The Astonishing Fox!

Who am I? You sure you wanna know? My story isn't for the faint of heart.

If somebody told you I was an ordinary lady with an average life.

Somebody lied.

So…hm. I guess I can start here.

************************************

The sun quietly rose over the tall buildings and somewhat grungy and dirty apartments of Lower Camdelia. Even in this early morning, cars were infesting the streets, each one of them filled with tired workers, single parents taking their children to school, and drunken/high young adults heading home from a killer night of partying. The streets were littered with people, some simply walking, trying to get to their destination on time. Others were biking, skateboarding and even scootering down the busy pavement, to the annoyance of some, and of course, there's the unfortunate. The homeless war veterans, the street animals and even some orphaned children blended in with the working class. They typically hung out around the grimy apartments, quietly begging for anyone to share anything they had.

One of these grimy apartments in particular, housed a particular girl living a particular lifestyle. Her room had a mixture of dirty and clean clothes scattered around haphazardly. Newspapers, most of them crumpled and ripped, detailing threats and crimes occurring around the city, along with hit pieces slandering a certain superhero named 'Carmine'. Her skateboard, placed lazily in the middle of the room, almost as if it was waiting for someone to step on it. A bulletin board right next to her bed, with pictures of criminals and wrongdoers all connected by a series of lines being held together by thumbtacks. Under the board, was a nightstand, with a pile of late and overdue rent notices next to a random assortment of hairbrushes, hair bands, half eaten energy bars, a dirty, rinky dink alarm clock that barely functioned, three empty jars with tape on them with "VACATION MONEY", "RENT AND REPAIR", and "NEW GUITAR MONEY" written in bold marker respectively, and a framed picture of the girl's mother and father rested, overlooking the chaos that was the rest of her nightstand.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BE-

The old alarm clock had been swiftly caught by the now wide awake woman, she gently placed the clock back onto her nightstand, and, after fishing through her raven black hair for any follicles of red hair from last night, she leaped out of her bed and onto her skateboard, the board flew from under her feet suddenly, which would've led to the girl landing face first on the harsh wooden floorboards, but while in midair, she somehow corrected her momentum and landed gracefully on her feet. Not even missing a beat, she rushed over to one of her piles of dirty clothes and sifted through them frantically. She found a white blouse and white vest with a yellow phoenix design on the sides and red coattails. She sniffed both of the upper garments and scrunched her face, but she took the undershirt she was wearing off and put the blouse and vest on anyway.

She spent the next five minutes hurriedly searching for her classic black culottes, and grew confused when she searched high and low throughout her room and they somehow eluded her. She was about to give up and just put on a pair of jeans she found in the corner next to her bed, but caught a glimpse of something black peeking from under her mattress. With one finger, she easily lifted the heavy mattress and found the pants she was looking for. She snatched them and quickly put them on, not even bothering to sniff this time.

Finally, she fished around for something in her nightstand drawer. It took a few seconds, but she found what she was looking for. She pulled out a red and white kumiho mask, which was suspiciously sticky and wet. The woman would have investigated as to why her mask felt like this, but there was simply no time. She slipped the mask on and let it do its magic.

The woman felt her nails elongate into sharp claws, her raven black hair growing past her shoulders and turning into a light crimson along with a pair of red fox ears protruding from her hair. Her slightly tan skin started reddening and tufts of fur the same color started to emerge on different parts of her body, along with a bushy scarlet fox tail popping out from her backside, finally her shiny silver eyes turned into sharp yellow slits, and her teeth sharpened drastically. You wouldn't know though, as she kept her mask on while slipping on a pair of worn, dirty golden kicks that had definitely seen their fair share of action.

Finally, her outfit was complete. She grabbed her half eaten energy bar off of her nightstand and went to open her apartment window which led to the great outdoors.

KNOCK KNOCK!

The woman's head whipped around to face her door, ready to make a quick escape just in case a random roommate decided to investigate as to why their slobby neighbor was making so much noise at 8AM. But she quickly relaxed after seeing a letter quietly slide under her door, but she quickly tensed up again after seeing URGENT! FINAL NOTICE! RENT PAST DUE!

Irene Reynard

Irene sighed internally after seeing the letter, but quickly regained composure, rent can wait, it can't wait for long, but it can wait. The girl turned back to the window, opened it wide, took a deep breath as she stepped back, and then ran out of the window. The cold breeze hit her like a truck as she landed on the window ledge of the 7th story of the apartment right across the street from her own. Irene quickly climbed up on top of the roof of the apartment, but not quick enough for one starstruck boy to make a big deal of it to her mother.

"MOM! MOMMY! I SAW HER! I SAW CARMINE!!!" The boy hopped up and down excitedly, tugging on her mother's sleeve, the parent rolled her eyes.

"That's the last time I'll give you Golden Flakes for breakfast. First you can't sit still, and NOW you're fawning over that menace Carmine? This is ridiculous!" The mother's complaint fell on deaf ears however, as her whistling tea kettle sat on a flaming burner, and the energetic boy bounced all over the place, drowning out her whining.

Carmine glided across each rooftop, every time she came to the end of each roof, she made a giant leap to the next one with ease. The hero flipped over gates, ducked under pipes, and vaulted over emergency exits. She even alternated between rooftops from both sides of the streets as if it was second nature, with each massive leap, the fox had gotten an eyeful of the busy street life from below. Cars, citizens, pets, and… fire trucks rushing down the street in the opposite direction Carmine was running in. But she eventually got bored of being up so high and leaped off of the roof, with a plan of course. When she was close to the sidewalk, she immediately grabbed onto the nearest street light and began effortlessly swinging off of them, greeting pedestrians along the way.

"Hey guys! How's everyone doing? I'm in a bit of a hurry, I'll catch up with y'all later!" Carmine's greetings went mostly unnoticed. The kid's eyes were shielded by concerned parents and the teenagers even chucked some of their food and belongings at the fox.

"Jeez. Well, I appreciate the free food!" Carmine quipped as she instinctively caught a muffin that was thrown by one teen.

Most people above the age of 20 merely groaned at the presence of this delinquent. But some adults were glad to see her, her presence was certainly entertaining, that was for sure.

Carmine bounced off of the low canopy roof of a restaurant, enjoying her airtime by flipping and twirling gracefully, she landed on top of a lamppost, she picked up a faint scent.

"Huh…" Carmine's nose twitched as she picked up a smoky scent coming from a few blocks from the west, "Wow, that smells good. But who's barbequing this early in the morning?"

Carmine sniffed the air some more, until she came to a harrowing realization, "Wait-that's not barbeque. That's a FIRE! I have to do something, that scent is WAY too strong, the fire is getting out of control." Carmine closed her eyes, and focused her energy, and in a flash of orange thunder, she disappeared.

Just as quickly as she disappeared, she reappeared, falling face-first on her mask on the block where the fire was happening, a crowd of stunned and horrified citizens watched a raging fire engulf the brick apartment building, and firemen were attempting to spray down the flames, trying to quell it. Carmine coughed up some blood onto the inside of her mask, but she quickly stood up and approached the nearest fireman.

"Yo Mr. Fireman, is there anyone stuck in that building?" Carmine asked the firefighter, but the fighter only gave the hero an annoyed look.

"Listen lady, we have this under control. But while you're here, we're gonna call the police so they can take you in for your 'superhero efforts'. Scumbag."

"Mr. Fireman with all due respect, I'm trying to help-"

"NOOOOOO! MY BABY IS IN THERE! MY BABY!!!" A woman incredulously shouted being held back by a firefighter, Carmine quickly turned her attention to the woman and rushed over to her.

"Ma'am! What floor is your kid on?"

"HE'S ON THE 5TH FLOOR, 2ND WINDOW! JUST PLEASE DO SOMETHING!!" The woman cried out, Carmine nodded in affirmation.

"Hey Carmine! The police will be waiting for you when you get down here!" The fireman called out to the hero.

"Well… they're gonna be waiting for a while then!" Carmine said as she leaped up to the second window of the second floor, she continued to climb the windows until she reached the fifth floor, the window was closed but thick, black smoke escaped from the aperture anyway. With a sharp CRACK! Carmine shattered the fiberglass window with one punch. She entered the burning apartment building, and looked around. The furniture had been nearly burnt to an unrecognizable mass, the kitchen had been completely engulfed in flames, with a lone tea kettle sitting on the dining table and a box of delicious Sagan-O's, both of them were being consumed by flames.

Carmine felt the heat on all of her sides. She was burning up, but had to keep her mask on, unless she wanted to risk any more smoke entering her system.

"Hey kid! Kid! Where are you?!" Carmine shouted, looking around for any signs of life, but the raging fire made it a little hard to focus, the hero stepped in the flaming kitchen, where the fire was loudest, but Carmine continued to cautiously look around, but she couldn't really check anything due to the flames infecting almost every surface. Carmine started to panic a little, but that's when her fox ears twitched slightly, they were picking up muffled screaming coming from the bottom cabinets under the sink. The fox reached over and carefully opened the cabinet, revealing a small kid wrapped in a blanket, who was ironically shivering, soot covered his already dark skin and dirtied his ivory horns, his chattering stopped after seeing the fox lady, his eyes grew wide.

"C-Carmine? Is that you?"

"In the flesh, now come on, I gotcha," Carmine reached out with both arms and scooped up the kid, holding her close to her chest, "alright, I'm gonna get you outta here. What's your name kid?"

"Uh- I'm Max."

"Max huh? Ok Max, close your eyes for a sec," Carmine looked away briefly to take her mask off, then she placed the kumiho mask onto Max, shielding his face from the smoke. The child was stunned to be wearing his hero's mask, but his awe was interrupted by seeing a streak of blood coming out of the fox's mouth.

"You're bleeding Carmine! How did you get hurt?"

"I can explain when we get outta here. Hang on Max!" Carmine leaped over the rising flames to exit the kitchen and made way over to the shattered window to escape. But it wouldn't be that easy, as the floor above Carmine suddenly gave way, broken floorboards and random furniture ended up taking down the broken window, and some of the area surrounding it, leaving a gaping hole showing the outside of the apartment. Below, the onlookers were like ants on the ground, and suddenly, just standing on the 5th floor felt like being on the summit of a steep mountain. Max gulped.

"Ok! Plan B." Carmine ran out of the room and into the burning stairwell, she rushed down the staircase, eventually reaching halfway through the 3rd floor stairway, as she continued her descent to the exit, a huge chunk of the staircase from above came rocketing down, threatening to flatten Carmine and take down the rest of the staircase with her.

But after about a second of thinking, Carmine came up with an amazing idea. She threw Max over the handrail, sending him plummeting down the middle gap of the stairwell. The kid screamed bloody murder, confused as to why his hero just dropped him to his death.

But of course, it wouldn't be his time to die yet, as a bright orange flash of energy appeared right below Max's falling body. Carmine held out her hands and caught the boy, causing the child's screaming to stop, the fox gave Max a big toothy grin.

"Sorry for the scare! But uh, please don't tell your mom I dropped you-*HACK!!!*" Carmine spewed up more blood, getting the fluids on her snow white blouse and vest, and even spilled some on Max's blanket. The child's face held the same shocked expression ever since he had been thrown over the handrail, Carmine quickly composed herself.

"Sorry about… that. Teleporting long distances takes a lot out of me," Carmine told the kid, "Ok! Let's-"

The fox picked up a low rumbling coming from above, but the rumbling got louder and louder. Carmine looked up to see massive chunks of fiery debris making their way down the stairwell, the hero held Max close again and made a beeline for the front entrance of the apartment, busting down the heavy steel door with her shoulder. The raging fire escaped from the open doorway, but the firefighters scrambled around the flame and attacked it with torrents from their hoses.

Max's mother ran over to Carmine and gave her and Max spine-crushing hugs, when she was finished, she looked at the fox lady with tears in her eyes.

"I cannot thank you enough Carmine. I… see what my son sees in you now, you're an angel!" Carmine's face had started to turn a little red. But she was also taken aback at the mother ignoring her animalistic features.

"Ahaha, thanks. Max is probably the bravest kid I ever met. He's gonna grow up to be special-"

"WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED CARMINE! PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR RIGHT NOW AND GET ON THE GROUND!" A police officer heartily yelled into his megaphone as more police wagons surrounded the crowd.

Carmine started to sweat as more officers pulled up and exited their vehicles, drawing their weapons and aiming it at the fox. The hero attempted to pull off a teleport, but she couldn't even manage that as her previous teleport had sapped her of her energy.

Just my luck! If the police had only come a few minutes later, I wouldn't be in this spot! If I even make a move, there's no way these guys aren't gonna try and light me up! Carmine nervously thought to herself as she slowly started to put her hands up.

"GET DOWN ON THE GROUND. RIGHT. NOW. THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING! WE WILL USE FORCE IF YOU DO NOT COMPLY!" The officer warned. Max's mother had had enough, she gritted her teeth as she stomped up to the officer, drew her hand back as far as she could, and smacked the officer with all of her might.

"How dare you!? This fine young lady just saved my son's life, and this is how you repay her?! For shame!" The mother took off her slipper and started relentlessly whacking the officer with it. It took two other officers to prevent the mother from beating her victim to death. Other onlookers started to join in on stalling the cops as well, they threw anything at the police wagons, from rocks, to lighters, to even some shoes.

"THESE FRIGGIN' COPS CAN NEVER DO ANYTHING RIGHT!"

"YOU TRIGGER-HAPPY BASTARDS!"

"YOU WANNA GET TO CARMINE!? YOU GOTTA GET THROUGH US!!!"

Max turned to Carmine, who was currently in shock, she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

"Get out of here Carmine! We can only hold them off for so long!" Max begged as he handed over the kumiho mask to its original owner, the fox gladly retrieved the mask and put it back on.

"Thanks Max! I take it back- you ARE the bravest kid I've met!" Carmine ruffled the kid's afro, as she then gathered her energy and teleported away in a bright orange flash.

Carmine had only teleported a block away from the accident, she climbed the nearest building, a movie theater with its premiere film being "WONG VS. UME! A CLASH OF TWO GODS!" (only available for viewing until August 1st).

Carmine quickly teleported on top of a taller building next to the theater and continued running in the direction of her new job, occasionally stopping to hide behind chimneys and emergency exits, just in case an eagle eyed policeman was watching from below. After running across a few more buildings, she had reached her destination, the Delgado Association for Abandoned Children building. She silently leaped down into the alleyway, digging her claws into the brick walls for a slower descent. Once she was on the ground, she made her way to the nearest garbage bin and lifted it up with one hand, revealing a black leather bag. Carmine grabbed the bag and placed it down right next to her. The fox looked back at the alleyway, checking to see if anyone was watching. It seemed like the coast was clear, Carmine opened the bag and pulled out a beige suit, a black striped button up shirt, a yellow tie and brown sandals, the fox began to undress quickly.

Carmine reluctantly put her superhero clothes on the ground and quickly put on her work attire, starting with the button up shirt, and working her way down. In about a minute, Irene was fully dressed and ready for work, she stuffed her superhero clothes in the bag and slid them back under the garbage container. Irene felt her hair shrink and revert back to its original color, her yellow slitted eyes turning silver and circular, her fur and tail being sucked back into her body along with her red skin turning back to its tan pigment. All of this while Irene made a mad dash into the building, futilely praying to the Trinity that no one noticed she was late.

Irene ran through the lobby (not even bothering to greet the receptionist), and stopped at the elevator, pushing the 5F so hard, it would've broke if someone hadn't stepped up behind her.

"Good morning Reynard."

Irene froze, she slowly turned around and came face to chest with her boss, who towered over her, she wore a blood red suit, which matched her red hair tied into a neat bun, with a red dress shirt and tie, along with black dress shoes which went with her short black horns jutting out of her head, she wore tinted sunglasses to complete the look. Irene smiled nervously.

"H-Hi Ms. Aris! UH- I mean, Ms. Delgado! Sorry for coming late, I… got stuck walking in traffic?" Irene sputtered, but Eris only responded with a smile as she moved past Irene and made her way onto the now open elevator, Irene almost got herself killed trying to follow her boss into the lift.

On the lift, the two women silently waited to reach 5F. Irene couldn't stop shuffling nervously around her boss. While Carmine could crush a steel pipe by curling one finger around it, Irene felt as if Eris could do the same by just looking at the pipe. The woman didn't even want to imagine what would happen if her boss actually, seriously decided to fight something. Irene didn't even know if she could fight!

"...Irene."

"YEah?" Voice crack.

.

"Where's your briefcase?"

"...I left it at home."

"Hm."

"Sorry."

More silence. Irene felt as though she was going to explode. 2F.

"There was a fire a D. Killsage street."

"Yeah! There was! How about that huh?"

"And fortunately, Carmine had saved the day. God bless her, there are simply too many selfish souls on the planet right now. Seeing someone with genuinely good intentions is refreshing."

"Haha, she's uh… really good at what she does."

3F.

"...What would you do if you were Carmine, Irene?"

"OH! Ummm… I guess I would just… I dunno. Help out people, like she's doing right now I suppose."

"I see. I myself wouldn't want to be Carmine. I couldn't live two lives at the same time, because, if I chose one lifestyle, another would have to suffer."

Oh, you have no idea. Irene thought to herself, the elevator went back to silence. Irene closed her eyes and took a deep breath, this is what she was waiting for, it was all or nothing. 4F.

"Hey Ms. Delgado?"

"Yes?"

"...can I get a raise?"

Eris turned to Irene and took her sunglasses off. Irene felt her boss's gaze on the side of her face, she started to sweat and tug on her suit's collar.

"I-I mean… only if you want to! Well, of course it'd be only if you'd want to, it's your decision, but still! I mean- no one is forcing you to pay me more ahahahaha…."

"Irene. Look at me." Irene looked at her boss, fear in her eyes, Eris put a firm hand on her employee's shoulder and stared her down.

"You come in late, smell like garbage, don't have your briefcase, and you STILL ask me for a raise?"

"...I figured it would be worth a shot." Irene squeaked out, Eris didn't even blink, instead an eerie smile creeped onto her face.

"I'm honestly impressed that someone would even consider asking me that. I'll give you a raise, on one condition."

"O-ok? What is it?"

"Are you Carmine?"

5F. The elevator made a piercing DING! as the metal doors opened, revealing a bustling office space, Eris let go of the mortified Irene's shoulder and put her sunglasses back on.

"So sorry. I lost my composure a little bit. I have no reason to believe that you are Carmine." Eris said to her employee as she exited the elevator along with her close behind, "But, just know one thing Irene. Secrets truly benefit nobody, and if you disagree, that makes it all the more obvious that you're hiding something. Now get to work."

Irene felt the blood reenter her body as Eris left her alone. The employee made her way to her booth in the far right corner of her room. The booth was a little messy, pencils and pens everywhere, candy wrappers on the ground, and crumpled up paperwork that had been thrown out in the trashcan on the side of the booth.

Irene sat down, and just as she did, a snake feral coworker had dropped an entire manilla folder of paperwork that was just begging to be filled out.

"Here ya go sweetheart. It's extra stacked today, just a little gift for you for coming 15 minutes late. Have fun." The coworker slithered off to bother more people, while Irene took a sheet of paper from the folder, turns out this piece of paper was just completely blank, white on both sides. Irene didn't really react at first, until she had gotten an idea. She took out her pen from the booth's drawer, and started doodling ideas for a better suit for Carmine, one where she preferably didn't have to wear high tops that were at risk of falling apart constantly.