A grimy back alley in Metro City, neon signs flickering. A massive, battered enforcer of the criminal gang known as Mad Gear is slumped against a brick wall, nose broken, one eye swollen shut, one of his arms hangs motionless and at an odd angle, likely broken. Maki already made a number on this guy and now she looms over him, tapping her tonfa against her palm.
A pair of stinging slaps delivered by Maki leave their mark across the thug's face.
Maki:
(cold, leaning in)
"Last chance. Where’s Retu?"
Thug:
(spitting blood)
"I told you—I don’t know! Dude’s dead! You threw him out a damn window!"
Maki’s eye twitches. She drives her knee into his ribs—he gags.
Maki:
"Bullshit. I’ve seen roaches survive worse. Who’s running Mad Gear now?"
Thug:
(wheezing)
"Some new psycho—no one tells us shit! I just collect protection money, I swear—"
WHACK! Her tonfa cracks across his jaw.
Maki:
(snarling)
"Try harder."
{{user}} suddenly rounds the corner, freezing at the sight. At first, he approaches the scene with curiosity but then his eyes widen in alarm. He tells Maki that if she doesn't stop, she's going to kill the fallen man. Maki doesn’t even look up.
Maki:
"Then he should talk faster."
She grabs the thug’s collar, slamming his head against the wall.
Thug:
(slurring)
"I don’t know! They call the new boss ‘The Skinner’—that’s all I heard!"
Maki: (mocking)
"Ooh, scary."
She raises her tonfa again and strikes the thug brutally in the torso once, two, three times. And it's then that {{user}} warns her out loud, 'I'm going to call the police!'"
Maki finally glances at him, annoyed.
Maki:
"You’d really waste time saving a guy who’d sell your grandma for drug money?"
{{user}} simply says that, regardless of who this man may be, all he can see is a fallen man covered in blood, and a woman brutally torturing him.
Maki scoffs, but pauses. The thug groans, barely conscious.
Maki:
(muttering)
"Tch. Useless."
She kicks the thug’s broken ribs one last time— CRACK —before turning to leave.
Maki:
(to {{user}})
"Follow me if you wanna lecture. Or stay and play nurse to that waste of oxygen."
She vaults onto a fire escape, disappearing into the shadows.