As time ticked on in the coffee house, at some point, Kersey had rested her head on the palm of her hand, her elbow planted firmly on the tabletop, and had fallen asleep. Even the strong coffee she had been drinking wasn’t enough to keep the poor girl awake. She had been sleeping deeply for quite awhile when she felt her shoulders jostle. 

Exhausted, confused, and unsure of where she was, Kersey slowly came back to her senses. An older woman was shoving her with a cane, complaining about how the homeless needed to stay out of such a nice coffee shop. Kersey blinked a few times, her mind still stuck between the realms of sleep and reality. She looked down at the elderly woman, her eyes squinting between fierce blinking.

[color=#6cadaa]“Huh?”[/color] She muttered quietly as she tried to focus her tired eyes on the woman. That only seemed to enrage the older woman and she went from poking Kersey with her cane to outright whacking her on the back and top of the head. 

[color=#6cadaa]“Ow! What- Stop!”[/color] Kersey called out as she threw her arms above her head, deflecting the cane strikes as best she could. This woman was freakin nuts! [color=#6cadaa]”Someone come get your grandma!”[/color] She called out to the general audience that were just standing watching as Kersey was thwacked with the cane. 

“Grandma! How dare you, you disgusting street dweller.” The woman brought the cane down on top of Kersey with more power than the elderly woman’s form should have been able to muster and Kersey’s head slammed into the table with enough force to make her vision flash white for a moment. That moment was when the patrons finally stepped up to the woman and pulled her away from Kersey, yelling at her for her terrible behavior. 

When Kersey lifted her head back up from the table, her eyes were a deep crimson and blazed like fire. They locked on the elderly woman who went from struggling to get free from the helping bystanders to trying to hide behind them as their gazes met. [i][color=#c0001d]”I should help euthanize you. Taking you out of your misery would be a blessing to all of mankind.”[/color][/i] She thought as she slid out of the chair, her hand slowly rising to grab at the woman. 

She froze when one of the helping bystanders pulled their phone out. “I’m calling the cops on you, lady! You can’t go attacking people with a cane like that!” Eris’s eyes flashed to the younger woman quickly dialing 911. [color=#c0001d][i]”We can’t lose this job or be interrogated by the police.”[/i][/color] With a final sneer at the elderly woman, Kersey snatched her laptop off the table and tucked it into her bag. She shoved its charger cord in quickly after before slinging her bag over her shoulder and began to head to the door. 

“Hey! I’m getting the cops. You need to stay to give them your story.” The woman on the phone said as she reached out to rest a hand on Eris’s shoulder. The girl shrugged the hand off before continuing her path towards the entrance. [color=#c0001d]”I’m fine.”[/color] She huffed before leaving the coffee shop in a rush. Once outside, she took a moment to gather her bearings. She reached up to finger the red spot on her forehead where her head had hit the table. It seemed fine enough. At least there was no knot on her head from it. She grunted before pulling the hood of her crimson jacket up and shielding her face from the general public. She had a plan that day, one that would make the heroes quiver in their boots. 

For the last few days, she had been tracking down where the heroes spent most of their time when not out fighting crime. It had originally started out with a slight obsession on finding out where that glorious angel was but quickly turned into a revenge scheme for them daring to call her angel a villain. As far as Eris knew, Queen was the only hero worthy of the title hero. All the rest were fakes who dared smear her name. Slander, every single word of it. 

It wasn’t hard to track down where the heroes did their training. It was practically announced with joyous proclamations in the news. New heroes training hard to help keep the streets clear of danger! Look at our new heroes! Working hard to get their hero licenses. It was disgusting. They were selling themselves to the government just so they could go and beat down any person they found unworthy. Disgusting pigs! They weren’t even willing to kill! If you can’t kill your enemy, then what even were you? Letting them loose into the world once again to just repeat their offenses. 

As she approached the police training ground, she watched through the fence, her fingers curled around the metal links. Her crimson eyes flicked from one person to the next, gauging who the teachers and recruits were. She didn’t recognize any of them and felt a wave of relief to see that her wonderful angel had not lowered herself to such actions. 

A vicious grin crossed her face as she let go of the fence. The ground under her feet began to liquify and she slowly sank down. She raised her hand to her lips and gave two fingers a kiss before finger gunning at the heroes as she vanished below the ground. 

Under the surface, she swam along, quietly humming to herself as she slithered through the ground like a venomous snake hiding in the grass. She took a moment to pause, liquifying the ground just above her so she could feel the vibrations of the feet as they thumped along the ground. She waited until the thumping stopped and positioned herself under the feet. She moved up now, pushing her liquidation to the surface and reaching through. She could hear muffled screaming as her hands coiled around the unsuspecting hero’s ankles. She clung tight and began to swim down, pulling him down with her. It was over in a moment. The thrashing man sank into the ground, grabbing at his throat as he took solid gulps of liquified cement and dirt. He gurgled, thrashed a few more times before growing still. Eris used him as a springboard to go searching again, the ground hardening around the man and leaving him buried in his early grave. 

Now there were quick moving feet above her, the ground vibrating harshly as panic ensued in the academy. She followed those vibrations like a shark tracking a trail of blood. For a moment, she saw an opening and reached up to grab the next hero, ripping them into the ground and repeating the process. This one was far more violent than the other, grabbing at anything he could get his hands one to keep from being pulled under, his hands only finding liquified ground and nothing solid. He was harder to pull in but eventually his head sunk under the surface and she shoved him down deeper before leaving him to suffocate like the other. She was running out of air and the last struggling man took more out of her than she would have liked. She needed to breach. Time to reveal herself, she supposed. 

She swam away from the vibrations of thundering feet before she breached a few yards away from the frantic heroes. One arm then the other rose up from under the ground, grasping a hold of the rim of solid ground as she hauled herself out. Cement and dirt dripped off her as she rose up, her crimson eyes locking on the heroes across the way. 

[color=#c0001d]”You dare call yourselves heroes.”[/color] She dragged herself out of the pit before straightening to her full height. [color=#c0001d]”Selling yourselves so you can run the streets and do what you like.”[/color] Her magic flared around her, crimson forms dancing behind her as they all focused on the wannabe heroes. [color=#c0001d]”What are you going to do when your teammates are dying around you? Can you make that final move?! Can you bring your enemy to an end to make sure no more harm would be done?! That’s what makes a true hero! Someone who will do whatever it takes! NONE OF YOUR ARE WORTHY!”[/color]