Short People

”It’s been one week since you looked at me, cocked your head to the side and said ‘I’m angry’...”

Halloween Sonohara was in a bit of a bad mood, though you wouldn’t have known it to look at her in this moment. It was late, and she was on her way out of the Friction arena with a gym bag slung over her shoulders, earpods on both sides of her head, and a tune on her lip from her 90s playlist.  She skipped along to the tune, pigtails bobbing from side to side, ignoring the occasional odd glance from passerbys. A jovial way to be. Didn’t look too discontented.

”Five days since you laughed at me, something something, come back and see me…”

It was all just a facade, really. When Yuki got ticked off - truly ticked off - she found it helped to listen to a song she liked and sing it for a bit to clear her mind. Ones from her childhood were the best, and there was probably some deep seated, psychological reason for it that she wouldn’t have any patience for. Taking her back to simpler times, activating rusty parts of the brain, that kind of thing. Even if she was absolutely butchering the lyrics.

”Something something and watch the hoodwink, I’ll make your headshrink, it’s the finest of the flavors…”

The reason she was ticked off was because of a recent tiff with management over her current ‘kawaii’ classification. Halloween wanted to move up in the ranks - the legit, 100% ranks, to get her shot at the Entropy. That was just never going to happen as long as she was in the kawaii leagues, so she wanted to take on bigger badder opponents, to not get typecast as the little girl taking on little girls. But that was what they were pushing for with her, demanding that she take on at least one other kawaii before she moved on. That was the promise, but she had her strong doubts. Chances were they would try to string her along, throw another her way, then another.

Not a problem, though. She could always hash this out with her manager, work on a better deal.

...oh, wait, she didn’t have a manager, right. That sucked.

For the time being, Halloween was doing her best to throw all the stress out. All she wanted to do was walk home, get in her shower, get nice and clean and sleep like the dead until morning.

Tokyo was a safe city, in Halloween’s experience. She’d been to dangerous places, places where going to the wrong area at the wrong time of day was guaranteed to get you mugged. It wasn’t impossible for something bad to happen to you here, sure, but the place was well-lit most of the time, had lots of cops and cameras and all that shit. It made pickpocketing a pain, but she had to appreciate the opportunity to walk home at night, take a shortcut, and not have to watch her back every step of the way or listen out for strange sounds. It was a safe, quiet town.

Until Halloween turned a corner and found herself looking at this.

This, as it turned out, looked like something out of beat-em-up. One girl, in one of those flowy gown outfits, being ganged up on by several...who were these people? They all had matching outfits, so she figured there was a reason for that. A gang? Weirdest gang getup she’d ever seen. Most gangs she knew maybe made you get a tattoo or something when you joined up, this one had a dress code.

So, there was that question, but there was a bigger, more important one: What was she going to do about this? Because she had to do something. Something. The girl in the gown was fighting back, but she was outnumbered, big time.

Intervene.

Halloween dropped her gym bag, rushed to the side, and picked up a trashcan lid laying off to the side near a dumpster. She took aim, stepped back, then flung it at the nearest pink-and-black, looking to hit her upside the head with it like she was flinging a discus.

Halloween’s plan, in a nutshell: 1) Get the bad guy’s attention.

She had been successful in that part, congratulations. Her trashcan attack had proven to be effective - who knew that throwing metal objects into people’s skulls at high speeds was a good way to knock them out? That was a bonus, thinning the ranks a little bit, but now it meant that she had to deal with the other goons.

So, step 2, which was...huh. Hadn’t gotten that far into the plan yet, but that was okay. She could improvise.

She had a little time to do that, too, because the thugs hit the pause button, panicking, almost as confused as she was. What was more, the girl they were taking on didn’t seem all that bothered by the situation, which was more than a little creepy, but there was no time to process that too much - now was the time for moving, running, dodging, attacking.

Figuring it was best to work with the element of surprise, Halloween rushed in at full speed, leaping up and grabbing a trash bag out of the dumpster as she passed. She tossed it at the nearest goon, and it was angrily smacked out of the way an instant later - but an instant was all Halloween needed to leap up, shoot her legs out, and hit her in the chest with a dropkick, bowling her over.

Okay, this was kinda fun. A little scary, yeah, dealing with potentially dangerous thugs who could’ve been carrying who-knew-what-the-fuck, but in a fun way. Reminded her of the games she used to play when she was super little. Comix Zone, Streets of Rage…

It left her feeling a bit giddy, as she and - who was this? Halloween hadn’t gotten her name, but she guessed it didn’t matter, could come after they were done cleaning house. Her ‘partner’ asked if she was good for one more, and she responded by charging forward, making a beeline straight for the alleyway rat on the left. The girl swung for her face, but that was the thing about being so short: It made ducking so easy. She dipped down, avoiding the attack by a wide margin, and brought her arm swinging low, coming up right between her enemies’ legs.

Yeah. She did like that. The awkward sound she made on impact was a pretty good indicator of that. This warbling, undignified kind of sound, but it was one that they didn’t have to hear for too long.

As the woman bent over, Halloween took the opportunity to reach up, grab her hair, and pulled her face against the top of her skull. With her close, she kicked out her legs and dropped flat on her butt, smashing their heads together and making her take the brunt of the pain - her finishing move, the Skullbreaker. It laid the thug out in an instant, leaving her to flop around on the cement. ”Gotcha, bitch!”

With her playmate done for the day, Halloween scrambled to her feet and looked at the other girl, making sure she was okay, seeing if she was handling business on her own. Given the trend so far…

”Wooooooooo!”

Halloween threw both her fists in the air and bounced as they finished off the last of the...whoever these guys were. She still didn’t know what their deal was, but screw it. This was one of those ‘girl power’ moments she’d heard so much about, and she was totally feeling it, all kinds of awesome.

She was throwing a few shadow punches where the other woman called her name out, and she turned her way with a hop. Huh, one of the thugs was still among the waking. Should they call the police? She felt like they should be calling the police.

”Huh?” She straightened up, planting her hands on her hips. ”Oh, yeah, totally. Dusted Gallium pretty badass.” Probably wasn’t nearly as impressive as she often tried to make it come off, but she’d roll with it. She flicked a finger towards her companion. ”You look a little familiar, too, didn’t catch your name.”