I set down on one of the less destroyed patches of pavement, wings vanishing into my back now that I no longer needed them, and wobbled uncertainly as my knees threatened to give out. As much as I liked the perks the Boosted Gear gave me, the drawbacks could sometimes be a pain in the ass. I don’t think I was ever going to get used to the feeling after using Explosion.

But I was getting better at pushing through it.

After a slightly uncertain start, I calmly walked over to the hunched over form of the cult leader. The gem that he had been hiding in had vanished and left him struggling to rise from his hands and knees. As I got closer I could hear him muttering something to himself over and over but I wasn’t really interested in listening. I had friends I needed to check in on and make sure they were safe.

“So, I think I won that round. You want to call it here or go best two out of three?” I asked casually.

“– can’t I feel it, why can’t I feel it, why can’t I feel it, why can’t I feel it, why can’t I feel it, why can’t I –” He kept muttering in an unbroken loop, barely pausing to breathe.

“Uhh, hello?”

Against my better judgment I reached out and touched him on the shoulder. I actually flinched back when his head snapped to me so fast I was surprised it didn’t crack.

“You! You did something to me!” He raged and threw a hand up at me. “Cut me off from my believers somehow. Give it back! Give me my power back!”

I flinched back, expecting an attack, but nothing came. Instead the cult leader just slumped further forward as if just a little shouting winded him.

That was weird.

“Sorry to say, but all I did was blast you out of the giant statue. If you’re having power impotency it's not because of something I did.”

“Liar! I was about to become a god, fed by the belief of people all over the country! And then that belief was cut off. You had to have done something!”

I shrugged but didn’t fight him on that. If he wanted to believe that I sealed off his powers somehow I wasn’t going to try and change his mind. And hey, since his powers worked off belief, maybe him believing I took them was why he couldn’t use them. I doubted it, but still wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Well, either way it looks like your whole brainwashing scheme is a bust. And if you’re out of juice then I’m just going to tie you up and–” I paused as there was a sharp crack nearby and five people in brightly colored costumes appeared out of nowhere. It made sense that the Protectorate would respond to a fight that practically leveled an entire town, I was just surprised it took so long and that they only sent – there was another crack as one of the capes vanished – four people to investigate. “Let them deal with you, I guess.” I finished, turning and giving the newcomers a wave.

“Hi there, little late to the party don’t you think?”

The four capes had been checking out the destroyed scenery and flinched at my voice. One of them started floating and another raised a now glowing hand at me. I tensed waiting for an attack but the sharp crack of their teleporter reappearing with another group of four had him flinch and turn towards them before he settled down.

“Anyway, fight’s over. This guy was responsible. Feel free to take him in, I’ve got stuff to check in on.” I continued even as more capes started to filter in one way or another.

“Hold it!” One of the capes shouted as I turned to walk away. “You’re Lucifer, right? We heard about you in the briefing. Do you really think you can just leave after destroying a town? After killing God knows how many people?!”

My eye twitched at the G-word.

It thankfully didn’t come up often, usually only when I slipped up and said it myself, but every so often someone mentioning the Big Guy Upstairs would give me a twinge of something ranging from an uncomfortable itch to a headache. And only me for some reason. The rest of my peerage seemed fine no matter what, which was completely unfair.

After a bit of time I guessed it was based on their personal faith since some people didn’t give me a feeling at all and this guy? This guy was a True Believer. Capital letters intended.

No idea if that made him an asshole or not though.

Being devoted to a particular religion didn’t mean you were a good person after all.

I looked closer at him and took notice of the stylized cross emblem on his shoulder.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Haven.

Basically a Christian superhero team that operated further down south. I didn’t really know much more about them then that though. They weren’t really a presence where I lived.

“Yeah that's me, and don’t worry no one died here.” I replied and pointed at the still kneeling Cult Leader. “This guy and his cult brainwashed them all and had them go to a facility a few miles from here. My group is dealing with those right now and I kinda need to get back to them.”

“A cult? Brainwashed? Hold on, you can’t just leave yet! You have to answer for what happened here!” His shouting got the attention of the other capes and we were being slowly surrounded, though most of them looked uncertain about what exactly they were supposed to be doing.

“Look, I’d love to stand here and play twenty questions with all of you,” I said, flaring my wings again. “But my friends are still fighting and unless you can keep up I’ve got to get going.”

And then I was off, flying back the way I originally came. I heard some shouts behind me and kept glancing back every so often to make sure I wasn’t about to get hit from behind but it seemed that the disaster response group that showed up wasn’t all that eager to chase after me. I saw a few fliers rise up, only to get shouted down by their friends a few seconds later.

I mentally shrugged, if they wanted to play it safe that just made it easier for me to grab everyone and leave once the fighting was over. They would have to follow eventually and we could leave the brainwashed cult members to them.

-o-

As I got closer to the cult facility I wasn’t surprised that I couldn’t hear the sounds of fighting anymore. Fights rarely lasted longer than a few minutes and just flying between the town and the facility easily took around five minutes one way. Combined with however long my fight with the Leader took Crystal and the others were probably done fighting long before I was.

I just hoped that I was coming back to them all being okay.

I trusted all of them and most of them were strong or experienced enough to handle any surprises. But it only took one bad hit.

So when I flew back through the hole in the ceiling I was definitely happy to see Laserdream and Shielder guarding the unconscious body of what I assumed was one of the cult members in on the actual plan because he was wearing – was that a Dai Li uniform?

Huh, I hadn’t expected to run into two reincarnators here. I’d assumed that most of them would stay independent from each other if they were seriously trying to win that contest. But I guess some were like me and either didn’t care about it or were willing to team up at least for a little while.

“Rias!”

“Hey guys.” I raised a hand in greeting and let it fall back to my side after a half-assed wave. “Everything settled here?”

“If you count trying to keep a whole town’s worth of civilians from panicking after they learned their whole religion thing was a lie, then yeah, totally settled.” Shielder grumbled. “We’ve had to keep this guy separated from them just so they wouldn’t attack him.”

“Huh?”

“Sam, Alex, and Clover got a video of Sanctus, Long Fang, and their computer guy talking about how they were going to hack the TV networks and power up Sanctus and attract people to the cult, then use Long Fang’s brainwashing technique on certain people to either grow the cult further or give them more resources.” Crystal explained. “They uploaded it to the same broadcast the cult used so everyone saw it. I guess with enough evidence the whole thing was faked just to give them more power broke through the brainwashing. They’re kinda pissed.”

I guess Sanctus was the name of the cult leader? It was good to finally know what to call him.

“But the girls are okay?” I asked, focusing on the important part.

“Yeah, they’re helping Vicky and Ames herd the cult members. Not really sure how long they can keep them all calm…or what to do with them later. We saw that you pretty much trashed their home and that was before the cameras were all destroyed.”

“It was pretty badass, though.” Shielder added. “You totally wrecked him!”

I winced at that. Being known as the person that leveled a town was almost never a good thing.

“Well, the good news is that the Protectorate started sending in some responders.” I said, determined to ignore that particular issue for now. “I told them how to find this place so they’ll show up eventually.”

“Great, we can hand off things to them.”

“Rias! You’re back! Did ya win?” A cheerful voice practically shouted and I found myself suddenly wearing two of my missing Pawns as a necklace as I was tackled from behind and only stopped from falling over when the third joined in the surprise group hug.

“Clover!” I half-heartedly protested. “Alex, Sam. I’m glad you’re okay. You had us worried. And yeah, I won. Was there ever any doubt?”

“We saw you fighting a guy that turned into an Endbringer.” My sarcastic Bishop said as she followed after the three girls currently hanging off of me, trailed by the rest of our group. “Even with all the bullshit you do, we’d be stupid to not worry about that.”

Seeing everyone safe and sound made the last bit of tension I was feeling relax and my little group hug went from trying to crush me to holding me up as my legs gave out.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” I assured everyone as they freaked out about my little collapse. “Just pushed myself a little too long. Not used to it. I’ll be alright after a little rest.”

“You sure?” Gloria asked. “Cause we can go get help. Some Protectorate Movers just showed up from the tunnel going back to the tow– what used to be the town. We came back to tell Laserdream and Shielder we could hand over Big Tooth to them and go looking for you.”

“Big Tooth?”

“That’s what Vicky said his name was!”

I looked at the younger girl and raised an eyebrow.

“No, seriously. That’s his name. Well ‘Long Fang’ technically, but that’s what he said.”

“It’s probably Chinese. It roughly translates to square or four-sided dragon.” I corrected absently. “Right, well if the Protectorate is here already then are we ready to head home? Because I really want to sleep in my own bed after this.”

“Ah wait, what about our stuff?! We didn’t get to pack up because we snuck into the cult.”

“We grabbed it for you. We’re good to go.”

“Then yeah, I’m ready to head back home. I can’t wait to tell you all the full story about how we snuck in. It was like we were super spies!”

I smiled at the enthusiasm even as the bright red emblem for the teleportation spell spread out beneath us all. “I can’t wait to hear it.”

One flash later and we were all back in the main lobby of the mansion.

-o-

“...then we grabbed some disguises and followed after them.” Clover said as she enthusiastically went over the ‘spy trio’s’ adventure, all of us heading towards the kitchen for a quick meal before we fully relaxed. “And then–”

“Hold on.” I cut her off with a raised hand. The kitchen lights were on. And Sam made us go through a checklist before we left to make sure nothing was left on while we were away. But the wards were still up, I could feel them. So how did someone get in?

Actually it would be pretty easy. All it would take is knowing where to go and not having a desire to attack the people supposed to be here.

I wasn’t all that great with wards yet.

I gave everyone a quick glance to confirm they knew something was wrong and then turned back to the lit doorway. There was no way whoever was inside hadn’t heard us so there was no point trying to sneak around now. I summoned the Boosted Gear and prepared to react to anything that might come my way before stepping through…

…to reveal a tired looking little girl sitting at the island with the remains of a PB&J sandwich in front of her looking back at me.

“Huh, the numbers said you wouldn’t be back until tomorrow…”

Well…fuck.