Ok, starting on the first day of Saturnalia until the 25th I'm going to focus on one of the ADF virtues daily. Working from the bottom up the first is Fertility/Creativity so I've decided to post the rather meh fan-fic I wrote a while ago (also the only fan-fic I've ever written). It's written as an origin story for the Ghost Fox Killer since DC never gave her a real origin or really used her like the other Heroes in the The Great Ten. So anyways enjoy - it has so little to do with the comic so it should be enjoyable without knowing anything about the character (not that she was given many details anyways).

Dance of the Ghost Fox Killer

By Kitsula Tsulakala

Dedicated to Basimilakitsu

The rain pitter pattered outside of the small cleft in the rocks where a beautiful vixin had been sleeping. Her eyes slowly opened as she awoke, her nose filling with the rich earthy scent of the wet landscape. She opened her mouth in a yawn as she stretched her body awaking it from its long slumber. Her six tails swished against the walls as she stirred them as well. The authenticity of her true form was something she enjoyed as she had precious little time to enjoy this minor pleasure during the past century due to nature of her duties.

Outside of her cleft she could see the rain and the grassy landscape of the small temple's grounds. This was a rare place near the metropolis known to humanity as Hong Kong. It had not always been that way, she remembered clearly when this port city had far fewer citizens and had more open spaces. That was before... before she became the Ghost Fox Killer, well that was what the humans called her in any event with hushed whispers during the long dark night. Funny little creatures humans, they lived brief lives and were always fighting – in just the past hundred years this city had been in control of humans from the far off islands of Nippon, the even more distant islands of Briton, and a few different Chinese factions. Now there were many more humans here and that was a problem.

It all begun about a century ago, more and more humans had moved into the area. Wherever they came they caused havoc and destruction. More than a few mounds in which her kind lived were destroyed by humans putting up their own homes – and what did they get in return? Sometimes a pittance of an offering but often just nothing. The vixen snarled softly, so many of her kind had been replaced – and that wasn't the worst of it, the once clear water was now brown and polluted, the air usually reeked of smog, and the earth itself was soaked with chemicals and paved with that damn shapeable rock.

As the mounds were destroyed more and more homeless and once proud foxes made their way to the vixen's mound on the 'border' of Hong Kong. The vixen's kind were master weavers of qi and produced vast lands within their mounds, but these lands were but fragile energetic construct and the sudden influx of hordes of refugees were beginning to cause too much strain threatening collapse – if it did so with so many foxes inside. She shuddered not wanting to think about the horrible loss of life as so many would be crushed in the tiny 'real' space of the mound.

What could they do? They could not just absorb the residual qi that surrounded them, it was far too little to support the mound and besides it was steadily decreasing as the humans paved over the landscape and dumped their waste everywhere. Far fewer humans made sacrifices to foxes than in the past. Even trying to generate the qi would produce far too little. After much discussion they had sought the advice of Grandfather Hu, the eldest and wisest amongst them. His solution was dreadful, only the constant influx of qi harvested from living beings were be sufficient to maintain the city and that one should be charged to collect the qi.

The collector was chosen by lots, the vixen had been the 'lucky' winner and from that moment her life changed and the isolation began. In order to ensure that she was focused and successful in her task she had been 'blessed' with a deadly touch. Even now it depressed her, she could not touch another living being without causing its instant death.

She looked back at the human skull at the back of her makeshift den. The owner had been her first victim, a young maiden whose only crime had been that she had extend a gentle hand in an attempt to pet her. The memory was as clear as if it had happened that very afternoon. She had just embarked on her 'mission' and had had killed some dogs, cats, and even a few humans with her touch. The maiden had come to the temple to make an offering to the foxes in hope of securing a lover. As the maiden put down the bowl of rice the vixen could not help but to bust out of the bushes and devour the rice – she had not eaten in several days. Suddenly however, she noticed the maiden cooing and reaching out with a friendly hand.

The vixen tried to dash away from the hand but it was to late! Far too late! The hand brushed her back as the maiden turned a stark white before collapsing in a heap. The vixen watched the body crumple to the ground in stark horror. This woman had been decent hearted and kind and what was her reward? Death at the hand of the fox to whom she had shown kindness. All she could do now was release the maiden's spirit to go on it's way. The full gravity of what she had been doing for her kind sunk in at that moment. Had the others she had killed over the past few nights been kind, innocent beings as well. Behind her was a stone statue of Siddhartha Gautama, she tuned towards it and contemplated the wise one and the evil she had done. But sill her people needed the energy – she had to continue for their sake.

She turn to look at the maiden's pale corpse before turning back to the Buddha to utter an oath. If she was going to have to murder to sustain her people she was going to at least kill those who inflicted pain and misery on their fellow beings.

She then reduced the body to bones using a good deal of her own personal qi and took the maiden's skull – it would allow her to take a human form and would serve as a constant reminder of her oath and what she had done that night.

Thankfully she did not have to look hard to find such men the city was awash in organized crime groups, 'Triads' they called them. In some cases she relished her duties such as when she saw one of these humans gleefully killing and abusing other helpless innocent young members of their kind. Every young woman they abused and sold reminded her of the young maiden who showed kindness to her and caused the flames of rage to burn brighter in her breast – she would construct punishments as bad, if not worse than, as anything found in the many hells for them. But even in killing the worst of them, she still felt twangs of guilt in her heart – she wished she could talk to someone about her troubles but she couldn't risk causing their death.

The rain was stopping now and it was time for the vixen to resume her duties. She crept out of the cleft dragged the skull with her. Gently she bit off a leaf from a nearby bush and placed it on head and placed the skull over her own head. Slowly and swiftly she rose on her hind-limbs and begun to dance and sing. As she danced in the pale moonlight the yin of bone merged with the yang of her flesh, the leaf grew and turned into her green outfit. As she finished the dance she was looked like them, like a human, but it was just an illusion. She was still a fox deep down and it was time to serve her people once again and deliver to them the needed qi at the price of her soul.

Tags: china, comics, fanfic, taoism, tsula, writing
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