Chapter 34 - Big Sis

Day 28

Sometime Past Midnight

Noah's Lair

Noah was exhausted. Between trying to track Erin with his bots, and concern for the young woman who had become like an older sister to him, Noah was running himself emotionally and mentally ragged.

"You should rest, Noah." Sky said, not for the first time this hour, "I can message you if something changes."

Noah shook his head, staying silent for a few minutes. Talking required energy, and he needed every ounce to keep monitoring. "No, I want to be here if she needs me."

The truth was, Noah knew she didn't need anyone right now. Not in the way he meant, at least, which was a combat or rescue capacity. His bots had captured everything she had been doing, starting with the DN apartment building. That had sparked intellectual curiosity in him, as she perforated the building until it was barely standing, and then smashed down into it before flying up and out.

Where Noah lost his lunch the first time was watching what she did to the group of DN thugs that confronted her. He had audio, so Noah knew full well it was an interrogation, but her clinical, vicious, and detached maiming of those men as she asked questions, was beyond anything he could imagine one human doing to another.

Still, Noah supported her fully. He didn't hesitate. She was family to him, and he would stand by her.

So while his bots tracked her movement, he observed through his terminal as she used the information received through the dubious method of torture. He observed as she dismantled the remainder of Domus Nostra like a machine. A wheat thresher culling the field. Never seeming to tire, or stumble, in her mission.

He had heard what happened to her friend, and couldn't help but wonder if he was somehow responsible. With all of his resources focused on preparing them for war, could he have spared bots to search for DN? Could he have protected the students if he just redirected bots to watch over all of them?

Noah shook his head as if he could easily dislodge the thought from his mind. That way madness lies, he thought.

"Intel suggests she's closing in on the current HQ of the DN." Sky broke into Noah's self-recrimination, "If there are any left not in that building, it's likely they have fled outside town boundaries, or they're hiding very well."

Noah observed the terminal, waiting for the blip on the map that represented Erin to collide with the final building, so he could observe from a bot.

When Sky had enough data to confirm her destination, she switched to a bot in that area, allowing Noah to watch Erin slam down through the top of the two-story tall house. A tremor travelled through the ground, felt even inside his lair, though the epicenter was halfway across town.

Domus Nostra Headquarters

Erin spotted her target, a two-story house with a pattern burned into the lawn in the pattern of the letters DN, candles tracing it to advertise in the dark. Easy to recognize from the air at night, but harder to see from ground level.

Pulling up a good hundred meters higher in the air, Erin turned downward and aimed straight for the middle of the house. Multiple sources said it was just DN members in there, no innocents, so she would treat it as such.

There was only a fraction of a second between punching through the roof and when she would hit the foundation in the basement. As she punched through the shingles and plywood of the roof, Erin started her flip. By the time she smashed through the top floor, Erin's back faced down. When she smashed through the first floor and into the basement, she was almost perfectly positioned.

Erin landed in what the movies often called a hero landing. One knee down, one knee bent with her foot down, and one fist smashing into the ground. But unlike the softer landing heroes did, Erin put force into it. Cracks shot out from her landing spot, fracturing parts of the concrete floor and walls. Dust and debris flew everywhere, and a couple DN thugs in the basement were launched backwards into whatever surface was unfortunate enough to get in the way.

Looking around as she stood, Erin assessed the wide-open and unfinished basement. Cots lined one wall, while a children's pool sat in another corner with a handful of clothes hanging on a length of wire. Candles sat on every surface, desperately trying to push back the darkness.

Zipping around the room, Erin hit the downed thugs with a final blow, guaranteeing they wouldn't rise again. Then she casually walked over to the stairs, as if she had all the time in the world. Popping her claws, Erin dragged one finger up each side of the stairwell, the sound a thick, crunching rip leaving gouges in the drywall.

At the top of the stairs, and to her left was a man she still only had a passing familiarity with. He stood behind a woman, terrified of the knife held to her throat. Behind her head and to the right stood the wielder of that knife, a red burn contrasting with the rest of his face in the shape of a handprint.

"You bitch! Thinkin' you can come in here and do whatever you want. Guess you got the message I left for you on that whelp's face."

Erin cocked her head to the side, trying to place the reference, but it didn't click until the man held up his free hand. Flames licked across the surface, heedless of the directions gravity told it were up and down. Erin's mind flashed to the hospital, and Danny's report of Robbie's injuries. They burned his face, he had said.

A sneer formed on Erin's face, and Handprint decided to match it with a maniacal grin. Despite Erin's mind operating mostly on anger and instinct, a dark part of her remembered a skill she still hadn't used yet. A skill she very much wanted to use right now.

Erin activated the Gold Enhanced Charm of the Equalizer, creating three duplicates of herself. Not even giving Handprint time to be surprised, two of the duplicates appeared on either side of him, grabbing his arms and spreading them wide. Her third duplicate grabbed the girl and whisked her away, blowing through the front door and out onto the lawn before flying through the house at breakneck speeds to check for additional bystanders.

While her duplicate spent its limited sixty second window confirming there were no more potential hostages, Erin flashed in front of Handprint, his arms now splayed out to the side by her remaining duplicates.

Even now, this man didn't look afraid, he appeared unhinged. Erin didn't want unhinged, she wanted fear. She needed these people to fear her the way they had sewn fear into her students…into her.

Erin held out her hand, palm facing up, so Handprint could see it. There was a visible shimmer emanating from her skin, illuminated more by the red glow from her eyes than the candles strewn about. The glow of Erin's eyes flared, and at the same time the flow of Ki releasing from her palm increased. It started with the shimmer, then increased to a stream, and finally it increased to a torrent, carrying a red tinge of its own.

Stopping the flow and retracting her Ki from that hand, Erin placed it in front of where his left kidney should be. The manic look in his eyes flashed the briefest tinge of fear before Erin released her Ki through her right palm at a full torrent.

There was a splattering sound as the Ki displaced a chunk of Handprint's lower abdomen, then a sizzling and a sickly sweet smell signifying the surrounding flesh was cauterizing. All of that was drowned out though, as Handprint screamed and writhed, desperately trying to rip free of Erin's duplicates.

She refused his desperate cries for relief. Erin still had forty-five seconds left, and she planned to make the best of it.

By the time Erin made it to the top floor, the scent of urine and feces was wafting out from the main bedroom. The door was closed and locked. Had Erin been in a different mood, that may have gotten a chuckle out of her. Instead, she hammered the door in several points at speeds so fast, when the door eviscerated into splinters firing into the room, it did so at each impact point simultaneously.

"Ah, fuck!" The single occupant of the room screamed out. The ring leader was standing right in the path of the door debris, and had been hit by some of the shards. One piece even appeared to pass through the meat on the outside of his right leg. While the damage did stain his clothes with blood, the injuries were all non-fatal.

Erin strolled into the room like she owned the place, scanning from one side to the next for anyone hiding.

"You think you've won." The ring leader, and recent pain in Erin's ass, sneered at her, "We're just the hired help. When she comes for you, I'll be watching from hell as she rips you to shreds."

Erin looked bored to hear another monologue from another asshole with delusions of grandeur and a hard-on for sadism. She waved her hand in the air mockingly, as she asked "She?"

"No, I'm not sharing that info. You'll find out soon enough."

"Or I could just torture you until you tell me." Again, Erin's voice had no meaningful inflection. No anger, no joy. Just cold, hard facts spoken with barely more humanity than a computer.

"Like hell I'll go out the way you just took down Harry." The ring leader, up to this point, had been hiding one hand behind his back. Bringing it forward, he exposed a plunger and depressed it before Erin could think to act.

Erin's perception slowed, giving her incredible reaction time, and slowing events down around her. The world started erupting around her as the walls, floor, and ceiling bulged at various points before they birthed gouts of flame and debris. Using the same casual strut she had traversed the rest of the house with, Erin walked up to the ring leader and threw him out the bedroom window.

As the room was filled with multiple expanding bubbles of fire, Erin floated forward, pushing through the wall and coming out the front of the house. When she allowed her perception and speed to return to normal, flames burst out of the hole she made, licking the air around her, before most of the front wall blew out, raining chunks of wood, drywall, brick, and siding down on the surrounding area.

Down below, the ring leader clutched a broken arm while trying to push back away from Erin. When she started moving towards him, he reached under his jean DN vest and drew a pistol from a shoulder holster. At first, Erin thought he would point it at her, but as he lifted it towards his own chin, she flipped the switch and sped at him, ripping the gun away and breaking a few fingers in the process.

"NO!" She yelled at him through gritted teeth, "You don't get to take the easy way out!"

Grabbing a leg by the ankle, Erin lifted into the air, her prey hanging upside down from her grip. Erin took off towards the nearest edge of town, then flew out a few kilometers. Searching for a clearing with creatures nearby. When she found her goal, Erin lowered the ring leader to the ground. Extending her claws, Erin cut him in several places, careful not to cut anywhere vital or too deep.

With blood leaking out at a non-fatal pace, Erin lifted into the air, staring down at the man as he stared back up at her. Anger, fear, hatred, these emotions waged a war across his face, until the first sounds of wildlife called out.

"Ding, ding goes the dinner bell." Erin said quietly to herself, "Don't be gentle."

The first creature to burst into the clearing was a large bear-like monstrosity. It was covered in a bleached armour that resembled bone, but with spikes and spurs jutting up. Rather than immediately going in for the kill, the bear creature trampled over and past the ring leader, tossing him around.

The clearing was quickly joined by two more creatures, going for the first in a coordinate attack that implied intelligence. The battle turned into a melee as the three combatants fought for dominance in a 2v1. Their fight was interrupted though at the cries of agony from the man whose blood drew them here. A dozen or more small creatures had swarmed into the clearing, ripping off small chunks then running back into the forest to escape the wrath of the three bigger creatures.

When the bear creature chased the smaller monsters to the edge of the forest, the other two quickly tore off limbs and ran off, escaping and leaving the bear's share of the man.

As he lay there, two full limbs missing, pieces of his other two limbs gone, somehow still alive, he whimpered and cried. The creature didn't care, it bit into his stomach, putting a meaty, clawed, and bone-armoured hand on the man's chest as it ripped open his stomach.

Erin looked on, the ring leader's pleading eyes begging her to end it. She shook her head once. He mouthed the words I'm Sorry, and Erin's reply startled the bear from its feast momentarily.

"You should have left town."

She didn't turn away as the creature ate its fill. When it wandered off into the forest, looking for a place to nap, the smaller creatures returned. A few minutes later, a few scraps of tattered clothing were all that was left of the man. She wanted to feel fulfilled, happy, complete. Instead, she felt hollow. Hollow, and tired.

Erin felt the anger fall away, felt her Ki transition to something that felt normal, saw the glow emanating from her eyes turn from red to blue. As her aura gave way to the other emotions she had suppressed all day, Erin watched the ground come up to meet her at a casual pace, until she touched down on the forest floor.

Calling on her normal Ki, Erin used her traditional method of travel and launched herself across the landscape in leaps and bounds. It wasn't until she was several blocks inside city limits that Erin realized she wasn't heading for home. She knew that she had caused damage and harm in her neighbourhood, and she didn't want to see the results of that. Not yet.

When Erin came to a halt, she was standing beside an apartment building, looking up at the second story windows. It took two tries to find the one she wanted. Standing on the balcony, peering inside, she saw the apartment was occupied by its resident. Erin knocked on the sliding door, startling the woman inside.

As the door opened, Erin fell into Sydney's arms, hugging the other woman and resting her head on Sydney's shoulder. Tears started to fall, and Erin began to sob.

Sydney was taken aback at first, but recognized that her friend needed a hug and a shoulder to cry on. Embracing Erin tightly, they stood there for several minutes while Erin finally let some of her grief out. Sydney wished inwardly that she could do more to help this woman she was becoming very attached to, but for now all Erin seemed to want was to be held.

When Erin finally pulled away from the embrace, Sydney preempted any conversation, "You're probably tired, dirty, and exhausted. While I can't take the exhaustion away, I can offer you the use of my bucket and cloth." Sydney gave a cheesy smile, and Erin coughed out a small, weak laugh.

Erin nodded, and Sydney led her to the bathroom where a few candles burned. Once Erin entered, Sydney said, "I'll fix us something to drink. Take all the time you need." Then she closed the door, leaving Erin alone.

Part of Erin wondered why she came here. She could have gone to the water tower, or gone to see her students at the hospital. Instead, she came to see the woman she hadn't spoken with since they kissed. Erin didn't think she wanted to have that conversation tonight, and thankfully Sydney seemed willing to leave it alone for now.

Stripping down, Erin sat on the edge of the tub, her feet inside, and proceeded to wash the grime, gore, blood, and other viscera from her body. While not as enjoyable as the working showers in her family home or Mrs. McGibbons' house, Erin still felt better for the cleaning.

Getting dressed, Erin hung the cloth back on the wall rack to dry, then stepped out into the apartment proper. True to her word, Sydney had drinks ready, though she was taking a sip from her tumbler already.

Erin walked over to the couch, sat down, then grabbed her own glass and downed it in one shot. It burned, but now that she knew what to expect it was manageable. Feeling the liquid run down the back of her throat and clear her sinuses, Erin laid back against the couch and sighed.

"I'm so tired." As the alcohol did its work, permeating her blood, relaxing her muscles, and adding a gentle lightness to her mind, Erin could feel her exhaustion catching up. There wasn't any thought put forth into her actions, as she laid down on the couch, rested her head in Sydney's lap, and fell into a deep sleep.