Sophie Zukuska was not from around here. It was more obvious from her name than her appearance. She was taller than most girls around, but so long as nobody looked too close, she looked Japanese enough. More than her mother or sister anyway. She’d spent a good chunk of her youth living in Poland with her parents. After her father's death, her mother had moved her and her older sister back to Japan. Her father had made sure to press the importance of learning English.

She could watch English movies and television without much difficulty. It had also led to her current position as a university English teacher. Her sister had rejected several teaching jobs, believing being an English teacher was the ‘easy’ path for foreigners. She wasn’t wrong necessarily, Sophie just didn’t see any point in deliberately making her life difficult.

Up until today, if you’d asked her to recount the most interesting anecdote from her life, she would have told you about the time mold took over her family's apartment. It was mostly inside the walls, so it wasn’t entirely clear what had been causing her headaches in her mom’s office until the super drilled a hole in the wall and half a gallon of water had spilled out onto the floor. They didn’t live there much longer.

Still nothing compared to today, where she’d been assailed by an honest to Odin Japanese gang. One that was quickly pummeled by a pair of Jjapanese biker chicks seemingly on their own. They seemed to be helping her, which was good. Why they were carrying her into a bookstore, she had no idea. An older asian woman sat behind the counter in a wheelchair. The look on her face was very hard to read but she got into what Sophie gathered was a rather heated argument. It was too rapid fire, and her Japanese wasn’t nearly strong enough to follow it.

The conversation with my mother could have gone better. I had to repeatedly remind her not to strain herself. She’d been confined to a wheelchair to lower the stress on her heart. I really hoped I hadn’t undone all that, bringing this girl back with me. Eventually I got her to calm the freak down long enough to carry her upstairs. Blast helped her up onto my couch. She was oddly quiet. “Are you alright?” She looked at me like she was straining to understand. I looked at her closer and I really started to notice her features were… off somehow.

“Foreigner?” I asked, pointing at her. She nodded. “Hello.” She said in English and punctuated it with a small wave.

“Hello.” I repeated waving back like a dork. Ugck I felt like such a dork. I went to sort through the medicine cabinet and grabbed a pair of pain relievers and a glass of water. I handed her one with the glass, and she took it without much hesitation. I popped the other one in my mouth and finished off the water.

She dabbed at her ankle lightly.

“Are you alright?” she asked again in English.

“Yeah, just a bit sore.” I rubbed the spot where I got hit. I pulled up my shirt to look at the spot. It was red but there didn’t seem to be any bruising. The girl was looking away with a mild blush. I pulled my shirt back down. It wasn’t a very ladylike thing to be doing. I’d been spending too much time around that damn aggravating tomboy.

“Eh… sorry” I rubbed the back of my head.

“Thank you.” That was not the reply I was expecting.

“Thanks for helping me back there.” I wasn’t really sure what to say.

“We were on our way to deal with those guys anyway.” She tugged on my sleeve.

“Still, you saved me. Thank you.” I wasn’t really sure what to do with that, It was my first real fight and I’d nearly got the stuffing knocked out of me. Blast had done most of the actual work and hadn’t she been terrified of me just a bit ago? I audibly sighed at my inability to understand women sometimes... I also really hoped she didn’t take the sigh the wrong way. The last thing I wanted was to make her feel like a burden.

I stammered, looking for the words in English. “It wasn’t any big deal. Uhm… you can rest here for as long as you need.” I hoped that was good enough. Blast had been waiting patiently by the door.

“I should really try to explain things to my mom before we leave.” I whispered.

Blast nodded and we headed back downstairs.

Sakiko stepped out the front of the shop as my mother waved her off, seems my mother had decided to close up early... At least this conversation wasn’t going to take place in front of any customers. I knelt down next to my mother’s wheelchair carefully, meanwhile she decided to land a karate chop down on the top of my head.

“What is she doing in my house!?” She hissed at me.

“It's alright, she’s just a girl we saved from a gang that was harassing her.”

My mother shook her head and pointed at Blast. “I mean what is SHE doing here?”

I rubbed my temple. “Mom, it’s Nana, Nana Park? remember?”

She glared at me.

“I know WHO she is, I’m asking what she is doing here now?”

Blast picked up the conversation before I could. “Protecting your daughter. It’s what you pay us for.” It was remarkably quick thinking for the biker.

“Look, mom...” She was going to find out eventually,. I was just going to have to power through it. Any bullshit I tried to spin her would only make her worry more.

“I’m going to fight for the Dragon. We won’t have to pay protection anymore and I’ll get a cut of the take.” My mother sneered at me.

“Money extorted from our friends and neighbors.” The look on her face was disgust and anger, her arms slumped.

“Get out.”

She pointed to the door. “Get out!”

I glanced at Blast who was already moving toward the door. I choked back the lump in my throat and headed out after her. My mother didn’t look at me as I walked out. I sighed hard as the door clattered shut, and Blast tapped me on the shoulder. “Yeah it wasn’t much different with my mom. You can bunk at my place for a while.” I took a deep breath. I may not have fully considered what was going to happen if my mom kicked me out. I hadn’t considered she WOULD kick me out. I whined to myself. I was becoming Nana. I didn’t wanna be Nana.

It really got me thinking about Ms. Park and her feelings...

I slapped my forehead. I really should have thought this through ahead of time. I was so caught up in my thoughts, I almost didn’t notice the street ahead of us was not empty.

“You’re gonna pay!” yelled the largest of the gang members. Five of them, each with a blue handkerchief around their arms stood ahead of us. Two more stood behind us. Blast let out a hearty chuckle.

“You know, you might be right. If I hadn’t spotted your dumbasses lurking from upstairs.” While Blast was giving her speech, the sound of a car’s engine grew very loud as it sped in our direction. The pink van swerved around so the back door opened out toward us. From the back of the ice cream van, a tall woman with silver hair dropped out. Blast laughed so hard she nearly toppled over. Xianying smiled at the group. Behind her, a figure in a dark jacket with the hood up stepped out of the van.

“I’ll leave these two with you three.” Xianying said stepping aside for her companion to pass by. The hooded figure slammed her hands together and called out in a familiar voice

“Blue is her favorite color… You don’t deserve it!”

Three of the punks spun around to face the new challenger. The four remaining closed in on me and Blast.

“Kairi, get behind me!” I took up position back to back with Blast as we’d practiced. One of the punks in front of me took a swing and I knocked it out of the way with my elbow. Fortunately, I was small enough that his buddy couldn’t get past him to help, giving me the advantage even if my back was to a wall. Fortunately, that wall was Blast and she’d already given one of her assailants a bloody nose. The closer of the two swung in again, just barely missing me as I was able to grab onto the fabric of his t-shirt. Although, he did seem to resist being pulled in, or he didn’t realize I was about to land a haymaker with my free hand, which popped him in the eye. He wailed and stumbled backward out of my reach. His buddy filled the gap quickly and tried to grab my arm. I went low and fired off a shot right at his joy department. He must have really felt that one because he lost his balance and fell over.

“Blast!” I called, nudging her to indicate I was going to break formation. The guy holding his eye was still on his feet. He tried to kick me as I ran at him but I was moving to his blind side so it flew wide. I caught his leg and lifted it up. He hadn’t been expecting that and he toppled over. I held him by the ankle and began repeatedly stomping him in the nuts.

I was really going to have to come up with a nickname for myself before someone gave me something like “nutcracker” for my habit of going for testicular devastation. The one I’d punched in the sack earlier was still holding himself so I had stomp on his head instead. He was going to very much think twice about getting up again.

Blast’s opponents were down for the count while she took a break and watched the hooded figure fight. She was pulling the last of hers up by the neck— and in a motion I could barely see— slammed her forehead into his face. Tsubasa dropped her hood as he tumbled to the ground.

“That was for my girlfriend you bastards!”

Xianying chuckled. “You know they had nothing to do with that right?”

Tsubasa cocked her head at the bleeding man at her feet.

“Did you get out what you needed to get out?”

Tsubasa scoffed. “Not quite yet...”

“Hey!” A woman’s voice rang out from the road beyond. She wore a black hoodie and sweats furnished with the gang’s colors and was flanked by two more of their members.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” She was nearly foaming at the mouth withfor how angry she was. Xianying smirked wildly,

“You’re their leader, I suppose?”

The girl gritted her teeth “I’m Rin Saitama. Leader of the Blue Cobras!”

Xianying nodded thoughtfully.

“Ah… I see where you are confused. This city is run by Dragons, not tiny snakes. I will give you this moment to gather your friends and flee, but no more.”

The woman threw an icy glare at Xianying.

“Tsubasa you may have the others, but I wish to take the Cobra Queen myself.” She dropped low to a battle stance, raising her arms and taunting their leader.

The queen charged in without hesitation. Xianying picked her up with ease, raising her up above her head. She tossed the girl up into the air and landed a kick that sent her flying backward on the way back down. The queen tucked her arms and legs in to protect herself from the roll and sprang back to her feat near Blast, but the biker just smirked at her with her hands in her pockets. The queen quickly regretted taking her eyes off the silver haired soldier as Xianying swept her legs out from under her with a low kick. Before she could fall again, Xianying was hoisting her back up above her head using her full height only to slam her down into the asphalt. The battered gangster struggled to get back up, but she was unceremoniously kicked away.

Xianying shook her head dismissively.

“While you were still in diapers, I was clawing my way through mud training to defeat the people’s enemies. You-”

The queen that had stolen Xianying’s thunder was attempting to flee, though she wasn’t able to get very far on weak knees and Xianying's body checked her into one of the windows of my mother’s bookstore. Web-like cracks radiated out from the point of impact. Xianying then dragged the struggling serpent into the middle of the street and pinned her to the ground with her heel.

The queen defiantly clawed at her pant leg while Blast was on the ground, cackling like a lunatic. This was just sad. I suppose the defeat finally sunk in and she went limp, snorting loudly.

“You are determined indeed. Do. Not. Return.” She warned, jabbing the snake with her heel for emphasis. The driver’s side of the ice cream van clicked open and Mako hopped out. Tsubasa sat on the unconscious form of one of her foes. She’d taken the two of them down so quickly and easily, I hadn’t even really noticed.

Xianying put her hands in her pockets and walked over to me.

“Don’t let the ease of this victory go to your head, these are untrained thugs, not yakuza...” She smiled. “Still, you handled yourself well, Kairi.”

I coughed. “Eh, would it be too much trouble if you called me Edge?” Blast had the biggest grin on her stupid asshole face.

“Oh yeah! BlastEdge! Woo!” Tsubasa fell backward laughing. Xianying rubbed her eyes.

“That was… the worst. Never again.” I groaned cheerlessly.

Blast was trying to hold back a chuckle at her own corny bullshit.