Little Hunter
Iron Rain was more diminutive than Nanku expected.
She was tall. Wide hips. Full chest.
Strange.
By all examination—and Nanku used her mask to be sure—she was an adult.
But she didn't carry herself as one. Her body language lacked the confidence of someone who'd grown into their own body. She was impetuous. Puffed up.
This was the whelp that wanted to kill her mother?
Well, she wouldn't get the chance.
Nanku's body still hurt, but not enough to stop her. With Iron Rain dead, the threat of the Pure was resolved. She could get back to her own business.
That would be nice.
"Nothing to say?" Iron Rain asked. "Just going to stand there?!"
Nanku cocked her head and thought.
She deactivated her cloak and exposed herself.
"Cricket was a coward. It was disappointing."
But no need for Nanku to debase herself.
Iron Rain bristled visibly under her armor.
She was no Cricket.
Nanku took it as a good thing. She couldn't be disappointed again. Iron Rain was impetuous and loud. Just someone her mother and half-sister would be safer without.
"You're going to pay for what you did," Rain snarled. "I'll make you pay!"
Nanku flipped the spear in her hand and threw.
The weapon's spin whistled and the tip screwed toward Iron Rain's chest. Nanku released her wristblades and threw herself forward. She flicked the blades from her shuriken out.
The spear pointed down and Nanku reared her shuriken back.
Light burst. Bright and shining a pale gray. The spear struck the diamond shaped shimmer and bounded. The shield rippled and Iron Rain threw both hands forward.
Nanku jumped, lunging aside and rolling as the shield broke apart and a blade of iron light flew her way. The blade struck the causeway like a hammer. Sand exploded and Nanku grabbed a grate and pulled herself away before another sword could hit her.
"Monster!" Rain screamed.
A dozen swords formed over her head and Nanku swung her legs up to reach her feet.
"You killed Jessie and Nessa!"
The air rippled. Blade after blade launched and explosions of sheer force tore into the stone.
Nanku swerved, jumping and rolling. Rain's aim was poor, but as soon as one blade fired another came out. Momentum carried her, and she barely held her balance as she slipped and skidded through explosions.
"And Uncle Justin!"
Nanku didn't even know which of them that was. Victor?
She ducked under a sword and threw her body into a spin over the next. Her landing stained her injured thigh. Nanku dropped to a knee unintentionally and threw her shuriken.
Rain raised a shield, but the spinning blade flew past her.
She started, looking back at the weapon as it spun through the dark.
Nanku threw her second shuriken and fired a dart from her left arm. Rain looked back and ducked. The shuriken went over her head and past her second shield. The dart struck her leg and the lines launched to ensnare her ankles.
Taking her chance, Nanku sprinted into a long stride.
The shield burst. Spinning blades shot out in every direction and Nanku jumped back to avoid being hit. Three more swords fired from over Rain's head and another shot from the ground between her legs and cut the line.
Nanku's eyes widened as she rolled away from one sword and swept herself aside another. Both exploded. Debris showered over her armor and against her skin.
Her visor slid from vision mode to vision mode, but none of them showered her anything.
The iron light was light, but it was like an object as well. Solid light? That sounded familiar.
Nanku rolled over the ground, kicked off, ducked under a spinning blade, and reached with one outstretched hand.
Iron Rain stepped back as her throat came within Nanku's grasp.
Light shined from the blow and blades shot upward from the ground. They circled the girl and burst out, nearly throwing Nanku aside. Amid swirling sand, she slipped herself between the projections. One hand reached past Iron Rain and her other grabbed her knife and stabbed across her chest.
A small shield blocked the blade and Iron Rain projected a trio of swords over her head.
The first of the shurikens returned. Nanku caught it and swiped the blades.
Rain dodged and Nanku danced away from her swords. She threw the shuriken and caught the second as it returned. A flick of her fingers threw her knife and her arm threw the second shuriken.
Rain retreated in a start from the barrage. She used a shield to deflect the first shuriken. The knife cut strands of blonde hair hanging out the back of her helmet. The second shuriken struck her shoulder and spun the girl.
Nanku leaped at her chance. Wristblades poised to sever the spine.
Iron Rain screamed and a massive sword of iron light exploded from the sand to either side of her. One blade caught Nanku in the arm and pierced her skin like tissue.
She flung back, thrown by the blade and launched through the air until she crashed.
Rain screamed, clutching her shoulder while blood ran down her arm.
"WILD ANIMAL!"
Nanku grit her teeth and ran for her spear. She caught the weapon between swords blasting into the sand around her. Blasts of force rocked her to the bone. Tiny grains and bits of chitin showered atop her head.
She readied the weapon to throw, dodged a sword, and waited.
Rain's head twitched as the shurikens flew back.
Iron Rain leaned to the side and avoided one. Raised a shield over her back and blocked the second.
Nanku threw her spear and Rain screamed again as it pierced her other shoulder.
The girl stumbled and Nanku grabbed her. Swords burst from the ground. She ignored the weapons, lifting Iron Rain and throwing her overhead onto the beach.
Her body crunched on landing. The metal armor around her dented. She kicked like a wounded animal. Shot blades Nanku leaned away from. She caught her shuriken and used it to deflect a long-narrow sword and pinned Iron Rain to the sand.
With a knee to the girl's chest, Nanku swung her wristblades back and aimed for the throat.
Iron Rain sobbed.
Crying.
She—A child? Nanku thought Tattletale meant—Was her body a lie? She didn't speak like someone that tall. She screamed and wailed. Bellowed like an infant.
Nanku's arm wavered.
A shape moved behind her. She barely had time to register it. The passage was disorienting at first. The air folded in on itself and the bugs shifted position in a dizzying surge.
A hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled. Nanku spun. The hand left her, but the girl's shape blurred.
Nanku's blades passed through the air before her but struck nothing.
Vista warped the space around herself back, jaw tense.
"Let's just calm down and put all the sharp, stabbing, penetrating, and cutting implements away. What do you say?"
Nanku turned her head.
Two more coming. Quick. Not as quick as Vista but Vista's power was…
Damn it.
"I am asking nicely," Vista said. "Drop the weapons and—"
Nanku reared back and swung her leg out in a sweeping motion. She thrust for Iron Rain.
The thrust was perfect, and still, she missed.
"Hard way it is then," Vista declared as her power twisted the air and bent Nanku's blades away from Iron Rain.
Nanku cursed.
There was nothing worthy in killing a sobbing child.
But Rose was innocent, and she'd stay that way.
For that, Rain had to die.
A blade shot from the ground and Nanku barely jerked her head to the side before her throat was cut. Rain pushed herself away and swung her hand out. A flurry of blades followed and Nanku dodged away.
Vista rotated herself, twisting the beach in an arc so she appeared behind Iron Rain.
"That's enough, Aster." She wrapped an arm around Rain's throat and squeezed. "It's over. You—"
Nanku snatched her remaining shuriken from the ground.
She threw the blade but Vista again twisted the air.
Nanku's wristblades followed, aimed for Rain's head.
Vista twisted that air too.
She wasn't limited to doing one thing at a time.
Nanku leaped back and reached to reactivate her cloak.
The woman came at her—dressed in black with a white circuit-board pattern over it—with a surge of speed. She took a step left and shot her fist out. Nanku swung the shuriken in one hand into her path and let the woman avoid the blades.
The second she threw low.
Battery jumped, starting as her leg barely avoided being cut.
Assault landed behind Nanku, between her and Iron Rain. Vista had the girl on her back and was trying to pull Nanku's spear clear of her wound.
Nanku didn't complain to herself.
It was pointless.
"I swear I had something for this," Assault said. "Puppy?"
"She nearly took my leg off!" Battery snapped.
"Something about a leg up? No, that wasn't it. Damn it, it was good too."
"Do we have a plan for this?" Vista asked. "Console?"
Nanku braced herself. Assault and Battery moved in sync with surprising smoothness. The Internet did say they were a couple. That was dangerous.
One against two weren't odds Nanku feared, but a pair in sync with one another was worth double.
"Leave," Nanku tried. "The Pure have one parahuman left."
"Yeah." Assault crossed his arms over his chest. "Not that I'm crying but..."
"But you have to stop," Battery picked up. "Stand down."
Killing Rain was no longer feasible.
"Not even going to think about it?" Assault asked.
A trap within a trap.
The drone was still there. Watching. How cold could the Pure's thinker be? Did she sacrifice her entire parahuman force just to stage a conflict with the Protectorate.
She couldn't have known Nanku would hesitate with Iron Rain. Could she?
"Where's Weaver?" Battery asked. "We could use someone to talk to her."
"Not coming," Vista replied while she listened to someone. "Director's orders."
Battery started. "What?"
Nanku threw a shuriken back and another forward.
The two capes dodged. Battery moved with a sudden burst of speed. Assault stepped into the weapon and batted it aside.
From one ambush into another.
And it was time to go.
Assault burst forward and struck the air when Nanku ducked under the blow. She warred over the nearby presence of her swarm. They were ready and waiting. But anyone who had known of it was now dead, and her greatest weapon was a surprise once again.
Behind her mask, Nanku's eyes swept over the water.
She preferred to keep it that way.
Nanku rolled away from Assault and grabbed her shuriken from the sand as she broke into a run.
"Really?" Assault asked.
"Just knock her out," Battery grumbled. "I'm not breaking the alternative to you-know-who."
They wouldn't kill her.
That was good.
But how to escape?
Vista wrestled Aster down while the girl struggled and screamed. "Wait—"
"Just keep her down!"
Vista twisted the air in and back and in again, folding the blades away from herself as Rain tried to launch them.
"Just knock her out!"
"A bit busy," Vista replied.
One obstacle eliminated then.
Nanku spun on her heel and ran.
Assault and Battery ran to chase her while she collected her knife. Her spear was still in Iron Rain's shoulder. Leaving it wasn't ideal.
Nanku avoided Assault's attempt to strike her back with an arm bar and allowed Battery to strike her side. The impact was heavy. She felt it in her ribs and the pain radiated through her chest while her body hit the sand and rolled.
The pair struck again before Nanku could turn and something in her chest broke. Another blow to her arm cracked a bone. Blood ran down her leg. Her stitches were too fresh. They hadn't held.
Pain flared up and Nanku found it hard to put any weight on her repeatedly injured leg. Moving an arm hurt. At least one rib was broken. Her arm as well possibly.
She'd tangled with a dozen parahumans in a single night.
Nanku supposed she'd pushed things a bit too far. A lesson to remember.
She marked her target with her mask. The lasers shot out and the actuating arm popped over her shoulder.
"Vista!" Battery snapped.
The girl turned and moved as the plasma bolt shot past her and over Iron Rain.
She startled. "Was that a ray gun?"
Nanku fired a dart line from her gauntlet and waited until it strung around her spear. She pulled, ripping the weapon from Iron Rain's shoulder. The girl screamed. Maybe she'd bleed out. It would save Nanku the time of finding her again.
Reeling the line back in, Nanku's fingers closed around her spear just as Battery hit her again and Assault struck her from the other side.
"Come on," Assault said as his foot reared back. "Just stay down."
Nanku rolled and collapsed her spear. The plasma caster fired twice more, driving Battery back. Her third charge came quickly and she slammed her fist into the ground. Big hands grabbed Nanku's shoulder and Assault lifted her effortlessly from the ground.
She kicked at his chest fruitlessly.
When the internet said he could manipulate kinetic energy, Nanku didn't appreciate it. Her feet simply stopped no matter how hard she kicked.
That was a problem.
"I got her," Assault claimed.
Nanku looked at his head and the plasma caster charged.
"Shit."
He threw her back and Nanku rolled as her body flew across the beach. The landing was strange. The moment she found her feet, Nanku stumbled back nearly a dozen paces into the surf.
Battery charged at her from the right. Assault leaped into the air.
Nanku sealed her mask and threw herself into the water.
She swam down—easier with her armor on—and reached her hand out.
A hand reached her first.
Dauntless lifted her from the water and flew into the air.
"Not a bad idea," he said. "But we can't ignore you now, or let you go."
"I didn't ask," Nanku replied.
She stabbed her wristblades into his shoulder, between the armored plates of his costume. There was some resistance, but the tip broke through and sank in. His hold loosened and a swift kick sent Nanku dropping from the air back into the water.
She would not kill Rose's father. He'd survive a little light maiming.
Pulling her legs together, Nanku braced as her body struck the water's surface and she sank into the cold. The weight and momentum carried her toward the bottom where dozens of small claws grasped at her. Legs crawled over her arm. Bubbles churned but the weight of the crabs was enough to keep her under the water and near the floor.
Dauntless was still in the air clutching at his shoulder. He followed at first, tracking the shadow of her movement.
Until her helpers pulled her into deeper water and the darkness of the bay and the night made tracking her impossible.
The air in her mask would last more than long enough. Nanku took her time. Kept many eyes on Dauntless as he continued his search. He'd turned the wrong way and Nanku was sure he'd lost her.
The crabs kept up their work, scurrying in mass and pulling her further along the bay.
The cold numbed the pain. Made it easier to think clearly.
If the enforcers were smart, they'd spread out. Look for her anywhere she could come back on land. She needed to slip past them before they did that.
Nanku flowed with the currents and used bugs along the shore to search.
When she found a small grate under a boardwalk further along the shore, Nanku directed the crabs.
They spilled her out under the decks above. Too weak to carry her out of the water. Nanku pulled herself to the grate with a limp and a snarl. She stopped to reapply her med-kit's treatment. The extra pain made her more alert briefly. Long enough to reseal the lacerations in her legs.
The broken ribs and cracked bones were another story.
For that, she injected an agent directly into her bloodstream. It would accelerate her healing, but broken bones did not heal fast. Not even with Yautja technology.
She dragged herself after that. First to the grate. She cut the bars and slipped through. Lifting them back into place further strained her body. She needed sleep. Badly.
Nanku went back into the sewers, wary of all movement over her heat.
There were cars with flashing lights. Loud sirens. She heard them even underground.
None of them stopped her or gave any sign of pursuit.
Nanku kept going. The thrill of the hunt and the air of danger went away and only the pain remained. A lot of pain.
She kept going anyway.
Lifting a manhole cover was too much. Nanku found a drain that emptied into a causeway and climbed the incline back onto the streets. From there her legs carried her on through shadowed alleys and streets.
Until she couldn't keep going.
Nanku slid down the wall and groaned.
She'd been injured before. Badly. That damned rhino-like beast nearly trampled her to death when she was fifteen. A stalking beast would have killed her if not for her power.
The Elders kept hunters away from Earth for good reason.
The line between pride and wit was thin. Nanku thought herself on the better side, but mistakes happened.
She'd have to not reach for more than she could grasp next time.
After she woke up from the black.
"Figures."
Nanku's eyes fluttered weakly.
Rachel crouched in front of her and snorted.
"You look like shit."