Chapter 25:

In just a second everything went to shit.

Resolve moved before either Ben or Katie could stop her. Blitz’s bragging about maiming her dad and being part of his murder had been too much for her to bear. Throwing out all reason she teleported next to him and took off his hand. The very thing he was just bragging about doing to Crimson Judgment.

It would have been poetic justice if it didn’t completely fuck up their plan.

Because all the Villains knew they were here now, and the invisibility that had kept them hidden was now gone.

But Ben didn’t have time to think about all that.

Instead, he needed to act.

The first thing he did was pull on the lightning stored in the necklace under his suit and apply it to himself to enhance his speed. As everyone moved lightning sparked from his body and he snapped his hand up and towards the rising Bounce and Knight Stick.

He pulled two heliodors out of his inventory right in front of his hand. Using Gem Control, he kept them lined up with his palm and close enough with the quartz on his wrist. Then he shot them to either side of the two Villains, setting them to release their carefully calibrated electrical payloads.

It was only when he saw the dark blurs of his black-painted crystals did he remember the gems in his inventory were for backup and he should have been using the ones encased in metal on his belt to hide his exact power.

But he didn’t have time to berate himself for that, as Knight Stick leaped into action. His baton glowed in his hand and in two blurs of red, he smacked away the crystals. One crystal smacked into the wall before bursting out in arcs of lightning. The other got halfway to the other side of the room before it too exploded.

Then he leapt towards Ben, with Bounce following behind him having slammed herself against the wall before flying towards them.

Surprised at his attack completely failing and their sudden charge, Ben couldn’t react in time.

Thankfully, he wasn’t alone and Katie’s drones rushed them. Still stacked on top of each other, the two stacks of drones intercepted one of the Villains each.

Undeterred, both of the charging Villains didn’t slow and lashed out at the drone stacks. Knight Stick with his baton and Bounce with her fist. With how they were moving, it looked light they intended to push right through and attack Ben and Katie directly.

A glowing red stick and a fist met the drones' combined force fields. They failed to break through as the drone stacks pushed forward and bowled the two C-Rank villains over and sent them flying back.

“I’ll help Resolve,” Katie shouted as the drone stacks detached and rushed to her side as she charged towards the fight between Resolve and the two B-Rank Villains. “I’ll leave two drones with you, Shock! Get your target!”

Ben got just one moment to see Katie’s drones charge in a swarm right at an 8-foot metal gorilla-like monster that had appeared at some point. Then he was forced back to focusing on his own fight as the two drones left to him opened up with their stun bolts.

There were a couple of cut-off cries as some of the stun bolts hit home, and it was only because of that did Bounce and Knight Stick not take Ben out while he was distracted.

Bounce ducked into cover behind one of the couches and pushed it up on its side to give her more protection. The stun bolts scorched the couch but didn’t pierce through. Meanwhile, Knight Stick had gotten a second weapon out and was using two glowing red batons to swat the bolts away and dissipate them. He did it fast enough that none of the bolts got through to him as he slowly started to approach.

Guess that answered the question of what kind of power he had. He was a Weapon Adept. And he was a pretty good one as not a single one of the bolts made it past his batons. If he hadn’t been stopped by Katie’s drones, he would have probably been able to take Ben out quite easily.

Cursing at his carelessness, Ben forced himself to focus and not get caught off guard again. He pulled six metal spheres from a pouch at his hip and let them go as they floated in the air around him. Each sphere had a crystal in it, and the metal was light enough that his Gem Control could still move them around without problems. All while hopefully helping hide their nature.

Deciding to try and deal with the immediate concern first, Ben moved one of his five heliodor spheres closer to his one quartz sphere. He did this without any gestures to not give it away, and then shot the sphere in front of Knight Stick, outside of the range of his attacks.

Then the sphere exploded into lightning with Knight Stick just inside the radius of effect.

The man jolted at the sudden shock. Then a barrage of stun bolts struck him at once when he wasn’t able to react in time.

Ben grinned at the sight, ready to do the same to the Villain still behind the couch.

Then the couch moved.

He had just enough time to bring his arms up to protect himself before it slammed into him. It sent him tumbling back and the breath was knocked out of him as his back hit the floor. The very heavy couch stayed on top of him covering his vision.

Ben groaned as he tried to get up, but his bruised arms had a hard time getting the heavy sofa off of him. Just when he remembered he could use his powers to help, a loud crash and rumble filled the room making him wince.

Needing to get up and know what was going on, Ben accelerated the couch up with kinetic energy and then shoved the whole thing off of himself in one go. Once outside the range of his power, the couch came crashing down on the ground.

But Ben barely paid attention to that as he applied lightning to himself and quickly looked around as he got up. The first thing he noticed was what had caused that loud crashing sound.

A hole had been torn out of the side of the building. The warm night air was blowing in from the hole and Katie, Resolve, Blitz, and Mononoke were all out there battling it out.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Katie’s drones had all converged and they swarmed around the other two B-Ranks. They attacked with barrages of stun bolts from a large group floating above the battlefield, while the rest formed up into stacks and battled it out with the Villains and an assortment of projected monsters. Each stack either opened up on the monsters with red far deadlier bolts of energy at closer ranges or just smashed into them and corralled them with their combined shields, trying to get at the villains.

Meanwhile, Resolve and Blitz battled it out. Blitz was faster but Resolve had enough backup that he couldn’t just overwhelm her with speed.

And that was all Ben could take in at a glance before he refocused on Bounce. While he’d been down, she’d managed to smash one of the drones into the floor and break it. Now she was bouncing up and down against the ceiling and the floor while moving from side to side, getting faster and faster as she dodged the barrage of stun bolts from the last drone.

Ben tried to take advantage of her focus on the drone by sending a crystal at her but he wasn’t fast enough.

Just as he pulled a gem from storage, Bounce hit the ceiling again with her hands. Then suddenly she blasted forward, her body glowing as she slammed right through several stun bolts. Then her foot met the drone and sent it flying into the wall where it smashed apart.

Ben still tried to shoot at her, but as soon as her feet touched the ground again she blasted towards him too fast. His Gem flew by her and hit where she’d been while she flew right at him.

With a second to react, Ben threw himself to the side while accelerating himself away with kinetic energy. She missed him by just an inch and he landed hard on the floor. Ignoring the pain, he forced himself up quickly, while prepping the release crystal on his wrist. Then he spun around and lashed out with a palm just as she sped right back towards him even faster than before.

He tried to aim the release to send her out the hole in the wall to give him some time, but he underestimated just how much control she had when it came to her bounces. Instead of being flung where he wanted, she flew back with an upward angle. Then, she hit the ceiling with her hands before coming right back at him feet first.

Ben saw it coming and tried to dodge again but she was too fast. Both her feet slammed into him and sent him flying back. He had just enough time to register that the blow hadn’t hurt that much before he slammed into the wall. Then a loud crack sounded out and a burst of pain exploded from his shoulder.

“Argh!” Ben cried out as he fell to the floor, clutching his shoulder as he tried to get back up. Before he could though, a foot stomped on his back sending him to the ground.

“Nope, none of that asshole,” an annoyed feminine voice said from above him. It took his pain-rattled mind a second to realize it was probably Bounce. “You’re one of those pricks from before, aren’t you? Well, you're not getting away scot-free this time. No one messes with the… ugh… well name to be determined and gets away with it. Now quit struggling. Or I’ll break your arm!”

Ben stopped trying to move as his mind raced for options. Then he realized that she was right on top of him and he could even feel her close enough to the Gems on his belt. The quartz wouldn’t do much. But the heliodor?

Taking a deep breath Ben calmed himself. Then he made his move.

“That’s right asshole. Maybe if you're good you’ll only come out of this with some b—argh!”

Ben applied lightning to the Villain at double his maximum and focused on shocking and stunning her. She jolted away from him with a scream as he leaped to his feet as fast as he could, ignoring the pain in his shoulder.

Once she was out of his range the shocking stopped but her body still twitched with muscle spasms. Even with a mask, he could tell how angry she was and she looked like she wanted to break his nose.

But that was too bad for her as she was still within the range of his Gem Control.

Quickly un-inventorying a black-painted heliodor in front of him, he sent it right at her and applied more lightning to her.

“Ahhh! You shithead!” She screamed as lightning danced across her body as she twitched before falling to the ground.

Ben watched her closely, wincing at the sight of the villain twitching and screaming. If he hadn’t done intensive testing with this ability he wouldn’t have risked this. But applying his lightning to things was a lot different from if he just released it and it conducted through something. If he focused on just shocking and stunning something when apply lightning, it did surprisingly little permanent harm. And he really couldn’t chance her getting up again and beating him.

When it looked like she was about to pass out from the shocking, Ben stopped the lightning and quickly rushed at the downed villain. He grabbed her roughly, wincing as his shoulder protested, and pushed her face-first against the ground. Then he grabbed her arms and tried to quickly cuff her with the reinforced cuffs on his belt.

Despite the pain of his shoulder slowing him down, he managed to cuff her while gritting through the pain. Bounce was still pretty out of it when he was done, so she likely wouldn’t be a danger anymore. Combined with the cuffs and she was out of the fight for now.

Ben took a second to take a breath, relief and elation running through him as he straightened up. He’d just taken out a C-Ranker practically by himself. And despite the pain in his shoulder, it was a hell of an accomplishment. Lightning really had been a great choice, as it made it a lot easier to take the Villains out.

“Get away from her!”

Ben was brought out of his self-congratulatory thoughts by a shout. Ben whipped around to see a woman in a red and black super suit with a red lab coat on top and a black domino mask. She was trembling while holding a flask up as if she was prepared to throw it. It was Flamelium.

Ben looked at the young woman with a frown on his face. Seeing her trembling like that, he couldn’t help but for a moment feel like the bad guy here. It was silly, as these were all Villains and they were all criminals…

Then again, technically what he was doing was a crime too. And if it wasn’t for them being after Blitz then all they’d be doing was stealing. Well taking back what was technically his property since Zelter had entrusted it to him… By trespassing…

Ben mentally shook away the thoughts. They weren’t gonna help with the situation. He could feel bad about it later. They’d committed to things and with the sound of the battle outside he couldn’t delay.

Still, looking at Flamelium, and remembering Bounce’s screams just now, he really didn’t want to use his lightning on the woman. He also had no idea what that flask did or what might happen if he shocked her and she dropped it on herself.

“Hey, cal—hold on,” Ben said, interrupting himself as he remembered something Anna had said before. Never tell a woman to calm down. It would never work and just make things worse. “We’re not here for any of you. Just let me pass, and you can look over your friend, and no one else needs to get hurt.”

“N-no,” Flamelium stuttered out while holding her flask up threateningly. “Y-you back off. You c-can’t have my things. Just leave!”

Ben gritted his teeth. He couldn’t waste any more time on this. But he also didn’t want to explain what he actually wanted incase he failed to get it. “Okay look. You're threatening me with whatever that is. But look down. Bounce is right here. If you throw that at me then you're gonna catch her in whatever that is too.”

Flamelium looked down at Bounce and then her flask, still shaking.

If Ben was smart, he would have attacked in that moment of hesitation. He would have taken her out, rushed past, and gotten the cube. But… he couldn’t do it. She might have been a Villain, but she was barely a threat and she just looked so defeated. He couldn’t do it.

“So just let me pass and—” Ben started to say but he was cut off by a shout from his earpiece.

“Shock! Get out here now! We’re out of time and—Shit!“

Ben was jolted by Katie's shout and turned to look at the hole in the wall. The sound of fighting outside was intensifying and then he saw Resolve's form blur by. Behind her blood splattered on the ground. Ben panicked at the sight and he started to move before he remembered Flamelium was still a danger.

He spun back around.

And nothing happened.

Flamelium had lowered her flask and her shoulder slumped in defeat. She was only just reacting to Ben’s sudden movement when he made his decision.

And then he ran.