Almost instantly, ectoplasmic armor formed on Max, covering him from head to waist on the front of his body. Full coverage. Even though he was pretty sure his body was now pistol-bulletproof, even at a close range like this, taking any chances before he could attain a four star mana body would just be silly.

As George, the leader, blinked in surprise and began shooting, Max flashed forward. He had been telling the truth about wanting to keep blood off his clothes. So instead of using Blackmist Incident, or punching, or actually ripping George apart, he merely grabbed George's wrist in one steel-crushing grip, put his other hand against the man's chest, walked him forward a few steps, and pushed him with all his strength through the car behind him. The push launched the gang leader right through the window, his head slamming against the frame. The trajectory made his head hit several solid parts of the car and his body actually snapped on of the seat back before it crashed through a second window. The broken glass did some damage, but most of it was blunt force trauma.

It turned out a human body speeding through a car at the speed of a past pitch baseball wasn’t good for the person doing the traveling.

Max had managed to hang on to the Glock, which he dropped on the ground for now. Then he surged forward, using all his inhuman speed to target the man who had been beating the standing victim.

Similar to what he'd done with George, he spun the attacker and shoved him towards the loading dock of the nearby building. There was a sick crunch as the man's head rebounded off a concrete corner near a loading gate.

Max barely avoided getting hit by blood splatter. He frowned in irritation.

At this point, some of the other men rushed Max, even a couple of them opening up knives in their hands. Three ran away. Max wasn't particularly worried about any of it. He directed Saliron to attach spirits to the bones of the three fleeing men, and then he very easily protected himself from the clumsy attacks of the five gang members trying to punch or stab him.

"He's got a fucking shield, man!" one of them yelled, fear underlying his voice. He started running in the opposite direction as the first three. Saliron tagged him with a spirit too.

Max conversationally said, "I don't really enjoy this sort of thing. It feels a bit like seal clubbing. But if I have to kill you all anyway, I might as well get something out of it. Training time, I guess." Then he slapped one of the men's legs while instructing Saliron to use his bone-breaking power. Every inch of the man's femur suddenly shattered, and he fell to the ground with a scream. Max moved on, destroying another attacker’s leg bone before breaking one of his arms, jerking the knife out of his hand, and throwing it into another man’s chest about ten feet away.

Whether he was going to run away like the first four, now nobody would ever know.

He he darted in, hammering aside a punch from the last attacker with his forearm so hard that he broke it without even using Saliron's power. With an open palm, he slapped the man's chest and tried calling on the power of disruption. This was a new attempt at using the mysterious power of disruption.

What he had been attempting to do was rip the man's insides apart, but his effort was a failure. Instead, he succeeded at stopping the man's heart. The would-be murderer dropped like a stone.

"Well, that's interesting," Max sad. The remaining two men, both incapacitated on the ground, just screamed.

Max idly plucked an explosive bead off his bracelet, judged the distance to the solo running man–about seventy yards–and threw it at the man's feet. There was a sudden concussion and a mist of blood–it looked like the man had stepped on a landmine in the middle of the parking lot. He collapsed to the ground without even screaming. Max wasn't sure if he was truly dead or just in shock. So he threw another bead to savage the runaway’s upper body for good measure.

The two men on the ground were screaming even louder now, staring at Max with wild, fear-stricken eyes. One of them held a knife, pointed at Max as if it were a magical talisman that would keep him away. Max turned to look at the only one the three of this group’s victims that could still talk, where he was plastered against the wall, staring in wide-eyed horror.

"Hey, small guy," said Max. “Yeah, I’m talking to you."

"Uh, yeah?” He swallowed.

“What's your name?"

"It's Dan."

"Okay, Danny. Here's the deal. I need to go chase down three of them. Honestly, what those three did was probably the most rational thing to do, so it's a shame that I need to go kill maybe the three smartest guys in this group of idiots.

“What to do about these two, though?” He gestured at the two screaming men with shattered legs. “See, I still don't want to get blood on my clothes, and I kind of don't want to blow these guys up and waste my ammunition. Actually, they probably would have tried using it by now, but they don't have guns, do they?"

Dan shook his head. "No, they took them all off and left them in their cars when they started hitting us. Didn't want any of us to get lucky and grab one."

Max lifted his eyebrows. "Wow, that was a surprisingly smart thing for a group like this, huh? Well, if you want, you can get one of those guns and kill these guys.” Max noticed he’d already killed the man in the green bandana who’d been hitting Dan. “Or I suppose you could hop in one of the cars and just drive over them.” He had a sudden thought. “Actually, I take that back."

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Max looked at the man appraisingly. "Dan, I really do just want to ask you some questions, but I just realized you might do something stupid like try to run away. Because of that–” His voice trailed off, and he pointed at the man. "I've just tagged you. There's no way you can get it off. I will be able to find you and track you down to the ends of the earth. So you stay right there. You can kill these guys if you want. And definitely do so if they start pulling themselves towards the car. Actually, goddammit. If you let them get to the guns, they might kill you instead."

He walked over to the Glock that had dropped on the ground in his struggle with George and picked it up. Then, from about fifteen yards away, he shot both screaming men twice, center mass. They stopped screaming. He approached the first of the undamaged cars and laid a hand on the hood. He was about to channel the power of disruption into the engine before realizing that if he did, he might be screwing himself over too. Riding the bicycle was fine, but driving would be a lot better, at least in the short term. These cars might be stolen, so he didn't want to stay in one for very long, though.

"Okay, Dan," he said, "I want you to listen to me very carefully." The bloody, battered man nodded his head. "Do not get in one of these cars and drive away. In fact, if you stay and make my life easier so I don't have to track you down, I will even give you some money later today or tomorrow."

"How much?" said Dan. And Max was quietly impressed by the sheer balls, or maybe just desperation.

"Enough to set you up for at least a few months," said Max. He pointed at the backpack over his shoulder. "I got some stuff to sell to a Challenger, or adventuring guild."

Dan’s expression changed as he must have remembered that Max had just proved he was a Challenger, and then must have come to the conclusion that what Max was saying was very reasonably true.

"All right," he said. "But can I call an ambulance for my friends?"

"Yeah, of course. These assholes hitting you probably already fucked up your phones, so use a phone from one of the guys I just killed—sorry if it's a little bloody. Anyway, I gotta go track these runners down. But first…"

Max grimly walked to the man on the ground who hadn't moved and gently but firmly put his fingers to his carotid artery, managing to do so without getting blood on his hand. He shook his head as he stood. "I'm pretty sure your friend is dead," he said.

Dan responded, "I already knew that."

"Sorry," said Max. “I’ll be right back.” Then he turned and began walking away.

Lavinia whispered, "Shouldn't you have confirmed that before you started killing a bunch of vanilla humans?"

"No," said Max quietly, "and I'm not sorry about that either. They stated their intentions to kill me pretty clearly. And even if they didn't kill the guy who was down, he wouldn't have been much longer for this world. You've got to remember where I come from, Lavinia. And I know that you were born on Albion, but still lived in a different time. And you never actually graduated from the Summoner Academy. I'm actually kind of glad about that. I don't know if you ever killed anybody in the academy, but that was more like a game, there. Death wasn't permanent there. And it might sound edgy or cringy for me to say this, but I'm glad you never had to get used stuff like this, like me." Lavinia didn't respond and lapsed into silence.

Then Max began running. He didn't even need to run at full speed to catch each one of the three men before they’d even made it back to the main road. He didn't know what Dan and his friends had been doing so deep in an industrial complex, but he figured it had something to do with theft, and they hadn't wanted to be seen. Their enemies hadn't wanted to be seen either when they were beating them for whatever their perceived transgressions were.

Once Max was done killing all of the remaining gang members, he returned to Dan. The man hadn't moved from his place against the wall. Max unceremoniously picked up the Glock from where he had dropped it on the ground again and threw it in the back seat of the car—one that was idling and wasn't currently decorated with George's blood and brains. He made sure it was unlocked and said, "Get in." Dan obeyed with jerky, stilted movements.

Max looked at the man beside him. "There's not much else you can do for your friends at this point. I take it you already called the authorities?"

"Yeah. But because of where we are, it might take a while for them to get here."

"Well, did you call and tell them that ten people just got killed?"

"Well, no. I said there had been a fight and my friends were down and needed medical help."

Max rolled his eyes. "What's the name of this area?" Dan told him, and then, after Max held out a hand, he gave him the acquired phone that he used. Max almost told Dan to get another phone for him, but he decided he could wait until he could properly buy one for himself.

Then he unlocked the screen and rolled his eyes. "Dude didn't have any kind of lock, and I bet his text messages are just all sorts of colorful evidence. Whatever." He called 911, and as soon as the operator answered, Max said, "Look, a whole bunch of people are dead, and if you fuckers don't get out here, their bodies are going to start stinking. On top of that, there are some people down that could probably have their lives saved if you all would get off your asses and get out here slower than a terminal cancer patient on a unicycle. So go ahead, put this at the top of your queue because I know you can probably do that, or tell your officers to step on it. Oh yeah, and we're located at—" Max rattled off the information that Dan had just told him. When the operator on the other end tried to calmly and professionally keep him on the line, Max just said, "Hurry the fuck up, the bodies are getting cold," and then he hung up. He handed the phone to Dan. "That's how you do it. Now if they're late, it's not on us. They’re too fucked up for us to help with basic first aid, too."

That’s cold, said Lavinia in his head.

I know.

He eyed the bicycle before sighing in regret. Max had briefly thought about trying to bring it with them, but there was nowhere to actually put it since it couldn't fit in the car or the trunk. The bike had served him well. “All that wasted effort to pump up the tires," he muttered, and then he drove. It didn’t take him long to get on the freeway. It was starting to get dark.

"Where are we going?" said Dan.

"Next city over, I guess," said Max. "That one's not quarantined or off-limits, right?"

"No," said Dan. He fidgeted. "I haven't been there in a long time, though."

"That's fine. Like I said, we're going to have a chat, and I'm going to help you out. And then, if you're smart, you're going to stay out of whatever bullshit just got one of your friends killed, one of them probably almost killed, and you almost killed, too. Because I believe you that the one dead asshole was using the excuse of the woman to kill you, but if it wasn't them punching your ticket, it would have been something else."

The two of them didn't speak anymore as Max continued driving. He figured it wasn't the greatest time to be interrogating the guy after seeing his friend beaten to death. And despite his harsh words, Max did feel some sympathy. After all, in his first life, his existence had been far more pitiful than Dan's. But he didn't want to show any kindness at all. Someone like Dan was not likely to react to sympathy with any appreciation.

Not only that, In this sort of situation, Max needed answers, not friendship. He hadn't been bluffing about the tracking, either. He had already gotten back the spirits that Saliron put on the gang members, but there was one attached to Dan's bones. So he'd be able to find him anytime, anywhere.

It was night by the time Max got into the next city. He ditched the car, threw a couple of guns in his backpack, and tried handing one to Dan before the smaller man shook his head and held his palms outwards in the universal gesture of no.

"All right, suit yourself," said Max. "I know it's dark, but I think we still have about an hour until a lot of places close. I'm really sorry about everything that happened to you today, but now you need to work with me so that I can get some money so we can both get a hotel room."

"Hotel room?" asked Dan.

"Yes. You're working. I told you I'd help you, and that's true. But you're working for me as a consultant for at least the next couple of days. And if you think about it, it's probably good for your health if you do. Because the guys I killed might have friends that come after you. And if I'm around, they can't do shit."

Dan slowly nodded as a light of hope returned to his eyes. And not for the first time in his life, Max wondered if he was actually a good guy or just a bad guy with some decent goals. In what had also become a habit after raising this subject with himself, he decided that if the end results were the same, and the overall outcome was good, it didn’t matter.

People who made history, people that others called “heroes” were often pragmatic enough to get the job done and cut out the unnecessary parts. They were remembered for the outcomes of their lives, their great deeds. Meanwhile, the types who prioritized feelings or righteous ideals over unfortunate reality usually wound up dead. People with good intentions and an unwillingness to get their hands dirty more often let the truly evil motherfuckers win.

Dead people couldn’t save anyone. Giving bad people grace or the benefit of the doubt was like arming them with more information before having another chance to stab you in the back.

Max’s mood fell as he remembered how he’d been betrayed and murdered in his first life. Sometimes it was hard to tell who the bad people were, at least when they were close to you. He reaffirmed his vow to pay better attention in this life to the people around him, not just to protect himself,but to better recognize those who were deserving of his loyalty.