learned a great deal from her older siblings. She grew up learning all about life on the street without having to experience it firsthand. Her older sister taught her how to fight. Her older brother taught her how to scare people so bad that she would never need to. She had four lifetimes’ worth of street-smarts drilled into her tiny raspberry skull from a young age. She knew all of the swears, which meant that she was a very cool 12-year-old.
Right now she was crying her eyes out.
“Hhh! I’m sorry! I didn’t know what to do! I was just trying to scare her away but when she pointed that knife at you, I—hhh. Ooooooh. I just doubled down! Because I didn’t know what else to do??? But then I bluffed and said I didn’t care if she hurt you . . . but what if she had hurt you!? HHHHHH—”
“Oh, Trixie!” Phoenica flung her arms around the smaller girl and began weeping herself. “And Molly, too! You both saved me! You’re . . . you’re both so br . . . bra-ha-haaaave!”
Molly began to tear up too. Her friends were safe. They were all safe. She wrapped her arms around them and hugged them even tighter. The trio of little girls held each other in a ball and wailed together, alone in the alleyway.
The kids at school nicknamed them the “Neo Trio.” This was because when they stood side by side, they looked like Neapolitan ice cream.
Chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla.
Molly, Trixie, and Phoenica.
Trixie Roughhouse and Phoenica Fleecity.
They were Molly’s best friends. And she loved them more than anything else in the whole wide world.
Prologue - The Banzai Blasters
The hour?
Four in the afternoon. The special hour. So special that the shows airing on TV around this time were called “four o’clock specials.” Shows like Ztreetz Smartz for Kidz.
The place?
Headquarters! Also known as the big treehouse in Crusher’s back yard. The coolest hangout spot any of them knew. At least, the coolest one where they wouldn’t be kicked out by an employee for loitering.
The mood?
Solemn.
A group of small-time delinquents were gathered around the plastic pop-up table that Crusher had dragged up his tree. They each wore their civilian clothes and hung their heads in sorrow. Today was a dark day indeed. They had lost their hope. Their beacon of light. Their leader.
“Minions . . .”
The man himself addressed them.
Giovanni was standing some ways away looking dramatically out the window. His back was turned so that his figure was lit by a halo of ominous, golden light. It was difficult to hear what he was saying because he was facing away from them and talking out a window, but nobody said anything because it made him look cool and they knew that that was what really mattered.
“I take it from your presence here today that you received my group text? You already know what I’m going to say. But some messages are simply too important to be conveyed by emoticons and Dark Star’s funny gifs.”
He turned to them.
“As of today, I am leaving the Banzai Blasters.”
The minions’ heads sunk even lower. They all knew that this was coming.
Just one week ago they had pulled off their first big job: a museum heist. It hadn’t all gone according to plan (mostly because they hadn’t had one), but at the end of the night they managed to get away with a very valuable magic amulet. Giovanni had traveled to a seedy town in the middle of the woods in order to get the amulet appraised and sell it. Unfortunately, he had been ambushed by a different faction of Banzai Blasters and was beaten up pretty badly. According to him he’d totally kicked their butts afterwards! . . . But he lost the necklace in the process and now he had no idea where it was.
Giovanni was less upset about the loss of the necklace than he was with his organization’s conduct. He had always seen the Banzai Blasters as a way for passionate youths to get together and channel their energy into something positive. Like crime! But it turned out that apparently the only thing the higher-ups in the Banzai Blaster organization cared about was turning a profit.
What was that!? Whatever happened to making a STATEMENT through your crime!? Where’s the passion? The intrigue?! Where’s the HEART!?
Giovanni was having none of it and he was insistent on quitting. Car Crash—the only minion who had accompanied him on the trip—tried to talk him out of it during the long walk home, but Giovanni’s mind was made up.
He had announced his retirement via group chat using a gif of a popular actress flipping off the camera and saying I’M OUT, B*TCHES! in big Impact font. Dark Star had reacted with a gif of a cartoon dog’s jaw hitting the floor.
The rest of the minions protested fiercely.
Sure, they’d lost their treasure, but they HAD successfully executed a museum heist! Giovanni was a wanted man now! That was a big deal for a Banzai Blaster! The police usually ignored the low-ranking Banzai Blasters and Banzai Captains because their crimes were so petty, they simply weren’t worth the time it took to deal with them, but Giovanni was a bonafide criminal now! He was on the lam. The police had even staked out his house! He’d been hiding out in Crusher’s tree house for the last week in order to lay low. The way the minions saw it, Giovanni had clout now! This was his chance to climb even further up the Banzai Ranks! Giovanni retorted that he wasn’t interested in getting a promotion from a bunch of jerks like the Banzai Blasters. Becoming famous wasn’t worth being a meanie.
