Descent 1.2
Stepping out of the disgusting metal prison my tormentors had shoved me in, I took a long deep breath of fresh air. My eyes were closed in near bliss as I cleared my lungs from the foul stench that had been all but consuming me, rotten matter and pieces of junk falling off my body as I left behind my now destroyed prison.
‘Disgusting filth! How dare they subject their Queen to such disrespect?!’
But not even that blissful feeling was enough to alleviate the burning anger that was coursing through my veins and thrumming against my chest. The fury that I was feeling due to what my tormentors had subjected me to, the scorching anger that the buzzing noise at the back of my head seemed to only aggravate little by little with each moment that passed.
Far too soon the sound of the hushed, worried murmurs of those who had been all but reveling at my earlier suffering reached my ears, making me open up my eyes with a sharp snap. I took in their pale-faced, shocked visages and felt my fury stirring once again, alongside a strange feeling of contempt, a fury that reached even higher as I laid eyes on two particular girls standing in the middle of the group.
Sophia was shakily rising to her feet, having apparently fallen to the ground for some reason, fury and incredulity battling for dominance on her features. And at her side, helping her up with a look of sheer confusion on her face was Emma Barnes.
My friend, my most loyal confidant, my sister in all but name, and also the person who had betrayed me in every single possible way for more than a year before shoving me into the rotten confines of a metal coffin with a smile on her lips.
‘Wretched traitor, how dare you defile us so?!’
The red-headed traitor had been opening up her mouth, no doubt to spit out another taunt or scathing insult, but I did not give her the chance. The fury that was boiling within me reached its bursting point as my eyes locked with hers.
“Emma!” I spat out the word as if it was a curse, my gaze burning red as I put all the rage and anger I could feel within me into that single word.
There was no thought, no conscious decision, simply action. One moment I was standing outside the ruins of my locker, filth slowly falling off my body. The very next I was standing right against the lockers in the other side of the corridor, Emma’s throat held firmly by my right hand and body shoved against the metal lockers with enough strength to dent them. A loud shattering sound and the two craters left behind on the floor where I had been standing a fraction of a second earlier were the only signs that I had even moved.
I was dimly aware of the fact that I had moved far faster than a normal human could ever possibly move, just as the knowledge that I was lifting Emma’s whole body with one hand with ease was slowly penetrating my hazy mind. But it was all eclipsed by the sheer hatred I felt for the girl now literally within my grasp, dismissed as inconsequential in face of my wrath.
‘Feel the wrath of the Queen of the Night!’
Looking on with a hint of interest as her struggling features slowly acquired a pale blue tint as she futilely fought against my iron-like grasp around her throat, mouth opening and closing uselessly, I couldn’t help but remember all the times she had hurt me, all the times she had abused the trust we once shared only to cause me pain, all the times she had put me down and destroyed my things simply because she could.
I could hear words being shouted from behind me as the useless mindless groupies that always surrounded Emma screamed and panicked, but I paid them no mind. Their words had no meaning. My whole focus, my whole world narrowed down to the face of my tormentor framed within my red consumed vision.
And gazing at her now tear-filled eyes, I felt a thought lazily drift through my hazy mind: What would happen if I squeezed just a little bit harder?
Only for said train of thought to be cut short as a loud metallic snapping noise resounded right next to my head.
Blinking the red haze away from my eyes for a moment I curiously looked backwards, watching in slight bemusement at the fact that Sophia had apparently just tried to stab me in the back of the head with a butterfly knife.
‘You dare to attack us?!’
Only for her attempt to be foiled due to how my shadow surged forth from the ground as if it had a mind of its own, forming a makeshift black barrier to block the attack. Her knife’s blade snapped in two as steel met shadow and, against all logic, lost.
‘Insolent cur, begone from our sight!’
My bemusement was swiftly replaced with horror, as my shadow dissolved the barrier it had just created before reforming into a long spear-like tendril a heartbeat later and surged forth towards Sophia’s chest with the speed of a striking viper.
Wide-eyed I watched as the spear of shadow lanced forth towards one of my tormentors. Mouth open in silent dread, unable to do anything about it, I watched as if in slow motion as it drew closer and closer to her abdomen with the clear intention of impaling her straight through. Emma’s body slipped past my now loose fingers and fell to the floor where she started to gasp and retch as I turned to see my shadow’s assault better.
Only for my mounting horror to be just as swiftly replaced by confusion, as at the very last moment before the spear was about to pierce Sophia’s body she turned into a shadowy smoke-like state, the lance of darkness harmlessly passing through her form as she quickly drifted backwards and away from the dark tendril extending from my shadow.
‘What?’
Watching with disbelieving eyes as Sophia retook her normal form about ten meters away from me completely unharmed, hard assessing eyes locked on my form and a sneer on her face, I felt as my confusion was slowly but surely replaced by the fury and anger my curiosity at this strange turn of events had been barely holding back but moments earlier. Only now, my wrath was burning even hotter than before as several things suddenly started making sense as if pieces of a puzzle locking into place.
How the Trio could get away so easily with everything they did to me. How the faculty always turned a blind eye to everything they did no matter how grave the offense. How even the school nurse played off the bruises Sophia would give me as simple accidents no matter what I said about it or how obvious the fact said injuries were caused by another was.
I had always thought that the fact that Emma’s father was a lawyer was what was stayed their hands, but now I realized the truth. It hadn’t been Emma at all who had been staying their hand, but instead, it had been Sophia’s fault all along!
I recognized the way she had just turned to shadow to avoid my unintentional attack, anyone in the city would, for there was only a single Parahuman in the whole bay that could do that.
Shadow Stalker. Sophia Hess, one of my tormentors, was Shadow Stalker, the Hero Shadow Stalker of the Wards.
“You are Shadow Stalker…” I whispered the words at first, numb with fury as my vision was slowly consumed by the crimson tint of my unbridled anger before I shouted the following words. “You are a fucking hero?!”
‘Disgusting good for nothing, hero, how dare you to taint us with your presence?!’
A Hero.
One of my tormentors, the person who had sent me to the infirmary more than once, one of the three bitches who had been doing their level best to make my life a living hell for over a year, the reason why I was more often than not covered in bruises by the end of each school week, was a God forsaken hero!
Mind clouded out with rage and vision tinted red, I hurled myself towards Sophia’s sneering form with a bestial snarl, all rational thought pushed aside by the sheer need to punch that filthy bitch straight in the face! By the sheer need of making her pay!
Sophia rolled out of the way of my lunge with practiced ease, sneer still clear in her face as she dodged my attempted strike and lunged towards me to deliver a counter-attack of her own with insulting ease. Though her attack was brought short as she was once again forced to turn to shadow in order to avoid another lance of darkness surging forth from my own shadow.
Rolling back into a ready stance, she swiftly gazed towards my kneeling form. My kneeling form that had its arm buried to the elbow into the ground due to how my fist had cratered the floor in a thunderous explosion with ease, punching straight through the pavement as if it was not even there and only stopping as my knees hit the now destroyed floor.
She opened her mouth to say something, only to be forced to turn to shadow once again as my shadow once more surged forth, scything through the air like a whip and cutting right through her smoky form while leaving a long, inches deep, gash on the metal lockers right behind her.
‘Stay still you filthy vermin!’
Her sneer was long gone and replaced by a wide-eyed look of surprise, she once again turned her gaze towards me as something I couldn’t identify darted through her eyes. But that didn’t matter, not with the burning fury running in my veins, not with how my blood hammered at my ears and my vision was blurred with hate.
‘You are beneath us! Learn your place and accept our fury!’
None of it mattered, not the fact I had destroyed concrete and steel with ridiculous ease, nor the screams and shrieks echoing all across the corridor as students ran away in panic. Nothing mattered but teaching the filthy vermin right before me why she should never have crossed her betters! Nothing mattered but making her pay!
Roaring in rage, I charged towards my tormentor, the ground exploding beneath my feet as I launched myself towards her form like a speeding freight train, something deep within me savoring the look of panic that swiftly crossed her face. Something that became deeply displeased the moment Sophia turned around and ghosted through the locker-filled wall to her left, fleeing away from me and from her righteous punishment!
‘You shall not escape us!’
I didn’t slow down in the slightest as I swiftly approached the point where she had vanished through the wall. Not giving even the slightest thought to the fact that several hundred pounds of metal and masonry were standing between me and my foe I simply kept charging straight ahead until with a final bellow of anger I plowed through the locker filled wall all as if it the obstacle wasn’t even there, debris and plaster, metal and masonry, all of it was hurled out of my way as I all but exploded through the wall as I kept chasing my foe.
Gazing at my tormentor’s wide brown eyes as she stood at the end of the corridor I had just entered as screams of shock reverberated behind me, I felt my lips curling back into a snarl even as my shadow grabbed a large piece of masonry and hurled it towards Sophia with pinpoint accuracy.
My annoyance at the fact that she once again dodged the impromptu projectile with ease was nothing compared to the anger I felt as she turned around and darted away, fleeing from me and her righteous punishment, fleeing from her crimes.
Watching as she ghosted through the windows leading out towards the school’s courtyard I didn’t waste a single moment longer before I ran towards her with all my might. My surroundings blurred together as I forcefully pushed through the window but a single moment later. All the while I kept completely ignoring the inconsequential shouts of the useless sheep that filled Winslow’s halls, just like they had ignored my plight for far too long.
Nothing would deny me my retribution!
Landing on the ground with enough force to create a quite sizeable crater, I snarled as I noticed that Sophia was gaining ground quickly, turning into her shadow state in order to take huge leaps through the air and having already covered more than half the distance towards the buildings on the other side of the road in her attempt to escape me.
‘Your paltry tricks shall not save you!’
But that was completely irrelevant; she would not escape, that was an undeniable fact, nothing more and nothing less. All that she was doing was simply delaying the inevitable, a fly uselessly struggling against the spider’s web.
She would pay!
Closing my hands into fists I drew them closer towards my body as if something was guiding my actions, showing me what I needed to do. For a single moment, I felt as if my wrath reached a boiling point, as if it had grown to a point where it simply wasn’t possible to contain it within my body any longer, and so I didn’t. With barely a thought I guided my surging fury towards my closed fists, felt it gather there for the briefest of moments before, with a final bellow of anger, I punched them both towards my airborne foe.
A loud thunderclap resounded through the air, the screeching sound echoing and completely filling the area with a deafening boom as twin lightning bolts launched themselves from my fists and towards Sophia’s still airborne ghostly form.
‘Feel our wrath!’
A fanged grin firm upon my features, I watched as my tormentor screamed as my lightning bolts found their mark, hitting her head on despite her shadowy form and forcing her back into her normal state. She stood suspended there for a moment longer, held airborne as electricity coursed through her body before gravity reasserted its sovereignty and she bonelessly fell to the ground with all the grace of a rock.
I leisurely walked towards Sophia’s prone form as my fury sang its contentment in my ears. Flashes of all the times she had taunted me, mocked me, and attacked me swiftly coursed through my mind as I drew ever nearer. I felt a deep sense of fulfillment starting to permeate my very being at the sight of my tormentor finally brought low. Finally forced to face justice!
‘Lying at our feet, this is where you belong.’
Approaching my former tormentor as she took small ragged breaths lying on the ground, I felt as if this was the most natural thing in the world, a dark and up to this point unknown part of me all but purring in happiness and contentment at this turn of events.
Only for that feeling of happiness and contentment to be abruptly cut short as something swiftly collided against my side with the strength of a wrecking ball, forcibly hurling me through the air and away from Hess’ body. For a moment I simply tumbled gracelessly through the air, unable to tell up from down as my body spun uncontrollably due to the force of the blow that had launched me away until my uncontrolled flight was brought to a sudden end as I hit the wall of an apartment building with enough force to shatter the brickwork.
‘Who dares?!’
Shaking myself free of the falling masonry, sections of plaster coming off with me and crumbling into dust as they did, I cleared my face from the brick dust that was all but covering me now before pushing myself back to my feet and turning my eyes towards whoever had dared to strike me. Red once again tinted my vision as something within me screamed her fury.
They would pay, all of them!