Sorry Gypsy! I was in a writing mode XP But after this is your part, since I’m out of ideas XD I didn’t plan for much. Anyways, I’ll leave introducing the OP characters to you, since I’m not much good at that :S I’m better at introducing new people. I tried to make the atmosphere a bit less oppressive for this part. Here we go~!
Oh wait, before we do, I wanna make sure everyone likes their nicknames. You know how everyone in the OP universe get kickass nicknames? Like “Dark King” Rayleigh, or “Surgeon of Death” Law, etc. Well, we totally need kickass nicknames in this fic. I mean, come on, where else are we going to get to use them? I just made these up, but if you like them you can keep them. Otherwise just tell me what name you want.
So~
! “Tyrant Queen” Gypsy
“Crimson Diva” Nia
“Silent Death” Piratemarimo
“Poisonous Blossom” Masha
“Angel of Death” Skyrius
“Bloodhound of the Queen” Charmed (Gypsy’s #1 Fangirl XD)
“Black Wind” Mettemine
“Reaper” Meta
“Empress of Ruin” Mia
“Calamity Blaze” Trapped
! That’s it so far, since I wasn’t quite sure how to work in everyone else >___< But I’ll get to those as soon as everyone shows up in the fic. Or you can come up with your own if you don’t like the ones right now.
Ok, now for the fic. Even longer than last time XD I ended up researching mafia chains of command. You learn something new everyday. It goes:
Boss (Don, or Capo Famiglia)
Underboss (Capo Bastone)
Advisor (Consigliere) These three make up the Administration, the ruling panel.
Captain (Caporegime)
Etc
! Piratemarimo paused for a second, staring out from under the alcove which the entrance to the Midnight Club, one of Gypsy’s many exclusive gigs, was located. The rain hadn’t let up a bit. If anything, it seemed to be getting harsher. A sigh escaped her lips for the second time that evening.
! “I should’ve charged her more. Maybe a fancy restaurant and a date with that Crocodile guy…” she paused and almost giggled, remembering the look of surprise on the rival mafia leader’s face when she had him at a stalemate, pistol at his forehead while all his lackeys aimed at her. Ten to one. She’d had worse odds stacked against her before. But apparently he’d never been in a situation where someone had managed to get past all defenses before. She blew out her breath, watching it freeze in the air, becoming visible. There was a sort of heated appeal to a game of cat and mouse, especially when one wasn’t sure who was which.
! The spy fingered her fedora, lighted atop her obsidian hair, as dark as the cloudy night sky. It would get ruined in this weather.
! “I guess she’ll owe me a new hat as well,” she decided and sprang out into the rain, running with unordinary balance in the slick conditions. The sooner this was over, the better.
–------------
“You’re sure about this?” An exasperated and strained voice floated through the arched hallway. Trapped had just closed the door marking the end of her latest meeting when some new recruit had stumbled in, breathless, babbling about some breach in security. THIS was why she was against using fresh meat as guards to any information at all.
! “Yes sir! I mean ma’am! I mean-“
! “Stop it.” Her voice cut in, cold and annoyed. The recruit bit his lower lip to stop himself immediately. “Yes or no.”
! “Yes…”
! She sighed, putting her fingers to her temple. There hadn’t been this many problems since she stepped down from the frontlines.
! “Send the Black Wind in to deal with it,” she answered curtly, turning heel. Off schedule already because of all these delays. “Tell him to report back to me afterwards.”
! “Eh…? Sir Mettemine….? But isn’t that overkill for something like th-“
! “Did I ask for your opinion?” Trapped stopped, whirling around to face the poor lackey.
! “N-No ma’am!” he jumped, straightening and trying not to meet her glare.
! “You’re dismissed.” Her tone of voice made it painfully clear that if he wasn’t gone within the next five seconds, there was going to be a hole through his head. The greenhorn ran. Trapped sighed, putting her hand to her forehead to slow the coming headache. Why was she in charge of all this again? After all, shouldn’t the leader deal with these sorts of things?
! Laughter rang out from behind her, one she recognized immediately. Speak of the devil. The second-in-command spun around to meet the leader of the largest mafia organization in this town of sins and lies.
! “Working hard aren’t we?” Mia laughed, patting her on the shoulder. Trapped could feel a vein in her temple throbbing. The “Empress of Ruin”, head of the largest criminal syndicate, was in reality a talented but extremely lazy, carefree, troublemaker who liked to put things off. She glared at her boss.
! “I’m sorry? Working hard? Isn’t that what you should be doing?” she asked in a cutting tone. If anyone else had spoken like that, they would have been dead in a heartbeat. But Trapped was an exception, partially because she was the second in command, but mostly because Mia tended to push everything onto her.
! “Now, now,” Mia continued lightheartedly, “If you keep stressing yourself out like that you’ll get white hairs.” She patted the coppery, sandstone colored tresses as if to prove her point.
! It was all Trapped could do not to explode in frustration.
! “And who exactly is the cause of said stress?” her voice was strained, “In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve had two breaches in high level security in the last week alone. That’s inexcusable. I keep telling you not to let the new recruits-“
! “Oh don’t worry about that,” Mia cut in patronizingly, as if talking to a child, “None of that is actually useful you know. It’d be much easier just to keep everything in a list. I don’t know why you go through all the trouble of making those fancy little combinations.”
! Something snapped.
! “It’s because you never take your work seriously!” A jump kick, a crash, a broken wall. Down at the end of the hallway the passing members sighed. The boss’s daily skirmish with the Capo Bastone, the Underboss and second-in-command, had started. Sometimes it was hard to distinguish who really was in charge here.
! Past the hallway, down a flight of stairs, and two left turns later, a seriously shaken and nervous new recruit hesitated outside of a pair of large, ivory lined double doors. He had been sent to get Sir Mettemine….but there were rumors. That the last man to disturb him had disappeared without a trace, or that bloodcurdling screams emanated from his room at night. He raised his hand to knock, then lowered it. If he went back like this, Trapped would kill him anyways. Taking a deep breath and preparing his will in his head, the recruit knocked hard three times.
! Silence.
! He cautiously pushed on the door, which slid inwards effortlessly, unlocked. Peeking his head through the crack, he saw a high rise canopy bed with a large bundle firmly tangled in the middle.
! “Er….Sir Mettemine?” he called out, hesitatingly. The bundle grumbled and rolled. A sweatdrop.
! “Sir, it’s the middle of the day already,” he tried reasoning, but the bundle simply rolled further away.
! Of course, there were the other rumors as well. That the fearsome and deadly Black Wind was…a lazy bed worm who wouldn’t leave the comfort of his room for anything short of Armageddon. Well, it was worth a try.
! “Miss Trapped says there will be consequences if she’s forced to come down here to get you herself.”
! The bundle shot up, hitting a low hanging beam in the process. Mettemine emerged from within layers of tangled blankets, rubbing his head. He was having such a wonderful nap, but conditioning had practically made it an instinct for him to jump out of bed the moment Trapped’s name was mentioned. The reasons were left to the imagination.
! The recruit faltered. Sometimes the antics in this place felt more like a circus than a criminal organization. But then again, the second-in-command wasn’t called a demon for no reason. He took the moment of confusion to tiptoe away from the door and back up the stairs as fast as he could.
! That was an hour ago.
Piratemarimo melted into the shadows behind her target, who was frantically trying to dial a number on the payphone. There wasn’t a single soul besides them out in this torrential rain. She slid her hand over her pistol, instinctively and automatically checking the holster, safety, and dryness to ensure that it would fire. Wet gunpowder was a pain in the ass. There were other ways to kill someone, but it was so much more of a hassle.
! She had her eyes trained so intensely on the figure ahead of her that it was only years of experience that warned her body ahead of time. Almost by instinct, she dived out of the way at the sound of a gunshot. The shattering of glass rang out and her target slumped down to the ground, dead. She whirled, body moving on its own, hand reaching and pulling her gun just as her eyes found the source.
! The moon poked out from a hole in the overcast skies just long enough to illuminate two people, the cold gleam of two gun barrels pointed parallel to each other.
! “Oh? This is a surprise,” Mette said lightly, though in a rather bored tone, as if he wanted to go back to bed, “I thought the Queen’s little Bloodhound would be the first to jump at the chance to impress her mistress.”
! The Silent Death didn’t answer in words. A shot echoed but Mette had already jumped down. Landing on a windowsill with precise timing and balance, he held his hands up, gun still swinging from his left hand.
! “Woah, woah, hey there,” he waved, motioning, “I didn’t come here to pick a fight. My job’s done. I’m just going to go home and get back to bed, kay toots?”
! Piratemarimo shrugged. She hadn’t expected to hit him.
! “Well, my job was to kill that traitor. As long as he’s dead, I don’t care.” She paused for a second and then twirled her gun, letting it fall back into its holster like an acrobatic act. Mette laughed.
! “Ok, then we’re on the same-“ he was cut off as a second bullet pierced the wall right beside his head.
! “Hey, how much was that bounty on your head again?” his adversary teased. He simply glared at her and jumped backwards through the window, which had been left open. The assassin shrugged. Her job was done. Now to go get a warm meal at a fancy restaurant and a new hat.
Ok, bed now. Night~