She adjusted her head back and forth, changing the cheek that was touching the ice every time she stopped feeling it. It'd been almost an hour in the freezing cold now, stripped of her trusty cape that normally kept her warm. She couldn't do anything besides this back-and-forth motion because her four limbs were tied to a plank that went across her back. This way, she couldn't use her power to break free without fatally hurting herself.
Attached to the end of the plank was a chain that was anchored to the ice, making her unable to escape, even if she could stand. The people around her left her to freeze to death as they got in a truck and took off. They believed they were offering her up to what they called the "Sleeping God". It was supposed to live underneath the massive frozen lake that connected to the city's old harbor. The lake used to defrost during the summer, but those days were long gone.
The girl was placed exactly at the center of a massive shape underneath the ice that looked like a closed eye. This was supposed to be the Sleeping God. She didn't believe it. Neither did the man that stayed with her. He was the only one who didn't get in the truck, because he had his own vehicle. He sat down on the ice beside her.
"Are you gonna kill me?" she asked the man.
"I don't think I'll have to," he replied as he lit a cigarette.
"You don't actually believe that dogshit, do you?" she asked him.
"Not really, no," he said as he huffed.
"What can I do? People like a little ceremony," he said as he looked over his shoulder to some faded blood stains on the ice, smeared towards the distant woods at the end of the lake.
The older man talked to her like a friendly uncle. He was well-dressed and gave off the impression that he could befriend anyone. The girl turned her head again. Looking away from the man.
She was tracking a local drug cartel but walked into a trap when she tried to meet her informant. They could've killed her by now but opted to offer her to the Sleeping God out of superstition. Or maybe nobody believed it, and they just liked this method more. She worked alone, so no one was going to come to her rescue. In addition to the restraints that bound her to the plank, her body was bruised all over from the beating she took from her assailants. She was already so cold she couldn't stand it. Even if nothing came for her, she would not take long to die.
"I like you," he said as he rubbed his cigarette on the ice.
"Bullshit! You did this!" she responded.
"I like watching you work. But now that I'm in charge, I cannot be selfish and play a cat and mouse game with you using my staff as coins," he said.
This man was now in charge after she killed the last boss. It took him less than two days to take the cartel's biggest headache to her own live funeral. Even if she managed to kill this guy too, there'd be an endless supply of people to take his place.
"As a token of my gratitude-" he stood up.
"-for everything you've given me, I mean. And I do mean it!"
"I will give you a chance and leave you be," he concluded.
"I know you'll figure something out. You always do," he said as he reached over and tapped her cheek. The one that wasn't touching the ice.
He walked over to his car and waved at her without looking back. Before he closed the door, the hand he was holding up turned into a thumbs up, then he pulled it shut and took off to go after his staff. The sound of his car got quieter until it disappeared.
The world was now completely silent. The Sleeping God site was far away from the city, and there was nothing nearby except the icy expanse. She turned her body again. No matter how she moved, she couldn't make out that whatever she could see underneath the ice was a supposed to be a closed eye. She'd have to stand up to get a better look, but she couldn't do that with her feet tied to the end of the plank.
She grunted as she tried to pull her hands and feet free with all the strength she could muster, but the restraints were solid. She didn't expect it to work anyway. The best she was able to do was roll over so she could look at the starry sky, which she did. The more time passed since the last car left, the more she was able to make out the sounds of her environment. She looked at the stars and listened to the universe, believing she would really die here. She tried to listen to any sounds coming from beneath the ice, from the supposed Sleeping God whose eye she was on top of, but didn't hear or feel anything. The girl wondered if she would even notice if it opened its eye and started second guessing herself, wondering if the local myth could be real.
The man said she would figure something out, but she didn't believe that at all. She never did anything special, bad people just had a tendency to run into the weapons she pointed at them.
A faint reddish pink object moved around in the sky, far away, approaching the city. It'd been a long time since she took the time to look at the sky like this. Was she noticing new things? She slowly moved her head up and looked at the sky behind her. Nothing strange happened there, just the stars like always. She looked back to find the object now circling around the city. She had no clue what it might be. Whatever it was, it just covered an incredible amount of distance while she was looking away. It circled round and round, but in a way that made it seem alive. It broke the loop and headed in her direction. She noticed the object gave the sky a pink hue wherever it went, almost like an aurora.
When it passed over her, she could see a humanoid figure with silver hair radiating all the colors of the rainbow around it. Or at least, that's what it looked like to her. She didn't know if she was hallucinating it. The figure had a sense of comfort to it, in the way it flew. It was relaxing to watch.
The object circled around an old, abandoned building at the edge of the woods a couple of times before it returned to take a detour back to the city. It either didn't seem to notice her or didn't care. She didn't know what to think anymore, maybe the cold was freezing her brain too. The girl looked back at the stars and decided she wasn't going to be alive anymore to discover what the object was.
Her calm moment was ruined by the sound of an explosion in the distance. The object had just fired a massive beam of laser at a gas pipeline that ran to the city above the ground. The object turned back in her direction again. The girl hadn't changed her state of mind much and experienced all this as more of a dream than reality. The object passed over her, ignoring her again, and touched down at the abandoned building. The reddish pink light was gone, now. She couldn't really form coherent thoughts about it anymore.
…
The girl opened her eyes and saw a pack of wolves circling her. Did she doze off? Was the figure in the sky a dream? More importantly, these wolves were here to take their prize. Whenever people were offered to the Sleeping God, they would always be taken by wolves from the woods. They might freeze to death first, but they'd always be taken. One of the wolves approached her and got close enough to sniff her face. All she could see was its snout covering up her field of view. She closed her eyes and accepted what was about to happen.
She felt a warm tongue on her face. The girl opened her eyes to find the wolf licking her. She almost looked disappointed at this. Were they going to lick her and then leave her to freeze anyway? More wolves from the pack came over to join in. If this was any other moment in her life before this one, she'd probably enjoy this more. One of the wolves started working on her restraints. Another followed. One by one the ropes tying her hands and feet to the plank came free, and she slowly sat upright. She couldn't believe what was happening. Some wolves were pressing their bodies against hers to warm her up. Some others were still licking her face. She moved her hand to start petting some of them.
The alpha wolf who'd been the first to start licking her, looked at the city, then back at her, as if to tell her where to go. That was going to be her plan anyway. The wolves stopped cuddling her and followed the alpha wolf back into the woods. She saw them off until she couldn't see them anymore. She wasn't that much warmer now than before and had to get back to safety soon. The girl rubbed her cheeks and got up.
She had to be careful on her way back. The man told her he expected she might escape, after all. He probably didn't think it would happen the way it did, though. She had no explanation for why the wolves helped her out. Didn't even have an affinity for animals like that, either. She walked with a broken piece of the plank in her hands that'd have to make do for self-defense. It was broken diagonally, so she had a pointy end to attack with. It wasn't that wide but could serve as a decent shield against bullets.
When she reached the old harbor, she saw her welcome party parked at the gate that led to the city. She wasn't confident about her chances at all, since her opponent was multiple steps ahead all the way through. Oddly enough, she felt a sense of relief at the sight of life, even if they were going to take hers. It made her feel less lonely. Her work had a twisted way of numbing her loneliness like that.
The man from before clapped with his hands above his head. He was sitting in front of a truck on a plastic camping chair, surrounded by armed staff. He turned to a man next to him who reluctantly handed him some cash.
"Thank you, dear," he told him as he stuffed the cash in his breast pocket.
"You almost-" the man stood up, and the chair stuck to him. He had to take it off his behind.
"You almost didn't make it on time! We agreed on an hour, we did," his finger went back and forth between himself and the other man.
"Young Lily here never had any doubt about you!" he kicked a girl who was lying in the snow, her head covered by a bag. He grabbed the hostage by the collar and pulled her upright.
"Or did you, Lily?" he pulled the bag off her head, revealing a girl with a lily in her hair.
"You're probably not really called Lily…"
The girl spoke: "It's-"
"-I don't want to know," the man said as he shoved her back down to the ground.
The girl looked at the hostage. 'Lily' was a waitress at a local restaurant that saw a lot of cartel traffic, the place she was ambushed at. Not surprising they'd have her. She'd meet with the girl behind the back for information about their shared enemy. Last night, the girl didn't show up and the rest is history.
"I see you brought a souvenir," he said as he pointed to her plank.
The girl gave the plank a pink hue when he said this. The man drew his gun, aimed at her plank and shot. He was quick, but she had ample time to block the path she guessed the bullet would take. Her guess was correct, and the plank blocked the bullet like it was made of steel. She only slightly recoiled from the impact.
"Never gets boring," he said as he smiled.
He lowered his gun, suggesting he wasn't going to shoot again. He looked left and right at his staff and repeatedly waved his hands upwards to tell them to get a move on. They spread out in an arc around her so they could shoot her from multiple directions at once. She gave the broken pointy bit of her plank a cyan hue, as a threat. But it was hollow. She couldn't do anything now. Her equipment was taken, and she was left with a stripped-down version of her normal attire.
The girl was out of options now. All she could think about was saving the innocent waitress. She didn't care about what happened to herself. She looked around her environment for anything she could use, but the man in front of her was smart. He probably prepared the scene well in advance. Her body felt heavy, and she still couldn't think straight after all this exposure to the cold, which was just getting worse.
The armed staff pointed their guns at her, and the two on the outside were going to hit her for sure. The man pointed his gun with them. He looked at the girl for a reaction but became displeased when she was neither looking at him nor cowering behind her makeshift shield. She was distracted and looked at the sky. He impatiently waddled forward to get a better view at whatever it was she saw.
"Excuse me, we are conducting an-" he stopped when he saw what she was looking at.
The girl thought she was hallucinating again. The figure from her dream floated above them and looked down at her. Glowing red hair, a black goth dress and a black tiara. It was holding a person upside down by their leg. Looked unconscious. Seeing the figure floating in the moonlight left her with a sense of awe, like she was witnessing a deity. The figure looked at her with great curiosity, then looked at the man when he stepped into view.
The man turned back to his staff and pointed up as he silently gestured "wow" with his lips.
"No…" the girl muttered. She realized what she saw wasn't a dream.
"The pipeline…"
The man looked at her when she said those words.
"You saw?" he asked her with a confused face, he pointed up at the figure like he was asking her if it was the culprit.
The girl nodded and the man looked back up again. He shook his head and gestured with his hand for the flying figure to come to him. It obeyed, and descended to the ground until it stood in between the girl and the man, not letting go of the leg of person it was holding. It was a young girl with blood splatters on her. It didn't look like the blood was her own. The figure's red hair stopped glowing and turned silver.
"That's better… I was about to ask…" he said as if it just took off a hood that obscured its face. He walked over to it.
"Now then. Did you or did you not destroy my pipeline, young lady?" he asked calmly. Hands folded behind his back. He completely ignored the figure's luggage on the ground.
The girl looked at the figure and saw that it looked otherwise human with its hair back to normal. Even around the same age as her. Well, almost human. The figure's arms had subtle panel gaps. Was it a robot?
It examined the people who were aiming guns at the girl a second ago, like it came to her rescue, but the girl wasn't so sure about that. It didn't answer the man's question. It didn't even give the impression that it heard the question at all. The man pointed his gun at its head, and his staff did the same.
"You're on the news, you know? Brought something with you. What is it?"
The girl had no idea what he was talking about. Did he know what the figure was? The man was visibly stressed now. Ever since he came into power, he'd been in complete control of every situation, leading to the events of tonight. This was the first time she ever saw him sweat. The destruction of the pipeline would plunge the whole city into the cold. This was an isolated location, and it took almost a full day to travel to the next town by car. As a result, the city was self-sustaining, but vulnerable.
"It's rude…"
The man moved his gun into the figure's mouth, which was somewhat opened, and inserted the nozzle as far as he could.
"…to do what you're doing."
The girl couldn't see the figure's face. Its head moved downward slightly, and the man looked surprised. He moved his gun to reveal it was missing the end that he'd inserted into the figure's mouth. Despite this, he didn't act like he considered the figure a threat and turned around to walk back to his staff, looking bewildered. He showed them the gun with the end bitten off. Behind him, the figure slowly took the end of the gun out of its mouth.
"My friends, I think we've got-"
The figure tossed it at the man's back, breaking his spine and launching him across the ground. The others didn't hesitate to unload their magazines at the figure and the girl jumped back with her shield up, trying not to catch any stray bullets. She could see the figure standing there like the bullets were nothing to it, and she saw the same kind of laser that destroyed the gas pipeline, but much smaller, cutting through the assailants in one sweep.
The girl didn't close her eyes and saw every detail of the massacre. The innocent waitress wasn't spared, and every person in the figure's field of view was cut in half in some way. Nothing about this made any sense, this thing didn't fit into the picture. What was it doing here? Was it even human? The girl felt an intense hatred for the thing. Why did she have to go through all this struggle tonight just for this thing to indiscriminately kill everybody like some drunk driver. Ten dead cartel members didn't compensate for one dead civilian.
She stared at the figure, and it stared back at her now. For the second time tonight, she felt like she was going to die. Maybe she was seeing things, but its pupils looked red, ready to cut her in half. Her power could theoretically block anything, including that laser, but her body was frozen in fear. The way it looked at her, it felt like that kind of logical thinking didn't apply here, and the laser beam was just a physical representation of this demonic being willing people to death. She couldn't really block that.
She didn't even notice the figure's hair had started glowing red again, and it floated up in the sky slowly, carrying its victim by the leg. It hadn't let go of the leg at all while it was on the ground.
The girl looked at the sky to see it fly. It was the same view she'd seen before, coloring the sky pink as it went. She was scared, powerless and seething with anger. She watched until the figure disappeared behind the city's skyline, then threw her stupid plank away. She got up and took a closer look at all the casualties. There was no mistaking it, all dead, including the poor waitress. She looked at the man who made her night so miserable. He seemed awfully insignificant now. There were so many factors to consider with her return to the city, back when he was still alive. Now things were different. She could go home and shower, bring her body back to the temperature it should be. Grab some gear. Then, she had to get her trusty cape back.
♦
"You're saying there's another being on this world that can do that?"
"I'm saying there's no evidence to the contrary and we have to consider it."
"So what about her appearance?"
"Again… So many things we don't know here…"
There was some pause before the host continued, and the sound of a page being turned.
"Most of our listeners voted on this theory. For good reason, too."
"People ignore that she was in custody at the time of the attack."
"But we know what she was arrested for!"
"It doesn't add up, man."
"Okay. Fine."
The sound of more pages being turned.
"Here's another one I thought was interesting; should there even really be a Sparkle Princess at all?"
"Absolutely."
"People believe she has the power to wipe out the entire human race."
"I think so too."
"You do?"
"Of course."
More pages being turned.
"Let me put it this way; it is a fact that there is something out there right now that looks and acts like her, and it might be able to kill us all."
"Yes."
"If the real Sparkle Princess is somehow not the same one, where is she?"
"I don't know…"
The sound of the radio filled the office at the top floor of the warehouse. The girl snuck inside to find the equipment that was taken from her, and to take out the remaining cartel members that hadn't heard anything from their leader for a while now.
She turned up the radio loud enough to mask gunfire and caught the attention of the two people in the room with her. She tossed a wire with a small weight at the end to the closest target, and it caught around their arm. When it started glowing blue, she tugged it and it cut the arm clean off.
The second target shot at her, but she'd come prepared with a temporary replacement for her cape. It glowed with a pink outline as it deflected the bullets like the plank did before. She held the fabric up as she ran at the target and tackled them to the ground, covering them with the cape. The target tried to shoot through the cape a couple more times, but the bullets failed to penetrate it. She took a knife from her belt and shoved it through the cape just as she undid the effect of her power, running it into the target. She pulled the knife out, turned to her previous target and tossed it into the side of their head.
Although she didn't relish any of this, she knew the people she was killing had done far worse to others, and she felt justified in her actions. She hurried to check all closets and cabinets in the room for her equipment. This continued throughout the rest of the warehouse until she found her prize: a tattered black cape. She swapped her temporary cape for it and felt like she'd just reunited with an old friend. This cape had visible damage and repairs all over it. The girl kept it appropriately sealed at all times, so it wouldn't have any openings when she used her power on it. It also had multiple layers, so it kept her nice and warm. The rest of her equipment included a lightweight umbrella she could mechanically spin, and a handgun. She didn't bother with the weapons dropped around her, she was attached to her own things.
When she left the warehouse the way she came, through the rooftop, the sun had already been up for a while. She didn't sleep, and her body was still bruised from everything that happened the night before. She felt the fatigue set in as she paused to let the sunlight hit her skin. She looked over at the distant star when its light was interrupted by the object she saw in the sky above the frozen lake. It looked blueish this time. She watched it land on one of the tallest buildings in the city. Her eyes filled with hatred and she decided she could go on a little longer without sleep.