A Cat Enters a Shop

Criminal Activity

A crystal hunter named Cheshire enters a small shop in Bavaria, Germany named Antiquitäten und Schmuck. She runs into the shop owner, who seems to be expecting her and tells her that she'll never get what she is looking for. Cheshire is impressed that this old lady seems to know exactly why she is there, and asks her where the crystal is. The lady tells her it's gone, thinking that Cheshire would just leave. However, the crystal isn't the only reason she's there and she reveals something about her past. In the end, Cheshire leaves having made some progress in her own personal mission.

Cheshire has been traveling around Germany on the hunt for a certain essence crystal for almost a week. Rumors are that it belongs to a very powerful magician who was very active in the 70's and 80's but has since been in hiding somewhere in the country. At this point, Cheshire is beginning to think that this is all a wild goose chase and maybe this magician wasn't even in Germany or maybe even alive for that matter. It doesn't help that her boss has her teamed up with Doctor Light, a very arrogant and very talkative crystal hunter. She only puts up with it because she has her own agenda, and she's using the crystal hunters as a means to an end.   One of their stops happen to be a small town in Bavaria called Lindau, and if they don't find the crystal here, then they go back to base empty-handed and they don't get paid. Cheshire wasn't too worried about that, but Doctor Light was in it for the money. As they get into town, they split it off into two halves. They each search their sections, and then meet up in the middle to report if they found anything or not. As they split off Doctor Light reminds Cheshire, "Remember what the boss said, don't bring any attention to what we're up to."   "Please, I don't need to be reminded by the loudest, most attention-seeking manbaby to lie low."   Light gets annoyed at her statement and moves in front of her, practically breathing on her. "You know, if we weren't both working for the same guy, I wouldn't hesitate to kill you right here, right now."   Cheshire just walks past him, "Good job, Doc. You've actually said something I can agree with for once. Let's just finish this mission, then maybe afterwards you can go annoy someone else to death, huh?"   Light lets out a grunt and they split off into opposite directions. Throughout the night, Light seemingly has no luck with finding the crystal, however Cheshire is intrigued by a little shop called Antiquitäten und Schmuck. After finding a way to sneak in, she heads to the back of the store to search for the crystal. To her surprise an old lady is sitting there, seemingly expecting her.   "You're too late, it's not here."   Cheshire doesn't think this lady could be any threat, however she keeps a hand on one of her Sais in case something unexpected happens. "Uh, what's not here, exactly?"   "I assume you're looking for my crystal? Well it's gone, I got rid of it."   "So you're the all powerful Zatanna?"   "Oh, I haven't gone by that in years. That life is far behind me. I am just Sabine now." Cheshire is filled with hope in this moment, for reasons totally unrelated to the crystal. She pretends to let her guard down for a couple of minutes.   "If you are who you say you are, can I ask you a question? And please answer honestly or it won't be good for either of us. Do you remember the incursion event in Vietnam in 1986?"   Sabine has to think for a little bit. "1986 Vietnam? Hmmm, oh yes, I do remember. That was the one with Eclipso, why? Me and my friends were able to save a whole town from that demon. Unfortunately, we couldn't save a couple of the families that he possessed."   Cheshire's face turns sort of somber, "Did you guys ever think about the ones you failed to save?"   Sabine becomes a bit confused at this line of questioning, "Well of course we did, but we can't dwell on that or we wouldn't have been able to save anyone else. We had to move on."   Cheshire grips her Sai that's on the side of her waist firmly, "Well I'm glad you were able to move on. The ones who got left behind, the ones who's families got stripped away from them and left to deal with the aftermath on their own? They couldn't!"   She then leaps towards Sabine, Sai in hand, with every intention to land a hit on her neck. However, Sabine simply says, "Nereirfnie!" and Cheshire stops moving, suspended in mid-air. Cheshire did not expect that she still had her abilities, she just assumed that if someone didn't have the crystal then they would just lose their powers. Apparently, she was wrong.   Sabine then approaches her. "You're right, maybe we should have stayed after to make sure everyone was alright, but there was other people to protect. If we stayed maybe more people would have died."   "Do you so called 'heroes' ever believe a single word of that optimistic bullshit that comes out of your mouths, or do you just say things to make yourselves feel better?"   "Were you there? Is that why you're so angry at me? Did you lose someone in that incursion? If so, on behalf of me and my team, I'm sorry. Sorry that we didn't make it in time to save everyone, sorry that we didn't stay after, sorry that you suffered from it."   Cheshire hears the words, but not the meaning behind them. All she hears are empty condolences from someone who hadn't given any thought to people like her and what she's been through. "We're long past apologies. If you want to apologize, apologize to my family. They're the ones who lost their lives."   Sabine nods her head then says, "Neuatfua!" Cheshire drops to the ground one her knees, her head looking towards the floor, having been released from Sabine's spell. She drops the Sai in her hand as she begins to sniffle, and tears roll down her cheeks, which attracts Sabine's attention. Sabine approaches her and kneels down in front of her, then surprisingly she hugs her. As she strokes Cheshire's hair, Sabine begins to speak.   "There, there. You have suffered so much. I do truly apologize. One question though, how do you even remember what happened? The incursion events replace all the memories of the witnesses with ones that are more believable. Nobody outside of me and my friends should have remembered that event, let alone who was involved."   "Well, they missed one." Cheshire grips her other Sai, which she keeps hidden in the back of her costume. Suddenly she stops crying, and before Sabine can speak one of her spells to stop her, Cheshire slits her throat with her Sai.   Sabine stumbles back, clutching her throat, gasping for air as blood spurts out. Cheshire starts to get on her feet. "You know, for someone who's main use of magic is talking, you sure do leave your throat exposed." She starts to approach Sabine, but before she can get close Sabine raises her hand and lets off an energy blast towards her. Not expecting her to still be able to use magic, Cheshire flies back into a pile of old rugs.   Sabine falls onto the floor, a pool of blood gathering around her. As she lay there, coughing up blood, she manages to reach into her vest and take out a picture. A picture of her and her team, no, her friends. She remembers that day very well. It was a break from all the fighting they had been doing. The sun was out, and they all decided to hang out and have a picnic. Sabine loved that day so much, because it was just a normal day. No threats, no powers, no mission, just people. God, she wished that the sun would never go down. Sabine had lived in the sun most of her life, but now she was ready for the moon. A single tear rolls down the side of her face. Goodbye sun, it was fun while it lasted. Hello Moon, I'll be going with you now. Please take care of me. Sabine closes her eyes, as the sun sets on her, making way for an eternal night.   Cheshire gets up and brushes herself off. "Oh, you want to play magic lady, then let's play. I've been waiting years for this." She turns towards Sabine, only to find her laying in a puddle of her own blood, eyes closed. Cheshire closely approaches her, fearing this might be some kind of trick, then kicks her. Sabine doesn't move at all. She then lifts her wrist and puts her fingers on it to see if there's a pulse. There isn't. Sabine is dead. She notices her other hand gripping some kind of photograph. She pulls it out of Sabine's hand and looks at it. She only recognizes Sabine, but the others in the picture are strangers to her. She has some ideas at who they might be, and stashes the picture away in her costume.   Not wanting to leave any evidence of what happened, Cheshire then takes one of the curtains on the windows and lights it on fire, throwing it onto the pile of rugs. She breaks the window and leaves to go meet up with Doctor Light.   As Doctor Light approaches the meeting spot he sees Cheshire walking towards her, but not only that, he also sees a pillar of smoke in the distance. Cheshire walks straight by him, "The crystal isn't here, let's go."   Doctor Light grabs her arm, stopping her from walking any further. "I'm assuming that has something to do with you?" He says, gesturing towards the smoke then her.   Cheshire forces herself out of Light's grasp. "You grab me like that again, and I'll make sure you don't have any more hands to grab with." She starts to walk away again.   "The boss said don't bring attention! We could get in real big trouble for this!" Light starts to catch up to Cheshire.   "You know what, since you're so scared of what the boss is going to do to you, how about you do the rest of this mission yourself? Then maybe that way boss daddy will finally be proud of you when you find the crystal." Cheshire hands Light the list of locations that they were supposed to check out together. She then walks in a completely different direction than they should be going.   "Wait, where are you going!" Light yells out to her. Cheshire doesn't answer back. She turns the corner and is gone in the blink of an eye.   Light lets out an exhausted sigh, and returns back to the car to continue the search for the crystal.