[center][h2]Kitsune[/h2][/center]

It was turning out to be a busy night. Kitsune didn’t think anything of it at first, but after taking down her fifth group of thugs for the night, all seemingly stalking or cornering someone alone, she had to concede that it was a little [i]too[/i] busy.

When she saw the sixth group trying to drag a homeless man into a van, well that just cemented her concerns in reality didn’t it?

Two men this time, tall, muscled and wearing dark clothing, plus a third in the driver seat. The man they carried between them was struggling mightily, thrashing around in their grip, but that didn’t seem to be slowing them down any as they hauled him off the ground and threw him bodily into the back of the non-descript vehicle. Kitsune took a deep breath and moved towards them, the fresh bruises she had accumulated over the night protesting as she ran. They heard her coming this time and by the time she reached them they had both turned to face her; still didn’t stop her from slamming an elbow into the face of the first man before he could react, but it did mean that when she got to the second he was aware enough to dodge her kick.

Behind her, she could hear the man she had elbowed recovering, the shock of her first hit wearing off, so she pressed a foot into the back of his knee and elbowed him again in the back of the head to finish him off.  She did all of this without taking her eyes off of the man in front of her, which was a good thing since it allowed her to dodge the jab he sent her way even as his friend was slumping to the ground behind her. Any further violence was interrupted briefly as the homeless man bolted from the back of the van, running between them as he took the abductors distraction as a chance to escape.

The abductor followed the fleeing man with his eyes, looking like he was going to give chase, before he gave up on the idea and turned back to her instead, bringing his hands up in front of him and shifting a foot forward. He had a little bit of training then; nothing special by the looks of it but he’d at least been inside a boxing gym at some point in his life, which was more than most of the thugs she fought could say. Potentially a problem. Behind her she heard the door of the van open as the driver inside had finally taken notice and decided to join in. Better make this quick then.

A quick step forward was enough to bait out another jab, which she slipped under before rising inside his guard and slamming and elbow into the underside of his chin. They fell back, dazed, and she stepped forward again and feinted a roundhouse to his ribs; he fell for it, bringing his guard down to his side even as her knee twisted, lifting her foot up to hit him in the temple instead. He dropped like a puppet with his strings cut, as much from surprise as the way the hit scrambled his brains, and Kitsune turned to face the last abductor just as he was coming around the corner of the van. She was ready for them as they lunged at her, but she didn’t see the knife in the man’s hand until it glinted under the streetlights and that almost cost her. Grabbing his wrist she diverted the knife away from her, still feeling it graze her side and draw blood even as she spun in close to his body, used her free hand to reach up and grab his collar and dragged him over her shoulder to slam him to the ground.

A harsh twist of his wrist saw him release the knife as he yelped in pain, which she then kicked away so it skittered across the pavement and slid under the van. Hopping over his form, she knelt on his chest and pinned him down so she could ask him a few questions. “Busy night. Stopped a lot of these abductions. What’s going on?”

“Gah, get off me you bi-nnn!”

She twisted his arm another fraction of an inch, cutting him off. Yeah, it was probably hoping for too much to expect him to immediately tell her everything he knew. The problem was, she didn’t really know what to do if he didn’t; she’d never really interrogated anyone before, usually she didn’t say anything to the people she beat up. “Where were you going to take him?”

“None of your business!”

This was the part when the hero was supposed to start roughing up the suspect, she was pretty sure. Beating them up until they started talking, or in her case just turning up the heat until they talked or cooked, but she wasn’t willing to go that far. A couple broken bones and a concussion was about as much as she was willing to dish out in the name of justice and even then only during a fight; torturing someone didn’t sit right with her.

Which meant she wasn’t going to get anything out of this guy.

Her elbow cracked into a person’s skull for the third time in as many minutes, knocking the last abductor out as she let him go and stepped away from him. Letting out a sigh she pulled a burner phone out of her pocket and began to call the police, again, to pick these guys up. Exhaustion began to settle into her body as she walked away, the adrenaline starting to wear off and the night beginning to take its toll on her; time to call it then, time to head home. She pressed a hand to her side, the cut from the knife burning something fierce; a quick glance down showed that the side of her white top had started to turn red as well. It would need stitches, probably.

E.R. first, then home.