Frontier Town Civic Courtyard

[canisaries]

Andre froze, caught too off guard by what was happening to resist. He was expecting disgust - or, less likely, a 'hell yeah' - but not this.

"Wh- the Combs?" he got out, his little deer heart racing. "The Combs just showed me some random shit from Ridley's life. I didn't learn anything about you over there." Although he was now very, very curious. But he knew it would have been a very poor idea to ask right now.

 

[Sinderella]

Her eyes bore into his, willing some sort of answer that would stop her from beating his head in. She almost couldn’t hear his response over the blood pulsing against her ears, or the ragged breaths tearing their way out of her lungs.

However, when his answer registered with her, the rage was scooted off her face by a slowly rising horror. “You…you didn’t see anything from my…?” she tried to ask, the words petering out as her tongue started to dry up again. Then why had he…?

Was this just a coincidence? Had he just decided to drop this information on her just because he needed someone else to clue in for Ridley’s ultimatum? He just happened to be a serial killer of abusers who sought her, a victim of abuse, out to let her know about his affairs by complete luck of the draw?

She loosened her grip on him, eyes focusing on the shock on his face as she took a step back. She couldn’t decide what to put all of her upset energy into; the fact that she really did empathize with him, or the fact she’d just put herself on blast for him. Regardless, both would garner the same reaction.

Odette, I think you might be having a psychotic break.

She spun away from Andre, Moltres’s wrathful flames cascading down her arms. The word “FUCK!” clawed out of her in a scream, and she let the fire loose on the closest bush she could find, watching with wide eyes and clenched teeth as it disintegrated into nothing more than a pile of ash and charred twigs.

They could fine her for damages. She didn’t care.

She breathed out the rest of her frustration, eventually settling into pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger. She hoped the gesture would help pause her brain, but the thoughts continued to tear through her mind like a tornado through a cornfield. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

When she was sure she was mostly composed, smoldering eyes cut back to Andre, glaring smoke, daggers, and reluctant curiosity at him.

“How many?” she bit out. “And what had they done?”

 

[canisaries]

Andre watched with unease as the mawile torched the bush. He hoped that wouldn't be him soon.

At her question, he swallowed and cleared his throat. "As of now... nine. They'd done... physical and verbal abuse - on exes, siblings, pokémon on their team. Sexual grooming, harassment, assault. Hate crimes on the street. And all were unrepentant. All of them."

But there were more, weren't there?

"Then... two more," he said, speaking fast, feeling the heat of Odette's eyes boring into him. "One I paid for a hit on. That was the first one. He was my little sister's ex who abused and extorted her. Then another... another was bragging about rape in a bar. When I saw him on the street, I couldn't let him get away. I stabbed him with his own knife."

 

[Sinderella]

First it was nine. Then it was 11. More than her.

Hate crimes, grooming, assault, abuse, extortion, rape. Deserved.

He hired a hit on one of them. The one he seemed to be closest to, so maybe that was to better cover tracks? Why did it matter? He hired a fucking hitman to kill someone; that’s illegal. Bad.

But it was someone deplorable; someone who deserved it.

The thought of someone, like Deschamps, doing what he did, then going to a bar to brag about it? With the amount of victims he had, who’s to say he didn’t ever do that? Why hadn’t anyone ever fucking stabbed him with his own knife?

Deserved. Deserved.

MONSTER.

“One you paid for a hit on…” she repeated, reaching up to rub her forehead. So much for giving her something to help her not think about the Combs. She was thinking about them more than she had been to start.

“Why? I understand…or…I can parse the thing with your sister. But the others? Do you just off these fuckers for fun? You’re a psychopath with an MO for hunting other psychopaths? Or are you—” She choked over the word, and held her fingers over her mouth to compose herself.

“Did something happen to you?”