“Um… so like, did Axio forget to have them finish this?”

I had been prepared to enter right into a fight the moment I walked down the stairs but, possibly due to my luck, the place was practically empty. I exited the stairwell in the corner of the room and the entire top floor was practically hollowed out, with only a few concrete beams visible acting as supports for the roof. Several curtains were hung over the far windows, darkening the room with only minor bits of light leaking around the edges to show various buckets and tools laying around.

“Finish it? Why waste the money when you Augments are just gonna go blowing things up?”

“To be fair, Hydramental’s the one who blew up the train.”

“Well you got me there, your powers aren’t all that destructive. Well… so far, at least,” Angie mused. “And if you must know, these buildings are rented. It’s called helping the economy Loophole.”

I rolled my eyes and wandered to the other side of the large room. Though it was dark in the room, it wasn’t impossible for me to see either. It reminded me of the first car of the train, almost feeling like a staging area of sorts, which almost made it confusing that it was the top floor. I pushed one of the large curtains slightly to the side, peeking down and seeing Jon starting to casually wander up the street. I cursed under my breath at the impossible task I had given myself but forced it out of my mind as I shoved the curtain to the side. Light streamed into the barren room, revealing several rolled up sleeping bags scattered around the edges of the room.

As I scanned around, looking for any clue I might be missing, a breeze blew through another one of the windows and made the curtains lightly dance in the wind like a billowing dress. I had to do a double take as it almost looked like there had been a woman standing there amongst the curtains in a trick of the light.

“Where the hell are the stairs,” I muttered, shaking my head and looking around until I found them in the other corner of the back wall. It was an odd layout choice, especially given most stairwells generally just went up and down in a single column. While there was probably a reason the building had been designed this way, it was almost certainly the reason Axio had chosen to use it. Having separated stairwells all but ensured that I would have to exit onto each floor. I had already been planning on it of course, but it did nix any idea of checking each floor before choosing which one to start on.

Instead of rushing ahead blindly, I took a few steps toward the center of the room before I stopped and planted my feet. With a deep breath in, I activated my Area Sense.

It was a bit hard to describe, but it almost felt like I had a sixth sense, though even that didn’t exactly feel right. It was like I was lightly touching everything within my range. I couldn’t tell what any of it necessarily was, but I innately knew exactly where things were. On top of that, I was finding that my area’s radius wasn’t only horizontal. Though there was a decent slab of concrete between the levels, with a seventeen foot radius I could still feel all the way to the floor of the room below me. While the building was large enough that I couldn't feel the entirety of the floor, I still had a good portion of it within my radius. And maybe even more importantly, I could feel things moving in the space below me.

Sure, the ability couldn’t tell me exactly what the things were, but something moving would be a pretty easy guess. I wasn’t sure if the ability was intended to work that way, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to say it out loud on the off chance it did somehow get patched like the General Understanding for my Local Area Manipulation had.

I took a deep breath and let my area linger, feeling as the obstructions moved around large, rectangular items. So far, the initial enemies I had fought in each of these dens had been pretty weak and given that this was the lowest level, it stood to reason the same was going to be true. I had felt three people moving in the room below me, and if they were low level grunts, then I had a surefire way to take them down. I didn't even take another second to think about it and activated Weighted Clothes. Sure enough, there were sounds of muffled CRASHES and THUDS from beneath me.

“New Achievement! Look Ma, No Eyes! You struck an enemy (or in this case enemies) with one of your abilities without even visually confirming that they were there. That’s actually pretty impressive. It totally tips them off to you being here, but still impressive. This is a Silver level achievement. Reward: You have received a B:Tier loot box.”

I waited the entirety of the thirty seconds of the ability before I decided to move, letting the skill impart every bit of damage it could. There was always the chance there were enemies in the room I couldn't feel that were reacting, but I didn't hear a commotion coming up the stairwell either. I decided it might be better to exercise caution and moved slowly as I descended to the next floor. I mentally hovered over Mirror Image as I crept down the stairs when a thought occurred to me. I kept relying on split decision abilities and I hadn’t really tried to make another ability in a while. And while Mirror Image had shown its usefulness, it was almost purely a reactionary skill. My mind wandered for just a moment as I thought of the girl I had thought I saw and an idea came to mind. It occurred to me that I had really been wasting the optical refraction knowledge I had gained by limiting it to just a single skill. It didn't take much more than that before a new window appeared.

“New Ability! Trick of the Light! Okay, so this is kinda the opposite of what happened with you hallucinating up on the floor above us, but it's a cool name and we're gonna use it. When activated, warp the light within your local area to make yourself practically invisible to the naked eye. You will remain invisible as long as no hostile target looks directly at you for more than 1 FULL second. This ability has a maximum duration of 10 minutes and a 10 minute cooldown. Warning: Your Activated Ability bar is full. Please select an ability to replace.”

I dropped the skill onto my hotbar in place of Lucky Shot. I hadn’t even thought to use that skill in a while, especially given the fact that I really didn’t plan on using a gun regularly.

“Guns are soooooo ordinary too, there’s much cooler things you can do with your powers than just going bang bang. Though… you know who I’d really like to bang bang,” Angie said, waiting a few seconds to see if I responded. When it was clear I wasn't going to, she started again, “I’m talking about-”

“Not now, Angie.”

The stairway down to the second floor ended in a door, held slightly ajar as light streamed into the stairs. It wasn’t open quite far enough for me to see the entirety of the floor and I couldn’t just slam it open either because that would bring a bit too much attention if I were trying to sneak in. I held my breath and hoped, like I often did, that my luck would hold out as I gently nudged it, opening the door just far enough to give me at least a bit of a line of sight. Though there was the small sound of a creak that came the moment the door moved, nothing in the room reacted to the sound.

Like the floor above it, this floor was a large, open space, though I could make out several offices with large glass windows lined the wall on the street side of the building. There were random desks littered around the space and a flickering light revealed just how run down the furniture was. I was just about to wonder if there were any other enemies on this floor when I caught sight of two men picking themselves up and dusting themselves off near the center of the room. Though I had made it a point of waiting the entire duration of the skill, both of their health bars had gone down by only around 60%. While there was certainly the chance that they had used health syringes, their durability did feel different than what I had seen so far from Vipers their size. I highlighted the closer of the two out of curiosity, expecting to just see a higher leveled Grunt.

“Viper Guard. Level 5 Biker. So maybe you’re sitting here and wondering to yourself, ‘Angie, what’s the difference between a Grunt and a Guard?’ and I’d have to say, great question Loophole, gold star! The answer is, not a fucking thing except that the Guards are a bit sturdier with increased Strength and Toughness. If the Grunts are the red shirts then the Guards are... huh, maybe I shouldn't have gone with a Star Trek reference if I didn't know where I was going with it. You know what, nevermind, it's not important. All I'm going to say is these guys might be a bit more difficult for you to beat up than the Grunts but they still really shouldn't be that much trouble for you. And before you start thinking to yourself, ‘Gee, Angie really is dragging this asshole’s description out and eating into my precious time,’ just know that your perception speeds up eeeeeeeever so slightly whenever I have to chime in for these things. Maybe remember that next time you cut me off. I mean, I was only trying to tell you what I’d do to that friend of yours, there really wasn’t a need to be so rude.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me, seriously?” I sighed and without missing a beat, Angie burst into laughter.

Though it did suck that they hadn't been put down for the count, my luck was holding out as they stared off toward the other corner of the room. I used the opportunity to nudge the door open further and as soon as there was enough space, I slipped past it. As I entered the room, I activated Trick of the Light and dove behind the nearest of the desks. There was a slight shimmer in the air, the light perceptibly shifting around my body as I waited to see if there were any shouts of alarm. After a moment passed, I peeked out from behind the desk and put eyes on the two men still at the center of the room.

I took in the room as a whole. There were mostly desks littering the floor, though a large open space occupied the back portion of the building. Following the Guard's attention, I could see a door in the far corner that I was sure was the stairwell down, but I couldn't risk taking such a direct route without being seen. My instincts were screaming at me to take this to the ground floor and I was having a hard time ignoring them when I heard a door slam open.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“What da fuck are you mooks standin' around for!? That lousy fuck is gonna take us down if you don't figure out where da fuck he is! And if he don’t, I’ll make sure Sal knows you were all layin’ down on the fuckin’ job, if I even bother him with you worthless fucks!” A voice shouted in a thick accent. I ducked my head back below the desk, waiting a few seconds before looking back around the edge of it once more.

Several footsteps echoed louder than they probably should have before a bulky man walked into view by the Guards. He grabbed one of the two men by the back of his vest and pushed him off toward the far stairwell. A second later, his head swung my way, looking toward the door I had come through and I held my breath, trying my best not to make a sound.

“Who da fuck opened that door?” The man growled, shoving a desk to the side effortlessly as he headed for the stairwell. I was directly in his path and I knew he'd see me if I wasn't careful, so I took a risk and dove for the next desk. I stayed as low as I could and waited for the man to reach the stairwell, not daring to risk him seeing me in a spot I could be so easily cornered. As soon as he pulled the door the rest of the way open and stepped inside, I moved. I darted to the next desk closest to me, waiting a moment before moving to the next. I copied the pattern, checking briefly after I passed each gap to ensure I hadn't been seen. I was trying to take a wide path to the other side of the room and it seemed to be working as I mentally started to devise a plan to get the Vipers to not only chase me, but give me the space to escape this floor without being caught. I had made it over to the office side of the building and I briefly looked back. The man that seemed to be the boss of this den had fully disappeared inside the stairwell and I felt my confidence rising when I felt something yank me backwards.

“Gotcha fucker!”

Though I couldn't see it, a hand was clasped to the leather of my jacket, causing my hotbar to flash. Trick of the Light went on cooldown and the shimmer in the air dissipated. On instinct, I twisted in his grip, turning my arm down and striking at his wrist. The motion was fluid, as if I had done it a thousand times before and hit with perfect precision. The man cursed as he held his wrist and jumped backwards as I skipped to the side, darting along the line of offices as quickly as I could. The commotion had drawn the attention of the two other Guards and the one heading for the first floor stairwell had oddly moved right back to the center of the room. I dodged around the desks, trying to stay closer to the wall as I circled the men. Weirdly enough, the men seemed to be posturing, making bats and metal rods appear in their hands as they stared me down menacingly.

The man exploring the stairwell to the third floor finally reappeared. He came out of the stairwell with a sneer of disgust on his face as he took in the commotion that was quickly growing. There was something different about the way he carried himself that almost reminded me of Sal and I highlighted him as I inched toward the staircase little by little.

“Gio: Viper Soldier. Level 6 Biker. If you knew anything about mafia hierarchies, you’d know that a Soldier is generally the rank below a Lieutenant, which was Sal’s rank if you recall. Now, I’m not entirely sure if Axio is purposefully combining mafia ranks with a biker gang, but it’s safe to assume this guy’s gonna be trouble. At least he’s not an elite, right?”

“It’s the little things,” I said and considered my options.

My goal now was still to move this fight to the street and I was quickly putting myself into position to do just that. I was barely 20 feet from the door and I looked toward the staircase as obviously as I could before looking back toward the Guards and letting a smirk cut across my face.

“Well, I do believe I may have crashed the wrong party, I’ll just be leaving now,” I said with a laugh, and then activated Mirror Image. I turned and sprinted the last few feet to the stairwell with the short invisibility it granted. I didn't even care how obvious it was and I yanked the door to the stairs open before darting down them.

“Running away? That’s not very heroic Loophole.”

“I’m not running, I’m changing the battlefield… I just hope to fuck there aren’t any guards out there, and that Jon’s still nearby… I just need a little bit of extra luck. I guess it's now or never to see if this actually does anything," I said as I took the stairs two at a time. With a quick focus on my Super Luck power, I did the one thing I had been avoiding outright doing since leaving the trainyard. I concentrated on the exact outcome I was hoping for, getting through this fight and cluing Jon in, and then activated Luck Bomb. The ability was incredibly nebulous on just how it worked and its once a day usage made it tricky to test with, which was why so far I hadn’t even bothered to give it a shot. Nothing seemed to happen, but I wasn’t expecting it to come with a visual effect either.

“You know, that’s not going to help if people are actually down there, we’re not going to just zap them out of the room. I mean… we could, but we wouldn’t… I think.”

“It's a fucking illusion you mooks! Ignore it and get da fucking bitch of a hero!”

There was another exchange of curses and screaming before a stampede of sound echoed down the stairs as the men chased after me. I was just reaching the bottom floor, thankful to see an empty lobby, when I heard one of the men scream out a curse.

“-your fuckin’ shoelace-” was all I heard before a loud crash and a sickening crunch came echoing down the stairwell.

I rushed toward the front door, stopping and turning when I was halfway across the room. With another crash, the body of a guard rolled out of the stairwell. His head was at an angle that was completely unnatural and I had to force myself not to gag. A sharp shard of white was sticking through the skin of his neck and blood was quickly pooling around his body.

“Oof… yeah I don’t think that guy’s gonna be getting up anytime soon… or ever again...” Angie actually seemed to cringe a bit at the damage. Though I had received phase points for “killing” a non-sentient Augment with Hydramental, the disappearing body made me assume that his “death” was far from permanent. I’d have to be a fool to think that was the last time I was going to see Sal. Besides that, it was the first non-Augmented enemy that I had inadvertently killed since the tutorial. The thought alone still made my gut twist and I had to avert my gaze. Even if the man was an NPC, it still felt wrong to take his life. "If I hadn't known what you just used your Luck Bomb for, I'd be wondering if you had flipped the switch and decided to go Miscreant. Although you did want to 'get through this fight' and... you know what, nevermind, I think you're still a little occupied."

The other Guards reached the bottom floor, and as much as I knew I could beat myself up over the man’s death, there simply wasn’t any time for it either. I’d just continue to trust that the Acceptance Matrix would prevent me from descending into a panic attack.

“Fuckin’ heroes think they can walk all over us just cause we ain’t got power,” Gio growled as he descended the stairwell. The two still standing guards were cracking their knuckles as they glared at me, though neither moved an inch toward me. “You all think we’re just a buncha cockroaches, don’t yah?”

“Umm…. no?” I said, keeping my hands up as I backed my way closer toward the front door.

“Well what are you mooks waitin’ for, this is your last warning, get da asshole!” Gio ordered and the guards didn’t hesitate. I was practically at the door as the closer of the men charged and, feeling almost like a bullfighter, I dodged to the side just as he reached me. Taken by surprise, the Guard went slamming through the front door, he stumbled a few feet forward and I mentally crossed my fingers as I activated Like Concrete.

Luck was still on my side and the guard let out a yelp of confusion as he tripped forward, slamming face first into the road. Before the second Guard could reach me, I rushed out the door, stepping on the man's back hard as I put some distance between myself and the building. I was halfway into the empty street when I turned back to face the Vipers.

“Oh shit!” I heard a voice yell from just up the street. I risked a glance toward the noise. Jon hadn’t gotten too far away and I could clearly see his phone raised and pointed in my direction.

The Guard stepped out of the building and over his downed friend. Gio was following closely behind him, though he seemed to move with an unnerving casualness. There was a syringe with an odd looking purple tinted liquid in his hand that he casually spun between his fingers. I was worried he was about to heal the stuck guard with whatever was in that syringe when Gio suddenly turned and kicked the guard violently in his head.

A KO debuff appeared over him as Gio spat on his body.

“I warned you. You fuckin’ mooks are goddamn worthless, I don't even know why we bother dealing with you useless assholes,” Gio practically growled as he walked toward me. “And you, you’re all flash and games ain’tcha? Leading us on you’re little fuckin’ wild goose chase, treatin’ us like we’re goddamn nothin’!”

I risked another glance in Jon’s direction and hoped he just had enough common sense to keep his distance.

“Dude, I really think you might need to see a therapist about this self-deprecating attitude, we haven’t even talked and you’re the only one calling yourself worthless, That's a classic self esteem issue if I've ever seen one,” I said and Gio stared daggers at me. “Here, we can start fresh if yah want, I’m Loophole, and you are?”

“Whole bunch of goddamn comedian assholes too,” Gio said, carefully holding the syringe up at me. “You wanna know why I ain’t scared of you or your bitchy little powers? It’s because this world is about to change. You fuckers got no idea what Snakebite’s got planned. Sal has vouched for him personally, and he’s gonna bring da Lol Vipers the respect we’ve always deserved.”

“Ah, yeah, new bosses always come in with big plans and promises, don’t they?” I said, unable to stop myself from making the joke. Given how randomly it happened, I was starting to wonder if it was a part of the augmentation process or if I just had a nervous tick.

Gio stabbed the syringe into his bicep with a dangerous amount of force as an eerie shimmer immediately passed over his skin. His shirt started to stretch and tear as his body seemed to expand, his olive color skin shifting to a deep, scaly brown. Shreds of denim scattered across the sidewalk as the lower half of his body merged and burst backwards in a large slithering tail. When all was said and done, he was left clothed in just a leather vest and a red bandana. Without even focusing, my HUD highlighted him and his description changed.

As Angie started to read it, I could hear a palpable amount of uncertainty in her tone.

“Umm…. NPC Updated: Gio: Viper Soldier. Level 6 Temporarily Augmented Biker. This uh… this is actually a new one to me. I quite literally just went through every database I currently have access to and there hasn’t been a single instance of Axio using “Temporary” Augments like this. It's always either all in or all out.... You know what, I’m going to go ahead and say you should be fine given he’s still not an Elite, but maybe get the cutie out of here before snake boy tries to make a snack out of him. That’s my job after all.”

“Viper Den Upgraded! Surprise! This is an Ambush den, meaning it was secretly disguised as a rank lower than it truly is. This den’s designation has been upgraded from Bronze to Silver level. Rewards will be adjusted appropriately.”

Gio hissed with a ferocity that made the remaining Guard even try to put some distance between him and his boss. With disturbingly quick speed, the large snake-man turned and struck, his fangs snapping through the Guard’s neck like it was butter. As the Guard dropped to the ground, now headless, Gio gained a Well Fed buff that made my stomach turn at the thought. He turned his attention back to me, a look of pure malice and hatred still evident on his serpentine features. Like Sal, when he spoke his voice was now like nails on a chalkboard.

“I ain’t got no fuckin’ ussssse for cowardsss,” he hissed as he slithered over the dead Grunt's lifeless body. He flexed his arms as if experiencing it for the first time, a nearly maniacal amount of glee passing over his sharp features. “Oh I am going to enjoy thisssss,” he added and then without another bit of warning, he lunged.