Omake: A Champion of the Lowly (non-canon)
HeroCooky
Unverified Monstergirl
A Champion Of The Lowly
The soft rain pattering against the cracked and dirty concrete outside of my little nook in the alley did little to soothe my mind as it usually did, with not even the lit cigarette in my hand and its smoke coursing through my lungs offering any ease as it usually did. Just my luck, those were the expensive ones. The ones I always smoked to calm down when...when it happened again.
My hands began to shake slightly as I remembered the girl, huddled in her shower, weeping, and how she had looked when I helped her inside. Bruises all over her. Split lip, swollen eye, shallow cuts by a knife held against her throat and skin, cracked ribs and blood everywhere, cyberware smashed and tearing...elsewhere.
And for what?! Because she was "too costly for that cheap a cunt?!" Too "uppity for a thrash alley joytoy?!" Because she had dared to sell sex so she could make ends meet! Because she was just a mere whore that one could do almost anything with because no one cared! My hands shook with anger, and I tried to get them to stop. I had seen dozens like her, some in worse states, some dead. What happened to her wasn't unusual, so why was it making me so angry?
"Maybe," a calm male-ish voice said near me, ripping me out of my thoughts and startling me, "because you haven't noticed how long you were at 59?" My hand was already on my gun, smoke in a puddle, as I looked at the exotic borg wearing weird tatters as clothes that had managed to sneak up on me. How? Lynx paws, maybe? Though, looking at...him(?), I didn't see any (obvious) weapons, and mine sure as shit couldn't penetrate a Borg. If he wanted to kill or abduct me, the best I could do was scuff his white paint job. However, I forced myself to calm down. He may just be a John looking for some talk before fun, and, looking at him, I couldn't exactly say I was opposed to that...if not right now. Then his words registered in my mind as I looked at his six arms, slowly moving in strange poses with his speech.
"59? What the hell does that mean? If you're a customer, I'm currently helping a friend right now. Come back later or wait ten." That...got me a friendly chuckle. Weird, never got a chuckle for telling a John to wait. Cackles or laughter before I had to pull and make my point clear, but not a chuckle.
"People rarely go from 0 to 60. If they do, one has failed to notice how long they were at 59. But, enough about that," the exotic borg said, shaking his head, his arms and hands moving with his speech. "You are upset about what happened to that girl, are you not?"
Upset? Upset?! "I am fucking livid, is what I am!" I yelled, not caring that the exotic could likely pull me limb from limb without breaking a sweat, his flippant tone pissing me the fuck off. "We sell our bodies just like anyone else in this God damned city, but just because we sell our holes and dicks and not souls and body parts, everyone thinks they can do whatever the hell they want! Do you have any idea how common this shit is?! I am lucky that the worst I had happen to me was someone "sampling the goods before buying" instead of beating me half to death and having their way with me!" The borg didn't move much but merely nodded.
"And what happens to those who do such things to you and yours? Does the police not arrest them, or do the Mox not visit justice's due upon them?" I stared at him for one, baffled, second. Then I laughed. It was an ugly laugh, the kind you had in the face of fear, from stress, or anger.
"Justice? You think there is justice in this cesspit of a city?!" I mocked, anger swelling up inside me at the utterings of this absolutely naive idiot. How the hell had he survived long enough to scrape together the eddies for a full Borg body? Cause he sure as shit doesn't look like a rich corpo fuck. "Even if we went to the police with a goddamn address of the fucker and video evidence, we'd be lucky to bribe even one cop to take action! And the Mox," I growled, my hands balling into fists, "are self-serving whores that wouldn't lift a finger if a joytoy is being beaten to death before their eyes if they don't pay their prices." I stopped talking, trying to calm myself down with deep breaths like they always do on the shows or in the books. It barely worked, pushing that bonfire of rage down into the pit where it always was. "The only justice to be found for us is at the end of our guns. And good luck finding the people, eddies, or the weapons for that if the assholes are part of the major gangs and you don't even fully own your own body."
"And if you had the people," the borg spoke calmly, his voice doing far more to calm me down than the breaths to my, hidden, irritation, "the weapons, or...the eddies. Would you hunt those criminals so they will be judged and sentenced for their crimes?"
"Just so that a corrupt judge is bought by them, or some fucking lawyer spins what they did to be legal before the law?" I sarcastically asked with a scoff.
"I DID NOT ASK IF YOU WOULD FOLLOW THE LAW." A voice spoke. I turned my head. And my entire body froze.
And I beheld glowing divinity.
"I asked," the divine...thing before me continued in a softer voice, though my body still didn't move, "if you would hunt those that committed heinous crimes, such as the one that broke the spirit of the woman you consoled, helped, and healed. If you ensure that justice, wrought by divine judgment and not mortal law, is visited upon them. And if you would do so, again and again."
I stared.
And then the words settled in. "You...you w-what? You want me, me to-to," I stammered, trying to make sense of what was being asked of me. "But, I am just a-"
"A prostitute," the divinity spoke, nodding. And yet, what struck me the most was that there was no judgment in his words, or posture. As if he had just stated a fact. "And," he continued, "a woman angry at the world. Angry at injustice, the wrongness of a world where the weak suffer. Angry at a perceived powerlessness to change a cruel world to a just one."
"Perceived?" I asked, control over my mouth and limbs slowly returning to me. The divinity nodded.
"You did not act, not because you couldn't, but because you feared the consequences of failing...or succeeding. And I intend to give you the choice," he spoke, a hand reaching out to me, empty palm up. "To strike back against those who do injustice against those they feel superior to, to bring hope for a better world for all who will be saved by you, and to become a beacon of justice that will banish injustice wherever your name is uttered."
"Why?" That was all my throat could produce; whatever shock I had now replaced by fear...and suffocating hope that this was real and that I wasn't lying in a ditch, hopped up on drugs and dying.
"Because you have the will to try and change the world." He spoke. "You merely lack the means. And I will clad you in such armor as to shield you from all harm, shall give you such weapons and teach you such tactics so that none can best you, and lift you up to become a champion of Justice, true, unblemished, and eternal." The glow diminished, though flickers of it still lingered around him. "However, I will not force you to make a decision now or even today," he spoke, slowly vanishing from my sight, "but I will leave you with knowledge as a parting gift. How you act on it will be your decision, to its contents and a future working for me."
He vanished utterly, and I blinked. Then, I blinked again, a face, an address, and a time suddenly within my mind, and the knowledge that this man had raped the girl I had helped. And...when he would be alone.
I looked at my gun.
And clenched my hand around its grip.
AN: Just a thing that popped into my mind and got written out while at work. Yes, I know it won't change the vote, and is likely not what the QM intended for the option, but I can still write, dammit!
