Death's Head

The year is 3166, the place is the NCD.
The murders are vicious.
There are currently two major serial killers at large in the dome. One is a pedophile of horrific proportion: he captures children off the streets, violates them, and desecrates their bodies.
The other is a vigilante of sadistic intention. They target rapists, occasionally pedophiles, and torture them to death, leaving messages carved into walls and stained with blood.
The opposing nature of these two villains is a part of what makes them both famous. One is cheered, one is feared. Their vicious methods is another. Some predict that the vigilante will hunt down the pedophile. Others say the pedophile will be the one to win. No one has any idea who they are.
Life is difficult for Ramone. He lives just at the cusp of the lower levels--high enough that his family is still considered middle-class, but low enough that he has to wear a gas mask outside--and low enough for it to be dangerous for fems.
Ramone has lived his entire life on this level. He's seen what happens to fems when they're discovered--in highschool, they're dealt with particularly harshly. But Ramone can't help himself. His feminine wardrobe is restricted mostly to a few pairs of panties and one bra he stole from a store. He keeps them hidden in a box under his bed and wears them under his clothes to school.
Alois(German, "famous warrior") has no view of herself. The public calls her a crusader, a vigilante , an exacting force of justice. But to Alois, she's just doing what she has to do. She has to hunt down these men and kill them viciously. Not to make the world safer. Not to satisfy some sick need to see others pain--though that is part of it. But because she was locked in the basement and raped by her father until she was ten, and she killed him. She punched him in the throat, got something sharp, and stabbed until he stopped breathing.
She was put into foster care, and through a therapy group she discovered one of the victims' rapist was getting out of prison early. She hunted him down and killed him, but this time she drew it out. She wanted to make him understand the emotional and physical pain of a rape victim. He lasted for two days. That was only the beginning. Alois had discovered she enjoyed making rapists scream.
Alois has been bounced from home to home all her life. She doesn't misbehave or act out. People just can't stand her dead-eyed silences for long. Now, she's living as a liberated minor, on her own. She's moved down to the 58th level because that's all she can afford. She has a job at an arms store where the proprietor sells guns and knives. She attends a local public highschool.
She's killed eight men. The police have found six. She's hungry for more.
Alois has never had a relationship. She doesn't want one.
Ramone changes that.
Alois could be described as a man-hater. She's definitely prejudiced at the least. But when she sees a few members from Ramone's brother's gang beating on him behind school after they discovered the bra under his shirt, she steps in. Not to save a man. But because any opportunity to hurt one is a good one.
Now Ramone won't leave her alone, because he's afraid to be alone. His secret is out now, and the new girl emanates a curious, foreboding air. People are afraid of her, even if she is a masc. On this level, mascs meet almost as much prejudice as fems. The difference is that Alois is from a level where the operations and steroids are cheap. She's as tall and strong as any eighteen year old boy, and in addition she works out regularly, attends self-defense classes, knows how to handle a knife, and is learning how to use a gun. People don't mess with her. They go their way, she goes hers.
The serial killing pedophile is a teacher at their highschool.
Despite her attempts to dissuade him, Ramone stays close to Alois, and they begin to bond. When Ramone's home is no longer safe for him--his brother discovers he's fem and essentially beats him up and kicks him out--he goes to Alois, and to both their surprise, she lets him stay with her.
When their Health Science teacher touches Ramone in the bathroom, Alois sets her sights on a new target.

Ramone took a deep breath.
"...Alois?"
She barely heard his voice as she ran the sink water over her hands. She turned the tap off and turned to see him standing in the hallway, hesitantly working his hands. He seemed afraid.
For a second her heart stopped--could he see it in her face? She knew something happened, something changed, when she was with her victims. She could feel her eyes turn hard, like little pebbles slick with ice.
"Yes?" she asked quietly, gazing steadily at him, trying to think friendly, fluffy thoughts.
"I...something happened, I think," he said. "At school. I...I don't know what..." A small spasm of anxiety flickered through his body. He looked sick. "I don't know what to do."
Alois felt everything inside her go still. She knew that exact expression, that feeling. Horrible, horrible wrongness.
"What happened."
"The bathroom," Ramone said softly. "Mr. Alvin followed me in. I thought...I mean I didn't think about it, but then he started talking to me about--me being fem, and then he--um--"
"Tell me," Alois said softly. "You can tell me."
"He put his hand on my back, low, and then--I think he touched, my...you know, my backside." He flushed at the juvenile word. It was an odd contrast in a face that was so desperately pale.
"Are you sure?" Alois asked gently.
"I didn't imagine it!" Ramone said defensively.
"I'm not saying you did. I just wanted to know if you were sure."
"What...God, what do I...do?" he asked. He was shaking now.
Alois had never felt the urge to hold a man. She'd never wanted to hold anyone. And for a sick second, she felt a horrible hatred, a brief, intense disgust--by God, quit shaking like that, if you're so worried fucking do something about it--but he wasn't like her. No one was like her. No one else was strong in the sick, awful way she was. Ramone was a delicate sparrow--flighty, flickering, ultimately helpless.
He needed her to protect him.
A deep change came over her, rolling in such a powerful wave that her mouth went dry and breath vanished from her lungs. There was another side to the coin of man Alois had never seen before. Before her actions against them had always been dealt out with a severe emptiness, or an exacting hatred. Now...there was something deeply fulfilling and clean about the way she felt now.
"Come here," she said softly, beckoning him. Ramone obeyed, timidly, stepping into the bathroom. "It'll be alright," she murmured, and awkwardly reached out her arms.
Ramone leapt into the embrace with an eagerness that surprised her. Alois had never wanted to hug anyone before, but what made this strange was that she'd never expected anyone to want to hug her back.
He was shaking like a leaf in the wind. It made Alois hold him tighter, and he pressed his face into her shoulder, taking long, shuddering breaths. He was trying not to cry.
"I'll take care of it," Alois said quietly. "I'll...take care of you."

Alois threatens the teacher to stay away from Ramone, but even then she feels like something's off. The man isn't quite right when she puts the knife against his eyelid. The fear doesn't fill his eyes like it should. He should be terrified at the sight of the blood-spattered gas mask with the hackneyed stitching and the painted-on skull. The others were. The others recognized her. He recognized her.
Mr. Alvin is a very sick man. In the head. And if the (insert Alois's serial killer name here) wants a fight, he's happy to bring it.
The killings are beginning to escalate, and Alois finally snaps. Her killings change--she's targeting people with the intention of tracking down the pedophile serial killer. SHe's on the hunt. Meanwhile, her feelings for Ramone are reaching a level she's never encountered. She begins to contemplate what would happen if he found out.
This last one. That's what she promises herself. She will kill the serial pedophile, and then put up her knives and her fishooks and vanish quietly into the night. She will never tell Ramone.
But then one of her victims nearly gets the better of her, and Alois comes home with a stab wound in her side, her death mask on her face. She killed the man despite it, but now her blood is at a crime scene.
Either that or she's torturing a guy in the basement and Ramone comes down and sees it.
He stitches her up, horror on his face. He knows now. Everyone knows the death mask, ever since Alois performed her routine on a man in front of one of his victims. The surviving witness, a woman in her late twenties, provided the police with the description.
"Tell me you aren't the Death's Head," Ramone whispered when he'd finished, sitting down across from her. "Tell me you're just a normal teenager."
Alois raised her head and looked at him. She looked at him with a deep sadness and a terrifying fire in her eyes.
"I killed those men," she said. "I made them scream themselves to death. And I enjoyed it."
The world spun and he couldn't breath. Ramone gripped the table, his fingers slippery with her blood. He made himself breath. He kept himself from throwing up.
And suddenly he remembered how she'd held him when he'd told her about Mr. Alvin. How warm and strong she'd been. How...genuinely kind.
Maybe she was this person, but this person wasn't all she was.
"How...how long..."
"I killed my dad. He raped me for two years. I killed him with a piece of metal. I was ten."
Eight years. Two years. Ten years old. Her own father.
God. Ramone inhaled.
"How...many?"
Alois shifted in her seat, looking off somewhere. Calculating. Not the number, but how much she would tell him.
"Don't lie to me," he suddenly said forcefully. She blinked at him in surprise.
"A minute ago you wanted me to."
"Well, now you're telling me the truth." Ramone inhaled again, twisting his fingers in his jeans. "So...tell me the truth."
"...Eight."
Confusion flickered over his face. She could see him reviewing the news reports in his mind. She saved him the trouble.
"They've only found six. They won't find the last two."
"Last?" Some odd note of hope in his voice. He had the wrong idea.
"The most recent. Not the last ones I'll kill."
The colour died in his face. Ramone inhaled.
"You're going to do it again."
"I did it tonight." She gestured to her side.
Ramone threw up.

He made it to the sink. Alois watched him from her chair at the table. She curled her fingers into her hands, struggling with herself. She wanted to get up and hold him, brush the hair out of his face.
She didn't know what she'd do if he pushed her away.
Her body made the decision for her. It got up and walked over and carefully laid a hand on his shoulder.
Ramone flinched. Alois felt a knife twisting inside her.
"I..." There was nothing she could say.
"Why?" he finally gasped, his body shuddering. "God, why?"
"Because I have to."
"Why?!"
"I don't know."
"How do you not know?!" He turned to stare, or glare up at her. "How do you decide to--to vacking murder someone, to torture them, and not know why you're doing it?"
Alois was silent, staring at him. She was working for an answer. He needed it. She never had.
"Because they need to die." Something twisted in her face. Alois turned away, to hide the ice-slick pebbles from him. She squeezed her eyes shut. "They need to suffer and they need to die. They need to scream. They need to know...what it feels like."
Alois looked at him with the sudden light of an epiphany.
"They need to understand," she said almost thoughtfully, revelation in her face.

Ramone doesn't want to talk about it but he can't stop asking questions. And as they talk, Alois begins to see it in his face--a slow acceptance of her monstrosity. He's revolted by her torture, but ultimately he's like most people--he believes that the sick people she kills deserve what they get from her.
But he also wants her to stop. Not for the sake of her victims, but for her own sake. He doesn't want her to get caught. It's the first time in her life Alois has ever seen someone genuinely care about her. It breaks down the last of her walls. Ramone has gotten her to move to the couch so she can lie back and rest better with the side wound she has.
"They'll take you away," he whispered. He'd moved again, and was leaning against her now. Alois wondered if he'd noticed. She was incredibly aware of it--what he felt like, slim and curving against her. She could even feel the bra through his shirt and felt a sudden surge of desire. Her mouth went dry and she tried to swallow. He was close enough that she could smell the faint citrus aroma of his shampoo. "Alois, they'll put you in jail. They...they could execute you." He pressed against her, afraid again. He was so easily frightened. "I don't want you to die."
"I won't die." She wrapped her arm around his waist--at this point he was asking for it, wasn't he? Alois felt a new animal churning in her gut, one she'd never felt before, not like this. She'd wanted sex before. She'd never wanted a person. "I wouldn't be able to protect you, then."
There was an eternal silence, and the only thing Alois was aware of during it was that Ramone laid his head on her shoulder. His thick mop of black hair was lightly tickling the corner of her jaw.
"Alois," he murmured quietly into her neck.
"Yes?"
Ramone closed his eyes and breathed deeply. She smelled like blood and the cold outside. But beneath that was something else. Something very...human.
"Would you kill for me?" he whispered. He felt her stiffen. "If you had to."
He was shaking her apart inside, asking questions like this.
"I would kill everyone for you," she said. Her voice was unsteady, her heart racing. Her wound throbbed, but it was at the back of her mind.
Ramone lifted his head and stared at her, his liquid black eyes reflecting Alois's darkness back at her. They were so clear, like glass. Alois felt like she was drowning in them.
And they were very suddenly full of a resolved determination.
Ramone climbed onto her lap, spreading his legs to either side of her hips. He began pulling his shirt off.
Not fast enough. Alois ripped it the rest of the way off, gripping his waist and pulling him close to her mouth. She put it hungrily to his torso, and Ramone moaned, arching into her. She clawed the tight black bra awkwardly off his chest, breaking the clasp. Alois used her tongue skillfully on the sensitive flesh beneath it, and Ramone twisted his fingers in her hair, gripping her head and pressing her teeth into his skin.
Some heat-soaked minutes of passion passed, punctuated by Ramone's soft moans, Alois's occasional growl or grunt. They were interrupted when the stitches in Alois's side protested sharply at a movement, and she caught her breath in pain.
He ignored her insistence of good health and they went no further. But he shared her bed later when they went to sleep, her pale skin a stark contrast to his dark mocha brown as they laid tangled together under the sheets.

Meanwhile Mr. Alvin selects his next victim, and it happens to be Ramone. Alois and Ramone return to school after hours for something, and Mr. Alvin, not realizing that Alois is there, takes his chance, hitting Ramone with a tranq. As he's losing consciousness, Ramone yells for Alois. She hears and comes running. Alvin takes him out a nearby emergency exit and Alois follows.
Alvin's stuffing Ramone in the trunk by the time she makes it to the parking lot. He pulls out and takes off before she can stop him.
Alois goes home and prepares herself for battle.
Ramone wakes up in Mr. Alvin's "workshop." He recognizes its purpose easily enough--Alois let him see hers. Alvin has him handcuffed to a bed. There's no gag. Alvin enjoys the screaming.
He doesn't usually take people as old as Ramone, but he's making an exception. Ramone has a pretty face, boyish. Innocent.
Alois has made friends over the years. People she's used to help her find her victims--people that either support or just aren't against what she does. One of them is a hacker who pegs down Alvin's car.
It's an abandoned warehouse on the edge of the city.
Basically Alois calls the police, intending to take Alvin alive, but things don't pan out that way. She and him have a sort of epic battle with the sprinkler system going off--Ramone finds the electricity box and the master switches after Alois manages to get him loose, so he turns on the warehouse so Alois doesn't fight blind--and she kills him right as he stabs her in the gut.
The police arrive. Alvin is dead, Alois goes to the hospital. Ramone is taken as well. He also has to give a police statement. He lies.
Later Alois awakens to find the head of the police department's forensic evidence standing over her. She tested both Alois's and Alvin's blood at the scene and put them in the system. Alvin's matched the DNA found under one of his victim's fingernails. Alois's matched the blood at the scene where her victim cut her open.
The technician's daughter was raped and murdered by one of the men Alois killed.
She erased Alois from the system. She advises her to stop and live her life. This is the only freebie she'll get, the technician warns.
Alois agrees.
Ramone can't explain how Alois found him, Alois claims she'd followed the teacher to the warehouse after Ramone told her about what happened in the bathroom. She explains she thought it didn't mean anything, but when Alvin got Ramone at the school she knew where to go. It was just luck.
The police buy it, or at least agree to. At any rate, they don't suspect her as the Death's Head.
Alois graduates from high school, attends community college, and joins the police force. She's never rid of the hunger to hunt down bad people and hurt them.But--for the most part--she manages to bury her darkness.
She and Ramone live happily ever after.