Chapter 46 The World Waits for No Individual Part 1
“We set out to save the world… in the end we could only watch.” - Paradigm, Leader of the Defenders of Dawn and Hero of the War Within.
It was evening when Aiden was reading through his textbooks, ‘Unifying Theories of Living Concepts’, the crows were out on his balcony, not eating, but it seemed like his home had become a gathering spot for them.
With a flap of wings, Ranpo returned.
“Aiden,” the crow began, “have you noticed there seems to be more military police patrolling?”
Aiden raised his eyebrow, “I wouldn’t know.”
He flipped open his phone, an unnoticed habit, until he saw the top headlines.
‘War with Hell to occur within 30 years.’
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People flocked to stores, buying out and stockpiling dozens of goods, canned foods, non-perishables, survival tools, weapons and ammunition, all bought out within a matter of hours.
“People act the same even here huh,” Aiden observed.
“Hmm?” Ranpo asked.
“People like to stock up in times of crisis,” Aiden continued. “It’s sensible in a way, but also not a great idea due to supply chain issues.”
As he spoke, he saw employees rapidly stock the shelves back up.
“... Though it seems like this world anticipated the increased demand.”
Aiden browsed the news as he walked, passing patrolling military police as he went around the city.
The police presence would likely be up for a long while, Aiden deduced, a preventative measure for riots and panic, but also a show of strength and safety.
‘Local Heroes to be transferred to the Rus Yuro-P exclusion zone.’
“Glory Woman, Jericho King, Tuba Heavy Gunner and Fastpass huh,” Aiden muttered.
“It also notes a bunch of non-hero metas would be following,” Ranpo noted, staring down at the screen, “Mostly military and commercial metas.”
“The latter would make up the greater force,” Aiden said, biting his thumb as he thought, “the Tuba Brothers, Allen the Annihilator, and a bunch of other names I don’t recognise.”
He did recognise the surnames though, mostly from his other classmates.
“Why are they sending off so many people so soon?” Ranpo asked, “The actual war won’t happen for years or decades.”
“That’s what I’m wondering,” Aiden replied, “certainly some people would get sent as a diplomatic thing, but the numbers are too high.”
Sending some people along would be polite, and reinforce the alliance the countries had, but every region and city was contributing a few metas. This city in particular contributed most of its big names, and there were bound to be significantly more unnamed metas who were following in the background. It was simply too many for a diplomatic show.
“I’ll just ask them.”
> DiceBot has joined the chat. Say Hi!
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> DarKing: It’s because the situation in Rus is pretty bad rn
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> LuKing: It’s not public knowledge yet, but a lot of the top Rus metas were annihilated in a battle against a Demon, the economy is also shot cause they needed to rely on tech to bring it down
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> DarKing: Jericho told us, he said he’s going to help stabilise the situation
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> JunMoon: wut kinda demon was it?
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> WrenWood: You know we can’t talk about Demons Jun! (⊃д⊂)
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> LuKing: Jericho said it was some kind of power shifter, but he didn’t get anymore details, it's dead anyways.
Aiden frowned.
“I see then…” Ranpo muttered, “With Rus weakened, the entire eastern side of the Gate is vulnerable.”
“Five to thirty years… that is a massive range,” Aiden murmured in thought, “devil and Demon attacks would also increase massively before the actual invasion…”
The situation there seemed pretty bad.
If they came in five years, they might catch the country with its pants down, heavily weakened from previous attacks, Rus may fold under a sustained Demon assault.
But thirty years might even be worse. Though it meant more time to prepare, it also gave more time to stew in fear of an inevitable attack. Public opinion was a beast, would morale hold that long? It was enough time for the majority of the population to flee and migrate in fear, leaving the country without key human resources.
“Rus supplies the majority of our healers,” Aiden muttered. “Plus there’s the Black Fields.”
“The Black Fields?” Ranpo asked.
“It’s a large stretch of land where you can plant people,” Aiden replied. “When a person is buried there, they grow and sprout like a plant, eventually ‘fruiting’ a bunch of clones of the original person, only without their memories.”
The clone would still have to be raised normally from a baby, but it was the main reason Rus was able to maintain its ridiculously large metahuman army. Massive even by this world’s hyper militaristic standards.
“And also where our healers come from…” he murmured.
There have been very few cases of large-scale healer usage, the only recent example was Misha, that girl who punched a kaiju till it died. She was so heavily injured that an entire generation of healer clones were spent keeping her alive, even then, they couldn’t save her leg.
“I wish I could be such a spendthrift with healing,” Aiden muttered.
“It shouldn’t affect us that much right?” Ranpo asked as they stopped in front of a massive and ancient arch.
“That should be correct,” Aiden replied. “The teleporters will keep our countries relatively close despite the massive distance.”
Ranpo previously went through one of them, ancient things so old no one remembered who made them or even how to operate them.
They opened at set times every day, were somehow immune to Hell’s Bleed effect, and you could go to the other side of the world through them, that was all people needed to know to maintain them.
“God, travel was never so easy back in my old life,” Aiden muttered.
“But here it carries its own risks.”
Aiden nodded in agreement. In his old world, he couldn’t travel due to financial reasons, after he found a home, he stayed in place working.
He kinda wished he spent his paid leave.
“I heard Rus is a beautiful place,” he said, not to anyone in particular, but with a strained longing for a world that never was.
“Maybe you can visit it when everything blows over.”
“Maybe,” Aiden said as he turned away.
Even if the end of the world was in sight, the current world needed to continue.
Nothing much happened during this time, the increased security meant there weren’t as many jobs listed on Sara’s app, leaving his only work at Huang’s place. The first few days passed by quickly.
Until one day, Aiden got challenged.
Aiden didn’t have a large impression on Lea Lend, she used her power against Trist during the first class and both of them disappeared, only reappearing afterwards with Lea having lost.
She was better at hand to hand than most of the class, disregarding those with abilities that worked well in close range, her power used some kind of teleportation and probably worked as some kind of alternate dimension.
That was it.
“Remember, no maiming or intentional harm,” Dr Oliver Oliver called out from within Raj’s mouth.
“I’ll dock your points if you do,” Trist warned.
The four-five, Aiden mentally corrected, since Oliver and Raj counted as two, stood in a loose circle.
Around them, the rest of the class watched.
“Beat her up!” Jun cheered. “Don’t care if she’s a girl! Be a proponent of gender equality!”
“Um… Sure?” Aiden replied, not really sure how he should’ve answered that.
Lea smiled brightly at him.
“Why do you want to fight me specifically again?” he asked.
“You didn’t fight Trist before,” she replied. “I want to figure out what everyone can do.”
“I see.”
He briefly checked over everything, his scarf, a pair of gloves, the fake hand Wren gave him and his gym bag filled with rope along with his Umbrella.
“You two will go at it until one side surrenders or until one of us calls it,” Trist said.
Both nodded.
“On three,” Dr Oliver Oliver said as Raj raised his hand.
“One.”
Aiden pulled off his scarf and Oros animated it as it dropped onto the ground.
There was a slight commotion, as this was the first time many in the class saw his power at work.
“Two.”
Lea entered a loose stance. Hopping in place as she raised her fists.
“Three.” Raj threw down his hand.
“I challenge you, Aiden Bu, Trist Brake, Raj Reddy and Oliver Oliver.”
The world suddenly turned monochrome and the students behind them disappeared.
Oros leapt in front of him, hissing as Lea stepped away, both combatants warily watching each other.
“It is startlingly similar to an Expansion,” Raj commented.
“Yeah,” Trist answered, “I almost activated my Reinforcement on reflex last time…”
The teachers were off to the side, having asked beforehand to be brought into this pocket dimension.
Both Aiden and Lea ignored them.
Suddenly, white scales appeared on Lea’s face.
A white snake tattoo slithered across her skin.
Aiden frowned as he realised her power.
“Attack her now!” he yelled out, Oros quickly obliged as they both rushed Lea.
She leapt back, more tattoos appearing on her arms, however, her face was swiftly filled with a dumbfounded look.
She recognised none of the tattoos on her skin.
Oros leapt at her, clearing the distance between the two of them in a single leap-
Before stopping in space, no longer able to approach her.
‘My Umbrella!’
With a smooth motion, Aiden unzipped his gym bag, the tattoos of both the Giant Pacific Octopus and Colossal Squid flowing down his arm as he thrust it into the bundles of rope within. In a single instant, animated rope all loosely attached to his arm all sprung out towards Lea.
She dodged to the side, but that was the trick, his Umbrella power could stop something from going directly towards or away from someone.
But not when something went beside them, and certainly not when she jumped into it.
Only a single tentacle had to enter the unaffected range, and it was enough to quickly wrap around her, the moment contact was made, Aiden rushed in, the Umbrella power no longer effective once touch was established.
Lea struggled, ripping herself out of the tentacle, and throwing a punch towards Aiden. He quickly blocked with a flurry of tentacles that wrapped around her arm.
She gripped onto the tentacles, then roughly pulled it in, hoping to draw Aiden closer, but the large bundle of ropes only blocked her vision as they detached. For a brief moment, she lost sight of Aiden.
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A roundhouse kick slammed into the back of her head, knocking Lea down. Aiden didn’t give her any space, the reality of the copied Umbrella’s power meant he was forced to stay within close range. He stomped down on Lea, only to get his foot caught by her hand.
She pulled him down and Aiden landed ass first on the ground. Lea leapt on him and they wrestled on the ground, rolling on the cold floor. Lea quickly got the upper hand, making it clear she had some kind of physique power. Getting hold of Aiden’s neck, she slammed him into the cold floor, a fist raised above him.
Oros finally made it through the copied Umbrella power, jumping and coiling around Lea as she yelped and backed off of Aiden, falling on her ass as the serpent tripped her.
Panting, Aiden rose back up, but as Lea struggled, she slammed and kicked and elbowed Oros, holding onto the serpent’s neck to ensure it didn’t get close. Every blow was reflected onto Aiden. It looked rather strange, he was just standing there yet it looked like he was getting beaten by several people at once.
Not staying idle, Aiden stepped on the scattered lengths of rope on the ground, once again controlling them to target Lea’s legs and wrists. The copied Umbrella was still active, so Aiden had to carefully manoeuvre them around.
Lea quickly noticed, jumping away from Aiden with Oros still wrapped around her, but the serpent did not allow that, tripping her with its tail as she did so.
One tentacle made it through, tightly coiling around her wrist, pulling it outwards and trapping her movement. The moment one made it, the rest followed, trapping her other limbs and freeing Oros. Giving it the chance to close in to bite onto Lea’s neck, its fangs stopping just before breaking her skin.
“... I lose.”
The monochrome world shattered, and as it did, the tattoos on Lea’s arms disappeared. A look of understanding suddenly flashed through her eyes as she recognised what the gone tattoos were.
“Well that’s all well and done,” Oliver announced, drinking from a teacup that had appeared during their fight.
Aiden sighed, wincing at his bruises as he withdrew the scattered tattoos. Lea was comparatively better off, Aiden had focused mostly on restraint and not on the more lethal creatures he had in his repertoire.
All the rest of the class saw them disappearing, then suddenly reappearing after a while, sweating and panting with a bunch of rope laying around.
“Who won?”
Ignoring them, Aiden stepped forward, Oros letting go of Lea as he helped him up.
“Why didn’t you use Trist’s, Oliver’s or Raj’s power?” he whispered.
Lea copying Colorful and the Umbrella forced Aiden into a quick close range fight, he couldn’t give her the time to figure out the nature of Colorful and the Umbrella nullified the few long range options he had. If Lea had used Trist’s Frame of Mind, the close range battle would’ve been quickly lost. Not to mention Raj and Oliver Oliver’s power. Aiden had yet to have his common sense fully corrupted by this world, so he recognised that a tongue louse the size of a football could not feasibly fit inside Raj’s mouth.
“It was just a fight between us, wasn’t it?” she replied with an honest face.
Seeing this, Aiden was slightly taken aback, before he chuckled, “Good fight then.”
“Alright, this round goes to Aiden,” Trist declared.
The declaration broke the rest of the class out of their stupor, as they clamoured to the two combatants to understand what occurred.
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“So she copies meta tools as well?” Luther asked.
Aiden nodded, “I carry around one for protection, I didn’t expect it would get used against me.”
The group was currently lounging around in one of the training rooms, Luther typing down notes on a laptop.
“She’s rather tough to deal with,” Aiden admitted. “Against me, she didn’t understand my power and didn’t have anything prepared to animate, so I was able to take her down, but she seems to have an all around physical buff in that world.”
Against someone with a power she understood and knew to use, Lea’s bonus physical prowess should theoretically give her an upper hand.
“She’s pretty difficult in a straight one on one huh…” Jun pondered.
“Not only that, she can drag multiple people into the same pocket dimension, so she can stack their powers,” Aiden pointed out.
Everyone fell into silence, imagining a scenario where Lea dragged one opponent and multiple allies into her pocket dimension.
“Even without allies, she counters ‘simplistic’ powers like mine, Josh or Jun’s,” Wren said. “We don’t have a lot to our powers, so she would be able to understand it quickly and overpower us with her physical power.”
“She’s a definite ‘avoid’ then,” Darius said, just as Luther typed down the exact same thing.
Aiden leaned over, looking at the document Luther was typing up.
> Paintball War Super Guide
“Anyone else whose power we can guess at?” Luther asked.
Aiden thought for a moment, before saying, “Judy.”
“Who?” Jun asked.
“The one with the cymbal monkey,” Josh reminded.
“She has multiple powers,” Darius added. “We know her first is a debuff type that activates on hit.”
“She has three in total,” Aiden told them, “I heard Trist ask her after their first bout, and from my observation, her second seems to do with mimicking techniques.”
He briefly described how Judy’s last attack had been exactly the same as Trist’s own attack.
“So one is the debuff on hit, the second is some kind of skill mimicry or advanced learning, and third is whatever that cymbal monkey was?” Darius asked Aiden to confirm.
Aiden nodded.
“The big unknown is that cymbal monkey thing,” Luther analysed, “we don’t know what it does, it didn’t seem to fight Trist, but that doesn’t disregard her as a spawner type.”
“Some kind of boogeyman that activates once certain conditions activate?” Wren guessed.
“Maybe,” Luther said, “we don’t know enough about it.”
“Who else in our class is dangerous?” Aiden asked. “A lot of people haven’t shown their abilities yet.”
Those who didn’t fight in the first week against Trist have largely kept their powers secret.
“I know some of them,” Luther said, “Lilian- the bat girl- becomes a vampire the more blood she consumes in the short term. Gaining new powers as she drinks more, but she gains their weaknesses as well.”
“Sunburn, dislike of holy symbols, along with weirder ones like being unable to enter a house without invitation or being unable to cross running water,” Darius added onto his cousin.
“My little sister is also in your class,” Wren mentioned. “She’s Caitlyn, her power is completely non-combative, but it’s an inherited Name.”
Josh perked up from his seat with a game controller.
“It’s ‘Google Your Own Death’,” Wren continued, “whenever she uses a search engine of any type, she can search a person’s name and ‘death’, giving her information on their most likely cause of death within one week. It’s not a deterministic prediction, it only shows the most probable death, it’s not a guarantee they will die or even that they will meet that specific death, but she can get a lot of info from it, including who killed them, their powers or other stuff.”
Aiden raised an eyebrow, “That’s definitely a powerful one…”
“Not a combative one,” Jun said, “so she should be easy for me.”
“It’s an information gathering type,” Luther said, “those are dangerous no matter what, she might even have information on all our abilities.”
“That’s a tricky one, what about in your class?” Aiden asked Wren, Luther and Josh.
“Well, in our class there's…”
After a while of discussion, the bell rang, signalling the end of lunch.
“Well, I have to head to Isaac’s class now,” Aiden said, slinging his bag over his back.
“I wish my fellow comrade good luck!” Josh said, “May you gain an advantage over us all!”
“Pfft,” Luther replied, taking out his phone, “I can do better than wishing.”
On Aiden’s own phone, there was a notification, a message from Luther in the group chat.
Luther took out a chocolate bar and took a bite.
> LuKing: Want some chocolate?
Raising an eyebrow, Aiden replied.
> Aiden1507: No thanks.
>
> LuKing: Let’s use Dicebot to play a game of chance, I plan on rigging it. 10 20 sided dice rolls.
>
> JunMoon: Ooooh this will be gud
>
> Aiden1507: Sure.
>
> LuKing: r/1d20
>
> DiceBot: 1!
>
> LuKing: r/1d20
>
> DiceBot: 1!
>
> LuKing: r/1d20
>
> DiceBot: 1!
>
> …
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As Aiden walked out of the gym, a crow slammed into the window, dropping a twenty dollar note directly into his hands as it fell to the side.
As he went to help the crow, he found three dollars in coins hidden in the grass where it landed.
Since Ranpo wasn’t here, the crow flew off without a single word- caw? Then, as Aiden shook his head, he slipped, and landed right into an empty cart pushed by another student, who was busily chatting on his phone, somehow not noticing Aiden at all.
The scenery around them changed as the student teleported Aiden along with him. Aiden got off the cart, apologising to the student who just noticed him. As he looked around, he found himself exactly in front of Isaac’s classroom, skipping the short walk there entirely.
Back in front of the gym…
“Holyshit, Luther luck me as well!” Jun demanded.
Luther chuckled, “If you give me half of everything you get…”
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As Aiden stepped into the classroom, he saw several other students sitting inside. One of them was Lilian, who was fidgeting with several packets of blood.
‘She can probably regain Hume through blood as well.’ Mentally noting down his theory for the next time his group met up, Aiden sat down, he checked through his own tattoos, hidden right underneath his sleeve.
Isaac stepped in soon after, his messy hair tied up in a ponytail.
“Afternoon, I’m Isaac, I’m taking this class from now on.”
“No one was teaching this class before,” someone sighed.
“Unfortunate, but we’re always low on people,” Isaac replied. “Due to the nature of Meta Techniques, I won’t be doing much in the way of teaching, my job here is to act mostly as a battery and give you pointers on how other people have activated their Hume. Keep a close look on your Hume Status, if you can’t refill it in time, I will inject mine into yours.”
“Get into a position you’re comfortable with, this class will be on activating Simple Reinforcement. If you’re a manifested and don’t want Reinforcement to be taking up your two slots, then sit back and watch. Keep questions quick since I need to keep watch on all of your Hume levels.”
Hearing this, Aiden got out of his seat, and found a spot to sit down cross legged.
“Meta Techniques are easy, just figure out how you currently spend Hume to use your ability, then remove your ability from the process of manipulating Hume. Reinforcement just needs you to cover your own body with it-”
Suddenly, a phone rang, loudly interrupting Isaac.
“Whose phone is that- oh wait it’s mine.”
Isaac answered his phone, muttering some things before glancing at Aiden.
“Aiden, it’s for you,” he said as he tossed the phone to him.
He caught it easily, seeing the caller, Freddy.
“Hello?” he said as he went to a quiet corner of the room.
“Yo!” Freddy answered, from the background noise, Aiden could determine he was on a train. “I’ve been meaning to call you but I didn’t have your number, plus all this recent shit about the Hells has kept me busy, just got some free time to call Isaac, and you happened to be there as well!”
“What do you need me for?” Aiden asked, mentally noting how ‘lucky’ it was for him to be in the same room as Isaac as Freddy called him.
“Want a new hand?” Freddy asked.
Aiden paused.
“I know that a public student like you won’t have any military insurance, unless you have another one? I’m responsible for you losing it, since I couldn’t protect you well enough. I have enough money squirrelled away to hire a decent healer, so fixing it should be easy.”
“I don’t blame you for that,” Aiden replied, “but if you’re offering, I have a request.”
“Hmm?”
“Please use the money to get a healer to look over my sister instead, or better yet, purchase one of the panaceas on the market.”
There was a pause.
“Your sis is the one suffering Bleed right? Long term, means her change has become permanent, I could do it, but it would be pricey, I wouldn’t be able to add onto your hand treatment-”
“That is fine,” Aiden said, looking at the gloved prosthetic that Wren gave him. “A friend got me a new one, plus I never really cared about it, a hand, a leg or a kidney, losing one or both never mattered to me.”
There was a laugh over the phone, as Freddy slightly grasped the madness of the other manifested.
“Very well then, I’ll look into it, tell Isaac to give you my phone number, I’ll be busy for a few months, plus I need to change the gold into actual currency- actually I might be able to skip that step.”
“Gold?”
“Yeah, way safer than keeping it as money. You never know when the country you live in goes kaput.”
“Interesting advice.”
They chatted for a while longer, before Aiden hung up and passed the phone back to Isaac.
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Freddy hung up, chuckling slightly as he put away his phone.
“Interesting conversation?” the woman beside him asked.
“It was,” Freddy answered.
There were two of them, riding on the economy section of the train to their next mission.
The woman, Janna Zenin, asked, “Do tell.”
“It’s this kid I met when I got those white corpses for you to analyse…”
Unlike most of her family, Janna Zenin wasn’t able to inherit the thinker power that made that family dangerous, but she was an accomplished mage, who was considered their resident expert in Living Concepts and Bleed.
As they talked, Freddy noticed something.
Four people, two in front of their seats and two behind, both of them suddenly disappeared from his power sense.
Such a thing wasn’t impossible, if a person was bleeding in any way, then they automatically disappeared from his power. It was just rather strange.
He spoke up, “What-”
The bullet pierced through the chair as he was shot in the head.
The four people around them got up quickly, firing their guns in the air to pacify the rest of the panicking passengers.
Each of them had a bandage that was swiftly reddening with blood.
One of them surveyed the two corpses, seeing the blood seeping out of the back of both Janna and Freddy’s head.
“Both targets are dead,” he declared, turning away. “We need to get off this-”
Freddy stood up.
The assassin immediately fired again as a knife shot out of Freddy’s clothing. The knife slammed into the assassin’s shoulder, carrying him up and impaling him to the seat across.
The bullet slammed into Freddy’s chest, breaking his skin, and causing some blood to seep, but did not go any deeper than his skin.
“God, I’m going to develop thrombosis like this.”
All three others immediately ran upon seeing the situation, but Freddy’s blades all shot out, impaling their hands and feet to the chairs, walls and floor, trapping them.
“Now who sent you-”
Suddenly, something appeared beside him. A floating, flat digital screen, almost like a smartphone, it had a cover with a stylised design that looked like an owl.
“Welcome to the Owl City network!” the owl said as those same words flashed on its screen.
Freddy immediately threw a knife at it, stabbing it into the floor.
But though the floor was dented, the knife failed to piece the owl.
The owl spoke again, “Frederic Goethal, user of an unnamed Manifested Power…”
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“... possesses the Meta Tool codenamed Batro’s Spinal Cord. Batro was a death-row inmate executed before the formation of Law. His spinal cord creates a qualitative change to the user’s neural system, allowing them to program automatic responses that don’t require their spinal cord or brain. Frederic Goethal has the preprogrammed response to activate his Extended Reinforcement Technique whenever his epidermis is breached.”
On the other side of the train, inside the first class section, an elderly man calmly listened to the explanation by the owl, a phone by his side.
“It seems like the information we bought wasn’t fully accurate. I suppose that is what we get for trusting a broker from a tiny island nation,” the phone said.
“Your Owl City is helping me enough,” the elderly man answered the phone. “I just need to kill him, correct?”
“It will be best if you can get some information out of him, we’re relying on you.”
And the phone cut.
The elderly man sighed, “To think nowadays people are grafting entire spinal cords into their body. His power isn’t Named, yet it’s manifested? An impossibility, but the world is wide.”
He got up with a tired sigh, tapping his walking cane. “Well, work is work.”
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Freddy checked the pulse of Janna, only coming to the same conclusion that the other man had made.
She was dead, the bullet went clean through her brain.
And soon, all the four assailants were dead as well. Their dying words the information Freddy tortured out of them.
He glanced warily at the floating owl, but other than loudly speaking his information, it did nothing.
“An information gathering ability, was my attack what triggered it? They said there was a meta that could kill me, so I’m facing at least two more enemies, the user of the owl, and another attacker…”