The officer lay on the ground, clutching his side, blood leaking between his fingers in sluggish pulses. The woman—Sheila—stood frozen, her mind still catching up to the violence unfolding around her.

But the Bloodletter didn’t care.

Not about them.
Not about the throwing stars embedded in his arm.
Not even about the pain lancing up to his shoulder with every movement.

No—his focus was singular.
Locked.
Unshakable.

All he saw was her.

The Vulpes.

The meddler.
The defiler.
The woman who had dared to interrupt his masterpiece. To spit on his art. To spoil the perfect moment of release.

With practiced ease, he drew a throwing axe from a loop on his belt and sent it spinning through the air with a clean, tight rotation—aimed dead center at her chest.

She moved fast—faster than most—but not to dodge.

Instead, she dropped low and flared her cape wide, the thick fabric snapping open like the wings of some great, dark bird. The axe buried itself deep in the reinforced weave with a heavy thwack, its momentum yanked short inches from her chest.

She grimaced. The maneuver had cost more energy than she would’ve liked. Her cape was weighted and lined for gliding, not catching hatchets. But she hadn’t dared risk the officer behind her catching the blade instead.

Her mind was already shifting into combat mode. Assessing.

He was fast.
Too fast.
Not just some theatrical slasher with a flair for drama—he knew how to throw.

That kind of form took discipline.
Practice.
Training.

And he wasn’t done.

He followed the axe with a forward surge, low and fast like a striking wolf. The stiletto in his dominant hand gleamed with the thirst of unfinished violence, while his off-hand drew a thick-bladed combat knife—wide-spined, heavy, its brass handguard gleaming like a knuckle-duster.

She twisted her body, throwing herself into a sideways dive. It wasn’t elegant—but it worked. The stiletto slashed the air where her ribs had been a heartbeat before.

Too close.

She landed in a roll and came up low, eyes never leaving him.

He didn’t swing the off-hand knife.

Not even a feint.

He’s not wasting movement, she realized. *He’s conserving energy. Reading me. That guard—he’s not using it to punch. He’s using it to block. *

This wasn’t a wild killer.
This was a tactician.

She’d fought plenty of maniacs. But this?

This was a killer with discipline.

She was fast—he knew she would be.

But she was also foolish.

Risking herself for the dying man bleeding out behind her? Sentimentality. Weakness dressed as heroism. The kind of hollow gesture that made his stomach turn.

To the Bloodletter, it was laughable.

Pointless.

A wasted brushstroke on a ruined canvas.

He advanced again—quick and aggressive. No grand flourishes. Just tight, punishing thrusts with the stiletto, aimed to press her back, force her into retreat.

He had the height.
He had the reach.
And he intended to use both.

Each jab came sharp and deliberate—probing for an opening, a stutter in her defense, a slip in her rhythm. He wanted to see her stumble. Wanted to see that bright orange costume torn and dripping red. Wanted to stain her. To leave his mark on the symbol she wore like a badge.

But she wasn’t breaking.

She was breathing hard but calm. Stepping light, staying off center, never giving him a clean line. Her movements were efficient, economical—almost like she’d trained to fight someone exactly like him.

Still, he pressed her.

He could feel it—an edge forming. One more second. One more step.

Just one mistake.

And he’d carve it into her.

Vulpes fell back, the needlepoint of the stiletto flashing like a live wire—beautiful, deadly, and unforgiving. One clean hit at a joint or seam, and even her custom body armor would fold. That kind of blade didn’t need brute force; it only needed precision.

Worse still, the alley worked in his favor. Tight quarters. No room to circle or slip away. He moved like he owned the space, using his size to dominate the flow of movement. Each step forward from him was one less she had to give.

She gritted her teeth. It was times like this she thanked her grandfather—and the one lesson that had saved her more than once:

When the odds are against you?
Cheat early. Cheat often. Cheat like a proper bastard.

She dipped low, snapping a fast kick at his leg. He shifted, absorbing the strike and rolling with it—just like she expected. She wouldn’t have complained if he went down, but she wasn’t counting on luck to save her tonight.

She noted the armor—lightweight, piecemeal. Black market or repurposed, maybe even handmade. Good for movement. Bad for defense. Trade-offs. Ones she was intimately familiar with.

More mobility meant less fatigue.
Less fatigue meant more aggression.
But it also meant—less protection.

As he moved with the kick, her hand shot out.

From her palm, a small cluster of pellets burst forth—click-thrown from a concealed wrist-slot. His instincts kicked in—he raised an arm, guarding his face.

The flash hit a split second later.

A brutal, eye-watering burst of white light. The alley lit up like lightning.

Her lenses auto-polarized.
His didn’t.

She saw it instantly—that flinch, that stumble. One step back, one blink too long.

Got you.

She surged forward.

Now was the time. Inside his guard. Inside his reach. She had to disarm or disable him fast. The man the media called The Bloodletter was no mere lunatic—he was a surgical monster. And one mistake was all it would take for her story to end in this alley.

Not tonight.

Not his way.

Her grandfather had taught her the first martial art she’d ever known—the one etched deepest into muscle memory, into instinct.

Defendu.

No flourishes. No wasted motion. Just raw, brutal efficiency designed to end a fight before it began. Every movement was built for survival—cripple, blind, disable, escape. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.

And now?

Now the Bloodletter was about to get a lesson in just how brutal she could be when she got inside the reach of a blade.

She closed the distance like a coiled spring released—low and fast, elbow tight, center of gravity anchored. No battle cry. No wasted breath.

Just purpose.

He should have expected the flash pellets.

Still, better his arm take the brunt than his eyes catch a full blast. A small trade-off, but costly all the same. The world was a haze now—vision smeared white, swimming with bright ghosts and afterimages.

But the moment told him something important.

She wasn’t a fool.

The Vulpes wasn’t just a costumed meddler playing hero in a borrowed legacy. No—she was an artist too. Haplessly banal, perhaps. Deluded in her moral crusade to preserve life instead of explore its transience. But an artist nonetheless.

And now, with his sight scrambled, he was left on a desperate defense. Blinded. Vulnerable.

He braced.

The first blow came like a hammer.

It slammed into his side—low, brutal, precise. A kidney shot. He staggered, biting down a grunt. Her gloves were reinforced. Had to be. That kind of force didn’t come from a normal fist alone.

She was shorter than him by a solid six inches, at least fifty pounds lighter, but in that moment, none of that mattered. Because her strikes had purpose. Each one was calculated, placed with surgeon’s precision—just like his own.

She fought like she’d studied men like him. Like she’d trained to take apart someone bigger, stronger, and more dangerous.

He smiled beneath the mask, even through the pain.

Because she was forcing him to grow.

To adapt.

To evolve.

She was pushing him beyond stagnation and mediocrity. Past the comfort of easy prey. He was still furious—enraged that she had ruined his work. But even so…

He couldn’t help but delight in what she had become.

Then the scream came.

The woman in heels—the bystander—let out a raw, high wail. A shockwave of panic that cracked through the alley like glass.

Bloodletter cursed under his breath.

It shattered his last defense—his hearing, already strained, now overwhelmed. The sound drowned out Vulpes’ next move, robbing him of the only cue he had left.

And she took advantage.

Her next strike came high—a clean blow to the temple. His armored mask caught the worst of it, but that hadn’t been her goal.

The vibration was.

The impact rattled through his skull, a burst of disorientation spreading like wildfire behind his eyes. He reeled, and then another blow landed on the opposite side—another weighted fist, another calculated strike. The Fox wasn’t just attacking him.

She was stacking pain.
Layering disorientation.
One staggered breath at a time.

He was reeling—and she was still coming.

She pressed the attack.

There was no hesitation—couldn’t be. Her grandfather’s voice rang clear in her memory: Press every advantage. Never relent. Not until the threat is down and the job is done.

And the Bloodletter?

He was still a threat.

Her fists flew, methodical and merciless, every strike meant to push him one step closer to collapse. She could feel it now—his rhythm breaking, his confidence faltering, the sharp edge of his assault dulled by the storm she brought down on him.

Then she struck high.

Her fist lashed out—quick, brutal, and aimed with clinical precision.

Throat strike.

It landed clean.

Bloodletter didn’t just flinch—he staggered. His footing slipped, his shoulders tensed, and for the first time in the fight, he looked genuinely rattled. He wheezed, tried to recover, but the damage was done. His body had started to betray him.

He stayed standing—barely.

But she could see it in his frame now. The tilt in his stance. The stutter in his breath. She was taking him apart.

Piece by piece.

His vision was finally starting to return, the blinding haze of the flash pellets fading into dim, ragged shapes. But the rest—the helmet-rattling strikes, the kidney shot, the throat punch—those weren’t so easy to shake.

Each breath came shallow, strained, his airway bruised and rebelling.

But pain? Pain was mechanical.

He’d known it all his life.

From the hard winters on the farm to the harder fists of classmates. Especially after the incident—the one that started it all. The cat. The moment curiosity and cruelty intertwined. Watching the life leave its eyes. The stillness. The beauty.

That was when they started calling him a monster. A freak. A psychopath.

Therapy followed. So did the punishment. The smug voices telling him his art was disgusting. His truth—wrong.

He never forgot that.

And he never forgave it.

His rage didn’t burn. It cooled. Refined into something sharp.

Even now—dizzy, wheezing, barely on his feet—Bloodletter’s retaliation wasn’t wild. It wasn’t desperate.

It was calculated.

With precision, he snapped his boot back just slightly—subtle, practiced. A blade retracted from the toe with a soft click, unseen beneath the chaos. Then, with coiled fury, he launched a sudden slashing kick.

She reacted on instinct, twisting away, trying to take the blow where her armor was thickest.

But the blade was narrow—made for penetration, not slashing. A sharpened spike more then a knife edge.

It caught her along the forearm.

Crack.

Her vambrace split with a sharp fracture, and she hissed in pain, jerking back as blood welled to the surface.

His leg snapped back, stance resetting with frightening speed.

And behind his mask, his cold blue eyes gleamed.

She was bleeding.

He had marked her.

A fresh rush of endorphins surged through him, tangled with adrenaline and twisted satisfaction. It was all he needed—fuel for his second wind. A shift in tempo. A reversal in the narrative.

The fox had teeth.

But the butcher had just drawn first blood.

And now?

Now it was his turn to create.

She winced.

He hadn’t just tagged her—he’d caught her clean. Got the drop on her.

A boot blade.
Old trick.

But old tricks stuck around for a reason: they worked.

She cursed herself for not spotting it. A flicker of frustration behind her eyes, gone as quickly as it came. She couldn’t afford distraction—not with him.

Her arm throbbed. Hot. Sharp.

But not deep. The cut was manageable. Her vambrace had taken the worst of it, even cracked. Still, it could’ve been worse.

And the fact that he was still standing—still fighting—after the punishment she’d laid into him?

That spoke volumes.

About his endurance.
About his pain tolerance.
About the way his twisted mind processed suffering.

She allowed herself a half-second of grim realization: this man’s relationship with pain isn’t reactive—it’s fuel.

The boot blade was more than a warning—it was instruction.

He had hidden weapons.

Probably more of them.

And that made this alley fight—already vicious—something far more dangerous than it had seemed at first.

The stiletto came next.

Vulpes had hoped to disarm him early in the fight, but he’d never let go of that weapon. His grip was iron—either from discipline, or from something so unhinged it looked like discipline.

She was back on her heels again, forced to redirect and deflect every sharp, surgical thrust. She had to be ready not just for the blade in his hand, but the one in his boot—or whatever else he had tucked out of sight. Fighting him was like dodging scalpels in a closet.

She tried to parry—but too slow.

Pain bloomed across her side as the blade scraped against her armor. It tore fabric and scoring plates but didn’t bite flesh. Close. Too close.

Worse, he wasn’t just attacking—he was herding her. Driving her backward toward a dumpster, trying to box her in. Shrink the battlefield. Leave her with nowhere to go. No angles. No air.

And beyond all that—the officer.

Somewhere just beyond her peripheral vision, the woman in heels—the one who’d screamed—had crept to his side, trying to stop the bleeding. A good Samaritan in a scene that had no room for them. Vulpes registered it with a flicker of grim admiration.

But if she couldn’t stop Bloodletter—none of them were making it out.

On the ground, Officer McDonald gritted his teeth through the pain.

“Radio,” he rasped. “Hit the button.”

Sheila blinked—unsure why she hadn’t run. Why was she still here? Why was she trying to keep a cop, of all people, from bleeding out while two costumed maniacs tried to kill each other. But her hands moved anyway, instinct and adrenaline guiding her.

She reached up and pressed the call button on his shoulder radio.

“Dispatch,” McDonald hissed, voice ragged but sharp. “Officer down. Alley behind Ninth and Fenley. Require immediate medical and tactical backup.”

Bloodletter registered it.

The shift. The threat.

His awareness was always sharp—as sharp as his blades. He drew back, calculating, recognizing how fast this moment could turn against him.

Vulpes reacted instantly, launching an aggressive strike, trying to capitalize before the window closed. But he was ready. He caught her momentum with his parrying knife—deflecting her cleanly—and in a single motion, dropped it.

His hand went to his hip.

Gun.

Her eyes widened.

She lunged, reaching for his wrist as the revolver came up—

BOOM.

The shot cracked the air like a thunderclap. Not aimed at her.

The bullet struck Sheila. Her shoulder exploded in a burst of blood. She screamed and crumpled to the ground beside McDonald, who instinctively shielded her as best he could with his body.

Vulpes’ gut twisted.

Bloodletter’s voice followed—flat, cold, surgical:

“Me or them, Vulpes. Take your pick.”

She responded with a kick, driving space between them. Just enough to keep him from lining up another shot.

Her heart pounded.

The cop was down. The girl was down. They needed first aid now—but if she let Bloodletter go, there’d be more. So many more.

It was a no-win situation.

Exactly the kind he thrived in.

He hated guns.

The noise. The vulgarity. The lack of elegance. But sometimes, he reminded himself, an artist had to make concessions. If he wanted to keep creating he couldn’t be caught. Couldn’t be caged. Not now. Not before the world saw what he was capable of.

His work had been ruined tonight. Vulpes had defaced his piece.

But he could still write his name in blood—if only by testing her.

Testing the depths of her so-called heroism.

Would she chase him?

Or save them?

Let’s see what kind of artist the Fox really is.

For a moment, the world blurred—not for Vulpes, but for Coraline.

Memories surged unbidden, sharp and aching. Not of training. Not of tactics.

Of loss.

The day her grandfather died—senseless, cruel. A drive-by shooting in the escalating war between the Italian and Irish syndicates. Wrong place. Wrong time. One moment they were walking back from the park, laughing about nothing. The next—gunfire. Screams. Blood.

She’d been trained. She’d been tough. She’d thought she was strong.

But that day, she was just a teenage girl.

Just a granddaughter who lost the one person who believed in her more than anyone else ever had.

She felt a rare surge of panic rise like bile. Cold. Unstoppable.

I couldn’t save him.

But she could save these two.

She snapped her hand to her belt and pulled a metal tube—no larger than a soda can. Bloodletter’s instincts kicked in the second it cleared her side. He moved, jerking back, but not fast enough. She drove it at his chest with fury and precision.

He dodged high, the first swing missing his throat by inches.

Then the strikes came fast. Hard. Ruthless.

He recognized it now—he’d hit something deep. This wasn’t just the Fox fighting to win.

This was her trying to end it.

And for the first time, he wondered—Was she willing to kill?

Was the Vulpes, for all her theatrics and conviction, capable of crossing the line if pushed far enough?

He didn’t get time to wonder.

Because she found her opening.

And drove the tube straight into his shoulder.

CLACK.
WHAM!

Agony. Pure. Blinding.

His armor shattered like brittle bone. Pain lanced down his arm and he dropped the revolver, fingers spasming.

He staggered back. Looked down.

Steel.

A climbing piton. Punched straight through his shoulder. Clean entry, brutal exit. The spike jutted out the back of his body, dripping his blood.

A ragged, disbelieving laugh hissed through his mask.

She was calm as she reloaded the device.

Silent. Cold. Certain.

The yellow lenses of her mask locked on him with the kind of certainty that stripped illusions bare. That piton wasn’t a threat.

It was a promise.

She would kill.
She would cripple.
Without hesitation.
If it meant saving innocent lives.

He felt something unexpected—disappointment.

So she wasn’t as black-and-white as he thought. Not just a do-gooder in bright colors. Not just another lecture in spandex. She was more complex.

More interesting.

A rival worth studying.

And so—he vanished.

A pin dropped from his fingers, and the grenade clinked between them.

PSSSSHHHHT!

A bloom of thick smoke erupted. She lunged through the cloud, eyes locked on the trail of blood—but struck nothing. Air. Fog. Silence.

She adjusted her lenses, cycling through visual filters—thermal, motion, IR—but by the time her vision cut through the smoke…

He was gone.

She cursed under her breath.

But turned immediately.

No hesitation.

She dropped to one knee beside the officer and the young woman cradled against him, blood soaking through her shirt.

McDonald was half-conscious, eyes barely open. Sheila was gasping, teeth clenched against the pain.

Vulpes didn't have the luxury of pursuit.

Not when lives still hung in the balance.

Not again.