A/N: Yes, this chapter has finally been updated. No, I have no idea when the next one will be finished but it's almost half done so far. Only two chapters left after this one then this first part of the trilogy is done. Thanks to my beta Bent for checking this out for me.
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Chapter fifty-one: Falling Rain
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Logan: You know, you were much sweeter when you weren't feeling well.
Max: The bitch is back.
Max and Logan (Flushed)
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'She's got a pretty smile
It covers up the poison that she hides'
-Lifehouse (Only One)
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The rain fell heavily, soaking anyone that wasn't under the cover of the garage.
"Took your time." White grumbled as one of the Phalanx stepped forward.
The Phalanx was tall and dark. His face was thin and narrow, his eyes black in the torch light, on closer inspection, he looked similar to a rat.
"Hey, I was waiting for my moment." The guy grinned as he looked up at Erin's swaying body, water running down her face, plastering her hair to her head, dripping from her clothes to the ground below. Blood coloured raindrops.
"Well, your moment almost lost us everything, Braker. She could've killed us all!"
"She didn't, that's all that matters." Braker glared at White. He obviously didn't like taking orders from him, "Now, what d'you want me to do with the body?"
White looked up at Erin and narrowed his eyes, "Take off her glasses; we still need to see if it really is her."
Braker shrugged, looked up at Erin and her shades fell to the floor below her. Erin had her eyes closed.
"Damn it! Open her eyes!" White was getting frustrated now.
"I can't! She's too far away and just the slightest pressure from me and her eyes could explode and you'd never know." Braker sounded like he was talking to a child.
Braker walked under Erin's body and squinted up at it. "Nah, I can't do it." He looked back at White, "Want me to lower her down?" Some of the Phalanx were not the brightest crayons in the box.
"What d'you think, you idiot?!" White looked like he was itching to shoot the man.
Above them, silently, Erin had begun to move. The transgenics above her on the other levels and the ones she was nearest too all stared in shock but said nothing, not muttering a single sound.
Erin silently reached up and grabbed the chain above her head, pulling herself up slightly so she could breathe. She then pulled up the rest of her body, going against gravity until she was hanging upside down with her legs wrapped around the chain so she could quickly remove the chain from around her neck at the same time as pulling the gun from her combats, flicking off the safety. All this took a matter of seconds and soon she was above White and the telekinetic familiar, her hair covering her upper face from view.
Braker looked at White like he was crazy, "Don't you think we're safer with her up there?"
"Braker," White spoke slowly, through tightly gritted teeth, "I am the one in charge of this operation. If I say you lower her to the ground- you do it. Understood?"
Braker sighed and shook his head "Fine, I'll bring her down- but I still think you're being reckless." Something hit his head and he brought his hand up to touch his helmet. He pulled a piece of chewing gum from it and examined it in his hand. Swallowing, he dropped the gum to the floor and slowly looked up. His eyes widened.
"Oh shit!" He said quietly as he saw the barrel of Erin's gun pointed directly at his head. Then his eyes ticked passed the barrel to look directly into Erin's eyes and his eyes widened even further. He saw her smile.
"Bang, bang." Erin pulled the trigger and shot Braker cleanly in the forehead, his body fell and hit the floor with a dull thud.
White stumbled back as she dropped the empty gun, her legs released the chain and Erin fell and flipped through the air to land in a crouch next to Braker's body. She slipped on her shades which had somehow survived the fall and slowly straightened.
Her neck was bleeding where the rusted metal had cut into her skin and she rotated her head.
"I wondered when he'd make his move," Her voice sounded slightly rough and she cleared her throat. "Idiot should've known that strangling me wouldn't have worked."
She gave Braker's body a kick and his body skidded across the wet concrete like he weighed nothing. "Pathetic."
She looked up at White and bared her teeth in a smile. "Time to kill again."
The shooting started now, without White saying a word, all Phalanx turning inward and firing at Erin, while the soldiers behind them covered their backs against the transgenics. It didn't matter, none of it worked.
The first died with a broken neck, the second with a gun shot to the throat as Erin relieved the former victim of his weapon. She wasn't playing now, there were no fun and games, only killing and bloodshed.
The next soldier had his spine broken over her knee while she simultaneously shot his partner between the eyes.
One was taken out of the game with an uppercut, the other by a spinning kick that smashed his head into a concrete column, hard enough for the crack to be heard by the nearest transgenics.
Erin was covered in sweat, blood and rain. Phalanx screamed in agony as she slaughtered them. The transgenics stood in grim silence.
The world narrowed down once more to death and destruction. The taste of fear, a fuel that spurred her rage on to heights Erin could never have dreamed possible, was thick in the air. There was nothing but the kill. Nothing but the prey she had chosen.
Erin could do nothing but feel the rage that engulfed her, familiar in its taste. Erin knew rage, but she had never used it on other people. Never used it to kill. Erin kept her emotions to herself. The only person she had ever used it on was herself, but that was a story for another time. The point was, Erin was control. Without control, she could no longer function. She had made it such a part of herself, that without the control that others considered quietness, passiveness, or simple patience, Erin would break down and everything she had gone through would come back to control her life again. Erin didn't want that. It was what made this experience even more terrifying. What if this, whatever it was that was causing her to kill, to torture, to play, what if it was a part of herself? What if this rage was truly her own? What if it was the very same part of her that she kept locked up? What would happen if she let it all out? What would happen if she totally gave into that rage and allowed it to take control? What if she stopped, even now, her fight to regain control? What would happen if she allowed this rage, this primal thing that possessed her, full and total control. Would she cease to kill? Or would she lose all of her self to the killer and destroy everything and everyone she cared about? Whatever would happen, she didn't want to find out. She couldn't let that happen, and so, silently, internally, Erin continued to fight against the destruction she was causing, even as another part of her brain told her that taking White and his team out was a good thing.
She flipped over the heads of 4 soldiers, her momentum sending her into a roll like a bowling ball, knocking over another two soldiers who found themselves dead by having their heads crushed together. Three of the four she flipped over, died by gunshots to the head, the fourth, by a knife in the chest.
The last was tripped with a low spinning kick, and his neck broken cleanly.
"Doncha' just love that sound?" she looked up from her crouched position and grinned over the head of the soldier before dropping his body to the floor, his broken neck displayed for the whole world to see. "I don't think I ever get tired of that."
"It's in your blood-" White began but Erin shut him up with a snarl.
"Shut the fuck up!" She stood up fluidly and White took a step back, "I'm getting sick of you going on about this! I'm not going to kill transgenics for you!"
"They're nothing but filthy animals!" he yelled desperately- anger giving his voice volume, his hand gripping the gun he'd picked up from a fallen soldier. To shoot or not to shoot? That was the question. Should he risk it?
Erin growled that same cat-like growl, causing the transgenics to shift and the hair to be raised on the back of their necks. "They're more human than I'll ever be."
White risked taking back that step forward, "But you have a soul. They don't."
"They do," she shrugged, "Everyone does, even you White. I just don't let mine bother me." She studied him for a moment, "Since when did you get all soul-searching on us anyway? You gotta be careful. Might ruin the bad guy image we've all come to know and be annoyed by." She smirked as she said this, knowing it'd infuriate White even more.
He blinked slowly, anger causing his blood to boil, his jaw to clench and his eyes to narrow. His finger moved from the trigger guard onto the trigger.
Erin lifted up a hand and smiled slowly, waggling her finger at him and shaking her head. "Don't even think about it."
The choice was made for him and White found himself raising his arm and firing, even then, knowing it was futile, but hope forcing him to grasp this last chance to get out alive.
The gun was taken from him, the bullet missed and White found himself slamming into the floor on his face and splitting his lip. His raised his face slowly, angrily. He got to his feet and ignored the blood dribbling down his chin.
"All this could've been avoided" Erin looked down at the empty gun in her hand, "all this killing, this mess- it wouldn't have happened if you hadn't had a hard on to destroy the transgenics."
She looked back up at White who was backing away as she spoke. She let the gun drop to the floor.
"Look," he began, holding his hands out defensively, "I'm sure we can work this out. There's gotta be something you want."
Erin let out a bark of laughter that sounded loud and hollow in the night. "You realise there's no escape so you automatically jump to make a deal with the enemy to save your own skin" she spat at him.
White winced and a look of intense hatred crossed his face. "You think you're so smart? You think you can get out of Terminal City alive?" he shook his head, "Think again."
Erin smirked, "Really? Is that a challenge? Do you even know what I'm truly capable of? I got outta here with several transgenics before I even had my abilities."
White snorted, "The freaks are as good as dead. The Conclave has people everywhere. They're not getting out of here, and neither are you unless you're on our side."
"Hmm." Erin brushed some soaked hair from her face, "Let's see" She held out her hands as if weighing the subject, "Leave the transgenics to die and go join a fanatical breeding cult with some hidden agenda that involves some ultimate goal that can only be gained through the act of something biblically bad." She paused. "Wow, that's a mouthful." She shook her head and shrugged. "Or," she continued abruptly, "stay with the people I consider my friends." It was obvious which she side she was on.
She grinned infuriatingly at White, "I think you know my answer."
"But the transgenics-" White began to protest now. It was obvious he was panicking.
"Are under my protection from now on." Erin interrupted.
White stared at her in silence for several seconds and a look of resignation appeared on his face. "So be it. If you won't join us, you'll die with the rest of the freaks."
Erin simply folded her arms and raised her eyebrows expectantly.
"You see, Erin, I really do know most of what you can do. The strength, the speed, and the fighting skills- we were taught all about them."
"Wow, they taught classes on me in your freak school? Am I meant to feel all special?" Erin deadpanned.
White shrugged, "Your… reputation made me realize that the only way for us to kill you- would be from a distance."
Smiling in that smug way of his, he pulled out a small black box from his pocket. It had a little flashing L.E.D on the top of it. It was a detonator.
"Granted, I didn't know you'd be here- this was solely for the purpose of killing the transgenics. But, I guess, today, I just got lucky. Kill two birds with one stone."
"Cheater!" Erin dropped her arms and took a step towards him, a look of outrage and shock on her face. For the first time in the fight, Erin looked uncertain. She shifted from foot to foot, "You set that off, you die too."
White shrugged, "If it'd get rid of 452 and the rest of the freaks- I think it's worth it."
Erin emitted another animalistic growl, "Is this the part where you tell us the cult's plans to pull a 'Pinkie and the Brain' before you blow us all up?"
White shook his head, "Not that stupid."
"But you are pig-headed. You think you can win this way?" Erin eyed the detonator. Even she couldn't move fast enough to stop him pressing that button and he knew it.
White continued to grin, "What can I say? I'll be the hero of the Conclave- getting rid of the only threat to our plans; I'll be a hero to the pathetic humans who don't realize that the only one who could save them was one of the freaks they wanted dead. And," White pushed up the sleeves of his coat and brandished the detonator in front of him as some of the transgenics edged forward. "I'll get to go out with a bang."
Erin growled again, "They'd be picking up what's left of your carcass in itty bitty pieces using a hoover. You wouldn't dare."
White continued to grin, "Watch me." He pressed a button on the detonator and it made a small beeping noise as it armed the explosives. He gave her one last look "Goodbye Erin Jackson." He closed his eyes. Then, he pressed another button- the button to set off the bombs.
A/N: Sorry for being so evil and leaving it there. Well, maybe I'm not sorry, but if I'd have carried it on, the chapter would've been too long.
Professional scatterbrain: The loony bin comment and more info on Erin's instincts will be revealed though out the sequels.
Riley: Sadly, there's no ferret bashing in this one. I tried to include some but couldn't really think of where I could include it. Ah, shirtless Alec. I must put some of that in the sequel.
MirellaM: Yep, Erin the predator. Erin's gonna be seriously freaked out as much as everyone else. Hell, I'd say more so. It's so NOT what she needs right now. Get ready for some broodiness from Alec and some more arguments between them.
Cat x5-989: Sadly, Erin can't kill Logan as he's meant to be in the sequel.
Alexandra Bruderlin: Dude! Hey. I promise that in the sequel there'll be more Syl/Krit, Jondy/Zane and Zack/ Max. There'll even be a bit more with Tawny and Brin. Now, where's my chocolate covered Alec, hmm? The spelling mistakes were probably in the earlier chapters before I got myself a couple of betas. Hopefully, there won't be as many now.
Crazy-VampireSlayer: There's gonna be 2 more chapters after this one before the sequel.
