Prologue-

Midnight Mass

It was just past midnight. The full moon peeked from behind a slowly drifting cloud, as its willowed light gently outlined a steeple that seemed to desperately reach up to the lonely ebony sky. Connected to an old church long ago abandoned by its parishioners, it still stood proud at the dark edge of the city. Stained glass windows that were not already smashed or cracked were haphazardly boarded up. Appearances however can always be deceiving and such as it was with this particular church.

Warped front doors were quickly pried apart as four shadowy figures dressed all in black entered. They quickly moved down the aisle and past the dusty pews on towards the back where the former business office was located. They immediately came upon a much stronger and newer door bolted from the inside. The phosphorus flash from a small explosive device successfully blew the lock and allowed the door to be kicked in to reveal stairs leading somewhere deep below. The figures cautiously and silently moved down the staircase and into an underground room containing as many books and journals as any average sized library.

One figure hastily went behind a desk and kneeled down to a safe located in the wall. Using another blast cap to destroy the combination lock, the figure easily swung open the safe's door and immediately grabbed a small and tattered leather bound journal before nodding to the other two. All then quickly headed back up the stairs.

As they moved back up the aisle, shots suddenly rang out. Two security guards approached from a side entrance. The figures returned fire as the ensuing gun blasts sporadically lit up the inside of the church like a dance club strobe on a Saturday night. Chunks of rotted wood from the pews splattered into the air, as the figures managed to make their way out the front doors before tossing a flash grenade back down the aisle, temporarily blinding the security guards long enough to ensure the escape of the figures along with the mysterious journal they had solely come for.

Chap. One

Punk Encounters of the Third Kind

Angel City- One Week Later- 3:16 A.M.

The lights of the City painted the night sky a deep shade of television gray, as the blood moon slowly rose over the horizon. On the outskirts were the bridges that connected the inner and outer sectors. It was early morning and only the high tech/low life are out and about.

In the middle of Gibson Street bridge, walked three. More low life than high tech, they wandered the night like human hyenas, laughter masking their violent nature.

Skull scanned the surroundings with his night vision eye. A combination of Korean circuitry and old German optics, it was inserted where his right eye would normally be had he not cut it out himself as part of a gang initiation years ago.

His left eye, covered by a silver patch, was a result of loosing it in a knife fight over some Joy Girl, who was now long gone and easily forgotten. His red spiked hair, decorated with a dozen plastic mini-skull ornaments, announced his status as this punk trio's leader.

"Grasp anything, Skull?" Skunk asked. Skunk had a black and white dyed Mohawk, that trailed down his back almost touching the ground.

"Nein! Nyet! No!" Skull replied, as he scanned the deserted streets, his artificial eye zoomed in and out and searched for any slight movement amongst the trash and debris that lined the bridge way.

"Well, I'm crusin for a brusin!" Razor, the third member, yelled out. Wearing a scanner cap, he monitored the police frequencies should the occasional cruiser mistakenly come out this far. His finger nails had been replaced with ten surgically inserted razor blades just for the hell of it.

Suddenly, Skull detected something.

"I spy with my little eye," he announced loudly, "a bag that may hold a big surprise!"

Skull pointed to a sleeping bag that hung upside down under the rafters of a another bridge just above.

"Hey, up there!" Skunk called out, "anybody home?! Come on out, we just want to play!"

Silence.

Skull and Razor climbed the embankment, jumped up on the secondary bridge and approached the overhanging bag with caution. Skunk kept look out below. Razor recited an old nursery rhyme, as he took a swipe with his bladed hand that neatly sliced the bag in two.

"Little Miss Muffet…Sat On A Tuffet… Eating Of Curds And Whey… There Came A Great Spider… Who Sat Down Beside Her… And Frightened Miss Muffet Away!"

Out of the split bag tumbled articles of clothing. Skunk checked it out below.

"Girly clothes!" he reported back.

"A Fem near by?" Razor wondered.

"Maybe," Skull replied.

Suddenly, from directly behind they heard someone eerily singing another nursery song.

"I'm A Little Tea Pot… Short And Stout! Here Is My Handle…..Here Is My Spout!"

Skull and Razor immediately spun around to see a pretty girl with long purple hair. She was dressed in a white, lace flowing skirt, a brown leather vest-like corset and black leather knee high boots. On top of her head was a black stove pipe hat with aviation style goggles wrapped around its brim. She was holding two guns.

"Hey, Purple Haze!" Razor stingingly asked, "what's your name?!"

"Lily!" she replied, as she smiled a slightly psychotic smile that managed to easily send a chill down Skull's spine. He quickly zoomed in with his eye and focused on the weapons she held in her hands.

"Well, Le Fem Lily," he evilly grinned, "my name is Skull and I'll be your host for this evening's festivities but first are you going to be a good little girl and not threaten us with any of your toys?"

Skull had chuckled to himself when his electronic eye revealed the girl was holding a BB pistol and a squirt gun.

"Yeah," Razor replied, as he slowly approached her, "come play with us big boys, cause we're gonna show you we've got some big toys!"

Skull and Razor half expected this purple haired girl to try and make a run for it. In fact, they had hoped she would try to escape so they could chase then overtake her. The fact that this potential prey was young, pretty, and female made it ever the more exciting. However, to their surprise the girl remained and finished singing her song.

"When I Get All Steamed Up Hear Me Shout! …Tip Me Over And Pour Me Out!"

Suddenly, Lily Leary took aim with the squirt gun in her left hand and pulled the trigger. A stream of Hydrochloric acid sprayed directly onto Razor's face.

He screeched in pain like a banshee on buffalo meat. As he instinctively reached up to protect his face, he inadvertently slit his own throat with the bladed nails. The night was filled with the sound of desperate gasps, as the acid began to melt his face and the blood began to flow out of the artery self-severed in his neck.

"WHAT THE FUCK!" Skull cried, as he pulled out a steel baton from a hemp lined belt that hung lazily around his stick thin waist but before he could use it, Lily aimed the .177 caliber BB pistol in her right hand within inches of his face and fired. At that close of range, traveling at 480 feet per second, the pellet easily shattered Skull's electronic eye.

"YOU FUCKING BITCH! YOU BLINDED ME!" Skull screamed.

Skunk came running up the embankment and came to a quick stop as he saw his home bros, one in a blind rage and the other lying in a pool of his own blood.

Lily turned around and smiled creepily at Skunk.

"You want to play too?"

Skunk immediately tore ass out of there.

Lily realized she had better tear ass out as well. She figured these punks had friends that were soon going to be back to seek revenge once their Skunky buddy reported what had just happened.

She picked up Skull's steel baton, ran over to a pile of old wet cardboard stacked up against the side of the bridge way and tossed them aside to reveal a purple Vespa scooter buried underneath.

Lily placed all the toys into her skirt pockets and quickly hopped onto her scooter and zigzagged around the still blindly wandering Skull and the already dead Razor. As she putted away across the bridge, headed towards the next town over she finished her nursery rhyme.

"I'm A Clever Teapot…Yes Its True! This Is An Example Of What I Can Do!"

To be Continued: Next- A Perfect Steam Punk Princess