Retaking Rose Garden

Here are the exam details as laid down by Sabertooth GM RyoKnetegawa.

"Victoria returns to Rose Garden, discovers a slave operation run by the Corlones, and shuts it down, giving the family a nudge into bankruptcy because she also finds evidence of other operations."

Furthermore, this exam is to be at least 4,000 words long.

Wearing a green t-shirt and khaki cargo shorts with white tennis shoes and Azure Armor over the shirt with backpack on her back and Itori's Bandolier crisscrossing the Azure Armor, Victoria was loaded for bear as she strolled into Rose Garden at nightfall. The moon was in the sky and the streets were deserted save for the occasional straggler coming home from the bar or from work. It had been months since she had last visited Rose Garden.

The last time Victoria was here, she was frantically trying to escape the Corlone mansion after being abducted from Ace of Spades by unknown men and tortured in the basement by Francesca Corlone. She had escaped thanks to Ted Cranston, a former Corlone enforcer who had provided her with a t-shirt and shorts after her clothing was taken from her and burned in the Corlone mansion's incinerator. He had also bought their train tickets out of Rose Garden just in time to avoid recapture by a quintet of Corlone goons.

Victoria frowned at the memory, but she was not here to take a stroll down Memory Lane. She was here to end the Corlones once and for all. Discarding her original plan to level the Corlone mansion with magical firepower because of how it violated both the law and the Sabertooth way, Victoria soon came up with another plan that was inspired by the Sun Tzu guy that Haruyuki frequently quoted during their job in the Haunted Guild. It was heavily paraphrased, but the quote was relevant to her situation.

"If the enemy is too strong to attack directly, attack their supports."

Victoria could inflict more lasting harm on the Corlones by disrupting their "businesses" than she could by wrecking their mansion. A crime syndicate on the rise was sure to have some illegal operations that provided the bulk of their cash flow. If she could discover what their Rose Garden operations were and shut them down, she could hit hit them in the pocketbook and slow their expansion.

Shutting down their operations here would certainly set the Corlones back, but that would not be enough to stop them completely. Victoria wanted their ruin to be total. She wanted to destroy them so completely that they could never regain a foothold in Earthland. In order to enact her scorched-earth plan of revenge, she needed evidence of other illegal operations that the Corlones were running. However, raiding their base would not be a good idea because they were ready and waiting for her... the mage would just have to find another way to get the information.

"Someone help!" A female voice called out. Victoria paused in place and listened to footsteps fill the night air. She saw a young red-haired woman with green eyes in a tattered dress with shackles on her wrists running towards her... chasing the fleeing woman were three men in black suits. They were Corlone goons! Victoria let the woman pass, then wordlessly stepped in the way of the goons and refused to move.

"This doesn't concern you. Get lost, kid!" A skinny man with a black derby hat warned her. Victoria simply shook her head. She was not moving for these clowns.

"Looks like we've got someone who wants to be a hero!" One of the goons, an obese bald man, said to his colleagues. All three of them laughed.

"In that case, we'll just take her and sell her too! She'll fetch good money and so will her gear!" Replied another goon with an eyepatch over his right eye. They were not going to capture her again because this time she was ready to fight and they had no hostages for leverage. The brunette put a hand behind her back and made a Flashbang, then silently counted to three before rolling it towards their feet and turning away from the cylinder clinking on the asphalt.

The device went off with a flash of light and the three men screamed in agony while holding their hands over their eyes. Victoria rushed in and punched all three of them in the face repeatedly until they were all unconscious. She then used their belts to tie their hands to a nearby light pole for the police to pick up.

"Thanks! Those men kidnapped me and my friends just a few hours ago from a bar. They said that they were going to sell us to slavers!" The young woman informed Victoria. Victoria's blood boiled. The Corlones were dealing with slavers? That revelation made the Sabertooth mage even more determined to bring the crime family down.

"Guide me to the sewers, then get the police. I'll stop the slavers." Victoria said to the young woman. She nodded and motioned for Victoria to follow her. The mage stepped over the unconscious enforcers and followed her guide to the sewers.

-Outside Rose Garden sewers-

The two were staring at a rusting metal gate with a rectangular door that was wide open. Water was flowing from under the gate and flowing off into a retention pond. As could be expected of a sewer located in any urban environment, it smelled absolutely awful. It was an unconventional location for a slave market, but it made some degree of sense. It was fairly isolated and security was easy because not many people traveled there except sewer maintenance workers, who were likely paid or threatened to keep quiet about what they saw.

"The mobsters are in there. Their security's pretty tight, so you have to be careful. I'll go tell my father!" The redhead said to Victoria.

"I don't know what good that'll do, but as long as you get to safety..." Victoria said warily. The redhead gave a smile.

"My father's the chief of police. They tried to kidnap me to keep him from going after them, but you ruined their plan. My father will make sure they don't get away with this!" The redhead told her. Victoria was wary of getting the police involved... what if the Corlones had the beat cops in their pocket?

"I hate to ask you this, but do the Corlones own the police?" Victoria asked her. Green daggers looked into her eyes.

"Rose Garden police aren't on the take. My father rejected their bribes at every turn, which was why they kidnapped me!" The redhead replied indignantly. Victoria was taken aback by the intensity of the response and raised her hands in apology.

"OK, OK, sorry about that. You go tell your father what's going on. I'll hurry and try to save the other people before the Corlones try to move the captives... or kill them." Victoria said to the young woman. She nodded and ran off to get the police. Meanwhile the brunette was going to brave the sewers and save the innocent people before they were sold off.

[Word Count: 1,141]
[Total Word Count: 1,141/4,000]

-Inside Rose Garden sewers-

Victoria trudged through the sewers as quietly as she could to avoid alerting the guards, but that was difficult because she was sloshing through ankle-deep water that soaked her socks and was certain to ruin her shoes. She had to fight for every breath while keeping the concentrated stench of human waste from invading her mouth and nose. Three motivating factors kept her going through such awful conditions. The first was continuing the work of Black Rose by freeing Rose Garden from the Corlones. The second was rescuing the innocent people the crime family intended to sell to slavers for cash.

The third was sheer unrelenting animosity for the Corlones. They were terrorizing the city that was the protectorate of Black Rose. They had abducted and tortured Victoria to satisfy the petty grudge of Francesca Corlone. Now the brunette was going to pay them back with interest. The best part of it all was that her revenge would be perfectly legal.

Victoria kept walking until she spotted two men in black suits standing near a sturdy metal door. She quickly pressed herself flat against the wall just out of their view and listened to the men talking. The acoustics of the sewer carried their words to her.

"We haven't heard back from Lou and his guys for awhile now. Do you think they got caught?" One of them asked.

"I don't know. We need to get that red-headed girl back because she's the only leverage we've got!" The other replied. Victoria grinned. They did not know that one of their enemies had recently taken away that leverage. Then she remembered something... she needed to step it up and rescue the hostages before the police got here and began their raid!

Victoria got off the wall and tried to sneak up on the guards, but the acoustics of the sewer now worked against her because one of the men heard the noise of sloshing water and looked in her direction. The brunette brought out her suppressed sniper rifle and took aim at the chest of a man who was walking her way. She waited until he was close, then fired a Kinetic Shot that knocked him down. The other man rushed to investigate and she shot him in the chest too. She rushed in and knocked both of them out with repeated blows to the head, then rummaged through their pockets for keys.

After taking a single silver key on a ring from the pocket of one of them, she positioned both men on dry land to make sure they did not drown while unconscious. She dispelled her weapon, then went to the door they were guarding and used the key to unlock it. Inside she found a surprised guard who she promptly knocked to the floor with a punch to the face. She ran over and knocked him unconscious before he could sound an alarm.

-Inside the room-

Victoria found herself in a dim room with what looked like a janitor's closet. Victoria turned on the light and rummaged through the guard's pocket. She found a large silver key and a smaller silver key. She took them both and used the large key to unlock the door, where to her surprise eight people whose hands were shackled in front of them tumbled out of the closet and nearly knocked her down in a bid to escape.

"Wait, I'm not with them!" Victoria told the people. They slowly calmed down and looked at her with anxiety on their faces.

"I'm with Sabertooth! I'm here to rescue you!" She told them while rolling up her left sleeve to expose her guild tattoo. After they saw the tattoo they calmed down. An older man spoke to her.

"Thank the Wizard Saints you're here! They were going to sell us to slavers!" He exclaimed. Victoria used the smaller silver key to unlock his shackles. She worked her way down the line and eventually freed all eight people. She crammed the guard inside the closet and locked it to keep him out of the way.

"I'll get you out of here, but you've gotta move fast. I don't know if anyone heard us." Victoria said to them. They nodded and she opened the door. She went first to look for trouble, then waved a hand to signal them to go when it was clear. She escorted the former captives to the gate and made sure that they got out safely, then turned around and headed back inside, making sure to drag the first two guards into the small room and locking them inside before moving on. Once they were out of the way, Victoria continued through the sewer to see who else she could rescue before the police got here.

The brunette trudged through the ankle-deep water and went straight until she spotted another pair of guards standing near another metal door. Again she flattened herself against the wall to find out what she could learn from them. She was rewarded with some interesting information.

"Francesca's in Hargeon Town right now. I heard that someone stopped her hitman from killing that Jasmine girl in Capital Crocus. You know, the one whose boyfriend she had killed when he wouldn't date her." One of the men said.

"Oh boy. She's gonna be pissed when she gets back." Another deadpanned. Victoria was unhappy to hear that because she wanted to see the blonde bimbo arrested and dragged through the streets. Oh well... tearing down the family business would be good enough for the brunette.

"Eh, Francesca always stays pissed about something. Anyway, have you heard back from Lou?" One asked.

"No. Think he got caught?" The other asked his own question.

"I dunno. Maybe that Victoria Sheridan girl got 'em." Came the answer.

"She wouldn't show up here, not after getting away from Francesca that night. Francesca's been pissed about that ever since. If that Victoria girl's smart, she'd stay away from here unless she wants to be fed to a wood chipper feet-first after having her eyes gouged out and all of her teeth and fingernails pulled out with pliers." One of them casually remarked. Victoria's face momentarily paled. Her old enemy already had a punishment picked out for her in case she got captured again. Victoria clenched her teeth and focused on her goal. That was even more reason not to get caught.

Victoria brought out her suppressed sniper rifle and prepared to make her move.

[Word Count: 1,085]
[Total Word Count: 2,226/4,000]

Victoria peered out from around the corner and took aim, then fired a Kinetic Shot to the head that knocked out one of the guards. Before the other could respond Victoria knocked him out with a shot to the head. She hurried over and searched their pockets for keys, taking a small bronze key and unlocking the door with it.

-Inside the room-

Victoria found herself inside a room that had six cages occupied by ragged-looking people and a single guard. The guard turned to run for help, but the brunette aimed and fired a Taser Spark that hit his right leg. The man stumbled and hit his head on the metal door in front of him, knocking himself out and saving Victoria the trouble of doing it herself. She jogged over and grabbed the key in his pocket, then walked to each cage and freed the occupant. She showed them her guild tattoo to assure them that she was not with their captors.

"We thought we were doomed to be sent to Desierto! Once slaves go in, they never come out alive!" A teenage male with black hair and a bruised lip told her. She unlocked their shackles and ushered them to the door. She then escorted them to the entrance while keeping an eye out for trouble. Once they had made it to the entrance, Victoria did a double-take when she spotted four police officers helping the people to safety. The police were already here!

One of them spotted her and approached with weapon drawn. Victoria raised her hands in surrender. He approached warily and got within arm's reach of her before getting a good look at her face.

"Oh, it's you, kid!" The officer said while putting away his weapon. He was one of the men who had helped her at the train station by stopping the Corlone men sent to recapture her!

"Yeah. I'm here to rescue innocent people. The Corlones are in the slave trade." Victoria informed him. He frowned.

"That's what our informants told us, but we were never able to get proof of it. Now that you've saved the chief's daughter and some of the other people, we've got it!" The officer told her. Victoria was glad that the girl had gotten to safety, but that was not going to help the other captives if they were killed before they could be rescued.

"I hate to run, but there's more captives inside. Once the Corlones hear that you're in the sewers, they'll try to get rid of them and destroy the evidence. I need to hurry!" Victoria
said with urgency.

"Go ahead!" He urged her. Victoria ran back to the room she had come from and flung the door open, then opened the metal door and came into another part of the sewer. She saw several men in black running by her and shouting to each other.

-The next section of the sewer-

"The police are here!" One of the men shouted to the others.

"We've gotta kill the captives. We can't let them talk!" Another man warned the others. Victoria could not let that happen or this whole job would be for nothing. Victoria took a moment to get ready for a gunfight, then dashed out of the doorway, spun right, and fired a Hand Cannon shot at the back of the first man she saw. He went down and the other five turned to face her while drawing their weapons in unison. Four of them began firing as a fifth ran to a thick metal door and pounded on it with a fist, occasionally stealing backwards glances at his pursuer. Victoria watched impotently as the door slid open and the runner slipped inside.

"Damn!" Victoria muttered while she picked off the frantically firing goons one by one, taking a few slugs to the armor and having her left shoulder and left cheek grazed by bullets. Once they were down she hurried to the shut and locked door. The man who slipped inside must have had the only key. Now she had to make a judgment call.

Did she fire a rocket and risk hurting the captives with the explosion or did she wait for the police to breach the door and risk the captives being killed? The brunette hated to gamble with innocent lives, but there was no time to wait.

Victoria jogged back to a safe distance, then brought out her Rocket Launcher and aimed for the door. She fired a rocket at the hinges that blasted it open. She then hurriedly made a Flashbang and sprinted to the wall next to the door while silently counting to five. She hugged it for cover and threw the cylinder inside the room on the count of three.

-Inside the room-

The cylinder went off and a chorus of screams sounded. The mage dashed into the room and knocked out two men with her fists before they could open fire on the over two dozen captives huddled in cells on each side of the room. Victoria had rescued the people on the left side of the room but those on the right side were still in danger because the would-be executioners had recovered their sight. Unable to cross the room in time to stop them, Victoria fired a Hand Cannon and the projectile split down the middle halfway to the target, both halves hitting the men in the back and knocking them down onto their stomachs.

The adrenaline-fueled brunette then sprinted across the room and kicked their pistols towards the door, then kicked both men in the face for a swift knockout. The bleeding mage was about to free the prisoners when the metal door to her right opened and someone in a black suit entered.

"The police are closing in on us! Hurry up!" A young man in a black suit warned his partners. Victoria stared at him, then aimed and fired a Taser Spark at the chest just as the man realized his mistake and turned to run. He did not get far because he fell face down onto the concrete and was knocked out with a swift kick to the back of the head.

Victoria tried to steady her shaking hands as she searched for the cell keys. She found two sets of large silver keys and unlocked the left cell, then hustled to the right and quickly opened that one. The grateful captives poured out of confinement and repeatedly thanked Victoria for saving them from execution. She peered through the blasted door and saw a large team of police approaching; she urged the newly freed people to go to them and to freedom.

Victoria yanked open the door that led to the next corridor and spotted a large group of enemies running by her with weapons drawn. In the middle of them was a thin bespectacled man with a stack of books clutched protectively in his arms. Her eyes widened. Those had to be ledgers filled with proof of illegal transactions! Victoria needed those books intact in order to deal the finishing blow to the crime family.

[Word Count: 1,189]
[Total Word Count: 3,415/4,000]

Victoria waited until the men had passed, then fished out her newly purchased gas mask and hastily put it on. She brought out her grenade launcher and aimed carefully. She fired a tear gas grenade that rattled to a stop and exploded in the middle of the group, making most of the men stop and try to cover their faces with their coats to block out the tear gas.

The book-carrying man and five of his escorts ignored the gas and ran for a set of metal double doors on the other side of the room, leaving her to deal with the remaining enemies. The other six coughed and fought watering eyes to try and aim pistols at their pursuer. They fired wildly as Victoria brought out her collapsible baton and began battering them into unconsciousness one by one. She took three more slugs to the Azure Armor but was otherwise unhurt. The other men were firing wildly as she approached, trying to buy time for their colleague to get the books to safety or destroy them all.

Victoria brought out her sniper rifle and began returning fire. She knocked out one of the gunmen before the door opened and the remaining men ran inside. Victoria pulled out her rocket launcher and fired another rocket at the door's hinges. She blew the right door off the hinges and it fell to one side, showing a room full of gunmen who opened up on her with automatic weapons. Getting the books was going to be tough because the Corlones knew they had been cornered and were fighting back with everything they had.

She dropped to a knee and aimed the grenade launcher to fire another tear gas grenade inside of the room when she took three slugs to the chest and was knocked backward. The grenade went far off the mark and landed in the corner where the left door met the frame, spewing its fumes in a way where little of it seeped through the open right door. To her considerable surprise three of the man had wrapped their jackets around their faces and ran through the gas with guns blazing

"If she gets the books, we're all dead! DON'T LET HER THROUGH!" One of the men bellowed in a grim reminder of what was at stake.

"We're not surrendering! Not to her, not to the police!" Another shouted. They fired at the brunette, forcing her to retreat and take cover near a wall with. More of the men poured out until she was facing down ten desperate and determined gunmen with nothing left to lose. They swiftly began to work in teams; some used suppressing fire to keep her from firing while others advanced on the pinned-down mage to close in for the kill. Victoria could feel their desperation as she fired a bean bag round directly into a man's face and his teammates rushed to close the distance.

The mage threw a Flashbang and one of the men quickly kicked it to the side before it went off. She dropped the grenade launcher and fired a Hand Cannon to knock one down but was set upon by the remaining three, who grabbed her arms and forced a close-range confrontation. She broke free and slugged one in the face, then stomped on the foot of another and headbutted the last before being hit in the back of the head with a submachine gun butt. She rolled over and fired a Derringer that hit in the forehead and knocked one out but was swarmed by the remaining seven and beaten down with fists and submachine gun butts until she went unconscious.

-In an unknown room-

Victoria woke up in a large square room lit by lanterns to find her hands cuffed in front of her and her armor, gas mask, bandolier, and backpack missing. In front of her were twenty angry men with automatic weapons. Her left eye was swollen shut and her bottom lip was bleeding. Her face felt like she went a dozen rounds with a boxing champion. With her one good eye she spotted the man with the books huddled in the corner.

"You've caused us a lot of trouble, kid. Now you're our only hostage. You're gonna get us out of here and when you do, you'll get a bullet to the back of the head!" One of the men, a man with a black buzzcut, informed her of what was in store for her. Victoria had to get out of here fast. But how?

She was facing down a lot of men with nothing left to lose. She did not have her armor for protection anymore. She could not even use her weapons.

What she did have was her shadow power. It was her ace in the hole and her way out of this mess. While the men watched her and argued about whether to shoot her now or hold her as a hostage and negotiate a way out, she began to activate her power. She fell onto her stomach and groaned to distract them from what she was actually doing.

"She'll have worse problems than a stomachache in a few minutes!" One of them joked, miming shooting someone with a gun. His partners laughed at the joke. The brunette was not amused, but she was working on her exit plan. The shadows made by the lamps began to twist and bend to her will. The bookkeeper was the only one to notice that something was amiss and raised an alarm that fell on deaf ears.

"Something's going on with the shadows. Why are the lamps acting funny?" The brown-haired bookkeeper asked his protectors. They looked at the lamps and did not notice anything amiss.

"Fredo's just paranoid. It's not like she can actually use shadows against us!" One of the men dismissed it. Victoria fought to keep from laughing. If only they knew how wrong they were. Her hands were glowing purple and the power was ready to use. She faced them and began moving the shadows to be within grabbing range of their weapons... soon she would make her move.

One of the men strode towards her and pointed his submachine gun at her head.

"I say we kill her now and fight our way out. There's still time!" A man with a scarred left cheek argued.

"No! She's the only leverage we have left! If we kill her, we're screwed!" Another argued back. Victoria did nothing to stop them from arguing because the infighting made her escape easier. She rose to her knees and made the shadows under her control seize their weapons.

Victoria was not going to gloat. She was not going to make snappy one-liners. She would simply beat them down and take the books, thus ruining their organization forever.

"What the hell?!" A guard asked as his submachine gun was taken away from him. Moments later all the weapons were taken away from their surprised owners as the brunette used a shadow to free herself by cutting the middle of the handcuffs. Now was the time to strike back.

Victoria's eyes glowed purple as the shadow hands smashed the barrels of the weapons against the stone walls, rendering them useless as anything other than paperweights. She then directed the hands to lift the criminals into the air and punch them until they went unconscious. The sound of twenty men being beaten filled the air as Victoria strode past the forest of purple shadowy arms and towards the bookkeeper. The bookkeeper hugged his books tightly as the angry mage approached. Victoria was not going to let him get away this time... she would take the books by force if she had to.

He stood up and frantically looked for a way out when she was within arm's reach. Finding no way out and seeing his protectors unable to help him, the sweating man slumped back down against the wall. He was clearly resigned to death.

"I want those books." Victoria said with an edge of anger, her glowing eyes meeting his wide brown eyes. The frightened man handed them over without a fight.

"Take them! JUST TAKE THEM!" He yelled, flinging the books at her. Victoria took all seven books and began to thumb through them to make sure there were no omissions or missing pages. She did not find anything missing, but she would take them to the police, who knew exactly what to look for. The bookkeeper simply sat in the corner and waited his turn to be pummeled, but she simply walked away and opened the room's door. Waiting outside for her were the police.

-Outside the room-

Victoria stood in place and let the officers with weapons drawn approach. She did not make any moves so she did not get killed right after completing her goal.

"She's the Black Rose kid! Don't shoot!" An officer shouted. The officers lowered their weapons and an older officer approached with two younger ones at his side. One of them was the same officer from the gate, the same one who had helped her escape Rose Garden.

"Here's the ledgers. They should have everything you need to nail the Corlones to the wall." Victoria handed the ledgers off to an older black-haired officer with glasses and a thin handlebar mustache. The officer began to thumb through them and looked up at the beat-up brunette.

"I can't believe you recovered all of these intact! I thought they'd have been burned!" He said in astonishment.

"Me too. It was a race against time the whole way. They didn't give them up without a fight." She replied.

"I'd say. Good work saving all the captives, kid. We've got ledgers filled with details about laundered money, payments to hitmen, even the names of slavers who did business with the Corlones. They're really in for some trouble thanks to you!" The older officer told her.

"It's the least I can do. I'm glad the captives are all OK." Victoria replied, using her Medical Bag healing spell to heal herself enough to stand up straight and see out of her left eye.

"Their combined testimony will only dig a deeper grave for the Corlones." The younger officer from earlier informed the Sabertooth mage. Another team of officers was going into the room behind Victoria to round up the unconscious Corlone henchmen. The bookkeeper was led out in handcuffs while the unconscious men were simply handcuffed and carried away.

"It's a shame that Black Rose disbanded. You did some work that'd do them credit. Rose Garden will be a lot safer now that the Corlones are going to be taken off the streets." Another officer chimed in.

"I'm with Sabertooth now. They don't back down when it comes to protecting the innocent." Victoria affirmed her new allegiance.

"Black Rose, Sabertooth. It doesn't matter, kid. Those guilds should count themselves lucky to have you." The older officer complimented her. Another officer walked up with her armor, backpack, bandolier, and gas mask.

"I believe these belong to you, kid." The red-haired man said before handing them over. Victoria took them back and re-equipped herself with the items. She put the mask back into the pack.

"Thanks. What do I do from here?" Victoria asked him.

"You've more than done your share. Go home and read the papers. You'll get to see the results of your work real soon!" He answered with a smile. Victoria bade her goodbyes and started the long walk home.

[Word Count: 1,925]
[Total Word Count: 5340/4,000]

-Rose Garden, two days later-

Wearing her green t-shirt and khaki cargo shorts with new white tennis shoes, Victoria strode into Rose Garden holding the straps to her backpack and found the city full of life. People were going about their daily routines and everything felt alive again. Now that the power of the Corlones was broken, life was slowly looking up for the city's people. She walked over to a newspaper kiosk and bought a newspaper. She then walked into a park and sat down on a wooden bench to read the newspaper.

"CORLONES ROUNDED UP IN ROSE GARDEN AFTER POLICE RAID ON SEWERS AND MANSION!" A headline blared.

"CORLONE VACATION HOMES IN CAPITAL CROCUS AND HARGEON TOWN RAIDED! MILLIONS IN JEWELS SEIZED!" Another one trumpeted.

"CORLONE MANSION SEIZED BY THE ROSE GARDEN POLICE! EVIDENCE OF DEALS WITH SLAVERS ALL ACROSS EARTHLAND UNCOVERED!" Yet another one read.

"ONGOING INVESTIGATION INTO MR. CORLONE'S DEALINGS WITH HUMAN TRAFFICKERS IN HARGEON TOWN!" Still another headline screamed.

"FRANCESCA CORLONE SKIPS HARGEON TOWN JUST AHEAD OF HARGEON POLICE!" The last headline crowed while showing a picture of a distraught Francesca throwing her hands over her face. Victoria smiled at that image. The wannabe mob princess was going to eat a bakery's worth of humble pies now.

Victoria was deeply amused by those headlines, especially the last one. She folded the paper and tucked it into her backpack... she would going to frame this newspaper for posterity. She could only imagine the look on Francesca's face when she saw that her family's empire was crumbling and that she was now a wanted woman. The brunette had gotten her revenge. The best part was that it had been done legally and with no one killed. That was the best revenge on Francesca that she could have asked for.

Like they had many times in the past, Victoria's thoughts turned to Black Rose. While the guild she had once called home was disbanded, its ideals of protecting the innocent and bringing the guilty to justice still lived on in her. The home of Black Rose was now free from the Corlones and its people could live in peace knowing that a shady crime syndicate no longer prowled the streets looking for people to sell to slavers. Criminals across Earthland had been served notice that Rose Garden was not their playground and that any crimes committed in it would be swiftly dealt with. Even if she was now with Sabertooth, Victoria would protect the city for as long as she could because more than just roses grew there.

In its soil grew memories of Black Rose and its members, people she called friends. Memories of triumph and sadness. Memories of jobs both exciting and mundane. However, the brunette could not dwell in the past and pine for something that had ended long ago. Her story would continue.

Victoria's adventure was not over; it was far from over. As part of Sabertooth, she would continue to protect the people of Earthland from threats they could not hope to face. Whether the threat came in the form of sleazy petty criminals or hulking supernatural threats, she would be there to stand up to them and push them back. One could say that the seeds of Victoria's idealism were planted in Rose Garden and nurtured by Black Rose. With that thought, Victoria left the park and started the return trip to Ace of Spades to be with her new friends and family and make new memories.

[Word Count: 585]
[Total Word Count: 5,925/4,000]