Shiva Maddox // D2 // FIN

It was late at night.

Innocent bypassers were a rare sight right now, not just because it was late at night but also due to the area I was in, or rather, leaving. My trainer lives around these parts, a shady neighborhood in a house falling apart like the dummies in them did from the gore they undergo thanks to his apprentices.

A house falling apart like I did long ago. Thanks to my parents and training, however, I've not only regained my footing but also earned a tough shell from the days, months, years of trying to perfect my skill as a Career. I may not look like one at first glance, especially because of the appearance of my skin, but you don't have to bring it up to me. I'm well aware of it.

It's the reason why I lacked an exoskeleton in the first place, but I've found it now. Don't try to bring me back into that dark place, break the shell, bend the covering through what you see here on the surface of me, because you'll fail miserably in not just achieving that but also in keeping your life--


It's really easy for others to pinpoint me as their target of malevolent scrutiny, isn't it? Not for my narrow, almond-shaped eyes of brown; not for my small but wide bulb-shaped nose; not for my beestung lips or oblong face shape, or even my milky mocha skin but instead for the streaks on it that I've had ever since I was born.

It's what makes me the subject of attention for the wrong reasons everyday, from long, judgmental looks to attempts at further coloring my complexion with droplets of crimson, airbrushed black and blue or harsh blobs of purple. My marked pigmentation is not your plaything. You don't get to draw or paint upon it however you wish because it isn't yours to lay your grimy little hands on, it's mine.

Those that are too dense to get it, thinking my frame is too slim and I seem too girly and weak despite my fairly tall height, to do a thing about them soiling my dermis with their tainted, baleful tips, they lose all hope of redemption. They had put themselves out there on territory they were forbidden to set their foot on, so they're too far in to back out now.

They become my canvas for me to play with, for me to do whatever I wish without their consent. I can make my work of art quick and simple, leaving a few strokes of ruby across it, or I can turn it into a mural. They can cry out all they want if their throat hasn't been slit yet, but no one will hear them because I make sure no one will.


Now it's my turn to color these dickheads the way they sweeped my form with their hues of torment back then. I take great satisfaction in stabbing dark smudges out of them, bruising them with compressed cool and neutral colors, leaving them a grotesque and mangled masterpiece for me to admire seconds before disposing of their beautifully mutilated corpses as I quickly get bored of boring my sight into them.

They thought they could torture me forever, maybe even kill me. Leave their words sharp as blades floating and circling in my head, leave their multitude of inflicted scars and contusions throughout my figure and leave me permanently damaged in mind, body, and soul. They thought they could break me.

They thought sweet, innocent, friendly, shy little Shiva could be taken down, but they were wrong. She survived, she was mentored into becoming the person she feared her entire life, launching and landing weapons at dummies filled with fake blood. She only got better, and better and better and better and now she's evolved into the person she is today, ready to get her revenge on those that wronged her, those that dare get in her way those that dare get on her bad side--


No.

They won't, and they never will escape from my clutches.

There's no way out of the sins that you commit, there never was and there never will be.

There's no way out of that target on your back for them, either.

But I am not only a competent, vindictive Career.

I am a vigilante, one who seeks justice for physical, verbal, psychological damage dealt on those who are different from the norm, by the norm.



I turn and pass through an alleyway, taking a shortcut to reach home sooner than later. It's just my luck though when I quickly find out I'm not alone, and I cut myself short in front of a few shady guys occupying the strip between two buildings. The closest guy side-eyes me, looking me up and down with a cocky sneer on his face.

"Where do you think you're going, cow?"

The two guys behind him, one leaning against the wall of one of the buildings and the other sitting down next to him, laugh at the insult. They rise and go to stand behind the first one on either side as he approaches me. We lock gazes, and I narrow my eyes at him with an expression as cold as his breath which hits me each time he exhaled. The wavy black hair that streams itself down to my chest sways gently in the cool night breeze while he leans in towards me, further invading my space as his features intensify the mockery they're displaying.

"You think you can just pass through my turf and get away with it? ...Why I oughtta teach your cattle-lookin' ass a lesson."

We stay like this for a few moments until I abruptly and swiftly brandish my knife, carving across his throat.

"GKKCH--!"

His goons watch in horror as I smirk broadly at their friend-turned-victim, taking a quick glance their way.

I am Shiva Maddox, and I don't take anybody's bullshit anymore.