The Morality System

When I got close to the room Nico was hiding in, I tried to get her from outside the room like I had with Bruno. I figured she'd have a defense against it but it didn't hurt to try.

I summoned a giant spike and sent it through two walls at her form hiding on the ceiling. Like I expected, it didn't get her. Her form disappeared and reappeared on the ground.

I turned the corner to look into the room from the doorway. All the doors to the other rooms were open, so it would've been suspicious for her to close this one.

She was standing on the ground in her mix of black leather armor and black cloak. She had the hood up to darken her face, but I could see her face clearly with my thermal vision. She was scared.

I almost felt bad, but then I looked at the nature of her dark deeds. Murdering families. Robbery was just an afterthought. She targeted families that seemed happy and content.

She hated seeing their happy lives when she grew up with a shitty family who treated her like garbage and eventually abandoned her on the streets.

They went to a city they never visited under the false pretense of a rare family outing. Then in the middle of the outing, after they had treated her nicely all day and she felt safe, they disappeared when she was using the restroom.

She spent days, months, and years looking for them. They never came for her. Once she had acclimated to her environment and learned how to steal to get by, she saved up money.

She saved up money until she could afford to rent a carriage to take out to the country. She headed out in the general direction she knew her family's farm was. West.

She stopped the carriage when she saw something that felt like a familiar landmark. It was a crossroads where the signs were weathered down. Only one sign had visible lettering on it and it just read, "Tree." There wasn't a tree in sight.

She made the carriage visit every farm in the area. As the sun was going down and the carriage driver told her they had to leave to make it back before her rent period was up, she made him visit one last farm.

It was exactly the way she remembered it. The barn was just as worn down as before. The door was hanging off its hinges and the family carriage was sitting in the usual ruts it created in the dirt.

She knocked on the door and her father answered it.

"Um, hello? Are you lost, little girl?" He said. He didn't recognize her.

"Daddy, it's me, Nicolette. Oh, I'm so happy to see you!" She hugged his leg and cried.

"Nicolette? How did you find us?" He said.

"I paid for a carriage to come out west and I saw the "Tree" sign. I checked every farm in the area until I found ours," she said, sniffling.

"Nicolette, we left you in the city for a reason. We don't want you anymore! Get off me and get out of here!" He kicked her off his leg violently.

Nicolette stumbled and fell. "What? But I thought you just lost track of me. How could you leave me there? Do you know how hard it was to survive on the streets?"

"I do. I do know how hard it is to survive on the streets in the city. We didn't plan on you surviving. It's not murder if you abandon your kid and they die of starvation," he said.

"It's just an accident. If someone asked about you we just said, 'We lost her and couldn't find her anywhere. We're worried sick about her. I hope she turns up.' Works every time."

Nicolette wiped her tears away and said, "You bastard!"

She took a knife from the back of her waistband. She held it behind her back and walked up to him.

"I told you to get out of here!" He yelled.

Nicolette stabbed the knife into her father's lower leg.

"Ah, fuck!" He yelled. He tried to kick her away, but latched onto his leg, harder than before, and wouldn't let go.

She pulled out the knife and stabbed him in the leg again and again. Once she was done with his lower leg, she stabbed his upper leg and dragged the knife through it.

Finally, he kicked her off, but as soon as he did, his leg buckled underneath him and he fell to the floor.

Nicolette jumped on him and stabbed him in the neck. "Die, Daddy!"

"Nicolette. You just weren't the boy we wanted. It wasn't personal," he said gargling on blood.

"Well, it's personal for me!" She stabbed him in the eye and his body went limp.

She walked up the stairs and entered her parents' bedroom. Her mother was in bed reading a book. Her mother looked at her with a hint of recognition.

"Nicolette? Is that you?" She said. "Why are you all wet?"

The clothes Nicolette wore were black from dirt and soot. Her mother didn't realize it was blood.

"Mommy? Did you abandon me too?" She said.

"Abandon you child? We would never abandon you. What makes you say that?" Her mother said.

"Daddy told me you abandoned me. You didn't want me anymore. He told me to leave." Nicolette inched closer to her mother. She stood right beside the bed with her hands behind her back.

"He was lying, hunny! It was a joke. Just a joke," her mother said, her eyes widening. "Where is your father?" Nicolette wasn't great at recognizing emotions yet, but she saw fear in her mother's eyes.

"He's in heaven, mommy," she said.

Her mother's hand wrapped around her throat. "What did you do child? What did you do?!"

"Mommy, did you abandon me?" Nicolette looked at her mother with tears welling up in her eyes.

"Child, we had to. We-" her mother was cut off.

Nicolette had stabbed up under her chin so she couldn't speak anymore. "Goodnight Mommy," she said.

She pulled the knife out and slit her mother's throat. Her mother choked and bled out in front of her.

"Goodbye Mommy," Nicolette said. She left the room and went into her old room. Everything was set up just as it was before. Her clothes were even still in the dresser.

She took her bloody clothes off, wiped herself clean of blood with clean clothes, and put a new set of clothes on. She grabbed some clothes and tied them in a bundle with a sheet.

She walked downstairs and out the front door, closing it behind her. She got back in the carriage.

"Wrong house. They gave me some food and sent me on my way. Let's go back," she said.

"Yes, ma'am," the driver said.

After that, she took to killing and robbing families. She got so good at it that a local mercenary group hired her to do wet work for them.

And that was the person who stood in front of me. Tragic backstory, but a merciless killer all the same.

"Your murdering days are over Nico. I'm sorry your parents sucked, but that doesn't make what you do ok," I said.

She grinned. "Stop me. If you can." She pulled out 6 crystals, 3 in each hand. 5 were glowing bright blue, but the 6th was clear. She crushed them in her hands and disappeared.