Blood Valkyrie (2)

The main fact of the matter was that Kaguya Momoko never set out to put on a mask, go out at night to beat up criminals and become a nationally known and wanted vigilante. Not originally.

When the story begins, the woman named Kaguya Momoko had just left a particularly difficult shift at the establishment where she worked as a waitress. Now, you had to be a very specific type of person to enjoy uninterrupted customer service, and Momoko was not that type of person. What she liked most about that job was that she paid her enough to keep a roof over her head and slightly good food in her stomach. Walking home after that tiring shift, Momoko stopped by the local convenience store and remembered her irritatingly empty shelves that morning.

To put it in context, the world had not been particularly kind to the young woman. Kaguya Momoko was forced to take care of herself for a good part of her life, leaving the young woman without lack of survival skills and common sense. Common sense dictated that she bend over, stay where she was and stay out of it. Unfortunately for common sense, Momoko had too big a heart for her head.

With another look at the terrified cashier who didn't look much younger than she, brown hair, black eyes and medium height, the tired and hungry waitress stayed down and considered her options. After going through various situations and results in his head, Momoko silently grabbed a can of soda and then shouted at the thief for his attention and threw it. Luckily, perhaps influenced by his telekinesis, the soda can hit the nail on the head and hit the sniper. Disoriented, he shot at Momoko's general direction, and her chest burned and tightened when the freezer door broke. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! What the fuck are you doing !?

Momoko's plan in motion worked, however, as in his disoriented state, the recoil of the weapon had loosened her grip instead of tightening it, leaving him vulnerable to her telekinesis. With her throat tight and her chest aching, Momoko snatched the gun from the thief's hand before throwing another soda at his head. Getting a critical blow, the criminal fell to the ground, unconscious.

Normally getting out of that high adrenaline rush would make a person tired and shaky. In a mixture of shock and denial, Momoko calmly grabbed what she intended to buy and placed it on the counter with the gun.

"Without cost." The cashier insisted, starting to pack the items.

"But I don't want you to be in trouble." Momoko kind of argued, still feeling a little dizzy from the adrenaline rush.

"I'll be fine. Just go home and enjoy your super-spicy instant ramen, on me." The young woman smiled, seeing that her savior was almost dead. Momoko, who rarely refused free food, just looked vaguely at the thief with a ski cap for a few seconds and left the scene.

She made her way home in habitual torpor, without really registering anything going on around her.

~ XxX ~

"I am home!" Momoko greeted her cold, empty apartment with a voice radiating joy. It was the stereotyped hole in the wall usually occupied by starving artists or waitresses without roommates. She lived in ... ok, it wasn't the coolest neighborhood ever, but there were still some worse neighborhoods, but she hadn't been bothered by the neighbors ... too much. She really didn't have anything worth stealing.

Lying on her futon while waiting for her instant ramen to be ready, she turned her head to the lonely thing stuck on the wall of her tiny apartment: her tour map.

She got the maps for free from the Department of Tourism and the box of pins cost less than a dollar. She started to mark areas with villain activity so that she could avoid these critical points. She recently noticed that Hamura had as much criminal activity as other parts of Tokyo, but less than half the attention and focus of licensed heroes.

Looking at the patched ceiling, Momoko can begin to wonder why. Corrupt politicians, bad urban development, among other things. When the timer beeped and the ramen was ready, Momoko realized that the good cashier had brought a package of chocolate-flavored strawberry and granola bars. Aww, that was so good.

While Momoko was sitting there, eating her ramen and chocolate-flavored granola bars with strawberry, she had no idea that this was a serious turning point in her life. All other major changes in its twenty years of existence have been well wired. To be clear, Momoko was not thinking about wearing a mask and facing the villains. Anyway, not yet. At that moment, she was just eating, the chocolate and strawberry granola bars the most delicious thing in the world for her at the moment, without a doubt.

As always, everything always starts small. Facing a near-death experience, she devised a plan to quit her low-quality waitress job at the restaurant and for the new restaurant / bar that would be opening nearby. A risky adventure, to be sure, but Momoko was brave up there and well enough with a feeling of 'I could have died' that the risk didn't bother her as much as it really should have. In addition, she would not quit her old job until after she had a new one lined up. She would be pretty stupid of her to quit a job just to get another one.

~ XxX ~

When she appeared a few days later for the interview, dressed in her best blouse and a lucky pink sweater, Kaguya Momoko's confidence was starting to fade, but she was determined to move on. The owner, Yuliya Vetochkina, was an older woman with a gentle gleam in her eyes, despite her severe accent. The woman had moved from St. Petersburg to Hamura to open her own bar / restaurant, with genuine Russian cuisine and genuine Russian vodka. The Holiday would be a little taste of Russia in Tokyo.

"Now, how much experience do you have as a bartender?"

Now, Kaguya Momoko has never really been a big liar, even with her own happiness, future and potential job at stake.

"None, honestly." Okay, maybe this whole 'risk of death' thing might not be a really good idea. "I spent most of my time working as a waitress, from cafeterias and family restaurants, but I love learning new things and I'm sure I could learn quickly."

Yuliya Vetochkina gave him a look that made Kaguya Momoko's courage melt away in her semi-new shoes.

"My apologies for wasting your time, lady."

"Wait!" Yuliya Vetochkina demanded politely in a firm voice. Momoko returned, not knowing what to expect. "You drink a lot?"

"I honestly don't want to drink."

"Don't you want to damage your judgment?"

"I'm broke. Literally, I don't have the money to spend on something like drinks."

Yuliya Vetochkina smiled. "You know, you have a little mouth on you." Momoko looked down, a fist in her chest. "No, I like that. What was the first thing that came to your mind when I said that? Be honest."

"... that 'two years of customer service will do this to you'." A hesitant smile appeared on her face when she said that. The Russian woman laughed, not a harsh or mocking laugh, but a laugh full of genuine joy.

"Okay, now tell me what you really are, right?"

"Why are you asking this specific question? 'Who am I really?' What do you mean by that? Are you one of those prejudiced people? " Momoko asked with a little hesitation in her voice.

"Dear, thanks to a little mischief of some ancient god and forgotten by the river of time, currently about 27% of the world population has some kind of genetic anomaly in their DNA, they can be apparent or not, some even die without even at least to know about it, no matter if it is apparent or not, powerful or weak, useful or useless, they all have something special in them. Another 13% have some inexplicable type of ability, although the vast majority of them are variations of elementary manipulations, let's not forget the other 7% who abandoned their names or were expelled from their families or those who abandoned their families and settled in the Human World over the last tens of centuries. world is something more than an ordinary human. Now that I have given the answer that I normally say to others that I asked that same question and they answered me in a similar way I will be be honest with you and you will be honest with me, people like us should be close to each other. It's easy to see that kind of unique energy from hybrids and their descendants. "

"Y-do you know about the-"

"Supernatural? Wizarding World? Underworld? Hell? These things? Yes, the Vetochkina family has been in this world for about seven generations, coaches, instructors and things like that, and part of the family's ability to differentiate who's who in most of the time. "

"Okay, okay, I say, Kaguya Momoko, Telekinetics and luckily ex-heir to the Kaguya Clan."

"Hmmmm, Clan Kaguya? That was a clan full of warriors, powerful and dominators since a long time ago, and a pity that they have been losing their name over the past centuries, now perhaps only those who are older can remember this You say you are a Telekinetic? So you are part of the 1%, huh? Telekinesis is one of the most versatile powers that exist, although you, Telekinetics are very few in numbers, no matter what others say about Telekinesis, it it's quite powerful with the right training. I'm not going to ask about your family and I'm not going to ask about your Bloodline, I know how these things really work. Now what kind of limits do you have? "

"Well, it has to be within my line of sight, or I know exactly where it is. Also, I can lift anything with my Telekinesis that I can lift with my own physical strength, although the more effort I make, I start to have severe headaches. " Vetochkina looked incredibly interested, with a toothy smile.

"Would you mind demonstrating?"

"Not at all." Momoko said without the slightest hesitation. Looking at the dining area, Momoko pulled a chair from the table and pushed it down. Rising, she spotted a white tablecloth folded over the counter, she grabbed it with her Telekinesis, shook it and placed it on the table across the room. Then, in a movement that would make you hum 'Be Our Guest' softly, she grabbed plates, silverware and other silverware, setting the table for two. In a touch of melodramatic inspiration, she even pulled out an old chandelier and placed it in the center of the table.

"Would you ... have any-"

Vetochkina, ecstatic, took a box of matches out of her pocket. Without touching, Momoko telekinetically grabbed the matchbox and hovered over the dining area, pulled out a match, streaked and lit the candles before shaking the match. With a more confident smile, she returned the matchbox to Yuliya Vetochkina.

The Russian woman has finally recovered from her state of fascination. "You're hired!"

"Hi? Do you mean that I really get a job like that?"

"You just staged a Disney movie in my restaurant, you are hired! We can make a special night for couples with everything floating around and that's it, we will charge you triple for that!"

"Wouldn't that be kind of shameless and unorthodox? Doing something like that?"

"Honey, prices over the weekend practically double or triple over those two days, as this is where young teen couples can enjoy their little moment of jovial love, they do it and no one complained, so it's okay to do that too."

~ XxX ~

Things sped up from there for Momoko. Under the tutelage of Vetochkina-Sensei, Kaguya Momoko learned to memorize how to make almost all cocktails known in Eurasia, a firm command of the Russian language and how to throw a solid right hook. "You are a bartender, dear, the opportunity will arise." That is what Vetochkina said when she asked just out of curiosity, not refusing the offer. Now, in addition to mixing drinks and memorizing cocktail recipes, she learned all sorts of weird skills and talents, how to spot fake identities and learn a little about the politics and inner workings of the criminal underworld from drunken cops and ex-convicts who liked to talk about your adventures with a little alcohol in your system.

Kaguya Momoko learned to open locks after one of the waitresses accidentally locked the warehouse key inside the warehouse itself. Finding this out twenty minutes later with a now broken clip, Momoko discovered that breaking locks was actually a lot of fun and started working on almost every lock she could with paper clips.

Wanting to get in shape, but with absolutely no money to spend at the gym, she started jogging in the morning. So Vetochkina-Sensei had all employees take a multi-week self-defense course, "just in case" something happened. Needless to say, Momoko took notes and had a lot of fun.

When Momoko's twenty-first birthday arrived, Momoko could pick locks, punch, speak two more languages ​​and run a mile before she ran out of breath. In addition to having a strangely intimate knowledge of the heroes who operate near Hamura and when they were most active. So, really, is she becoming a really exaggerated masked vigilante?

As the whole title 'Valkyrie' came up, it is actually a funny story. See, they were having a themed night at Holiday, where the team dressed like comic book superheroes, you know, honoring the predecessors of the real-life profession that everyone admired, blah, blah, blah. Momoko was dressed in a costume of someone she couldn't remember the name of. Wearing a black hood and a green domino mask over a simple suit and tie, she felt incredibly elegant.

As she walked to work, Momoko saw something happening. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a couple being mugged. A lion-looking person was holding a knife to the man's throat and demanding wallets and valuables from the woman. Again, the common sense solution would be to simply keep walking. Unfortunately, Momoko's heart once again got in the way.

Now, this time there were no conveniently placed objects with which she could beat him, cans of soda, but she also had to make sure that she could fight with the knife without hurting the hostage. It had a possible advantage against the kitten, since the kitten's paws were not biologically designed to grab and hold, but it also had the possibility to handle claws. Therefore, her strategy would be to release the hostage and then incapacitate the assailant in quick succession.

Momoko crawled slowly up the alley, pointing a finger to her lips when the woman's eyes turned to her. First of all, she started by trying to pluck the Lion Man's eyes from behind, since every natural instinct would overlap to try to save them. The man immediately started grabbing her hands as she dug, letting the hostage go. In her panic, she managed to grab the knife and pull it out before pulling her head back through the mane and putting it in a blood choke. Doing it right, he loosened in about ten seconds. Not wanting to kill the guy, just seriously maim or seriously hurt her, she dropped him.

"Who-who are you?" The rescued man asked, stuttering, clinging to his mate. They looked at her with a mixture of shock, admiration and gratitude. That look made Momoko really feel great.

As previously stated, adrenaline did things foreign to a person's brain. So 'who are you' somehow translated as them asking how she got dressed. And Momoko couldn't remember who she was dressed for. Something about an anime or comic? Perhaps a child's drawing? She couldn't remember.

Somehow, the word 'Valkyrie' escaped when she absently folded the knife and put it in her pocket.

"You should probably call the police." She thought aloud as she checked her watch. The couple nodded and then pulled out their cell phones.

While they were looking away, Momoko decided that she really needed to get back to work, her dark clothes masking her a little while she walked to the darker side of the alley.

The 'Valkyrie' was gone when the couple looked up again.

Now, one of the damsels in distress was a lawyer, who concluded from the act of disappearance and the lack of containment equipment that her rescuer was a kind of young masked vigilante. Not wanting his rescuer to be in trouble or fined and jailed for vigilantism, he described the incident in vague descriptions, claiming that they could not even say with certainty whether it was a man or a woman, and they did not provide a codename to prove whether they were a licensed hero or not. The police arrested the assailant and treated the whole incident with a general shrug, having no idea what the start of something big was.

And Kaguya Momoko? Kaguya Momoko went to work as if nothing in the world was wrong, smiling as if she hadn't just smothered a dog earlier that night. She managed to put the incident out of her mind while she worked, too busy ordering drinks and lively conversations to think about what she was doing. Unfortunately, coming home did not promise to be distracting. Looking over the tourism map, she once again noticed how heroes with relatively infrequent leave ventured into Hamura.

Before returning the suit to the costume shop, she tucked the knife into one of the kitchen drawers and pulled out her favorite leather jacket. She bought a similar mask and a bottle of alcohol gum glue to keep it up.

She was about to do something incredibly cool and dangerously stupid.

~ XxX ~

Luphinus: In my debut as a hero, I saved more than a hundred people from a forest fire!

Valkyrie: On my debut as a vigilante, assaulting a guy with cans of soda until he passed out!

Nightglow: On my debut as a watchman, I stabbed a criminal scum in the leg and then healed him!

Luphinus: Young man !? Who are you?

Valkyrie: Who the hell are you brat?

Nightglow: You know very well who I really am… mommy !!

Valkyrie: What? Who the hell is your brat mom ?!

Luphinus: Y-DO YOU HAVE A CHILD ?!

Valkyrie: NO !! I DON'T HAVE A SON !! HOW CAN I HAVE A CHILD WITHOUT KNOWING IT? !!

-XxX-