Chapter 37 - Ashes to Ashes

Day 30

Morning

Southside Cemetery

Sydney watched Erin step forward and engage the woman verbally. She wanted so desperately to stand side-by-side with her, facing down that foe. For now though, Sydney had to acknowledge her stats made that impossible. As she watched Erin disappear with the woman, Sydney swore when this was over, she was dedicating herself to training that would make boot look like a high school debate club. "You won't have to keep going into battle alone, Erin. I promise."

Turning to the crowd, Sydney started yelling for them to disburse, "Everyone, please, get out of here. Go home, or find somewhere safe to shelter!"

The crowd, those who hadn't already made a hasty exit, started to leave at a brisk pace. Most of them, anyway. Several dozen didn't move from their spot, and the alarms started firing in Sydney's head. She didn't even hesitate, directing her armour to shift and provide her with full head-to-toe protection.

The strangers all shimmered as their clothes shifted and changed, much like Sydney's own armour did. When the changes finished, standing in their place were soldiers. Each had kitted M4 carbines on two-point slings, which they retrieved and brought to a low ready.

Sydney heard Anderson and his soldiers hurrying Eun-ha and the rest off to the vehicle, where they had left their own rifles at the behest…rather the vehement insistence of Eun-ha. While they each had at least one System-provided weapon, most of those were sidearms.

Sydney retrieved her P320 from inventory and directly into a drop-leg holster, then retrieved her MCX SPEAR, holding it at a low ready.

"Gentlemen, ladies," Sydney said cordially, "I'm pretty sure you weren't on the guest list."

One of the soldiers sneered at her, the silver bar of a First Lieutenant on his uniform, and condescension evident in his voice, "This country belongs to us. We'll invite ourselves wherever we want."

"Yeah, that tracks," Sydney said, twisting her head as if to acknowledge a good point, hopefully setting them at ease. She turned as if to head towards the vehicle and leave, using the maneuver to confirm her friends were in the vehicle, and to check Noah's message that had just popped up.

Noah: It's armoured. Don't hold back.

Sydney closed the message, nodded very subtly to Anderson and his team, then spun and put a round clean between the Lieutenant's eyes.

All hell broke loose.

Sydney didn't even bother to dive for cover as round after round after incessant round hit her armour and dropped to the ground, an ineffective mushroomed mess. She turned into a deadly accurate human turret, spinning and firing on anything she deemed unfriendly.

The soldiers finally got a clue after a half-dozen of them went down in the first few seconds. They ran, dove, and slid to find cover. Some of them found decent-sized headstones, making their bodies as small as possible while they reloaded or waited for an opportunity to shoot. Others didn't stop until they got behind a tree. Erin tracked targets who were too slow or too dumb, taking limbs when she couldn't get the body.

The battle turned into a frustrating game of whack-a-mole, as Sydney would take a bullet in the armour, spin to hit the target, only to find they had dropped back behind cover, and someone else popped up to shoot at her. Deciding the stationary turret role was overrated, Sydney started advancing on a position, eyes and rifle up and ready to shoot, when she caught movement to her right.

Sydney started to spin towards the movement, only to hear a WHOOMP! WOOSH!

A heavy weight ploughed into Sydney head-on, then ignited into an expanding ball of gas, fire, and shrapnel. While Sydney's armour could protect her from damn near anything, it didn't quite let her defy physics. The impact and explosion launched Sydney back, clipping her heels and causing her body to go end-over-end. When she finally came to a stop, it was within a couple meters of Noah's vehicle.

The ordeal disoriented her for a second, delaying Sydney's recovery to her feet. Before she could get orient though, the air came alive with a steady THUG! THUG! THUG! sound, then a second overlapped it. Hands grabbed Sydney under her armpits, dragging the ex-soldier behind the vehicle as she watched the cemetery explode with high impact rounds.

"What…what the fuck!?" Sydney blurted out.

One of Anderson's soldiers chuckled, "The kid genius is too damn smart by half. He gave the Not-Rod armour and teeth."

Sydney shook her head, finally getting feet under herself, "Where is he hiding all of this tech?"

The soldier, Sydney now realized it was Brown, shrugged, "Where does a genius hide anything? Maybe he can make pocket dimensions or something."

"Cut the chatter," Anderson's firm command voice somehow broke through the sound of the big guns, "Get in, we're leaving!"

Sydney didn't argue, jumping in the back where she had sat with Erin on the way over. Curtains capable of stopping the bullets being flung their way barely flapped from the impacts. As they pulled away though, the impacts tapered off, as did the guns on the roof. Erin breathed out a sigh of relief, then sent a message to Erin.

Sydney: Enemy soldiers in the crowd, everyone out safe, message me when you can.

Morning

If life after the System had one consistent note for Erin, it was that she didn't have many natural predators above her on the food chain. The only person she knew of up to this point that could hurt her was The Stranger, and so far he hadn't done so intentionally. So when Zara smiled at Erin as they flew through the sky, Erin's first thought was not Oh shit, but it probably should have been.

Still in mid air, Zara grabbed the front of Erin's Dobok, then pulled back and rammed a headbutt into Erin's nose. The impact broke her nose, forcing blood out her nostrils, and filling her eyes with tears from the sensitive tissue being assaulted.

Before Erin could recover, Zara spun the two of them so that she was on top, then planted a foot on Erin's chest and shoved hard. The result pushed Zara further up into the air, and launched Erin down through the roof of a building on an angle. She burst out the far side, bouncing across a street and through the front of another building.

Erin recovered quickly after the landing, resetting her nose with a slight popping sound. She wiped the blood from her face on a sleeve as she stepped out of the building. All around her, people ran away from the impacts, clueless of the details but knowing they didn't want to stick around.

Erin didn't focus on them, though. Her eyes were set squarely on the woman standing in the middle of the street. "You're right about one thing."

"I'm right about a lot of things, Erin. Which one do you now agree with?"

Erin walked towards Zara slowly, ready to act. "Tournaments are a poor substitute for real fighting. I didn't expect that headbutt, and that's my mistake."

"It won't be the last mistake you make, Erin. You've been trained your whole life to play by rules. I've spent my whole life trying to break the rules."

"I guess we'll just have to see, then." Erin said, launching at Zara, the other woman meeting her halfway. They collided in a grapple that sent a shockwave out, shaking the buildings and dislodging loose debris from Erin's entry.

Erin kicked a foot out to hook Zara's leg, but the other woman shifted to keep the leg from being hooked. Instead of withdrawing the leg, Erin used some of the momentum from the motion to drive the knee up into Zara's solar plexus. It wasn't Erin's hardest hit, but she expected more of a response. Zara didn't even wheeze from the impact.

Zara took advantage of the grapple leaving Erin's flanks unguarded, and threw a punch into her ribs. Erin hadn't taken a hit that hard in a few years, the impact causing pain to shoot out from one of her ribs. Zara didn't let up with one hit though, taking a second shot, then a third.

Erin felt the fracture as one of her ribs decided it had enough. Feigning another leg hook, Erin used the shift in Zara's weight to extricate herself from the fight, drawing up into a fighting stance, right leg back and weight balanced.

Zara took up her own stance, but instead of waiting for Erin to act, she struck first. Fainting a dominant leg side kick, Zara spun it into a non-dominant roundhouse.

Erin twisted, dropped low and tried to sweep the leg, but even with her balance shifted, Zara still dodged with a backflip over the leg.

Landing on her hands, Zara tried to use a capoeira kick to hit Erin in the head. Erin's evasion was enough to counter the move with a deflection though, allowing her to wrap an arm up and over, trapping the leg in her armpit. Erin didn't hesitate, drilling several punches into Zara's knee before the woman kicked out with her other leg, pushing Erin back.

"Alright, that was impressive. I guess I won't win this with kicks. Let's try punches!" Zara was already moving as she finished the sentence, throwing a flurry of punches at Erin's face and torso.

While Zara did have a slight speed advantage, Erin's evasion seemed to be just high enough. Whether it was age, technique, or some nebulous System quirk, Erin moved slightly slower than Zara, but evasion gave her enough of an advantage to dodge or deflect most hits.

It wasn't enough though, and Erin knew it. She needed more, and that meant Gumiho's Wrath. Letting her subconscious assess the area for bystanders, Erin didn't notice any. So she escalated the fight, releasing the first tail.

Erin's Ki output increased exponentially, forming a single foxtail from her lower back. Not wanting to wait for Zara to retreat or find a way to counter, Erin went to work.

Zara's movement felt slow, as Erin ducked below a left hook, then hammered several quick punches into the woman's ribs. She felt something snap from the hits, and winced inwardly at the fresh memory of her own rib fracturing. She didn't stop though.

Spinning behind Zara, Erin kicked the back of her opponent's left leg, forcing the weight Zara put on it to bring her down to a knee. Then Erin was in front again, slamming a knee into Zara's nose, returning the favour from earlier. Erin finished the vicious attack with a barrage of hits into Zara's head, aimed to stun.

Erin hopped back, keeping her body ready to react if that wasn't enough.

"Hahahaha," Zara laughed, a sense of joy in the act. She rolled onto her side, getting hands and feet under herself. "I wasn't expecting this to be so much fun."

Once on her feet, she brushed off her clothes, then reset her nose with casual familiarity. Then she plugged each side of her nose in turn, blowing out the blood and snot. She didn't register the broken rib, leaving Erin to wonder if it had somehow healed, or if this woman's pain tolerance was on a whole other level.

"Tell me, Erin, is your ability limited to one level? I mean, Gumiho seems to be a theme for you. Nine-tailed fox and all, but you only have one tail right now."

Erin narrowed her eyes, wondering what the woman was getting at. "No, it's not limited to one tail."

"Good." Zara said, then her aura burst outward, "I would love to finally test Vicious Prodigy against someone with potential.

Zara started walking towards Erin, then disappeared. Erin could track the movement still, telling her the woman wasn't as fast as Erin was with her first tail. The problem wasn't the speed, but the hit. As Zara's right jab came in, Erin shifted her stance and deflected the punch to her outside, but her arm screamed in pain from that near miss. Worse still, a small cut opened on her cheek. Zara was only a little faster, sure, but she was a lot stronger.

Erin twisted out of the way of Zara's next punch, but barely dodged the one following that, opening a gash on the right side of her abdomen several inches long. With her high vitality, Erin's body was working to heal the wounds, but each cut still slowed her down for a fraction of a second.

Erin tried to go on the offensive, throwing her own punches. Zara slapped them aside , which in turn caused more injuries. I need to get more space, and rethink my attack strategy. Before she finished that thought, Erin was already launching herself in the air, only to have her ankle caught by Zara.

Erin came slamming down into the ground face first, leaving an imprint of her body in the asphalt. Then she was slammed onto her back, then her face again. Erin had a vague sense of having seen this somewhere. A whimsical thought fueled by a mind getting smacked around hard. When she landed on her back again, a weight fell on her stomach.

"Well, this is kind of disappointing." Zara said, before she smacked Erin across the right side of her face. The hit sent her vision spinning, white dots dancing across her eyes. Zara smacked her again, and Erin felt her left orbital socket crack. The third hit landed on the right side of her face again, and it was all Erin could do to turn her head and throw up what little food she had still digesting.

"Disgusting." Zara said, sounding more like a kid than an adult.

Then Erin's vision blurred, and went black, as she lost consciousness.