“There are some who, over the course of the years, complained to me for fighting dirty.

I have three things to say to you.

The first is: I have always tried my very best to maintain my moral standards even as I walked down the Criminal Mastermind path. Some of them might have shifted or downright disappeared. Alas, big things come with change. Nothing can be done about it.

The second: Unless you’d like to wake up one day and find out your skin has been peeled off and turned into the belt I’m using to strangle you, I suggest you go pester someone else.

The third…

There is no such thing as fair play. Not in the real life, at least. So you can go ahead and pop that little bubble you live in, before someone else does, along with the rest of your head.”

* ••••

Things had gone suspiciously well for Lawrence. Since he had entered the building from a relatively deserted area (I mean, who actually uses smoking areas?), there was little to no problem in taking down the few guards he encountered on his path. Of course, he wasn’t a fighter type, Meta or else, but taking someone by surprise isn’t exactly a hard thing to do.

Especially when you feel angry enough to do more than just knock them unconscious.

But well… As stated earlier, Lawrence wasn’t a fighter. His fists and legs acked like damn (apparently, a greater physical boost doesn’t mean you can suddenly fight like a martial arts manga character, no matter how hard you try) and he was quite sure a couple of ribs had taken more damage than what they should. He had small cuts and bruises everywhere. So no, no serious damage, but he wasn’t great either.

He really had to thank whatever star he was under for the Gran Charisma mind-control effect. This Jhonathan Chase person wasn’t sloppy. He had left a whole squad of armed men guarding the entrance to Mika’s cell. Lawrence could swear one of them was half-troll, or at least he had the muscles for it.

And the smell.

So, instead of committing suicide by trying to fight them all at the same time, and considering it was seven guns and two basketball-size fists against two 9mm magazines (he had no time to pick up more on his way), Lawrence decided the sanest choice he could take was turning that modern-day Hercules against his own and make use of the chaos to take down whoever might have been standing once the effect wore off. He really, really wished that didn’t include the guy himself.

Fortunately again, he was taken down just before knocking out the last man.

It seemed luck was on his side, at least for now. Which would have been fine and all, if it weren’t because that very same luck was guilty of all the shit going on with his life.

The ‘mind control’ thing wasn’t that special either. No strange feelings like with phasing through the walls. It was simply… Thinking of Mr. Muscles fighting his pals, and it kind of just happened. He was grateful for not having to put a lot of thought into it, or else he wouldn’t be able to use it in the middle on the fight.

With such thoughts in mind, he hit the remaining guard with the handle of his gun (the poor soul was barely standing: he had a couple of broken ribs, an arm twisted on the wrong direction, and a batch of his hair was… in Mr. Muscles’ hands. Huh). Lawrence almost felt sorry for him. Then again, he was too busy between praying to whatever divine entity out there Mika wasn’t hurt and reconsidering the ‘shoving a magazine up someone’s ass isn’t considered illegal, is it?’ thing from earlier.

He rushed to the only door around (the only one had hadn’t come from, anyways). It appeared to be made of steel… But it was slightly shinier. There was nothing else to it except for the standard deadlock.

“Some rare metal…? No, it seems unlikely. I doubt someone would spend a fortune in building a cell door. Well then… Ah, it must be a steel and silver alloy.”

Just to be sure, Lawrence touched the door… and something happened.

Sure enough, he felt energy being sucked away. But for some strange reason, it was only energy around him, not inside him. That was weird. He certainly remembered the description of feeling drained when touching silver just about every Meta interviewed about the matter.

Does this mean it doesn’t affect me, but rather the things around me?

Something to think about later.

“Now… I can’t bring this down, not unless I get stronger than our little friend here in the next five minutes” he said looking at the fallen titan. “Unlikely. Undesirable, too. Someone should teach him the concept of bathing. So… I’m left at searching for a key.”

Surely enough, there was a key in the big guy’s pockets.

This is starting to feel… cliché. Easy. I don’t like that feeling. It means something unexpected will happen soon.

He shook his head. Positive thinking was the key for a successful life, after all. Well, that, luck, and lots of money. But he had none of the others on his pockets and he wasn’t getting more anytime soon.

The key fit perfectly, as expected.

“As expected? Now there is definitively something suspicious here.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Lawrence opened the door.

Two men were staring blankly at him.

They blinked.

He blinked as well.

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“Is that a… fedora hat?”

“Well neither of you is Mikaella, is it?”

Now there were two guns pointed at him.

“Figures.”

“Shoot him! SHOOT HIM!!!”

Three gunshots. Lawrence dropped to the ground. Two bullets breezed his cheek, and one nearly put a hole on his hat.

Oi, that’s expensive! The subconscious part on his brain said.

There wasn’t a lot of cover in small, empty room. His best choice was jumping ahead… directly into the wolf’s maw. Great.

Remind me again why I am doing this?

Oh, of course. How to forget. The port mafia kidnapped my evil minion.

I… really shouldn’t be surprised about things any more.

And there was definitely something wrong with him if he could think so much crap in the middle of a life or death fight.

They aimed again. Lawrence panicked. There was a bullet coming to him soon. He had to do something!

Anything!

Even if it meant… Throwing his hat like a shuriken?

“AAAAAGGHHHHH!!!” The tip of the fedora poked the eye of one of the men. Unbelievably enough. The other one, too stunned by the fact that desperate last resort move had actually worked, couldn’t avoid being kicked in the chin by a just as much stunned Lawrence, who wasted no time in using the momentum from the kick and spinning, delivering another kick at the eye-poked* guard and recovering his hat, all in one motion.

*(I think that’s not even a word.)

The other man was standing up. Lawrence punched the one he was dealing with in the face, throwing him down, and jumped to a side. The other guy launched a fist to his face. Lawrence tried to deflect the punch with his hand and follow up with an elbow strike. ‘Tried’ as in ‘he was still getting the hang of fighting in general’, and so he ended up slipping. He moved just in time to avoid the not so deflected punch, managing to trip the man with his foot in the process. The downside was, he fell too.

Did I mention him not being a great fighter?

The eye-poked* guard was standing up, fast. And Lawrence was getting tired of fighting two people at once, just for having one back on their feet each time he knocked the other. Not that he could do much about it.

*(I confirmed it is not explicitly wrong to say eye-poked. Cheers for me)

He had to fix that. Preferably before he was forced to cosplay that Swiss cheese that got so much attention before. So, he risked for an all or nothing. He grabbed the man closest to him and, testing his newly improved strength, he launched him with all of his might.

There was a thud, and a pop, and two unconscious men laid on the ground, and Lawrence was pretty sure that pop had been his own arm.

Sweet mother of God that hurts!!!

He pulled and stretched a couple of times. The pain receded, if only slightly so.

Lawrence nodded. He was good to go.

There was door on the other side of the room. It was identical to the previous one. Lawrence found the key in the eye-poked guard’s poket.

I will… have to consider launching my hat as a valid attack strategy.

Holy hell, I’m starting to look like a cartoon villain. I already have the flashy transformation gimmick. What’s next? My weapon is a cane with a rapier inside?

“That is most certainly not going to happen” he said with all the confidence he could afford. And so, fulfilling the duty of every [Gentleman], he raised up a leg and… With a loud boom, tested the integrity of the cell gate with a kick.

Mikaella was there. She was smiling at him.

Some kind of invisible knot Lawrence didn’t know it was there untied and let him breath again.

She was fine.

“Lady…”

And she was not alone.

“…es.”

His smile almost faltered.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”

What on Hell’s twisted cauldrons of scorching evil is Emma doing here?! And who is that suspiciously Emma-looking girl next to her?!

Good grief. There was a headache coming up.

But first things first.

Lawrence stretched his hand forward.

“Shall we?”

It was time to get out of there.

* ••••

The first sign Jhonny noticed something was wrong was the eerie silence that seemed to have fallen upon his halls. Followed, of course, by the unconscious bodies of several of his men laying around in small puddles of blood.

That was a giver.

“What the fuck happened here?”

Well, he had been attacked, obviously. But by who? And how had they gotten inside the building? All the entrances and exits were meticulously watched. He had even deployed a special subordinate to watch over the ventilation conducts.

So whoever had come was definitively good.

The trace of blood lead to the very same place he was heading. Which meant two things. A) The attacker was almost surely that mysterious man from the reports. B) He had come to release his partner, and depending on his moral standards, her friends as well. If his suspicions were true, then Jhonny was dealing with an extraordinarily dangerous man. He knew nothing about someone who could elude his expert’s tracking powers, and that included some very powerful heroes out there.

Fortunately, Jhonny had ways of taking care of himself. He had his brains. He had his guts. He had his luck.

And…

Some of you might ask ‘why did Jhonathan Chase pick construction, of all things, to base his company in?’ Well, that’s simple…

Jhonny stretched his hand forward. And, with an arc of light and a heavy clunk, something appeared on his hand.

It was a titanic hammer. A paladin’s battlehammer.

Villain: Jhonathan Chase

[ Status ]

Rank: C

(14) Quests before rank-up

Reputation: 98% (Local), 14% (National)

Feature Points: 565

[ Meta-Ability ]

Hammer Time!: Summon an incredibly heavy battlehammer that can break through almost everything

* ••••

Why on damnablest Earth are Emma and her sister here?!

Lawrence was going back to the smoking area from before. He was sure Mika could cut the fence wire with her shadow blades. He was sure he hoped so. Else they were pretty much screwed.

Now that he had rescued Mika, all his hate was replaced by fear of anyone getting hurt. It was his responsibility to take out everyone, safe. His head was inside a turmoil. He certainly did not expect to find the baker and her famous sibling trapped in the icebox that Mikaella’s cell turned out to be. He definitely didn’t expect Emma’s sister being a Hero either. This was on a whole new level of unbelievable.

I knew things were going as expected too much to be real…

Mika seemed to have befriended them at some point. And Emma simply wouldn’t stop looking at him funnily.

Maybe that would happen less if I wasn’t dressed like a gothic clown…

*CLUNK*

What was that?

A metallic noise could be heard in the distance.

*CLUNK*

Okay, that doesn’t sound good.

*CLUNK*

Time to move.

“Shade. Protect these ladies at all costs. I will deal with this problem. You will run away with them if I give you the sign. Is that clear?”

Mika looked like she wanted to protest. The baker sisters looked too stunned by the flow of events to say anything.

“Am I clear…?”

“Yes Chief!”

“Good. Beware.”

*CLUNK, CLUNK, CLUNK…!*

The noise was getting closer.

“Get ready…”

Finally, with one last clunk, a person made its entrance from the hallway behind them.

Lawrence could go through all the facial traits and such later. Right now, the only distinctive look he could get was the giant chunk of hammer casually resting upon its shoulder.

“Stop!” The man shouted.

“Hammer Time!”