Episode: 4.10

--- Sophie ---

She stopped just outside of everyone’s field of view, managing to hide behind a nearby tree, close enough to keep an eye on Nico and her bullies.

Nico was fidgeting with some device in her hands, a common enough sight, though the way her sister’s shoulder’s tensed, it was obvious to anyone who knew her that she was perfectly aware she wasn’t alone.

Her eyes roamed the six teenagers trying to ambush her sister.

(Five boys and a girl who looks like she’s never been in a fight before…)

It wasn’t good odds, but if Nico pushed herself just a little, she’d be able to fend them off without causing any permanent damage.

“Deviant!” One of the boys shouted, (idiotically) (thankfully) giving away any element of surprise.

She clenched her fists, as that one word pointed out exactly why they were targeting her sister, namely the fact that Nico, Ellie, and Luna were the three most famous Deviants in town, in fact she doubted anyone in town didn’t know who they are.

(Which makes you wonder why idiots like these are even in a Haven town in the first place.)

She shook her head, before turning a worried gaze on her sister.

(She’s a big girl, she can handle herself…)

“H-hey there,” Nico began with a nervous wave. “I uh, I didn’t see you guys… heh…” her eyes drifted between the bullies as they began to box her in. “What uh, what are you guys doing here?”

“Oh, you know,” the girl of the group, a brunette in a pink dress, began in a slow casual tone. “we’re just here to put a Deviant bitch in her place.”

“Oh…” Nico took a nervous step back, only to walk into one of the boys who’d circled around behind her. “Sorry, uh, didn’t see you there… heh…”

Another boy came up and the two grabbed Nico by her arms without even a struggle.

“Damn it, Nico… stand up for yourself… please…” she begged her sister, her voice an inaudible whisper.

The female bully walked up to Nico before grabbing her by the jaw and twisting her face to the side.

“Gawd, you really are a freak aren’t you.” The bully laughed. “Hell, I can’t even tell if you’re supposed to be a boy or a girl with this face, and just look at these freakish eyes.”

She couldn’t help but grind her teeth together as even from this distance she managed to recognize the hurt look in Nico’s heterochrome eyes as the female bully pushed her away.

The leader of the bullies stepped up and grabbed Nico’s jaw, much more forcefully as he forced her mouth open. “You know I’ve always wondered if these things were fake. With teeth like this, even if you are a girl, you aren’t even useful for giving a guy a bl-”

Something snapped, both literally and figuratively.

The (dead) boy’s rant was cut off as one of his (idiotic) compatriots began screaming behind him.

“You know there are very few things that legitimately piss me off…” She began, while grinding her heel into the (pathetic) bully’s shattered kneecap, an action that elicited a whimper from her victim. “Hurting my younger siblings, is one of them.”

The (slow) bullies all stared at her, as if unable to comprehend the fact that, ‘Sophia Grey’ the kindest and most popular girl in school, had just crippled one of their friends.

She stepped off her first (target)’s leg, and began to slowly walk forward, before pausing as she stood between two more kids. Her eyes met the one on her right, and then the one on the left.

She smirked.

(Right fist to right side of left’s ribcage.)

(Right elbow to right’s jaw.)

(Left elbow to left side of left’s ribcage.)

(Grab right’s left clavicle and humorous, wrench. Twist and throw.)

(“Don’t forget to add insult to injury.”)

Fifteen seconds later both bullies were in a pile on the ground, one holding onto a cage full of broken ribs, and the other nursing a dislocated shoulder and a broken jaw, while she brushed off her shoulder.

“Is it bad, that I was expecting something a little…” she let her eyes drift around the alley before falling on the leader of the bullies, “better, than… this?”

“W-what are you two waiting for?!” the lead bully shouted, at the two pinning her (baby sister).

The two bullies looked at each other before letting Nico fall to the ground and rushing at her.

She stepped forward and…

(Right fist to right’s Adam’s apple.)

(Block left’s hook with left forearm.)

(Stomp right’s right kneecap with right boot.)

(Spin arm and lock left’s limb.)

(Right elbow to right’s right temple.)

(Right palm to left’s elbow. Push left palm to self and…)

Snap.

(Pull left’s broken arm, grab skull, and throw into right.)

She rolled her shoulders as she stood up, completely unbothered by the whimpering pile of pain filled (pathetic) at her feet.

She started walking towards the last two bullies, before pausing in front of the stupid (bitch) who decided to throw her lot in with the boys for whatever reason.

The girl was watching her with wide fearful eyes, (a smart move) and began taking a step back, ready to run from the blonde in front of her.

(hmm… what to do, what to do…)

While the girl wasn’t particularly violent with Nico, she did say some fairly hurtful things… (but what would be a proportional response?)

She remembered a piece of advice one of her uncles once gave her.

(“When in doubt, kick ‘em where it hurts.”)

She decided to do just that and based on the female bully’s face as she fell to the ground… she apparently didn’t realize a groin hit could hurt the female anatomy just as bad as any male. It just required a little more accuracy.

“That… was particularly disappointing.” It was a feeling she had whenever she came across a girl outside her family wouldn’t defend themselves. (At the very least she could’ve thrown a punch or something…)

Shaking her head, she turned towards the last bully and a downcast Nico, before frowning.

(There’s just something not right about a sad Nico…)

She sighed before glaring at the (idiotic) boy.

(I’ll deal with that just as soon as I finish with this… thing.)

Without a word she strode up to the bully and decked him.

The bully stumbled a step back, before shaking his head. “W-what the hell?”

“That was for Nico.” She explained simply, before decking the boy again, this time knocking him flat on his ass. “So was that.”

The boy glared at her with a dazed look. “W-why are you protecting this, this Deviant bit-” The (suicidal) bully was cut off by a well-manicured fist to the face.

“Language, there’s a lady present.” She nodded towards her sister.

The boy whimpered, blood trailing from his broken nose. “W-why are you doing this?”

“Because that beautiful girl right there,” She crouched down to meet the boy’s eyes, while being sure to point at her sister. Largely because she wasn’t entirely sure the idiot was smart enough to understand her. “You see… she’s my sister, and you hurt her…”

“So now…”

She gently took the boy’s hand…

“I’m going to…”

…and viciously broke one of the idiot’s fingers.

“hurt you.”

“You, you can’t, you can’t do this!” The (idiot) sobbed.

“Really, and you can hurt my sister?” She broke another finger, because pain was always a good motivator to learn, and this lesson really needed to be learned.

“You see there are two very important differences between my sweet sister and you. One, she won’t fight back, whereas you can’t,” Another finger. “fight back. And two, if you mess with her, because you think she looks like a monster, well… you’ll face a real monster.” (And There goes finger number four.) “Whereas you, no one gives a damn what happens to you.” She went ahead and broke his thumb just to emphasis this point, before letting him go.

“You, you bit-” A knee felt the need to cut the (dumbass) off.

“Language, there’s a lady present.”

The boy spat something red out. “You think you can get away with this? When I tell the teachers-”

“With what evidence?” she asked, reaching into her jacket pocket as the bully tried to make an even bigger ass of himself.

The boy stared at her incredulously, before shaking his broken hand at her, “‘What evidence?’ You broke my fu-” This time he was cut off by a rather fashionable boot to the face.

“Language, there’s a lady present.” She once more nodded towards her sister. “And as for your ‘evidence’…”

She pulled out a glowing white vial from her jacket, before unsealing the cap, and revealing a needle on the end. “This is… well, I won’t go into specifics you can’t comprehend, so just consider it something along the lines of a liquid life. Now what this does is…” She tilted her head to one side and then the other, her eyes drifting over the few bullies still conscious. “You know what? Let’s just give you lot a demonstration.”

Grabbing the bully by his jaw, she tilted his head to the side and jabbed the needle into his jugular, emptying a fifth of the vial into the bully. The boy tensed before spasming, as a soundless scream escaped him, unheard by any willing to help him. A series of pops began to fill the air as joint by joint the boy’s fingers snapped back into place, until there was no proof of any damage.

The boy collapsed to the ground like a puppet with its strings severed by a rusty knife. “Wha… what…?” the boy tried to speak, tried to get answers, even as his body broke out in a cold sweat.

“As you can quite clearly see, I can heal any damage I do to you or your friends, so I’ll repeat… ‘With what evidence?’” She emphasized the question by stepping on his hand and breaking a few more fingers.

Stepping away from the broken bully, she let her eyes meet each of her sister’s other bullies. And as she did, she couldn’t help but feel a sadistic satisfaction sating her each time one of the bullies would flinch, as the aftereffects of the diluted soul injection caused their leader’s joints to painfully snap back into place.

“So,” She met the eyes of the nearest bully. “are you going to bully my sister ever again?”

With a look of pure terror, the girl she’d kneed slowly shook her head.

She gently grasped the girl’s jaw, much the same way the female bully had held Nico’s own just moments before. “Say it.”

“N-n-no… ma’am…”

“Good.” She patted the girl on the cheek, before jabbing the syringe just under her jaw, and pushed the girl away as she let the serum (painfully) fix whatever damage she’d done to her, wiping away all evidence of bruising from the girl.

She repeated a similar conversation with each bully, eliciting a deal from each of them, and break another bone in the one foolish enough to have still not learned the lesson. Though she didn’t even need to ask the one after him, before they were swearing not to touch Nico ever again.

When she was done, and finally gave them permission to leave, it wasn’t even ten seconds before she and Nico were alone in the little enclave.

Her eyes drifted over her sister, taking in every little nick and cut those (bastards) had given her sister. She was half tempted to just give her a soul injection but given how Nico had a few vials of her own… (it’s pointless to help someone who doesn’t want it.)

She shook her head at that thought, immediately denying it in the case of her sister.

“Are you… Are you alright?” She already knew the answer but figured she should ask anyway.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Nico lied.

Sophie watched her sister for another moment, noting the anxiety that was just rolling off of her, before frowning. Neither of them really cared for these post-bullying talks, but at the same time they both felt they were necessary, if for different reasons.

“Let me see your hand.”

Nico gave her, her right hand. “I said I’m fine Sophs.”

She gave her sister an unimpressed look, and a come here motion with her right hand. “The other one.”

Nico winced, before shakily raising her left hand and putting it in Sophie’s, the motion to jerky for her tastes.

She flexed and stretched a few of Nico’s fingers before frowning at her sister’s glove. With a light tug and pull, she pried the thing off before rolling up her sister’s sleeve to get a better look at the metallic limb underneath.

She gave the arm a few gentle twists and turns, before frowning. “They messed up your joints and cracked the chassis.”

“It’s no big deal,” Nico tried waving off her concerns. “I can fix it when we get home.”

She sighed, before looking into Nico’s eyes. “That’s not the point Nic…”

“I know…” Nico refused to meet her gaze.

“Just because Sol acts like a pacifist, doesn’t mean you have to…”

Nico crossed her arms over her chest. “You know it’s not like that.”

She did know that, but she also knew it wasn’t how Nico thought it was either. Not that the stubborn girl would hear her. (She definitely gets that from Sol.)

Shaking her head, she reached out and pulled Nico into a hug, fully aware of how her sister tensed. “Look I know you don’t like hurting people, but at the same time I’d much rather something bad happen to the people trying to hurt you, than for anything to actually happen to you…”

Nico relaxed in her arms as she began running a hand through Nico’s hair. “I know… but I just… I just don’t like hurting people if I can help it. I don’t… I don’t want to be like them…”

“I know.” She nodded, not needing Nico to elaborate. Fully content to just let a comfortable silence descend upon them as she continued to run a hand through her little sister’s hair.

“Um, Sophie…”

She glanced down as Nico broke the emotional silence. “Hm?”

“Just so you know…” Nico looked around a little nervously, before meeting her eye. “Blake and Sol still give better hugs.”

She snorted, before pulling her giggling sister into an even tighter hug. “Bitch, take that back!”