Chapter 3 – Dread and Doom
To get inside was easy. What she saw when reaching the window stool though had her cursing and jumping back down.
A fully drunk guy rolling on the ground was no help for her mother, actually he could make things worse. It was that moment she picked up a visual from the corner of her eyes that had her running as if hell were on her heels.
There were a bunch of guys, among them a scarred face guy she knew, she had bitten him once, walking in the direction of their hut with a look on their face Charles knew all too well.
Fuck, Fuck, Fuck.
He cussed and went after them. The medic could wait, but if they were aiming for her family then things were really going to get awfully bad. Stumbling over her own feet, she hated her body and it's weakness, she hated everything as she rose back on her feet and rushed after them not catching up. Instead, feeling nothing but helpless, for all his glory, for all he had once been, he could only be an useless thing here.
He rushed faster and faster, he could not be late, he could not be, oh please not.
He was too late, falling he saw the disaster happen, they walked straight to their small home. Her mother's scream and her sister's hustled sounds had her getting back up once again as she stumbled, her knees a bloody mess, she had fallen plenty of times on the way, and damn she had no plan, she needed....
Stopping a second she looked around for anything she could use as a weapon. No one would help, nor would anyone believe it when she would shout she would pay for the help, these were the slums. No way in hell she had money in their minds, and the authorities cared a shit about what was happening here. No one would help them. She needed a weapon, something, anything.
Gritting her teeth, she returned to the small wooden hairpin that her hands were clutching. The only sharp thing she could handle in ease, she was small that was all she had. Her gaze turned dark and she activated her nanites.
She would not win this battle, but she could take as many as necessary with her, and if it was the last thing she did. Shutting down every shred of her emotions, she walked casually to her place. Knowing what was expecting her. She entered unnoticed and watched how her mother was offering herself desperately to these man while one was feeling up on her sister who was held down to the ground by his colleague, struggling against it, no one noticed the little her in the corner.
If I do not take at least one or two with me I may as well be a civilian brat.
Walking to the closest assailant she watched his movements coldly and stabbed him into the neck with all the force she could muster, she stabbed where it was soft, knowing she was not strong in this body. The man gurgled and blood sprayed towards her, around her as she turned to the stunned colleagues of his. This one would not life long. And she went for another, attacking the one who came closer at rather sluggish speed. She rushed forward and used her lack of size to twist undeneath. He tried to catch her, her eyes noticing the movement before he made it, dodging it with ease as she went once again for a vital spot.
One hit one kill, or it will not work, not with how I am right now.
This time she hit the vein between his legs, a main one, he would not survive if he did not stop the bleeding, apparently he knew that, and she wanted to go for the next catching a movement behind her but not fast enough to avoid she was thrown against the wall and hissed as she hit it and her gaze blurring.
That has to be a concussion, but I cannot stop.
But once caught it was too late, another pair of hands manhandled her, and she found herself being cursed and screamed at. She did not let herself be affected, cold as she was right now but just stared letting her eyes glow darkly, like obsidian, without pupils and nothing but bottomless darkness they caused the man to hesitate.
"Devil, devil." they whispered, but then they wanted revenge as they incapacitated her. The went back to doing what they were doing before. Everything became a hell of screams, blood and doom. Charles could not move, only watch, he dared not move, dared not to look away, instead he watched how his mother screamed for her daughters, and her sister's light faded. Her life faded when one started strangling her, her mother cried bitter tears shouting out for her, loudly begging, sobbing to spare her.
Charles could see the moment her sister died, so could her mother, the second when her heard stopped and something shattered. Her mother shattered on that very moment, nothing was left, but an empty hull as hell continued on and on to happen. Charles watched it happen, not a tear escaping her as she was there pale faced, still, unable to act as she was bound to a wooden piece of wall as all she wanted was to tear them apart.
Maybe this is my punishment. Me the greatest general the earthen planet had ever seen in centuries, for all my actions for the blood on these hands but what have those two ever done....
When the man left her, mother was lying on the ground like a doll whose strings had been cut. She did not know how much time had passed when her mother got up, mumbling something crawling to her dead daughter and taking her into her arms.
"Tsukiko, my dear Tsukiko, my dear pretty Tsukiko, my Tsukiko..." She did not stop chanting her first daughter's name.The sound ripped Charles into action.