Officer Yagami slipped into one of the many alleyways he passed on his way to the station. He transparent and gelatinous like form quivered as his sense of uneases increased.
He'd gotten himself into something deep and now he wanted out. He rubbed his tendril like hand over his large flat jellyfish like head trying to calm himself down.
"Pheeeewwwww.... Okay, okay you can do this calm down, you have to call someone."
But who to call? He couldn't call his supervisor cause what could he even say?
"Hey Jaris I'm in a bit of sticky situation, You see I've been leaking information to Grave Blue in exchange for money, and now I just learned that they are planning a hit on one of the retired Heros whos a long time family friend, and no longer feel comfortable working for them. Please keep them from killing us?!"
Yagami hung his head in defeat.
He messed up really messed up now.
He had to do something. He could...
A name surfaced on his memory, Officer Kim, yes Kim had told him he could come talk to him if he had any problems. He was always nice to him, so maybe if he called him and tried explaining the situation maybe he'd be able to help.
Rifling through his police vest he pulled out his work issued phone, scrolled through the contacts and dialed Kims number. It rang for a uncomfortably long time, and he was about to hang up when he heard Kim finally pick up.
"Yagami? What's up man?" Kims upbeat voice relaxed his nerves a little bit, but now came the hard part.
"H-hey Kim... Umm look this is really um strange of me to ask but umm, could you perhaps meet me somewhere, there's something I need to talk to you about."
"Sure I can come meet up with you, I got nothing else scheduled today. What's wrong Yagami? Are you alright" Kim sounded concerned, and yagami couldn't blame him, he was having a hard enough time keeping his voice level as is.
"Um.. well yes and no, Something.. ah something bad might happen, and I don't know what to do. I'm in over my head Kim." He sounded more pleading by the end, hoping it would encourage Kim to hurry up.
"Alright Yagami... I'll head over. Wait there for me, Don't go anywhere Okay?" Kims voice held a more serious tone.
"O-Okay! I wont move, I'll send you my location."
"Yea, you do that." Yagami heard Kim stand up before abruptly hanging up. He didn't let the rudeness slow him down though, Kim was probably just worried about him, pulling his phone he texted his location to Kim and waited right there.
After Forty minutes of waiting Yagami debated calling Kim again, he hadn't sent any messages saying how long it would take. Did he get lost? He wasn't that far from the station.
Venomous liquid that was his body's equivalent of sweat began to bead down his large jellyfish like head. Sitting still in one place, hiding away like a common criminal made him feel uneasy. He felt like every passerby was looking for him. He felt like someone was watching him.
His eyes glanced nervously around back and fourth but didn't see anything in the alleyway.
His heart beat like a countdown in his head, each beat only making the panic in him rise more and more, until he couldn't take it anymore.
He needed to leave, call it a gut feeling but something wasn't right. He decided to change his plans. He was just gonna go and talk to Brick Forge himself. He'll just tell him he's in danger, and that he overheard it at work. No information on where he actually heard it.
No, Brick Forge wouldn't accept that. He'd want more info, and ask too many questions.
More venoms seeped from his pours. He had to do something.
"Maybe I could just leave him a note of some kind?.. Yes that's perfect!"
Yagami's body changed to a brighter hue as he finalized his note, nothing too formal, just simple and straight to the point.
"Brick Forge, You are in danger, Brave Blue is after you. Signed A Friend."
He'll have to text Kim later apologizing for leaving. He tucked the note in his pocket and headed towards the alley way entrance.
But the sound of wings buzzing rapidly behind him stopped followed by the sound of someone landing.
The figure approached not trying to mask their approach at all, heavy boot stepps splashed through one of the rain puddles.
Yagami should run, not look back, but he couldn't help but turn and see who it was.
A shorter figure clad in red and black robes slowly approached him, their face was covered with a mask that only showed her eyes. Thick fur lined the outfit and one arm came to a spear point of a tip. On her back large rounded insect like wings batted back and forth like a cats tail about to leap on a mouse.
If Yagami had a throat he'd feel his heart in it.
"W-who are you?!" He began to back away slowly.
"I'm the consequences of you trying to betray Blue!" Came a females voice, it was tinged with pure anger and distain aimed at him, but was also boistures with confidence.
"I-I didn't do anything!" Yagami proclaimed.
"I hadn't told anyone anything! I swear!" Yagami continued to back up but that only made his assailure approach faster. Her fast footsteps quickly making the gap between them shrink.
"But you were planning too. You're a weak link that needs to be cut Yagami." The woman said now only a few feet away, spear tip arm moving with anticipation to cut his throat.
Yagami knew there was no way to talk his way out of this now. When Blue wanted someone dead, they would die. And right now Blue wanted him dead before he could warn Brick Forge.
He turned to his only defensive option, He began to shake his head back and fourth sending his venomous sweat to coat the alleyway in its thick sticky substance, any skin that hit would become numb. If he could just get enough of it on her he could escape.
He felt a deep slash cross his chest. He stumbled back stopping the rain of venom. He clenched at his chest, and a thick blue blood came out.
Her arm had cut straight through his kevlar chest piece. While it was Talent enhanced and it started to self repair itself. Little fibers twisting together to close the gap, it wasn't enhanced to withstand a Villain attack of this Sharpness.
His adrenaline kicked in. He may be a corrupt cop, a double dealer, and well a coward sometimes.. but he was still trained to use his Talent in a fight.
Using his two long arms he flung them out in an attempts to either grapple the Blue assassin or just to get her to back off a bit. The while swinging of his arms worked and she took a few defensive steps back. But kept her spear arm up and ready.
yagami raised a hand up to strike at her, which she countered by parrying his hit with her spear arm. Batting it to the side she lunged forward at him. A menacing glint to her eyes as she pierced his defenses and charged forward. Yagami just barely dodged out of the way, the spear tearing another hole through his vest but not striking his soft skin beneath.
Yagami took the opportunity to wrap her up in a bear hug. His assailant kicked and fought him with surprising strength for her size.
He began to secrete venom from his arms, hopping that she'll go limp in a few moments once the Venom soaked through her clothing and made contact with her skin shutting off her nerves. But she only seemed to fight harder the longer he held her. Eventually she was able to break her spear arm free and with a quick thrust she stabbed it into Yagami's side. Piercing the kevlar layers and skin.
He let her go with a yell and clutched at his side.
"You'll blackout soon! My venom has brought down bigger villains than you!" He tried to sound confident, but he was in a lot of pain, and the pain seemed like it was spreading.
The spear armed villain however didn't seem to care much for that information. Instead she bent down to his eye level, took her non spear hand and wiped off his venom with her bear hand.
"I-impossible... Your, nervous system should have... Shut down...."
"I guess my tolerance to my own venom is just stronger than yours." She replied.
Venom? What venom? Yagami's whole body was made of a venom that could completely paralyze anyone. no ones venom could hurt him.
But if that's the case then what was he feeling in his side.
A tingling sensation slowly spread through out his body, it was like getting stung by a thousand wasps, he fell to the ground and writhed in pain.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Through screams of grunts and pains he yelled out.
"I-I have backup coming!.... They'll be here any.... minute!" Yagami was partially bluffing. If Kim showed up he could use his wind talent to send this lacky flying against the wall.
"Who do you think sent me your location Yagami?"
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Arriving at work an hour late, Perran had to forgo his usual pre stretches, and did his best to not to limp in front of any of his coworkers, nothing he wasn't already accustomed to.
Looking around the warehouse he noticed that Kazuki wasn't here today. Which is probably why Brick forged needed Perran to come in today.
He saw Cougi hard at work at the forge blowing large sprouts of fire from his mouth on a steel bar that Brick Forge himself was handling. It was pretty rare to see their boss do any manual labor anymore, usually he just handled administrative duties. In the upper office that overlooked the warehouse.
Brick Forge didn't need to wear any safety protection gear like some of the others had to. His skin was made of the same material as a Kelm, which made him almost entirely heat resistant. Or he used to be. Large cracks have formed across his tan clay skin. Years of hero work and battle had taken its toll on the old Hero. The hero's face contorted in concentration and strain as he used his bare hands to make the 90 degree bends in the pipes.
The action took considerable effort, and after each one Brick Forge had to taken a moment to catch his breathe, and wipe his forehead off with a dirty beach towel that looked like a handkerchief in his large hands.
Cougi took the moment of rest to lift the protective goggles from his eyes. Which made a two rings of sute around his eyes. Looking over he saw Perran as he just started hooking in another bundle of pipes to the pulley lift.
"Heyo! Perran." Cougi yelled out cuping his slightly scaled hands around his mouth, and giving a wave when Perran turned his attention to him.
Brick Forge turned to look over at Perran too. His stoney textured face didn't change much upon seeing him except a slight downturn of his lip. He than turned back away to focus on catching his breathe.
Cougi however hoped down from his perch and headed over to Perran.
"Hey, how are you feeling? you kind of disappeared last night, Kazuki said you ran out because you weren't feeling good. Is that true?" He said this in a tone that hinted that he didn't really fully buy Kazuki's explanation.
"Yea, Had a little too much to drink."
"Did Kazuki make you drink?" His throat scales flared red with the anger in his voice.
"What?! No... No he didn't... Make me drink, I did it on my own... It was stupid I know. But I'm fine now."
Cougis eyes gave him a look over as to verify what Perran was telling him.
"Well you are here, that's better than I can say for Kazuki. Rocky Bastard drank himself stiff last night. Couldn't even stand on his own two feet. Nearly fell over on our waiter when he told him to leave And Kazuki got angry and tried to stand up and yell at him." A large smile crossed Cougis face.
"He fell over right then and there and blacked out. Who would've guessed anchol could break his Talent limit." Cougi let out a fiery laugh as small bursts of flame came out with ever chuckly.
"Hahahaha, serves him right."
"Is he alright?" Perran asked concerned. Which seemed to have caught Cougi off guard.
"What? Oh yea, yea he'll be fine. Probably just has one of the worst hangovers he's ever had right now. He's gonna get a worse one tomorrow once he has to deal with Brick Forges temper."
Break Forge gave an audible grunt at Cougis words meaning he did intend to give Kazuki some sort of consequence.
"Well I better get back to work now. But hey if you're interested maybe sometime later you and I can go get something to eat after work. I know a pretty good German Restaurant a few miles south. They make the best food in my humble opinion." Cougis mouth already looked like it was watering at the idea.
"Oh, ahh. sure Cougi sounds great, I'll let you know when I'm free." Perran replied politely. He was still a little hesitant to go. Considering how the last interaction went. It wasn't Cougis fault or even Kazukis, it was the events after all that that made him hesitate.
It always seemed he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
While he was relieved there wasn't any consequences to his actions last night, he didn't plan on doing that again anytime soon. Or ever for that matter.
Today all Perran wanted to do was work and go home.
But... Maybe in a few days he'd take Cougi up on his offer.
Satisfied with Perrans half hearted promise Cougi went back to work.
"Just text me the times!" He yelled back before pulling down his goggles again and started to heat one of the bars to red hot.
The work day was a a bit lighter than the usual, without Kazuki the bending process was much slower so there wasn't much to add to the piles. Tomorra and Jukis both worked a bit slower today too, it took them twice as long to load the days final shipment onto the truck. But once the final pipe was strapped down Brick Forge gave the announcement to start closing down.
Cougi moved to the furnace and began twisting multiple values to turn off the gas, And used his bare hand to scoop out loose metal bits from the forge. While most of the workers talents seemed to give them some sort of higher heat tolerance, Cougi seemed to have a full resistance to it. Holding the hot bit in his bare hand and throwing them into the waist bin didn't faze him one bit.
Perrans last task for the day was sweeping out the warehouse floor. He was relieved when Brick Forge gave him that one as its easy and he could use the broom to support his leg a little bit.
Everything was going fine until three hard and fast nocks came from the docking door. At first no one moved to the door.
"Probably just the building cooling down." said Tomora.
Three harder and faster nocks came again, the last one bending the door a bit. Leaving a deep imprint of a large pear of knuckles.
Tomora stood up and began moving towards the door, but was stopped by Brick Forge.
"Go home Tomora, I'll handle this."
"But-"
"I told you to go home Tamora! I'll handle this" The look Brick Forge gave him seemed to hold the larger man inplace for a bit, he eventually bowed his head and did as brick forge had asked.
Brick Forge exited the buildings side door that was sized for larger humanoids, and disappeared for a few minutes.
Perran couldn't hear anything that was going on out there, and while he was cautiously curious he decided to just focus on his task so he could go home. Besides if anything bad was happening out there then Brick Forge could handle it, he was a retired hero after all and still as tuff as ever.
And it was because he was tuff that Brick Forge survived being thrown through his own docking door, slamming into multiple metal shelves and being buried in a avalanche of metal tubes and pipes.
The docking door was ripped clean off its track and was torn like a piece of paper.
The force from Brick Forges impact shot metal dust into the air making the whole warehouse foggy.
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!!??" Yelled Tomora he ran quickly over to wear Brick Forge was buried. Perran and Cougi hesitantly took a few steps back.
From the entrance walked in a man twice the size of Brickforge. His eyes were a animalistic Yellow, Eyebrows that were thick and jagged. His body was bulky, all muscle.
"You missed your payments Brick Forge." His voice was deep, booming, and slow. He took a step forward and the shelves that hadn't fallen over yet shook with every step he took.
Each step of his steel clad boots left foot prints two inches deep into the once smooth concrete floor.
Similarly clad his four fists, yes four, Perran had to recount to be sure he wasn't seeing double. were incased in metal coverings, one his right hands a faint layer of tan colored dust coated his knuckle. And red blood was splattered on his body.
This was a villain attack.
Perrans mind froze, unable to process what was going on around him, no, not again, not again, please not again, not here.
"Perran we got to go now!" Cougi grabbed Perrans shoulder, he and hadn't realized he was even being dragged away.
"You're not going anywhere, scraps!" With the slow movament of a wrecking ball the villain slammed his double handed fist into some of the still standing shelfs, causing a domino affect of thosuands of tons of steel falling down, and it was heading right for them.
"Faster Perran!" Cougi tried to pull him along faster but Perran was just slowing him down.
He couldn't do this, he was gonna get him killed.
Perran tried to move but he was too exhausted, Cougi was almost dragging him at this point.
The collapsing steel shelfs got closer and closer, they weren't going to make it.
"MOVE IT!" Yelled Jukis as he charged the collasping wall of shelfs. Cougi leaped to the side and pulled Perran along with him onto the ground. Jukis caught the shelf with his arms and just barely prevented it from falling on them.
The metal strained from the weight of the shelves, and bolts began to snap in the shelving.
"G-get out of.-- HERE!" Jukis said through gritted teeth.
"Thanks Jukis!" Cougi said with relief in his voice.
"Save your yappin for the Heros... Call them... And get the egg shell out of here."
Jukis slowly began to lower the shelf, once Perran and Cougi were out of the way, he released it with a deafening crash.
"What about you?" Cougi asked, while hauling Perran back to his feet.
"Brick Forge and Tomora are still in here, I'm gonna get them." Jukis said, already heading to an unblocked section of the warehouse so he could do just that.
Cougi hesitated for a bit, muttering something about not having a damn hero license.
Instead of protesting to Jukis actions Cougi began leading Perran out of the building.
Exiting through the backdoor into the courtyard both Perran and Cougi began a coughing fit as they were finally able to get a unrestricted breath of fresh air.
Cougi hunched over on himself trying to steady himself, while Perran was on his hands and knees uncontrollably shaking.
Why, why did this have to happen now, was this his fault? Was the attack after him? Or just bad luck.
"Dawn it all!" Cougi said fire spewing out his mouth, drips of inflamed spit fell from his mouth. He held his cracked and broken phone in his hand
"Its completely busted! Perran do you have your phone? Perran?! Hey are you alright?"
Cougi kneeled down next to Perran, and gently shook him. Which seemed to break his spiral of concentration and brought him back to the here and now.
"Perran do you have your phone?" Cougi asked again.
He didn't, Perran tried to tell him, he opened his mouth but nothing would come out, instead he just hung his head and shook it.
"Okay..." Cougi combed his scaled hands through his hair, he looked back at the building. The sounds of fighting could be heard even from outside, the crash of each blow shook the thin aluminum walls that were never designed to take those kind of hits.
"Stay here Perran, Brick Forge keeps a landline in his office, I'll run up, call for help than come back, alright?" Perran didn't respond.
"Hey, if I'm not back in three minutes, leave. Don't stay here Perran its not safe for you." Cougi headed for the back entrance again, and slipped back inside.
Things just seemed to go from bad to worse. The metal forge, something made of some of the tuffest stuff that Cougi had ever seen was crumpled like a soda can. The villain was still at the other end of the warehouse, Tomora, had managed to dig Brick Forge out of the pile and now held him up over his shoulder. While Jukis seemed to be drawing most of the villains attention he looked almost as ruffed up as Brick Forge.
Cougi turned his attention back to is own task. Finding the landline. The floor was a mess of broken concrete, bent beams, and collapsed metal shelves dispersing their contents all over. It took some effort and careful foot placements to get through it and reach the stairs on the other side. Climbing the metal stairs to Brick Forges office he grabbed at the handle and tried to twist it, but it was locked.
"Oh you've got to be kidding me." Cougi and the rest didn't have time to deal with this. Using his talent, he pullled the heat up from deep inside and like a handheld torch started blowing a small controlled torch flame to the handle. It took a minute but eventually the handle melted off and the door finally swung open.
Cougi quickly began to make his way through the office, the table was a mess of piled up orders and Bills with big red words "OVER DUE".
Finally finding the phone tucked behind the computer monitor he lifted it up and started dialing the HPA hotline. It rang only once before Cougi heard someone pick up on the other end.
"Hero Protection Agency, What is your emergency?"
"We have a villain attacking our warehouse, he's attacking the workers. We are at Brick Forge Pipe Manufacturing Plant in Kishiwada please send help." Cougi didn't want to waste any time, the sooner active heros got here the better.
"Okay sir can you describe the villain so we can send the appropriate kind of hero."
"Uhh.. Huge, his has four hands, really strong..." Cougi couldn't think of any other descriptions that could be helpful.
"Okay sir, we are dispatching a hero group to your area, they should be there in-"
"Oh crap."
The villain held Jukis by the head now. His rocky skin was bloodied and cracked.
"Stay out of my way pebble" The villain turned and hurled Jukis right at the balcancy office, right at Cougi.