"Woah, woah, woah!" I shouted, still on my back, now holding up my hands. "What are you doing? Lung doesn't attack capes unless they get in his way!"
The demon paused, his fingers just touching the clip of a grenade. As I lay there, I could hear the cops trying to move people back, the crowd only sluggishly responding, rubbernecking the whole time.
"What Lung-sama does is no business of yours," The teleporting demon said, his voice low and drawn, like tearing cloth, a crisp Japanese accent coloring his words.
"Sure, alright, I assume that's the nature of people with that much power," I agreed, flicking to the side to see a pair of firefighters peeking out from behind the pump truck. "But that doesn't change his usual MO. Why target me?"
"You interfered," He stated simply, gesturing back to the flaming building.
"Only to save civilians!" I pointed out. "I have no interest in fighting you or Lung, especially not with all these people-"
Before I could finish, he grabbed a grenade and yanked it off his vest, flicking the pin away with a practiced hand. The spoon flicked away from us as he dropped the explosive device before exploding into a cloud of white ash. With a shout, half exclamation of fear, half cursing at the villain. I managed to reach up and catch the grenade, my increased reflexes and speed working hard as I moved in a blur.
With the lethal explosive in my hand, I quickly gripped it tightly, holding the base in one hand and gripping the top with the other. With a grunt of exertion, I tore the top from the bottom, the treated steel brittle enough that I could wrench my fingers through it. I hurled the top end into the air before rolling over and laying on top of the other. Seconds passed, one, two, three... until a popping sound echoed from above me, the sound of the grenade's blasting cap going off, far away from the actual explosives in the heart of the grenade. I rolled over and looked down, brushing off the grenade's explosive dust from my chest.
"Thank you, Mythbusters," I muttered before jumping up to my feet and looking around. People were still dangerously close by, though the few police officers present had managed to get them back a dozen feet or so.
"Alya? Where is he?" I asked, looking around frantically.
"He-"
Before she could respond, something slammed into my back, hard enough to force me to take a step forward. I whirled around, my hand out, managing to slap a clone across the head hard enough to turn him to dust, the broken remains of a tanto falling to the ground. Before I could even finish spinning, Alya shouted again, barely getting a sound out before a katana slammed over my shoulder, snapping over my tungsten-reinforced skin.
This time, I didn't spin, I just lashed out with my elbow, a cloud of white ash flowing over me as he disintegrated.
"Gren-"
A pair of metal bombs slapped into my chest, and for the first time, I could see Oni Lee standing on the sidewalk, his back to the fire before he disintegrated away. I barely managed to catch the grenades as they flew at me before quickly throwing both of them into the third story of the apartment, the grenades exploding just as they smashed through a window. The concrete and brickwork of the building stopped any shrapnel from coming down at civilians, but a few nearby windows still broke.
Suddenly, I could feel something pull at me from behind, and I whirled around, jabbing my finger out to fire off a spark of magic. The minor bolt of electricity slammed into Oni Lee as he was standing on an ambulance roof just as he was about to toss another grenade. For a moment, I thought I had caught the real one, but as he dropped the grenade at his feet, my attack burning through his outfit and damaging his arm, he exploded into dust.
Then the grenade went off.
The roof of the ambulance was torn to pieces by the explosion, but it thankfully blocked a good amount of the shrapnel in the process. However, it was clearly not all of it, as plenty more tore into the crowd. Even with the dozen or so feet the cops had managed to push back the crowd, the shrapnel still managed to hit them, people screaming as shards of metal tore into their skin.
All at once, people seemed to realize that,
yes, this was a very dangerous place to be. People started running, a few people getting trampled as they tripped or caught shrapnel.
I barely had time to curse, feeling Alya pull my attention again. I whirled around, letting her guide me, launching another quick spark, this time catching the ABB demon before he could pull off another grenade.
Three more times this happened, and each time I was getting closer and closer to the point where he would be landing when he first arrived at his new location. On his fourth attempt, I spun to find him landing on a police car, turning to look at one of the nearby buildings when my spark slammed into his shoulder blade.
He stumbled, nearly falling off the car, shouting and cursing in Japanese as his shoulder was burned by my lightning. I jabbed again, this time chanting the full spell, the power-boosted spark slamming into his stomach. A second later, he exploded into dust.
Seconds passed, and I waited for Alya to pull me again. Instead, I heard her voice again.
"He is running," She said, excitement in her voice. "You got him, the real him! His shoulder is burned badly enough to spook him. He is going north, towards ABB territory."
I chewed my lip for a moment, considering the idea of chasing him down, before I looked around at the area. I could hear people, several voices calling out for help, including a few that sounded young. The building was still burning, and people needed help.
"I need to stay," I explained, shaking my head. "But keep an eye out for him coming back."
I quickly rushed to the nearest injured person, who was bleeding profusely from their leg and had quite a few cuts and bruises from the running crowd. With their permission, I healed them up before moving on to the next person and then the one after that. In total, fifteen civilians had been injured bad enough to need my help, and by the time I was done, the firefighters were once again working to put out the fire. By now, the building was at a complete loss, and their main concern was keeping the fire from spreading to nearby buildings.
As I healed, I could see more and more cops showing up to handle the scenario, and I knew the Protectorate and PRT weren't far behind.
"Okay, Alya, I'm getting out of here," I explained, watching the last healed person get carried off by an EMT. "I don't want to wait to get dragged into a PRT debriefing right now, we have bigger problems. Guide me out and get Troy to follow behind until we are clear."
"Of course."
I quickly charged a spell and leaped up to a lower building, my strength and spell enough to clear two floors. From there, I jumped from rooftop to rooftop, only sometimes enhancing my jump to clear streets or jump up higher onto taller buildings. Eventually, I spotted a clearing far enough away from the fire. I quickly jumped down and waited for Troy. After a long few seconds of silence, Alya spoke.
"What's the plan?" She asked softly.
"We need to get back to the community," I explained, chewing my lip as I impatiently waited for Troy. "There's a pretty big chance we just put them in the crosshairs of the ABB too."
"What about after that?"
"My first priority is the community. If they get targeted, it's my fault. Beyond that, I'm going to try and get stronger, probably through rituals and ritualized items," I explained, closing my eyes, feeling the adrenaline from my fight slowly fade away. "After that? Try to figure out what I'm going to invest my next cycle of points into. First things first, though. I need to get to the community and warn them about what's happened."
I could feel a sense of understanding coming from my bounded partner. Finally, I spotted my golem mount coming into the clearing from a nearby alley. I whistled for him to come closer before hopping on him when he did. After settling in on his back, I urged him forward, the large golem taking off through the streets.
Despite having built him for speed, at this point, I was actually probably faster than him. He would likely beat me in a flat-out straight line, but between my mercury speed enhancement and the spell to boost my speed and stamina and my own inherent agility, I would likely beat him through the complicated streets of the city.
That said, I had no plans to stop using him. Not only did he cut an impressive and intimidating visage, one that had gotten a few lesser criminals to surrender just by showing up, but he had been indispensable in carrying things for me. Just the ability to shove my civilian clothes into his torso was extremely useful, but that was just the lowest level.
At the moment, rituals were my most powerful branch of knowledge, and I had had some serious success creating ritualized objects of power. Between Olivia's cloak and my overcoat, it was clear that ritualized objects stood a good chance of greatly increasing my abilities, even if I never increased it past three. However, there were only so many things I could hold at once. I had a few ideas for what to do with my boots and my mask, as well as one other piece of equipment, but everything else would probably be layered with more passive effects so that I wouldn't be overwhelmed by choice.
However, while my everyday carry might be basically set, assuming my rituals go as planned, that didn't mean I couldn't create a whole lot of other things, just in case, and store the inside or as part of Troy. He could be my walking arsenal, filled with whatever I might need. It was a long-term project for sure since each item I needed to make would take time to design, plan, and ritualize, but it was definitely something to consider.
Despite going a bit slower than I could on foot, we quickly made our way to the Docks community, ordering Troy to sit down in a corner off to the side. It didn't take me long to find John and Charles, and I quickly pulled them aside to explain what had happened.
"Dammit," John said, shaking his head, leaning back in his chair. "I understand why you did it, Arc, but goddammit."
"Yeah, I know," I responded. "I can't say I would do anything differently, those people needed help. But I'm not happy about stepping on ABB's toes."
"What can we do?" Charles asked. "Actively, what can we do to stop this from blowing up here?"
"I don't know," I responded, shaking my head. "There… are a few things I could do here, but… in the long run, I think they would just make things worse."
The idea of setting down some rituals to create the same protections that the compound had did cross my mind, but laying down the effects in the middle of the city was a recipe for issues. Even if I did manage to set up enough to keep the ABB or Empire away, the side effects of cutting off a sizable chunk of the docks and making them inaccessible to anyone but the people I allowed… That wasn't going to go over well with anyone.
"I think, for now, our best bet is to let everyone know what happened," John suggested. "They are going to find out sooner rather than later. Being prepared is just about all we can do. Arc, just how effective would your golems be against Lung?"
"I… don't know. They are strong, stronger than a normal person by a considerable amount, but I've never seen Lung fight," I pointed out. "My suggestion is to send the stone golems at him first, then have the wood golems pepper him with their knockout wands. All of that together will… well, should at least slow him down."
"If you're so confident, then," John said, shaking his head at my vague and unhelpful answer. "Any way you could make a few dozen more?"
"I could make a few more, but not a dozen," I responded, partially agreeing to his request. " They will be equipped with knockout wands too. I can make them tomorrow when I head back home. For tonight, I'm going to stick around and keep my eyes open for anything. If Lung wanted to get back at me, he would likely do it as soon as he could rather than put it off."
They both agreed that staying over for at least the night was a solid plan, so I made my way up to the same rooftop I had stayed on before. It gave me a good view over most of the community area, and with my enhancements, I could easily jump down and quickly make my way to any of the entrances. Even as I walked across the community space, John and Charles started to explain what had happened. I could feel the tension beginning to rise, with people whispering and muttering to each other.
Quite a few people sent me looks, even as I climbed up to the roof. None of them looked angry or accusatory, but I couldn't help but wonder if they were feeling that anyway. I didn't regret what I did, those people needed help, but I did feel like crap for dragging the community into more parahuman danger. The Empire was bad enough, now they had to worry about the ABB.
I was up on the roof for about half an hour, sitting on the edge with my feet dangling over, the sun slowly setting when Olivia faded out of a shadow. She was wearing a basic form of her cloak, which immediately flowed back into her shadow as she approached. Her cloak really had turned out well, if a bit less predictable than I had hoped. But that was the consequence of making such a powerful ritualized object, you can't control the results nearly as well as you'd hoped.
"Heard you had a bit of a scuffle with the demon," She said, making her way over and sitting beside me. "You're looking pretty good for going toe to toe with Oni Lee."
"I wasn't really in danger, to be honest," I admitted. "I mean, getting blown out of a building by a hand grenade wasn't exactly fun, but I'm tougher than I look. I was more worried about the civilians getting caught in the blast."
In all honesty, I wasn't entirely sure if the grenades would have been an issue for me or not. My ablative shield took some of the first blast, but at this point, I was pretty tough, so it might have been entirely unnecessary. Or the second grenade that went off near me would result in serious and potentially life-threatening injuries because I thought I could take the hit. It really wasn't worth the gamble, which was why I was so eager to throw them away or disable them.
"You tend to do that," she said, tossing me an apple before taking a bite of her own. "Put other people before yourself. Don't get me wrong, it's noble and everything, but haven't you heard of helping yourself before you help others? You know, like strapping on your own oxygen supply before making sure everyone else is alright as well?"
"Yeah, I know. If I was smart, I would be hanging out in the woods, making stuff, and getting stronger," I admitted with a frown. "But people needed help, and I could help them. I couldn't exactly stay back and do nothing."
"Nobody is saying you should, Will," She responded, patting my shoulder. "You wouldn't be you if you could just ignore the people you could help."
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