Coronation day (training)

[attr="class","mater"]

Vee was dead, long live the queen, Vee was dead, long live the queen, Vee was dead, long live the queen. Freedom, after all these years couped up in that politician barbies head she finally had her freedom, this was something she had been looking forward to for a very long time. That fool Gage had set her free, Vee had thought he would be her salvation, her saving grace down from heaven to lead her to the sane fields of roses and happy living. It could not have gone more wrong. Queen Victoria was born from the ashes of Vee's burnt up mind, she was the part of Vee that liked to see people squirm before the knife and got her kicks from watching people claw at her feet while begging for their lives. But most importantly, Queen Victoria was the part of her that wanted power, of course, Vee had always wanted power, but on a mundane level, she had been focused on gang power, politics in the groups and making a profit. Queen Victoria cared about the real power in the universe, the side that Vee had taken for granted and abused, taken out for occasional use and discarded again just as quickly. Queen Victoria was a lot more liberal with her powers, and she would bring power to this body the likes of which Vee could not have dreamed, and she did not need a Gage to do that.

Queen Victoria would certainly gain gang power as well, but she would not go the paperwork and negotiation route, using these new powers she would carve her way through the city of Naruki and paint her name in blood across its streets. You see, Queen Victoria accepted her powers, and was in tune with her hollow side, not too much to have a chat with it and let it take over, but enough to know her limits, and how far she could push them at any one time. Which is why, when she had finished her wisdom walk around the city to get used to control and finally arrived back at the headquarters of the Faceless gang headquarters she immediately commissioned an underground bunker to be made. This bunker would be accessible in the basement of the building via a 200m empty shaft straight down, the basement would be locked with a handprint recognition vault door set to Queen Victoria and the bunker itself would be a very large and very empty hall of heavily reinforced stone. This set the gang coffers back massively, garnering many complaints from the members and what passed for her financial advisors. She replied by blasting a shotgun of lightning into their faces, a trick she had recently learnt from her constant hostile soirees she threw herself into through the city. Queen Victoria had learnt how to manipulate Reiryoku to a small extent, opening the door to her powers and not afraid to meddle in things she did not fully understand for the sake of learning how they understand. Leaving the bunker to be built she spread her influence through the city, squashing arguments and complaints from her own members through a mixture of fear and undeniably efficient results.

Things changed so quickly after that if Queen Victoria's body was not adapting to her influx of skills and power so well then it would have given her whiplash. First order of business once the new base was built with a bunker, new interior design and a rapidly growing influx of revenue was to change the name. The Faceless Gang was a ridiculous name, she had a face, her men had a face and Vee's original plan for them all to wear masks was a pipeline dream she had never followed through with. So focussed on her plans for the future and where the business would go that she forgot she had men to do all that for her, as a crime lord her only real job was to show her fangs every so often to keep people in line, a task Queen Victoria had taken to beautifully. Therefore, the new name of her gang would be The Hive, a new gang, a new queen and a new purpose, aggressive tactics were now included in her services, they branched into mercenary work and got some serious brass in their pocket. All the while, Queen Victoria sat back, blasted people she did not like in the face with lightning and raked in the profits while everyone else did the work. Of course, she still went out to deal with the occasional trouble maker, the real problem with the gang was something she had only realised after killing a bunch of her own people. The simple and sad fact was that they were no match for her, they were weak, powerless before her and so fragile when coming up against the enemies she pitted them against. Soon becoming the queen, general, foot soldier and assassin all in one, and although her assassination tactics usually involved blowing up the entire complex, the first three are still technically valid.

When her empire was stable, her power absolute and her influence unquestioned, she retreated into her bunker, down the shaft and into the depths below where she stayed for about 20 minutes before coming back up as she had forgotten to put food down there. But after that, she went down and stayed there for several months training, the vault door prevented anyone from hearing the noises coming from belong, the explosions, the screeches and other unthinkable sounds scratching at the very air itself. Her business kept ticking over, they lost some fights and won some fights but kept their ground, the money kept coming in and all the time no one saw their queen, some thought she had died down there, some thought she had food and money hoarded down there as she saw some great enemy coming and was hiding. Some thought she had simple run off, making them think she was still inside there so they held together and could still use her name as a thread to the rival gangs. There was only so long they could do this, whether it was the rumours, absence of a leader or some other unforeseen cause, they slipped, the enemies pushing on all sides and crushed through their warehouses, killed their middlemen and stormed on the main base itself. At first no one had realised the vault door was opened, The Hive was so busy defending itself, gunfire from the slits in the walls poured out over the advancing armies below, it was a modern day shootout; rpg's threatened to rear their heads and the combined might of all of Naruki's remaining gangs bore down on them. A single cough rang through the ranks. It was a small cough, one that enquired, one with a definite question tied to it, the kind of cough that asked “What are you doing?” and it echoed, it bounced and it hit every single member of her own and opposing gangs, all eyes turning to the figure who stepped slowly through the smoke. The queen was awake.

She walked slowly and calmly towards the door, the barricades in front of it melted away before her, sliding across the floor, with a wave of her hand the steel front door was blown off of its hinges. Queen Victoria stepped out to face the enemy, and the enemy responded by focusing fire. Her body disappeared under a maelstrom of gunfire, The Hive, too shocked to return fire, they simple ducked behind cover and hoped their end would be quick. Smoke filled the air, the smell of sulphur and the loud clack as a flamethrower was added to the stream of offense that surrounded Queen Victoria. They were taking no chances. But it was all for nought, for when the fire ceased, the guns were reloaded and the smoke faded, there she stood, hair unruffled, body unmarked, and a grin so wide it threatened to eat her own face. “Excellent” she said simply, the word spread outwards, she could see it, it floated away from her on the air before reaching her enemies, and on reaching them, it killed them. All but one of them was sent flying backwards, those with walls behind them became a part of the wall, those with nothing just kept going into the darkness of the alleyway or street they stood in front of. That one who it had not reached was merely because he had not arrived yet, and now she did, sprinting around the corner oblivious to the mutilated bodies of her kin around her and aimed the rpg in her hands. Queen Victoria looked at her with interest, but made no move to run or defend herself, The Hive came out of cover at this point in time to see the rocket fly at their leader. A high explosive shooting at a speed that seemed faster than it was possible to her men, but a speed that was boringly slow to the queen herself. She could hear it, she could see how it worked and she knew she could do all sorts of things to prevent that rocket from reaching her, but she needed her men to see this. The woman who fired it in the meantime had realised her mistake, seeing the bodies of her friends and in slow motion, dropped the rpg and ran back the way she had came.

As the rocket came without touching distance of Queen Victoria, a brown bubble appeared around it with a pop, and with another pop, centimetres from hitting her, it popped again, and existed no more. Her men waiting behind her, fingers in ears and screams in their throats for their leader, she found their level of distrust offensive, but understandable. If only they knew the concentration and hard training it took to achieve these powers, all those months of unlocking the ability to utilise her spiritual energy and manipulate Reiryoku into the concrete world. But the understanding and end result from that blood sweat and tears would pay off in the blood, sweat and tears of her enemies to come. She turned towards them, and raised her arms in welcome to the new era of The Hive. These humans were so weak, no doubt they thought that all of her enemies combined would have been enough to bring her down, but they were wrong, and now all of her main competitors were gone or heavily weakened. Nothing could stop her now. Then they saw. And they believed.