His rescue had failed.
Not only had it failed, but it had gotten eight humans killed.
It might even get him killed, if the victorious gnoll army noticed that he shared a face with one of the nearby corpses.
The gnolls were rounding up the remaining humans, taking them back to the prison they’d so recently escaped.
After this they’d probably bump up security. He’d gotten lucky several times and was still barely alive with a failed mission; he couldn’t make a dent here until he was much stronger. Time to escape.
That’s when something caught his eye.
Redemption.
The Afghan boy was pressed up against the wall, eyes darting back and forth… right by the corner. If he could disappear around the corner with the boy, he could save at least one human.
He would be a hero, even if on just a small scale.
The father and remaining sister huddled together, crying.
Jerome vowed to rescue them. He vowed to avenge their loss.
Would you like to accept the Qu—
He accepted the quest without reading. It would just be a technical explication of his thoughts anyways.
Walking over to the boy was tense. He had to pretend to be normal, whatever normal was for a gnoll in this situation. He was just going to go help round up prisoners. The only difference: when he got to the boy, instead of herding him to the prison, he grabbed his collar and pulled him around the corner, dragging him a bit.
When they were around the corner and safely out of sight Jerome turned the kid around. “I’m here to help. You might not believe me, but I’m human.”
The boy was clearly scared, but there was a cunning gleam in his eyes, like he was used to thinking under pressure. “Are you the one that kept changing shape?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you teach me?”
“I can teach you how to fight, but we have to get out of here first. We’re going to pretend you’re my prisoner until we get to the gates. Then we’ll make a run for it.” Jerome pushed the boy in front of him roughly, just rough enough to make it clear to anyone watching that the boy was his ‘prisoner’, but not rough enough to actually make him lose balance or get hurt.
“I already know how to fight,” the boy responded with confidence.
“Yeah right.”
“I’ve got the best kill record on my squad.”
What the hell? Kill record? Squad? “You’ve killed people?”
“Thousands,” he said confidently. He seemed to loosen up at talk of his past murders, forgetting the horrific violence that he’d just seen.
No wonder this kid and his entire family was in here! Jerome suddenly reconsidered the wisdom of helping them. Thousands killed by an eight-year-old? He knew the terrorists fought dirty, but wow!
The kid kept talking as if nothing was wrong. He was even getting animated.
“I like to run around a corner and surprise them. Pump them full of bullets before they even know what’s happening. And then I make fun of them because it’s shameful to be killed by a child.”
Jerome considered bolting then and there.
“Abu-zar has a better kill/death ratio though. He plays more defensively, and his internet connection is better. His neighborhood hasn’t ever been bombed.”
Oh.
The kid wasn’t a psychopathic mass murdering terrorist child soldier… he was a gamer who liked online shooters. Jerome laughed from relief.
“What’s funny? My KDR is still greater than one, and the chaos my tactics bring gives us—”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Nevermind,” Jerome said, trying to get back to a serious escorting-a-prisoner face. “Let’s just concentrate on getting out of here. No chatter.”
“Roger.”
This kid would be a good addition to the team. Tactical knowledge. Enthusiasm. Jerome inspected him to get his name: Rayi.
Rayi walked with exaggerated affect, looking exactly like a cartoon prisoner.
At least this trip hadn’t been all for nothing. He’d failed, yes, and he’d caused some deaths… but many of those deaths would have happened anyways, either in dissections or in the ockdine attack. He had, after all, taken out two of the ockdine and distracted the giant one. If it hadn’t been for him, the ockdine might have broken in to the jail cell and killed all the humans.
And now here was Rayi, a concrete reminder that his actions had created some good in the world. Rayi would train with them, level up, and take part in the eventual rescue.
He’d reunite with his father and sister. They’d hug and cry, they’d say how happy they were at what Jerome had done, they’d give him a sweet sword or piece of armor, and… no, that last part was just in games, not here. No sweet armor for this. The other two things might happen, but he already knew it wouldn’t be a pure celebration. They’d lost a sister already, in a way that Jerome couldn’t help but blame himself for.
Before any of that could happen, though, he needed to get them out of this town.
They carved through back streets, trying not to look lost or out of place. Just a gnoll guard taking their human prisoner out for a stroll. The ockdine attack seemed to work in their favor, since anyone who might have cared about town security was on high alert for an altogether different type of threat.
One did stop him, a level 8 with a club and a distracted, panicked look. “Where are you going? The humans go the other way.”
Time to bluff. “The king needs this one.”
The gnoll didn’t quite know what to make of that lie, but it seemed to be in too much of a hurry to really bother. “Your head if the tiny one goes missing.”
It shrugged and ran off.
“That’s so cool. Being anyone you want… How does it work? Do you get their memories too? Can you be ten people at once? Could you be a dinosaur? Could—”
“No memories, no multi-people, no dinosaurs.” Jerome really didn’t want to explain his skill right now, so he turned the question around on Rayi. “What’s your unique skill?”
“It’s stupid. It doesn’t even work right.”
He inspected Rayi again and sought out the unique skill.
Portal Hands.
“How does it work?”
“I wanted to grab the keys from the guard, so I used Portal Hands to try and grab his keys… but I miscalculated and instead of grabbing the keys I grabbed his elbow. He caught my hand and wouldn’t let go, and I couldn’t move or pull it back, and he said if I tried that again I’d be next for the experiment.”
That explanation was missing a lot of context.
Jerome steered them to a deserted alleyway, where they could practice without being spotted, and said, “show me. This may be useful.”
Rayi punched the air in front of him with his right fist. Midway through the punch his arm disappeared at the midpart of the forearm… then reappeared a half second later ten feet away, delivering what would have been a solid punch if anyone had been there.
The fist uncoiled and the fingers flexed, grabbing the air, all while still ten feet away.
“That’s amazing.”
“It’s stupid. I can’t even control where it goes very well. I meant to punch a foot to the left.”
“So? You can get better!”
“And when I—”
Midway through the complaint Jerome was already transformed into Rayi’s form, eagerly playing with the new ability.
You have learned the skill Portal Hands.
This was going to be amazing.
“You can’t bring anything through,” complained Rayi. “No weapons, so you just have to slap them. You can’t bring anything back either. It sucks. I’d rather have magic. Or a gun.”
Jerome ignored Rayi and instead tested out the limits of his new power. Once the portal was created it seemed to be a set length and direction. Moving his arm up moved his hand up. Swinging his arm back and forth didn’t have the dramatic impact he had hoped for: instead of his hand flying wildly as if he had a ten-foot arm, it moved the same distance it would normally… just ten feet away. He could turn around and have the hand end up behind him. With proper technique he could even scratch his own back.
The split always seemed to happen in the middle of his forearm, meaning his wrist and a little over half a foot of arm were on the other side of the portal with his hand. Good to know.
The cost was minimal — 3 SP — but it seemed that SP recovery stopped while he had a portal out. So there were some limitations on how much he could use it.
Then Jerome tested the most important part. He put his portaled hand against the stone and activated Recoil Burst.
It worked! Well, these buildings were ridiculously sturdy, so it didn’t have much of an effect, but Recoil Burst had activated on his distant hand.
Now he knew how they were going to get through the gate.