Chapter 555 - Chilling with my homies, Sausage and Tubbs.

“We shouldn’t be abandoning her. We should be there, by her side!”

“She’s going to be fine, Louise. She just needs a couple quiet mornings to top off her reserves.”

Eric’s foster sister, dressed in pastel skirt and cotton blouse that complimented her dark blond hair cascading down her shoulder in ringlets, crossed her arms and closed her eyes, leaning back on the seat cushions as the train picked up speed, the bucolic scenery flashing by as they headed toward NanDushi proper.

“I know. She’s had bad days before,” Louise admitted. “And she always tells me the best thing I can do for her is to relax and have a wonderful day, that my happiness will give her peace and inspire her own serenity.”

“Exactly.”

Louise snorted. “It’s bullshit, Eric. Mom shouldn’t be this fragile.” She clenched her fists. “She never should have been hurt at all!”

Eric sighed. “I agree.”

Frustrated tears ran down Louise’s cheeks. “I hate that I can’t help her, Eric. I can’t even cultivate! I’m a worthless child who can’t do anything for her own mother!”

Eric smiled sympathetically giving her a gentle, brotherly hug.

“Look, it’s going to be alright, I promise.”

“How? How do you know? She’s been slowly waning, long before you came! You think she looks good now? You should have seen the way she glowed, just a few years ago. The family portraits don’t do her justice! Dad won’t admit it aloud, but I can see the growing worry in his eyes. He knows it just as well as I do.”

Eric sighed and rubbed her back as she sobbed, comforting her as best he could.

“Eric?”

“Yes?”

“What if this time she doesn’t get better… what if she gets worse?”

“Well, we’re not going to let that happen,” Eric assured, his thoughts wandering down a more perilous path, forced to consider that which he had done his best not to dwell upon, afraid of the risk. Afraid of the consequences, should he make a mistake from which there was no going back.

“What can we do?”

Eric leaned back, wiping her tears away as he winked. “It just so happens that your big bro is totally hooked up with the fast cash. If meditation doesn’t work, I’ll see what options Jade Consortium has on hand, and make a few well-deserved purchases.”

Louise blinked, tilting her head incredulously. “Seriously?”

“Dead serious.”

Louis gulped. “But weren’t you a penniless, destitute waif when mom and dad took you under their wing and made you my brother?”

Eric swallowed the lump in his throat, more touched by her tongue-in-cheek statement than he would ever admit. “In one sense, yes. I definitely was. In another sense…”

She arched her brow. “Another sense?”

“In the sense that I have an imperial bank account, kind of sense.”

Louise just stared at him. “You’re completely full of shit, aren’t you?”

Eric barked with laughter, before lowering his voice once more, the thrum of the train enough to muffle their voices from mortal ears. “Maybe I am, at that. But what if I actually did have some gold stashed away? Maybe enough to get a tincture to ease mom’s pain? Or maybe even…”

Louise’s hand covered his mouth. She solemnly shook his head. “I know you’re trying to make me feel better. I appreciate it. I really do. But please stop, okay?”

Eric winced, but lowered his head. “Sorry, sis.”

This earned a snort. “Sorry for nothing. At least you pulled me out of my sad, sobby funk. But yeah, maybe we should think about part-time jobs, right? Whatever we can actually do to help dad save up enough money to get mom the treatment she needs.”

Eric blinked at this, thoughts flittering over what his foster parents had hinted at, and what his fellow finance major students had already made so very clear. The entire point of Westwind, besides the obvious. It wasn’t just about education, any more than such was the case at any prestigious school back on Earth.

It was about making connections. And, it seemed to him, despite a handful of students he had overheard disparaging the need for it, there were a hell of a lot of potential connections to be made in his fourth year finance course, and who cared if he had skipped the first handful of semesters?

Sometimes battlefields could be won by seizing a crucial opportunity… and boardrooms persuaded with a well-timed smile.

Maybe it was about time he got over his shit and used the gifts that he actually had access to?

It was with that thought in mind that he walked Louise to her first class on the bottom floor before springing up the steps and heading to his own, not even a minute late.

Yet somehow that was enough for the marble tiled corridors to be empty, fresh air filling the hardwood-lined corridor from the pair of nearly floor-to-ceiling windows to be opened right outside Professor Klein’s now closed classroom door.

Eric’s gaze hardened. He sure as hell wasn’t going to let the second day of his now favorite class be deterred by a shut door.

Nor by the trio of grimly smiling men wearing dark gi of a cut that looked vaguely reminiscent of suits, who were lounging just outside of the auditorium.

Not even when all three of them turned their rough-shaven features to sneer his way.

“Eric Carpenter, right?”

Eric nodded, ignoring as best he could the pounding of his heart.

“Yes, that’s right,” he said with the gentle, inquisitive smile of a clueless student, not a monster who was fucking EAGER to see just how fragile these arrogant shits were.

The largest of the three men affected a sympathetic grimace. “Yeah, sorry, kid, there’s been a change in class schedules for you.”

“Is that a fact.”

The man nodded solemnly, sausage hands cracking his knuckles. “’Fraid so, kid. Now how about you come with us, and we’ll get your new schedule sorted out.”

The smallest of the three sneered. “You’ll be earning a lot of extra credit, you can bet your ass on that.”

Eric blinked at this. He tilted his head, turning his gaze to the cool-eyed man who hadn’t spoken yet. Just measured Eric with his cool, unblinking eyes. “You see, it’s mixed messages like that, that make it hard to gauge an appropriate response.”

The middle one curled his lip. “You better lower your head, kid, or this is gonna hurt a lot worse than it has to.”

Eric smirked. “Yeah, that’s not happening. But you see, your taller thug made it sound like this is just a bit of friendly intimidation. ‘You flirted with our boss’s kid, we’re gonna make you change your major.’ That sort of thing.” He ignored the looks of alarm and vindication he saw in their faces.

“The bastard admits it!” The smaller one hissed.

“Anyway, a little bit of friendly big-brother-knows-best intimidation I can forgive with a laugh, a smile, just a bit of roughing up, and we all go about our day.”

Eric then locked gazes with the shortest of the three, even now putting on sapper gloves. “But then this little scarred-face shit… let’s call him Rat-face, he all but implies you idiots are considering far less savory things.”

“You think you can get away with insulting me, you little shit?” Rat-face snarled, charging right for Eric, fist uncoiling for what would have been a devastating, organ-bursting gut punch on any actual mortal teenager.

Yet somehow he managed to miss Eric entirely, tripping over his own feet before crashing against the wall with an audible thud.

Sausage fist glared at Eric incredulously.

Eric kept his polite focus on the middle thug. “So which is it? Is Rat-face just blowing hot air, and your master’s goal is just to have me switch majors… or is some cold-eyed asshole actually planning on making the ‘trouble-making foreigner’ disappear from polite society altogether, save in a dungeon or brothel somewhere, assuming he’s actually stupid enough to go with you?”

“You’re going to pay for that, you faerie bastard!” Rat-face roared, this time not holding back at all as he snarled and launched himself right at Eric, lashing out with a right hook that would have shattered bone and slaughtered anyone who hadn’t walked a body cultivator or classer’s path at least a few rungs.

Eric didn’t even weave aside so much as shift his balance the tiniest bit, and somehow it was more than enough for Rat-face’s foot to catch Eric’s shoe and stumble forward, hitting the classroom door with an audible crack.

A started cry could be heard from the classroom, then dead silence. As if Klein wasn’t even trying to lecture, everyone just gazing toward the auditorium double-doors, the tension so thick you could cut it with Rat-face’s chin.

Sausage-fingers glared at his partner. “What the fuck, man? We’re in a school. What’s wrong with you?” He hissed curtly, words no mortal would have easily heard.

Eric kept his smile, tilting his head inquisitively toward the middle Stomper.

The man smirked, before straightening his lapels. “Alright, we’ll keep this simple. You’ve had a change of heart. Finance isn’t for you. I don’t care what the hell you choose, but finance ain’t it. You have till the time we get to the guidance counselor for you to decide your major. And that’s if you want to walk the straight and narrow path with us.” The man’s smirk turned hard and cold. “But you’d better mean it with all your heart. Because being true to your path is everything, and if we can’t trust you to be true to your path now, there’s no way we can trust you with our most precious charges, and that makes you a threat. And that’s not something you want to be.”

The man flashed a cold smile, revealing iron grey teeth. “So, kid, you gonna take a walk with us and change your major, or you wanna get tossed out this window?”

Eric stared at the man for long seconds. Whatever momentary dismay he felt, sensing the possible end to what had been a sweet start with such potential… he couldn’t quite hold back his smile. “Oh, I’ll bite. What happens, once I get tossed out the window?”

Iron-tooth blinked, clearly not expecting Eric to take things this far.

Rat-face sneered. “He’s mocking us. Let’s just do it!”

Sausage-fingers shook his head, almost sadly. “Stupid kid.”

Eric whistled, sauntering over to look down, not sure if he was surprised, amused, or saddened to see that it was just as his infravision had indicated. A similarly suited man was waiting below, with a double parked levimobile that looked an awful lot like a Bentley waiting in the wings.

Eric couldn’t help but chuckle, even as he felt death ram him from behind.

Before flowing away from the window to address Iron-tooth with a shit-eating grin as Rat-face gave a surprised scream, crashing down into the confused arms of his cohort.

“Yeah, sorry. I think I’ll pass on both options. Now if you idiots will excuse me, I have a class to attend.”

Sausage’s face blotched in fury. “Think you can mock us, you stupid shit? After we let you insult our man, giving you every opportunity to make the smart move? Sorry, asshole! The only door your entering is the trunk of our car!”

Iron-tooth spat. “You made your choice, kid. Now you gotta live with—arrgh!”

Jaded words turned to muffled curse when a charging Sausage, far from hitting a smirking Eric giving him the finger, found himself slamming right into his partner. And the look in both their eyes when they realized they were somehow right before the wide-open windows and were falling out of them together was one a laughing Eric captured for posterity, rune-reinforced tablet filming their descent as they crashed into a groaning Rat-face and his oversized partner in crime.

The only thing funnier than their groans and furious curses as they splayed upon the grass were the bulging-eyed looks of outrage when they looked up a laughing Eric’s way as he recorded their every move. Not that they had any idea of the latter. But maybe they could recognize a camera photo op?

“You’ll pay for that, you little shit!” Rat-face spat and swore.

Eric, peering out the window like the most innocent of students not capable of any superhuman feats at all, just snorted. “So said the idiots who managed to trip over their own shoelaces, falling right out of a second story building!” Eric even managed to catch the stares of a few hurried students who had paused to gaze in what was no doubt horrified fascination at the sight of city-sanctioned toughs in a stumbled heap.

“Stompers? Ha! Only thing they’re stomping over is their own clumsy feet!”

To his immense satisfaction, more than a couple students laughed, before blanching and thinking better of it, lowering their gazes and hurrying on their way as the thugs stumbled back to their feet, two of them now holding actual metal truncheons.

“You think you can mock us, you little shit?” Iron-tooth roared, his formerly controlled demeanor revealing a savage beast, roaring as he glared Eric’s way. “You think you’re clever, offworlder? Well we have ways of dealing with the likes of you!”

Eric laughed. “Hopefully it will be more entertaining than a bunch of mutant Stompers with nothing but broken left feet!”

“You won’t be laughing so hard tonight, you faerie bastard!” Rat-face sneered. “When bad things happen to your sister, your foster parents will be all too happy to put you right into our care!”

The world crashed to a halt as Eric’s mind roared into full Battletime. Because with that single utterance, what had been little more than a humorous spat that might or might not require firmer resolution had transformed to something dark and bitter. A brother’s protective instincts blazed with sudden furious intensity as Eric clenched his fists and tore free the gentle mask he had cloaked his thoughts in for a few precious days.

Iron-tooth glared at his seething partner. “Enough!” He then lurched back with a furious hiss when Eric was suddenly before them, looking absolutely no different than he had just seconds ago, a cocky student with an anxious smile, only now thinking better of his actions.

“You know, when you put it that way… maybe it’s best that I go with you, after all.”

Sausage-fingers crossed his arms, sneering down at Eric. “Yeah, too bad you didn’t think of that five minutes ago, outsider. Because we sure as fuck aren’t going to your guidance counselor. Not now.”

Iron-tooth crossed his arms and chuckled coldly. “So your family is your weakness. Good to know. Now get in the car, asswipe. We got places to be.”

“You think you get to play nice, you little shit?” Rat-face sneered, snarling as he hammered his fist into Eric’s rib. “You’re going to fucking pa—AAURGH!”

The man lurched back, wide-horrified eyes meeting Eric’s innocent orbs as he held his own fist and trembled.

“Knock it off, Ku. Get him in the car!” The fourth man that Eric mentally labeled Tubs declared, sneering at Eric from his too-tight suit, who then turned around, brushing off his suit as he stomped over to the Levi-Bently.

Eric ignored Rat-face, or Ku’s, whimpers. He had relaxed his frame as much as he could, but the idiot had decided a rib punch was a good idea on someone with 1500 physical damage resistance, when a full suit of mithril plate armor had a DR of 500.

A cracked metacarpal was to be expected, he supposed.

“You’ll pay for that soon enough, little shit!” Ku hissed, glaring his way as Eric leaned back and enjoyed the plush leather seats of the Bently as Sausage stepped in from the other side, the pair of men boxing him in.

Sausage glared down at him, holding out a cloth hood. “Put it on.”

“Yeah, I’ll pass,” Eric said as Tubs pulled onto the boulevard and they began their leisurely ride to the start of what Eric hoped would be a very exciting and bloody day.

“That wasn’t a fucking request.”

Eric smiled up into the rearview. “So, where are we headed?”

Tubs glared back at him. “Why isn’t he wearing a hood?”

“He’s being a stubborn little shit, that’s why,” Rat-face cursed.

“Well, put it the fuck on!”

But all Sausage could do was grunt, gazing at Eric in surprised disbelief when Eric so very casually pulled the hood free of the man’s sausage fingers and mimed a magician’s twist.

“Poof, all gone. No mask for boys who don’t put away their toys!”

Sausage scowled. “Where the fuck did it go?”

Eric winked, splaying his fingers. “Up Rat-face’s ass, of course. By which I mean… maaagic.”

Sausage snorted despite himself. “Kid’s a fucking riot.”

“Kid better shut up, or I’ll gut him like a fish!” Ku hissed.

Eric smirked. “Sure you will,” he said, hands folded behind his head as he leaned back, now gazing up out of the plexiglass ceiling. “Sure you will.”

Iron-tooth glared back at him. “Think you’re a badass right about now, don’t ya?”

Eric winked. “You could say that, sure.”

“Ha! You won’t be feeling that way for very long, that’s for damned sure.”

“Yeah… you know what? We’re going to have to agree to disagree on that one.” After a few tense moments… tense for everyone but Eric, his off-key hum became a surprised sniff. “Ah. We’re near the sea. Cool.”

“Damn right we are,” Tubs said, abruptly turning off the nearly empty thoroughfare to meander down a narrow road before stopping right before what looked to Eric at first glance like a cannery.

Eric’s smile widened as they pulled into a dim interior serving as the de-facto garage for multiple vehicles much like the Bentley.

“End of the line for you, asshole,” Ku sneered as Sausage stepped out himself, cracking his back before standing up straight and giving a satisfied nod.

“Good to be back. All those stuck-up snotty kids were making my teeth hurt.”

“Clearly a sign of an imperfect body strengthening technique,” Eric opined from right behind the man.

Sausage lurched forward with a surprised yelp, before spinning around and glaring at a smirking Eric.

“Don’t fucking do that! And what the hell would you know about body strengthening anything? Netherworld punk-ass kid like you doesn’t belong here at all. No way in hell you’d know shit about Spiritual Energy flows, or anything else!”

Eric shrugged. “Think what you like.” His gaze took in a handful of similarly dressed thugs, or Stompers, he supposed, a pair glaring his way, another sneering, most ignoring him. He suppressed a smile when Iron-tooth whispered to Tubbs.

“This isn’t how it was supposed to go down. What the fuck do we do with him now?”

“You know what we do.”

“Shit, man, his father’s a Bronze merc. I hear his blaster rifle’s warded, and he can use it just fine in the city. Him, and all those Scorpion assholes!”

“Shut up and bring him to the holding cells. We’ll let the big guy straighten this shit out.”

Eric’s smile widened at that. “The big guy, you say. So he’s the one you all work for?”

Tubbs glared. “We don’t talk to the trash.”

“Then I hope you don’t mutter in the mirror, because that would be fucking embarrassing. So, what’s his name?”

Tubbs glared.

Ku chuckled coldly, before wincing as he jostled his broken wrist. “You’ll find out soon enough, you little shit! You’ll be screaming it every fucking minute of every fucking day, before he’s done with you!”

Eric sighed, cracking his neck. “So would I be correct in assuming that you don’t work for the Domini clan at all? That you’re, what, subcontractors? Your boss gets a call, your client says ‘make this annoying too handsome boy that my daughter is falling for after a single class switch majors?’ And you all say, ‘Yes sir! Right away, sir!’”

“Shut the fuck up, kid. It really isn’t your concern,” Tubbs snarled.

Eric’s grin widened at the flinch Sausage had revealed. “I’m right, aren’t I? Does your client even expect you to do anything more than intimidate me a little? Sure as fuck, they weren’t counting on us having this quality convo, were they?”

“Doesn’t matter, shithead! You crossed the line, and we can deal with you however we like. That’s our fucking prerogative!” Rat-face snarled.

Eric dipped his head as they made their way from the parking garage and spacious central area down an adjoining corridor. Eric’s feet echoed oddly off the poured concrete flooring… before going silent, as shoes and school uniform were switched out for bare feet band a pair of blue jeans. Only his white linen shirt and the sweater vest that Hanna thought looked absolutely adorable on him remained in place.

“Cool. So, Just to be clear. Threatening my sister… that wasn’t a Domini thing. That was your personal little vendetta bullshit. Am I right?”

“Doesn’t matter, either way,” Iron-tooth declared, turning to glare back at Eric. “You’re here, right where we want you. Now get inside your cell.”

The air creaked with the sound of Sausage sliding open a reinforced steel cage door, presently empty, with thick steel bars that looked more than capable of holding back a charging rhino.

“Get in the cage, you little shit!” Ku snarled, shoving Eric with his remaining good hand… before somehow missing Eric altogether and tripping inside with a groan.

Sausage and Iron-tooth’s gazes widened in surprised dismay.

Eric’s smile widened. “Damn, you guys sure are fucking clumsy for fucking Stompers. Which way did you say your boss’s office was?” Eric pointed with his finger. “Straight up, I’m guessing? Like the hideouts of all the wuxia kingpins?”

“Enough with your bullshit!” Tubbs roared, lunging for Eric with a crackling stun rod that unleashed a blinding flash. The air filled with the smell of ozone and a crackle so bright that even Sausage flinched.

“Fuckin’ hell, did you kill the kid? Fuck!” Sausage’s dazed voice became a thump when he managed to trip over a groaning Tubbs, rubbing his wrist, Iron-tooth also toppling over in a confused heap before showing off a certain acrobatic grace as he cartwheeled over the rest of his squad. Yet the maneuver ended with him slamming right in the back of their shared cell.

“Fuck! What the fuck just happened?” Shouted a furious Tubbs, glaring at his own empty hand, then at a smirking Eric. The only one not on the wrong side of the cell door.

Eric pushed the surge button on the sparking rod and winked, his smile widening when all four caught on to their sudden change of fortunes.

“NO, no, get the door! Get the—” Tubbs words were cut off by the clang of a massive steel gate slamming itself shut.

Before being slammed against by a furious Sausage, now glaring bloody murder at Eric, who was presently waving the keys they had left in the lock.

“Open that door right now, motherfucker! If you don’t want us throwing your entrails in the ocean, you’ll open it right fucking now!”

Tubbs glared coldly at Eric before pulling out a shiny, chrome plated revolver, favoring Eric with a nasty smile. “You got to the count of five, asshole.”

Eric’s shit-eating grin widened. “So. Your boss. Top floor, right?”

“You’d better do it, you little shit, or I’ll personally slice your sister’s throat myself!” Rat-face spat.

Eric’s mocking smirk faded. He quit rattling the keys. “You sure you wanna go there, Rat-face?” Hard eyes locked with Ku’s own. “Once you cross that line, were done.”

The greasy punk paled only for a second. Tubbs chuckled coldly. “Playing tough guy now, asshole? If we hadn’t tripped, you’d be crying your eyes out, screaming for your mommy!” He cocked back the hammer of his 5-shooter. “We’re on three, punk!”

Rat-face recovered his withered courage with Tubbs brandishing his weapon. He spat his contempt for Eric’s warning, eyes glittering with undisguised malice. “My name is Ku, you little shit! And your sister will be screaming it soon enough, no matter what you do. Because you damn well better believe I’m going to fuck your—”

His words cut off with the spray of blood spurting from his neck stump as his corpse crashed to the ground.

Tubbs stumbled back, rubbing his eyes as he slipped on the growing pool of blood, his revolver discharging and ricocheting against a bar. He frantically looked around for his target. “What the fuck happened? What the fuck just happened?”

“Shit! I got blood in my eyes!” Sausage cursed, suddenly radiating a half-step Bronze killing intensity, glaring at the world through bloodshot orbs as Iron-tooth gazed at the sight of a headless Ku in horrified disbelief.

“Where’s Ku’s head?”

“Wait, where’s the fucking kid? What just happened?” Iron-tooth’s wild eyes scanned all around the cell chamber, before he began banging on the reinforced steel door. “Gu! Nom! Get the fuck down here and open this cage! We got a major fucking problem!”