The time was 21:30 on a Saturday. All eyes were on Hal's Café. Three bandits had looted and set fire to the place, and one lone woman had come looking for those responsible. Name: Alice Holmes. Twenty years old. Her mother died when she was eight. Lord only knows where her father ran off to. By all intents and purposes, she's your typical street thug—been in and out of the hospital for years due to the excessive number of fights she's gotten herself into. Now, she's staring down the men who torched her favorite place to eat.
"Hey, you the ones who burned down my diner?" she asked, scorn flashing in her eyes as her fists clenched. "So what if we are? You think you can stop us or deliver some righteous judgment?" one of the thugs sneered. Alice took a deep breath and shifted into a fighting stance—a fluid blend of Muay Thai and Karate. "Come one at a time or all at once. I care not," she said, her earlier fury momentarily subdued. "What was that? You think you can take us all on? What a joke. Come on, boys—let's remind her who she's dealing with." With that, the three thugs charged. Two flanked her from the left and right, while the ringleader came straight down the middle. The thug on the left closed in and aimed a kick at Alice's abdomen. Like clockwork, she countered with a kick of her own, striking his leg and sending him stumbling back. The thug on the right seized the moment to go for a cheap shot to her back, but Alice sidestepped and struck a pressure point in his neck, dropping him instantly. The ringleader froze, forced to watch as Alice's positioning made it impossible to advance without hitting his own men. Had he continued, he'd likely have taken them out himself.
"So, you have some semblance of compassion, do you?" Alice asked coldly, shifting her gaze to the ringleader. "Well, yeah. I suppose I do. More than you have, I'd argue," he retorted, his thuggish speech giving way to a more formal, composed tone—a shift Alice immediately noted. "So, what's your move?" she asked, returning to her fighting stance, eyes locked on him. "You really want to fight here of all places? Look around—trash on all sides, buildings rotting and caving in on themselves. I'm pretty sure you passed a couple of dead junkies on your way here, didn't you?" the ringleader said, his demeanor now completely transformed. "What of it? Their choices are their own. I care not for what the unknown do to each other. If they're foolish enough to fall for those vices and abuse them to death, so be it." Alice's gaze never left his eyes. "I care only about doing what needs to be done to see the next day." The ringleader wanted to be shocked—but for some reason, he couldn't be. "You care that little for your fellow man, huh? In that case, there's no reason for me to explain why we torched that diner. Even if I did, you're so detached from emotion it'd pass you by. I'm leaving. You should do the same. May we never meet again, foul beast." With that, he turned and walked away, leaving his partners behind to fend for themselves.
The time is 21:50. Twenty short minutes have passed since the start of the altercation and its anticlimactic conclusion. Alice looked down at the two thugs she had taken down. "Leave if you wish, or die here. The battle is over." With that, the two thugs hobbled out of sight in the direction of the ringleader. Alice took a moment to calm herself, drawing a deep breath as she surveyed her surroundings. When she saw the flames engulfing the diner, she had blindly rushed toward the direction a staffer claimed the attackers fled, not considering where in the city she was. As she wandered the streets, all she saw was hopelessness, despair, and pain. Through one alley, she passed a man who had apparently hanged himself; she shoved his body aside as if it were a discarded sheet. Another sight she encountered was a woman missing both legs, crushed beneath the collapse of a rotting building. The woman cried out for death, claiming the pain was unbearable. Without hesitation, Alice picked up a knife from the ground and stabbed her, cursing her for her cowardice. These events led the townspeople to brand her "Alice the Merciless."