Kazia gazed out the large bay window, watching the snow fall from the gray winter sky. She sighed looking down at her glass and shook her cup trying to get some more vodka to rise above the ice. She took a long drink from the glass set the empty cup down. Her gaze fell to her paw, where she saw her scar. It was a long and nasty looking thing, that ran from halfway down her thumb and up to her forearm. She traced the scar gently with her fingers, as she gazed back out the window.

She remembered how she got this scar, it was a year ago when she was in Moscow visiting her Grandfather and Grandmother. She had just opened her Private investigating business with her friend Lewis Martinson, called Ursine Investigations. The place had only been open about ten months before she heard from her mother that her Grandmother was ill. She left the business in the hands of Lewis and took a plane to Moscow to visit her Grandparents, and be with her Grandmother.

When she arrived she found out her Grandmother was getting over pneumonia, but was slowly getting better. She felt obligated to stay and keep her company as her Grandma had nursed her back to health many times as a child.

Her eyes glassed over a bit as Kazia stared out the window, remembering exactly what happened next.


Her Grandmother was on the mend and Kazia had already bought her plane ticket back home. Her Grandfather had insisted on Kazia coming with him while he handled Mafia business. While Kazia hated to get involved with the family “business” so to speak, she was implored by her Grandfather to come along as extra protection for himself.

“My dear, My list of people I trust grows smaller every day. I need someone I know can take care of themselves as well as really cares for me enough to do a good job.”

Kazia's large polar bear of a grandfather put on his huge wool coat and black drivers cap.

“Grandpapa, I really hate getting involved in the 'Business', why can't you have one of the cousins do it. Or better yet have Masha do it, isn't she back in Moscow?”

Her grandfather picked up his large black cane with the golden bear head on top of it. As a child Kazia had seen a few people beaten to an inch of death with that cane.

“You're half-sister is currently on the run from the government. She cannot help me now without risking her own freedom. And your cousins, bah. They only care for their own hide and who will take over when I die.”

Kazia sighed as she looked at her grandmother resting peacefully. She smiled and sighed reluctantly.

“Fine, I'll help. But I swear to God if this goes south, you buy me baklava. The good stuff I know you get imported from Turkey.”



Her grandfather let out a deep hearty laugh.

“Alright my little kotyonok, If anything goes wrong I'll buy you a crate of baklava.”

Kotyonok was a nickname that meant kitten, which her grandfather had called her since she was a cub. It annoyed Kazia, as it implied she was a cute innocent little girl. And she was far from it.

Her grandfather opened a cupboard and pulled out two guns, handing Kazia a Tokarev pistol and stuck another smaller pistol into his large coat. Kazia took the gun and stuck it in her waist band, pulling her shirt and jacket over the gun.

“Where are we headed?”

Kazia asked as she followed her grandfather outside into the blistering Moscow cold snowy weather.

Her grandfather led her to an armored SUV guarded by a tall Timberwolf who was a new henchmen and one of her cousins.

Her cousin held the back door open for the two of them, and her grandfather let her in first before following behind.

The door shut and the two mobsters got in the car with her cousin the one driving, her grandfather finally replied to Kazia.

“To meet Teplov Gorshkov at the abandoned industrial site. He wants to buy some..kittens.. yes.. kittens”

Kittens was her grandfather code word for gun. He knew she had a job that tied in with law enforcement and she hated to hear the details of the family business. But why he like nick naming things kitten she had no clue.

“Gorshkov?! Are you crazy? The man tried to tear your head off, literally with his own hands. He also killed Uncle Statnik, remember, he fed him to his pet dogs.”

Her grandfather snorted and rolled his eyes.

“Your Uncle was a fool he tried to steal from Gorshkov and got caught. Your Aunt should have never married that fool, if it were not for the big dowry he offered I would have never let him marry my daughter. Besides Gorshokov is not that bad. Hes an otter that thinks hes as big as a bear. “

The car hit a few bumps in the badly paved road and made the car shake and bounce.
Kazia sighed exasperated giving up trying to talk any sense into her grandfather.

“Fine whatever, but for this you owe me Baklava no matter what happens.”




The ride went on for about twenty more minutes, until the cars pulled up to a large abandoned warehouse. In front of the warehouse was a very very large pit filled with small pools of frozen sludgy water, I-beams, rusty broken down construction vehicles and equipment. Littered around the pit were abandoned vehicles. Loading trucks, bulldozers, dump trucks, cranes and the like. Some of the loading trucks still had their loads strapped to them, various chemicals and items for construction. One of the larger dump trucks held many rusty red barrels of something that appeared to be hazardous according to a few of the still legible warning labels.

The car doors opened and they all stepped out of the Suv. A second car pulled up behind them, and a small polar bear got out of the driver side. Kazia recognized the smaller bear as her cousin Rasim. He was only about four feet tall but still a very intimidating person. Rasim went to the back of the suv and began to pull out several large crates, setting them on the ground.

“So where are we supposed to wait? “

Kazia asked as she shoved her paws into her leather jacket.

Her grandfather looked around narrowing his eyes.

“Down there in the pit. Our men are to stay up around the pit. “

They looked for an easy way down into the pit treading carefully down.
Kazia and her grandfather reached the bottom of the pit and looked around.

“I don't like the look of this Grandpapa. If something goes wrong we only have one way out.”

Before her grandfather could reassure her, the sound of more cars pulling up echoed throughout the abandoned lot. She heard car doors open and slam shut followed by angry Russian cursing. Kazia and her grandfather looked up towards where the cars were, straining to hear what was going on.
The next thing Kazia heard she knew rather well,the sound of a silenced pistol. She gripped onto her grandfathers arm, about to pull him towards the pit entrance. She made it half way to the entrance before a body dropped down into the pit at their feet. Kazia recognized Rasim's lifeless body at her feet, so did her grandfather who began to let out a low growl .

At the top of the pit an otter in a long brown wool trench coat and two burly Arctic Fox body guards on either side of him. It had been a long time since Kazia had seen Teplov Gorshkov, the last time she had only been six. The otter was intimidating for such a small thin creature, he had a body that was covered in scars and patches of fur missing. The most noticeable was a huge deep scar running down his left eye which was clouded over and blind. Teplov had a cruel wide grin spread across his face, and he began to take off his gloves and hand them to his guards.

“Nikolai, my old friend. It has been too long since we have last met.”

Teplov said sneering down at Kazia's grandfather.

Nikolai growled and protectively put an arm in front of Kazia.

“Not long enough, do I have to blind your other eye before you learn not to cross me Teplov?”

The otters smile soured and turned into a snarl.

“Is that little Kazia I see, my shes grown up. To bad she didn't learn to avoid you. You just reek of bad luck. ”

Nikolai began to reach for his coat pocket where his gun was slowly, signaling for Kazia to do the same.

“What do you want Teplov, I thought we had a deal. I even went lower on the original price I wanted for the guns.”

Four more arctic foxes wearing similar attire to Teplovs two lackeys, came up from behind Teplov. He nodded and they headed around the pit so that they had it surrounded.

“Yes, well you see. I could pay you for the guns, or I could just kill you, your men and your lovely granddaughter there and take them for free. So you see, I've chosen the latter. Don't worry I'll let the cops find your bodies. After all their may be a reward for killing one of Russia's most wanted crime bosses.”

Teplov let out a wicked cackle of a laugh before he waved his hand at his minions.

Thinking fast Kazia pulled her Grandfather down and behind a stack of old tires as Teplov's minions began to open fire on the pit with machine guns.

Kazia pulled her gun out and peered over the stack of tires getting the location of foxes. She saw two in front of her and two on the left. On her right she could see one fox was crouched down and searching the pit for them. She took a deep breath, counted to three and crouched up, aiming at the first to foxes and shooting them both in the chest with two clean shots. She took a breath and ducked back down behind the tires.

“I'm never dealing with that bastard again. I swear to God I will kill him.”

Kazia's grandfather was wringing his cane with both paws, before he dropped it on the ground and pulled out his own pistol blindly firing it at the foxes.

“Well Grandpapa we'll have to get out alive first.”

All of a sudden Kazia heard an odd creaking noise from behind her. She turned around and saw the dump truck she had spotted earlier with the hazardous materials slowly tilting upwards. Her eyes quickly darted to the side where she saw the sixth fox which she had some how missed when she scoped out the area earlier. He had hit some manual dump switch and the bed of the truck was tilting up and backwards right behind them. Kazia cursed herself for not seeing him and then saw the barrels begin to fall. Without hesitation she pushed her grandfather out of the way as hard as she could, landing on her back as the barrels began to fall on her. She held her arms up over her face in some vain effort to protect herself.




Next thing Kazia felt was the excruciating pain of a very rusted barrel busting open and tearing into her flesh. But that was only the beginning, the next thing she felt was a strange thick liquid pouring down over her arms and body as other barrels fell on her and broke open. Soon the liquid began to burn into her skin, making her feel as if she was being cooked alive and being poked by a million knives all at once. The last thing she remembered was a strange neon green liquid covering her eyes before she passed out.


The next memory Kazia had she was in a hospital room with her family. She felt stiff and sore, and her body tingled as if she was charged like a battery. She was covered head to toe in bandages, and the Doctor explained to her what had happened. The barrels apparently contained nuclear waste and Kazia was soaked in a massive amount of the highly corrosive deadly chemical. Her grandfather pulled her out from under the barrels and brought her to the hospital where she woke up a week later.

“You're very lucky Miss Zima, we ran some test on you and so far we see no signs of cancer yet. As for you skin, I'm afraid it was badly burned by the chemical. Possibly with some reconstructive surgery we could replace some of the tissue. We also had to reattach your right arm which was nearly severed from your body by some shrapnel. But you are very very lucky to be alive.”

Kazia was confused and dazed, she stayed that way for a few days until the Nurse came to change her bandages.

The nurse was confused and checking her charts twice, after she had taken the old bandages off Kazia.

“I swear they sent me to re bandage and clean a sever chemical burn patient.”

The nurses confusion was justified. Kazia was looking over herself and was surprised to see that nothing was wrong. Her fur was there, her skin felt fine, albeit a bit tingly. She did notice a deep long scar on her left arm however, which confirmed that the accident had in fact happened.

Several doctors examined her and could not figure out how she grew her skin and fur back so quickly. They were also amazed at the way her arm had mended itself to leave only a small scar. After a month the wrote it off as an act of god, a true miracle.

But the strangeness did not stop when she left the hospital. Once Kazia had gotten home, she resumed her work as a Private Investigator. She was only back a week before some bail dodging punk tried to run her over with his car. To everyone surprise, the minute the car hit her the front crumpled inwards as if it had hit a concrete pole. She was unharmed and the criminal was rather freaked out.
The next month she was riding on the bus when there was a terrible crash, the bus was send rolling and many people were injured or killed. She came to with a pole through her midsection, which she removed. Before she could be transported the hospital the EMTs were struggling to find the wound that they had seen less then thirty minutes ago.

Kazia was convinced that something was off. Maybe she died in Russia and she was really in Limbo, or Heaven, maybe even hell. Or maybe she was in some elaborate holodeck like she had seen on Star Trek before. As time went on a few other unusual abilities of hers were revealed. While trying to chase a suspect she jumped off a car roof and instead of landing on the next one she landed fifty feet away after having nearly jumped up in the air thirty feet.


It wasn't until much later when Kazia met her now assistant Amelia Wheelan, that she learned what she had were akin to super powers. Most likely given to her by the nuclear waste her body absorbed. She was shocked to meet another person like herself up close. She had heard rumors about superheros down in California and New Zealand, but she had never made the connection to herself and them.

Kazia was still gently rubbing her scar when a knock came from her door.

“Who is it?”

She said snapping back to reality and nearly knocking over her glass.

The door opened and a young grizzled Red panda man stuck his head in the door.

“Me, Lewis. Some Lady from some government agency is in the lobby. She says she has important business with you.”

Kazia sighed and pulled her hair back in a ponytail and tied it off with a hairband.

“Tell her I'll be right there.”

Kazia got up and turned off the light to her office, following her partner out the door.