BXBX NOVEL Chapter 98: Heroine Chapter: You will tell me.
"Everybody! Vehicles are approaching! Bella, these wagons have no coachmen!" Liv yelled as she guarded the basement entrance.
[These are the vehicles I sent, Liv, watch the outside to see if any reapers are coming.]
My sister Josephine then instructed the children we were escorting.
"Alright kids! We are going to play a fun game. Close your eyes and sing your favorite song as loud as you can! I will give yummy candy to the one who sings the best!"
The audience she spoke to consisted of children from at least ten different nationalities. Yet, despite not sharing a common language, the children all nodded and calmly followed her instructions.
Although I heard her words in English, I knew that this feat was only possible because of her {fate}. I calmly guarded the doors in front of me.
We were rescuing these children from a hospital under Trinity's control. According to Bella's research, they were all children connected to Reapers. Dangerous ones at that.
Just then, a huge group of axe-wielding Asians in black suits charged into the basement.
"Contact! Twenty hostiles incoming!" I warned.
Unwilling to spare them, I drew my bow and began firing arrows in rapid succession. The arrows broke through the glass of the sliding doors and pierced the hearts of the incoming men. Three of them died instantly before they could spread out.
Considering that these men were just minding their own business, of course we were the villains. But so what? The world was never fair! My sister and I were sent to Syria in 2016 to fight for our lives in the Syrian Civil War!
I almost rebelled against the reapers to be sent to Syria as well, originally I was supposed to go to Iraq to join the civil war in that country.
Do you know what Arabs do to young, beautiful women? The Syrian state army used rape as a weapon, for heaven's sake! And they sent Josephine to a desolate place with little to no supplies!
Since witnessing the atrocities committed in the name of their lust for power, I have lost what little human compassion I had.
There was a reason that the war led to Syria being considered a pariah in international politics. The 2014 Caesar Report called the atrocities committed by the Assad regime "the greatest war crimes of the 21st century."
But words could not do justice to what we saw. Chemical weapons, torture, genocide on a scale that defies reason.
Anyone who could commit such acts deserved no mercy. So after crying my heart out in grief for about a day. I then channeled it into rage.
With my arrows I took their lives. Anyone who wore the badge of the Assad regime was an enemy. And I will never let one of them live.
By day, by night, no matter what the day, no matter what the hour. I hunted them all. With my intellect and skill with a bow, no commander could escape.
My desperation to make sure Jo survived turned to pure hate for the Assad regime. I shot arrow after arrow until my hands bled, then I kept shooting.
After about three months, stories of the "Ebony Deathstalker" began to circulate.
My actions were attributed to a battlefield demon who pierced Assad commanders with black-feathered, poison-tipped ebony arrows.
I wasn't particularly proud of my nickname. But every time one of them died, I felt an immense pleasure coursing through my veins.
A deathstalker was a scorpion found in North Africa and the Middle East. Its sting, while extremely painful, was only fatal to children.
So I combined the Deathstalker venom with the venom of an even deadlier scorpion, the Fat Tail Scorpion.
Despite it's silly sounding name, the Fat tail Scorpion is one of the few insects to have an annual death toll. It's Latin name was much better, Androctonus or "Man Killer".
Fat tail scorpion venom causes drowsiness, drooping eyelids, paralysis of the neck muscles, loss of muscle coordination, abdominal pain, and eventually death.
On the other hand, Deathstalker venom causes chest pain, coughing up blood, difficulty breathing, wheezing, increased heart rate, anxiety, excessive sweating, and dizziness.
Simply put, it was like drowning in your own blood, unable to breathe.
Combined you had a poison that had no antidote and took away your ability to move, tortured your body, your heart and then finally gave you a painful death like gradual suffocation.
It took a lot of effort to slow down the effects of the poison, but the results pleased me greatly. Anyone I shot with my ebony arrows died very slowly over the course of hours.
The arrow could not be drawn and served as a reminder of my vengeance. Of course, I watched each one of them die the entire time.
The panic, their fear, the desperation, the moment they get the Deathstalker antidote only to lose hope. If Earth had no justice for the oppressed. I will punish them in heaven's place.
My only regret was not being able to see the war's end. Of course, after such an ordeal, hardly anything could faze me. My compassion died that day. That was the day I lost my humanity.
As the yakuza fell to my arrows, some expressed their hatred for me. Two ran towards me with fierce gazes, only to die from arrows through their eye sockets.
A tall, brave man shielded his comrades with his body as they advanced. In spite of his blocking of my shots, I was calmly at ease. I was not alone, was I?
A white-haired teenager ran past me like a bullet with a knife in one hand and steel spheres in the other.
"Terminating resistance," Robyn said gently.
The combat joey then threw steel balls at over a hundred meters an hour as she sped past, the billiard ball-sized spheres shattering the adult men's skulls like eggs, spilling their brain matter in a bloody mess.
"ARHGGGGHHHHHHHH..."
Screams of horror soon followed. Like a demon, Robyn danced a waltz around the yakuza, slashing their vitals with a precision that rivaled Josephine's.
My arrows took down eight, the remaining twelve were killed by Robyn in a gruesome, sanguine-colored melee.
"Amazing."
Unconsciously, my praise slipped out. It didn't show much when Robyn fought zombies, but against humans she was terrifying.
Stoic beyond reason, the white-haired teenager said nothing but flicked the blood from her knife.
"Good job, kids! You all get some candy! Now what I want you to do next is to keep facing me, okay? We are going to get into the vans that have just arrived," Josephine praised.
Like a school teacher, she led the children out of the parking lot. Liv came running after the vehicles had arrived.
"Everyone, there are no reapers coming. We are safe, let's go!" She exclaimed.
Robyn and I turned and ran to join the children.
Three white vans arrived. They looked like strange buses with devices all around the body. I read the markings and was surprised to see the logos.
"Bella, aren't those the GM Honda Cruise? Aren't these the AI vehicles scheduled for 2026?" I asked in disbelief.
[Haha, yeah.I found them by accident. I heard they were going to be used in Japan. Their anti-hacking measures were pathetic, though].
"All right, everyone divide into three groups and get into our fancy vans. Look! There are no drivers! Amazing, right?"
Jo continued to distract the kids while she had them get into the vehicles.
[Everyone, put on the masks I sent you. I will be using AI imaging to replace your faces in the CCTV.]
"Don't reapers not show up on CCTV at all?"
[Well, you are not wrong, Jasmine, but you tend to forget who I am. I need someone to take the blame. So don't worry about the fall out.]
Liv got into the lead car with the first group of kids. Robyn and Josephine were in the second group. And I was in the third group by myself. My skills were naturally suited to being the rear guard.
[Princess. Everyone in. We're going.]
As Bella ordered the autonomous cars to move, I noticed a weapon case next to my seat.
"Miroku?" I read out loud.
[Miroku Firearms, the only decent gunsmith in Japan. Its a throw away, destroy everything that gets in your way. The bloodier the better. Use this time to get used to sniper rifles. Honey and I plan to arm our group with guns.]
"My bow reaches eight kilometers."
[I know, but you can't shoot reinforced armor plates at that distance, can you?] Bella replied.
"Hmph."
Because I was Formless, no matter how powerful my arm was, bows had an inherent limit. Only manifested weapons could break common sense. Since I had no other choice, I could only obediently imitate my husband.
'I wonder if we could get closer by both using weapons? Perhaps I could get him to teach me?'
The vans finally left the basement, and just as we came to level ground, our last comrade finally arrived. A loud thud came from the ceiling of my van along with an arrogant voice.
[Bella, what took you so long? I almost had my nails done thanks to your delays.]
[Shut it, Princess. I hacked everything from here to the airport. That was in addition to the flooding of social media and the Japanese police frequencies with fake reports. Did I miss anything? Oh yeah! I even created fake passports and stories for the kids.]
[And? Should I be impressed by such feats? I killed seven Phantoms and five Wraiths.] Lilly replied mockingly.
[...]
[What? Cat got your tongue, my dear Bella?]
[For that remark, your alias is Lilly Evans, your husband is Harry Evans. And you have three children with him.]
[WHAT? Harry Evans? The man who betrayed John? Change it immediately! Just the thought of it is enough to make me want to vomit in disgust.]
Most of us ignored the cat and dog fight between Bella and Lilly, but as soon as my husband's name was mentioned.
"Bella. Explain. Now." I ordered through clenched teeth.
More people inquired not a second later.
[Fess up, what did that Harry cunt do to the wombat?]
[Hey! Bella, when I asked about darling, why wasn't his name mentioned?!]
[Bella, I want to know too. Betrayal is death in the North]
[Well, shit, cats out of the bag. But I would say that you should pay attention to your situation first.]
I checked our surroundings and found a blue helicopter belonging to the Japanese SDF. My anger unexpectedly began to rise at the thought of my husband being betrayed.
I smashed the rear windshield of the van with the butt of the rifle. Then I raised the weapon and took aim. It was different from a bow, but I could compensate for the unfamiliar firearm with my {Fates}.
"{Aim}, {Snipe}, {Imaging} - X-ray. Bella, you will tell me what happened afterwards, understood?"
With my words, I sent a magazine's worth of bullets into the chopper's rotor. The damage caused the aircraft to stall in mid-air and crash in a fiery explosion.
[I am saying this now, but none of you can kill him, okay?]