Ophilia pushed the laptop across the table, heaving a long, pained sigh. Knowing and seeing, she decided, were even more different than she'd ever imagined they would be.

She had read over the records of Vivian's criminal life, both in and out of prison. 'Sloppy' was the first word that came to mind. Very sloppy. She hated that of all the words she could think of, that was the first one.

Silently, she closed the laptop and replaced it onto her desk. Vivian might have been intelligent, but she hadn't been a very criminally-minded girl, and her actions had colored her ignorance as incompetence. But from what Ophilia had seen, her time in prison had changed Vivian; it had taken her and molded her into VeeVee, the crime lord. During her time incarcerated, her crimes gradually became more organized, more sophisticated, until she wasn't being caught at all anymore. And when she was caught, even early on, she had managed to weasel out with minimal punishment.

By the time she walked back out those doors, she'd more than likely had officers in her pocket, inmates bowing to her every whim, and the buddings of her gang already blossoming.

As always, Ophilia shunted away all of her judgement, not letting the past color her opinions of her poor friend and lover. Vivian had done what she needed to do to survive. Ophilia couldn't fault her for that.

However, she had hoped, against all odds, that Vivian had recovered from her kidnapping and had lived well in her absence. She'd prayed constantly that her bubbly, silly, chaotic lover would find someone else and live a happy, normal life. The tragedy implicit in Vivian's records made Ophilia feel a particularly fierce sense of guilt.

While Vivian had suffered, Ophilia had been learning how to kill.

Vivian Scratch was in a bad mood today.

It was no-one's fault but her own, really. Something small had bubbled up into something major and now she was forced to deal with the fallout. She ran a hand through her hair, playing with a strand of her bangs as she stared thoughtfully at the Mixer in front of her. "Well..." she began, then sighed. "Shit."

The kid wasn't to blame – he was a newbie, canonized only a few days ago – and he was absolutely, piss-his-pants level terrified. The other Mixers had given him the unpleasant task of breaking the bad news to Vivian. In all the movies, people shot the messenger, regardless of what that old saying was. This kid was probably expecting a slug between his eyes any minute.

But that kind of Hollywood bullshit was stupid.

This kid was one of hers, and she'd sooner hurt herself than him. She twirled her hair, then chewed on it a bit, trying to marshal her thoughts. She thought it made her look stoic, but it probably just made her look hungry. "Who took it?" She finally asked, staring off into space.

"The Black Dogs, boss. They jumped us on the corner of Leth and Second. Killed three of us and took the goods..." The kid's voice trembled as he expounded.

Vivian nodded, still chewing. Her hair tasted like this morning's shampoo. It was disgusting, but she wanted to look composed right about now, not sick. "Three. The Black Dogs, eh? Where do they operate out of?" Vivian looked over her shoulder at Neo for the second question. Her right-hand man was leaning against a nearby wall, trying to not be obtrusive.

"They're the biggest of the 'small fry' gangs in this city. They outnumber us about two to one, but have almost no firepower at all. That's basically kept them in the role of petty bullies who work the docks on the west side of the river. My advice? Lets go get our stuff from 'em."

Vivian looked back down to her desk, where she'd made a small inventory of the weapon cache that the Dogs had taken. "We had lots of firepower in that shipment, Ne-Yo. It's not too much to realize that's why they hit it," she said, calling him by his handle. "We can't just barge in there. They'll be expecting that, and we'd lose tons of lives."

Neo gave her a pleased nod. "I wasn't suggesting that anyway. Their numbers make a frontal assault a terrible idea. But... well, we have those new allies to bring into play."

Vivian felt a little surge of joy. Ophilia was moving in tonight. Or rather, that'd been the plan, before all this mess started. It'd been two weeks since they were reunited, but Vivian still couldn't believe it. All that planning, all that effort, and it'd actually paid off in the end. Sometimes, she wondered if she'd died in prison – beaten to death by some disgruntled officer or stabbed to death by some rival banger – and all this was some strange afterlife. But no, she was fairly certain that if there was an afterlife, hers wouldn't be so pleasant.

"You're suggesting we ask the Melody Family for help so soon?" She shook her head, not letting her feelings show on her face. "No; you're smart enough to understand that Charles'll see that as a sign of weakness... Something smaller, more personal..." Vivian smirked. "You're talking about Ophilia."

Neo shrugged. "The Silencer has a reputation. In gangs like the Dogs, she's almost like a boogyman. Boogywoman. Whatever," he said with a chuckle, pushing off the wall. He strode over, stopping just to Vivian's left. "Send her in and they'll shit themselves. Have her make a few of those pointed examples she's so good at making, and they'll be begging for our forgiveness. I can't imagine the Black Dogs have caught word that we're working with the Family now, so this is the perfect opportunity to let them – and the rest of the city – learn about our new connections. And, if we can get the Black Dogs to heel and roll-over like good hounds, then even better. We could use a boost in reputation."

Vivian nodded to him, suddenly very glad he was among her lieutenants, and not some other rival gang. Neo was never very far from her side, a faithful friend and a force to be reckoned with. His connections with the underbelly of the military was just icing on the already delicious cake.

"If I'm going to ask Ophilia to go in, then I'm going with her," Vivian said matter-of-factly, motioning the messenger kid away. No need for him to see mommy and daddy fighting. He hurried off, looking thankful to be alive.

"That's a stupid idea," Neo responded as soon as the door closed. "Why risk it?"

"Because, it's what she'd do." Vivian drew her babies from her coat, setting them on her desk. The chrome shimmered prettily in the light. "Besides, I want to show these filthy mutts just who they're fucking with. Three Mixers, Neo. We lost three to them."

Neo opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it. He walked over to the now-empty chair across from her, sitting with an annoyed look, like a big brother who just lost an argument to his little sister. "She's moving in with you today, right?" He asked, not needing to clarify who he was talking about.

Vivian snorted as she ejected the magazines from the two Eagles and pulled back the slides with practiced ease, looking to make sure the guns were clear. "She was supposed to. Now we'll need to put it off till tomorrow or the day after." Just one more reason to be mad at the Dogs. She snapped both slides closed on her guns, letting out a frustrated breath.

"Assuming you aren't dead," Neo quipped.

"There is that, I guess." Vivian shot him a wide grin and started taking one of the two Desert Eagles apart for a simple cleaning. She stripped the barrel off the slide, setting it aside, before pulling the slide off the gun's frame. She hummed to herself as she worked, removing the springs and pistons, before getting out the bore.

"Security used to her?" Neo asked, reclining. Vivian's place wasn't opulent, like that mansion Ophilia lived in, but it was very well guarded. She'd decided early on that the best defense was not, in fact, a good offense; it was a fuck-load of guards, cameras, reinforced walls, and stacks on stacks on stacks of guns, in case things got choppy. Her gang had jumped to take the role of guards, with a few professional hired guns mixed in there to swell their ranks and do a little teaching. Hard work and planning had done the rest – as well as a hefty chunk of her inheritance.

"Yeah, they all know her face by now. Besides, like you said, they're all shit-stain levels of terrified around her, so it's not like they'd be very effective against her, would they?" She joked back, soaking a rag in some cleaning agent and pushing it through the barrel several times. Once that was done, she checked to make sure it was clear before moving on to the next gun.

Neo gave a small laugh, nodding. "That's the truth." He trailed his laugh off, giving her a more serious look. "You using your pick-me-ups today?"

Vivian flinched, as she always did when someone she really cared about asked her that. "Yeah." She caught herself reaching to scratch her arm and snapped her arm back to it's work on the gun, scolding herself. "Not as much as yesterday, though."

"You know what her father said. No more, at all. Wean yourself off that stuff, Vivi. Even the pills."

"I'm trying!" she snapped, slamming the barrel of her gun back down onto her desk. She was suddenly unable to bottle it up anymore. "Bit it's so damn hard, Neo! I need it. I just... when I'm not high, I feel like... like..." She fished for a word, then settled on a sentence. "Like everything I've done is all so terrible that I can't live with it anymore. The weight of it will literally kill me."

Neo sighed and stared at her with sympathetic eyes. "Ophilia is giving you a chance at a new life, Vivian. Take it. Leave the Mixers to me and go be with her."

Vivian was shaking her head before he even finished. "Never," she answered simply as she returned to the first gun, cleaning the other parts. "The Misfits are family now. You've all been there when nothing else was going right. You especially," she added with a smirk, reassembling her gun with several quick, practiced motions. "I'll die before I leave the Mixers. Hell, I doubt being killed will make me stop being one." She snapped the chamber of the gun back and let it crack forward, though the gun didn't have a magazine to chamber a cartridge from. "Live large and leave a pretty corpse, right Neo?"

Neo only shook his head in reply, frowning. He'd never wanted any of this for her. More than once, he'd asked her to leave the game, but he just didn't seem to understand that this was her life now. Ophilia was a part of the darker side of the human race, and if Vivian wanted to be a part of her life, she'd better be damn willing to dive into head-first. Even if she knew it would kill her someday.

Vivian finished cleaning her other firearm, pushing herself up from the chair once she was done reassembling it. "I'm going over the defenses once more. You coming with?" She slipped the two guns into her coat, holstering them. "I doubt the Dog would be dumb enough to attack us here, but paranoia—"

"—Is the key to survival," Neo finished for her, shaking his head. "Nah, sorry. My boy's got this parent-day thing at his school and I need to be there in an hour."

Vivian looked at him with a distant and longing look in her eyes, putting her glasses on to shield them from sight. She wouldn't think about the past today; it was decided on and she couldn't change it now. "All right. Give the little squirt a high-five for me. And give his little sister my best."

Neo said he would and Vivian stepped out into the hallway. Neo watched her silently from his seat until the door closed. "How long will you run from your decisions, Vivian?" He asked the air, but nobody answered.

Vivian dug a blunt from her pocket, lighting it as she walked. While Ophilia's Family operated out of a huge mansion, Vivian had found that, despite her fetish for defense, a more subtle approach suited her. She ran her gang from the upper floors of a club that doubled as a front for her hideout.

The club, Cataclysm, was her crowning achievement. It was all of six stories high, three of witch were dedicated entirely to the club. The outer walls looked like completely ordinary construction work, but underneath their concrete shells, these walls were reinforced with thick metal sheets, making them incredibly difficult to breach. If someone wanted in, they'd need to use the door, like a good little intruder.

Cameras watched from everywhere, both from obvious locations and from more secret, secluded spots. A small squadron of drones prowled around the nightclub proper, serving as mobile strobe-lights during a rave and aerial firepower for when things got choppy. Finally, to top of her ever-growing counter-paranoia, she had commissioned an underground panic room, just in case. Vivian was a firm believer that there is, was, and will never be any kill like overkill.

As she finished checking up on the last of the security measures, she worked her way towards the front of the building. Ophilia should be arriving soon, and Vivian wanted to tell her about Neo's plan and the Black Dogs before it got too late.

Her car was already outside – a royal-purple convertible with a black roof – and Ophilia was there, chatting with one of the Mixers – Jack, a newbie she had apparently taken a shine to. She had even requested he be moved to Cataclysm, to keep him out of danger. Vivian felt a stab of jealousy as she watched the two of them talk and laugh. She walked over quickly, picking up what Jack was saying.

"... a good spot. VeeVee is awesome, and—"

"Mel, I'm so glad to see you," Vivian interrupted, sliding her arms around one of Ophilia's and nestling herself up at her side. She gave Jack a wolf's stare, but the effect was rather spoiled through her glasses. Still. "I need to talk to you in private about something that's come up."

Ophilia, either not noticing Vivian's body language or choosing to ignore it, chuckled. "Well, duty calls. Keep safe, Jack."

The kid cleared his throat, staring at Vivian with a worried look. "Yeah. You too, Ophilia."

The two walked off arm in arm. Ophilia was unusually quiet until they were back inside. "That was uncalled for, Vivian," she scolded the DJ softly once they were alone.

Vivian snorted. "He wants in your pants. I can tell," Vivian shot back, pulling Ophilia's arm closer.

Ophilia laughed, her eyes dancing with the sound. "I highly doubt that. He's too afraid of me, I believe. Besides, even if he was interested, someone else has claim to my pants and the contents therein." She gave her hips a shift, bumping Vivian lightly and planting a kiss on her cheek.

Vivian's jealousy drained away, replaced by embarrassment, shame, and sheepishness. Around others, VeeVee was a force – a power – but Ophilia always managed to find little Vivian: the shy, nerdy, insecure girl hiding just underneath.

"Yeah, well..." She shook her head slightly, struggling to keep the embarrassment from her voice. "I suppose I was being just a little—"

"Ridiculous?" Ophilia supplied before Vivian could finish her sentence. "Yes," she finished with a smirk. "You were. But the Vivian I love is always ridiculous, so that's nothing abnormal. It's actually quite refreshing, if I'm being honest."

Vivian smiled, fighting to keep back a blush. Gang bosses didn't blush. Flighty schoolgirls blushed. She cleared her throat, dispelling the pleasant mood with one sentence. "We've got a job." By now, the two of them had walked into the night club proper.

This early in the day, the club was basically dead. Mixers lazed about in various states of undress, wakefulness, or inebriation as soft dance music thumped over the speakers. The lights were on, giving the club a very laid, back feel. No-one felt obligated to get up and dance.

"By we," Ophilia began as she scanned the room. "I assume you mean me?" She turned to Vivian, raising and eyebrow and giving her most intimidating face. "Right?"

"No. The both of us," Vivian shot back with smirk, completely un-phased by Ophilia's tough-girl act. "What, you think I'd let you go and have all the fun without me?"

Ophilia stopped, pulling Vivian to a halt at the center of the dance floor. "I assume this job is dangerous."

"Incredibly," Vivian replied quickly.

"So why would you come with me? The whole point of this arrangement is for me to keep you safe, Viv... I can handle things like this alone. It's an unnecessary risk."

Vivian untangled herself from Ophilia's arms, dancing away with a coy laugh. "Because, I want you to see that I'm more than you remember. You might be skilled, but I've learned from experience. I'm not some wallflower, here to take up space in your life. Someone is fucking with my gang, Ophilia. Someone killed three of my crew and stole my stuff. We're going to teach those stupid mother fuckers a very pointed lesson in why their decisions up til now have been so very regrettable."

Ophilia frowned, tilting her head just slightly. "You're completely serious, aren't you?"

"Dead," Vivian replied without a moment's hesitation.

Ophilia let out a long-suffering sigh. "Please don't throw that word around so casually in regards to yourself." She ran a hand over her forehead, but gave a small nod. "Fine. It's your gang, I suppose." She dropped her hand down to her side and shrugged. A smirk danced it's way over her lips and she rested her hands on her hips. "But since you're preparing the festivities, I get to decide how we go about this whole situation. And what we do for the after-party."

Vivian grinned, feeling that blush finally creep in. "I think I can live with that..."

Author's Note

So, this chapter and Chapter 7 were -- at one point -- one whole chapter. The total words, however, came out to roughly 9k and, while I'm not a huge stickler about long chapters, even I was a little daunted by that number. I know Chapter 3 was close tot hat mark, but breaking up that chapter would have damaged the emotional buildup. Meanwhile, the first half of this chapter was little more than exposition before the action. So, I decided to split the two up and publish them separately.

This means two things; firstly, this chapter is short. I dislike it, but it keeps the exposition to a minimum while getting it out of the way properly. Secondly, this means you'll all need to wait a few days for Chapter 7; I'm going to use this as a means of giving myself some wiggle room in terms of chapter released, rather than being completely overworked and struggling to get them out within a reasonable time frame. This means you'll be getting more regular updates, should all things stay on this path.