Warning: Lots of Violence.
Locate Person yields no result. She's out of range, then.
Pulling out my wand, I make a gesture. Immediately, hair comes zooming from the staircase, and the loose nail unsticks from the doorframe and flies directly at me. I ignore Rajveer as he cries out, turning and stepping out of the house in a rush.
A moment later I'm in the air, a wordless Fly allowing me to move towards where I see the tire tracks going. They can't have gone too far, judging by how everyone is still inside. If my understanding of crowds is right, they'd start coming out five, at most ten minutes after the gangbangers leave.
Once I have the hair and the nail ready, I wince at the prospective Mana cost, before casting Scrying.
Closing my eyes, I let the magic go to work, before a picture forms in my mind's eye. She's unconscious. Chloroformed. But she's not what I'm focusing on. Looking around her, I note the faces in the car. They're the gangbangers from the Merchant skirmish, siblings of the ones I saw earlier.
Focusing at the absolute edge of the ten feet range Scrying provides, I try to glean any hints of where they are. Shop names, landmarks… it's over a minute before a sudden jerk pushes Neha around enough that the window moves away from the car and the blank road, and for just a fraction of a second, I see the wall they're zooming past. I know it.
A moment later, I'm there, the tiniest 'pop' of Apparition proof that my focus is shot already.
Looking at the car speeding down the road, I fly behind it, renewing my flight spell seconds before it runs out. This… isn't sustainable. Flying close, I consider options. Part of me screams to just act now, pick her up and end these bastards. I suppress it with an exertion of will. I've been ignoring too many signs, and how many young women just like Neha must there be, suffering as a result of that idiocy?
It would be different if they were… doing anything to her in the car. But they're not, and I think I can let my Mana recover before acting. Harry Potter spells are well and good, but there's no use confronting enemies with just barely enough Mana for a 0-level spell if I don't have to.
Once the Fly runs out for the second time, I take to the rooftops, channeling a steady flow of MP to my legs to keep up Naruto style while a simple Disillusionment Charm keeps me safely out of sight.
Before long the car is leaving Brockton Bay city limits entirely, crossing even the outlying suburbs and heading into what looks like a region dominated mostly by poor farms and shitty vineyards. It's not one of the regions I've visited before, not many hospitals or soup kitchens in it.
Another thing it lacks are convenient rooftops. Instead of jumping, I start Apparating after them, teleporting at regular distances to keep them in sight. It's more than an hour after this chase started that they finally start slowing down, pulling in towards what looks like one of the better maintained, more prosperous farms.
I recheck my disillusionment once I'm close and top it off with a Bedazzling Hex just to be sure. Okay, the Farm looks perfectly innocent, but the gates open as soon as the car comes close, and there are a lot of guards around, all with oriental features. None have the ABB colors, being dressed instead in smart guard uniforms.
Okay, then. With one more apparition, I place myself directly at the roof of the barn, Feather Fall ensuring I don't make any noise when I come to rest on it.
Let's see, then. Arcane Eye is a level four spell for Wizards and would suck out most of my Mana. But that's the joy of it, I don't operate as a Wizard. I'm an Arcane Caster, period, and wouldn't you know it? Trapsmiths get it at Level 2.
Moments after I see them carry her into the building, my vision follows them in. After a moment's thought I pull a penny out of my inventory, casting Spymaster's Coin on it. A droplet of glue and disillusionment later, I levitate it onto the back of the man carrying her.
I see them carry her into the place, open the secret door hidden inside a Pantry on the far end. I follow Neha down the stairs as they take her into the basement, and then further into the sub-basement… though one might as well call it a Dungeon at this point.
I feel my anger start hammering at Gamer's Mind as my sensor follows them in, even as I renew the spell. There are dozens of people here, from ages ranging from what looks like early thirties to as young as five. It makes me angry, but not surprised. There are creatures who will pay for such things, and therefore there exist creatures who will supply them. Economics at its most obscene.
I don't ignore my anger, not anymore. Recent events have helped me better understand Gamer's Mind, and I recall a certain line from a Hindi movie I liked. It's a very useful thing, anger. I don't waste it pointlessly on imagining what I'm going to do to these people, and I don't try to grow past it. I save it, lovingly storing it all in a box in my mind. I cultivate it like a farmer cultivates his crops, so I can spend it when the time comes.
There are dozens of people underground, chained to their beds, more than a few of them beaten bloody and bruised. Even more disturbing are the empty beds, of which there are even more than the full ones. It takes me a moment to understand.
This isn't a brothel, not precisely. This is a processing center. They bring people here to be broken, and they store them here when not in active use. There are probably just as many people in several 'active' brothels around Brockton and the nearby towns and cities, where 'customers' are… I shove the fresh lance of rage into the box with the rest of it. Not yet.
The first part becomes further evident when they carry Neha deeper into the nightmarish pit, past the broken and abused people and the empty beds. Here they have what looks like a hospital ward, with neat beds arrayed in lines, IVs beside every one of them. Once they put Neha on the bed, the men step back to what looks like a gathering area at this level, while a woman steps up to her and starts strapping her onto the bed and setting up an IV next to her.
Once the man who was carrying Neha sits down with his friends, it takes a moment to activate the coin on his back.
"… will the doctor be here? I want to sample this bitch." The voice comes through as clear as any top-brand speaker, and once again I crush an urge to rush down there and start slaughtering them in job lots. I'm paying for taking the easy way out with things right now. No more.
Another man, someone in charge by his tone, answers bitingly. "Keep your cock in your pants, boy. Let the doctor assign a price. Don't forget what happened the last time."
"Probably won't be, though. Bitch's a fancy lawyer! Plenty of paying idiots will want to teach that kind their place!" A third voice opines, and yet another eruption of red is channeled into the box in my head. I will feed this man his spleen for this. Just not right now.
Okay, so there's a doctor to assess the 'value' of the intakes. Low value ones are presumably available for these vermin to use, but high value ones aren't. And the doctor isn't here yet.
Alright then. A few simple Alarm spells on the gate to the farm and the road leading to it will tell me if there's anyone coming in.
I apparate away.
An instant later, I'm back in Brockton Bay, in one of the innumerable side streets that litter the docks. In front of me is an abandoned warehouse. A few homeless used to live here, but I moved them to a nearby shelter the day before yesterday.
I start casting. A Muggle-Repelling Charm, then another, followed by the Unplottable Charm, a Notice-me-Not; imagine my surprise when I found they exist; and half a dozen other spells. Stepping in, I work quickly. The area inside quadruples with a wave of my wand, and it takes half a dozen more waves of it to conjure about a hundred mattresses.
I follow it up with a few glyphs of warding, and round the whole thing off with transfiguring the contents of a trash can into a dozen tigers with instructions to guard the entrance and tear apart anyone in Green and Red trying to get in.
Okay, then. That's the basics in place. Meanwhile, I have an idea for what to do here. I check the alarm spells once. Nothing so far, and in any case, it's not even been five minutes since I came here.
Apparating back to about two hundred meters from the Farm, I start preparing. Normal transfiguration is one thing, this is more complicated. I start with a normal wolf transfigured from a chunk of wood. An Engorgio increases its size to equal a horse, and another puts it comfortably beyond.
Now for the hardest part. I imagine what I want it to look like, fix the image in my head, and cast the spell. Come on, turn it into a mass of blades… but no. It's not happening.
I try half a dozen times more, but they only serve to confirm that it's not going to happen. Oh well.
I settle for turning its color silver-chrome and follow that up with conjuring about a dozen large scraps of cloth. Several Unbreakable Charms later, I stick them all over the wolf's body as perfectly as I can, while also coloring them identically silver chrome.
Okay, then. That's close… I finish the ruse by sticking as accurate a Genjutsu of Hookwolf over the creature as I can manage.
Crusader, on the other hand, is so easy it's almost silly. Bunshin, Henge, and I'm done.
I create about twenty more illusions and make them look like a random assortment of skinheads.
And we're ready. I tell my creations to charge the gate of the farm, while making as much noise as they possibly can. Not that I won't help them.
Sonorous.
"Come out, you worthless fucking chinks! You bastards, we've found your fucking place today, pigs! We'll show you what you're worth!" 'Hookwolf' screams his head off, continuing in that vein.
Just to help him out I toss around a few fire jutsu at the building, followed up with a few sonic spells just to add flavor. A last minute thought reminds me to add on a Stormtiger clone, and I toss out a couple wind jutsu.
The wolf goes bounding into the guard post near the gate, and while everyone is firing everything they have at it, it isn't doing much.
I wait for about a minute as more and more guards come pouring out of the building, trying to fight off the seeming Empire attack. There were, when I last saw, a little over thirty guards in the building. When a quick count of the defenders here reveals that there are twenty-eight here… it's time to go in.
Apparating directly to the landing on the first floor, I cast Depulso to make the roof cave in on the staircase. A moment later I'm into the actual floor, and I come across one of the guards. One Diffindo to the neck, and I move on.
Pushing Mana to my legs and senses, I rush through the entire place. I find about three more guards in the next minute, and then I'm done.
I pause for a second to toss a Diffindo at the stomach of one of the creatures whom I recognize from my scouting earlier, before kneeling beside him. Promises should be kept, after all. Once his jaws close with the last 'squelch' and I make his neck swallow, I'm free to get the important work done.
Okay, so Neha and the other fresh entrants were… here we are. The woman from earlier is leaning over her with a scalpel to her throat. "Don't come any closer or-" I banish a coin through the open mouth, before making it go straight up.
Cleaning the blood off Neha with a Tergeo moments later, I hold her tight, before Apparating.
Dumping her at a bed… I start.
There were, I would note later, sixty-three young men, women, boys and girls in that place across the three underground floors. At three seconds per person, it took me a shade under four minutes to move them all to safety.
In the back of my head, I note that my fake Hookwolf died just before I made the last teleport. Impressive of the ABB. There were patches where the invulnerable cloth didn't cover it, but them being vermin doesn't mean I can't appreciate a job genuinely well done.
Once the last of the ABB's victims is in my makeshift safe house, I cast sleeping charms on the lot of them. Perhaps unkind of me, but I'm really not in the mood to answer questions. Done with that, I start casting Unseen Servant, ordering each servant to put the people onto beds as it appears.
While they do that, I start with the healing. These people have been abused beyond any measure of cruelty, beyond all rhyme and reason. There are broken bones, deep-seated infections, long term starvation effects, you name it. There are obscene dilations in the rectal and vaginal areas from when examples were made of resisting victims using the animals oh so conveniently available on the farm. Each instance provokes a fresh lance of red in my mind, and each time I shove it into the box.
Not yet.
I can't do much for the mental scarring they must have but Cure Serious Wounds and Remove Disease go a long, long way into dealing with the physical traces. I stop casting them after a few times, though. It's a stupid way to go. Instead, I deal with the normal trauma using Harry Potter spells and the diseases using Iryojutsu. Neither has the clinical perfection of D&D spells, but nor do they have the ruinous cost.
It takes me over an hour to do a full circuit of the patients, by which time the servants, done with moving them onto the beds, have started on stripping and cleaning them. Offhand I conjure several piles of clothes, nothing fancy but things that will keep off cold and shame. Once I have enough for everyone, I tell the servants to dress them as best as they can. It might result in a few shirts put on inside out, but I can't be everywhere.
Beginning my second round, I start with Observing them and spamming diagnostic spells to make sure I got everything. Several times along the way I cast Neutralize Poison, to the point I end up having to wait for my Mana to recharge. I use the time to organize things some more, helping the servants clean and dress the patients.
Another hour passes as I ensure that everyone is free of any drugs or other poisons. I'm about to move away, before a thought occurs.
The real tragedy of forced prostitution is, the ways the scum use work. There's one last thing to do, and if I skip it a good chunk of these people might actually end up back at the Farm, possibly even willingly.
The good part is, Remove Addiction is significantly cheaper as a spell to cast, and Observe is very good at telling me who needs it.
Once I'm done with that, it's been two and a half hours since I initially attacked the Farm. I finish this up with depositing the entirety of my Create Food and Water proceeds for the day on tables placed nearby.
Then I step out of the building and alter all the protection spells to go out in two hours if I'm not around to remove them. Going back in, I alter the sleeping charms on everyone to go out in an hour. There's basically no chance whatsoever that I won't make it back in. My spells haven't noted a parahuman coming in, and fighting gangbanger rabble isn't in any world a suicide mission.
That being said… Never Again.
Finally, finally I Apparate.
Before me lies the Farm. It's still buzzing with activity, with significantly larger numbers of ABB around. A quick check yields no capes, so that's good on the alarm spells.
Looking in, they've actually made it through my cave-in! Very well done indeed. I'm going to tear everyone here apart, but they're good workers.
I consider my options. Spells? Jutsu? I don't think so.
I have a box full of rage in my head, and it demands the kind of visceral satisfaction I just can't get from spells.
Picking up a random twig, I transfigure it into a Baseball bat.
Hmm… no. Another twitch of my wand, and it turns into a Cricket bat. That's more like it.
I cast an Unbreakable Charm on it. Okay, then.
Michael Chen wasn't a bad man. At least, he didn't think he was. He was a good man who'd been dealt a bad hand in life. Born poor and in territory controlled by a small Chinese gang, he'd joined up as a teenager, and over the course of years carried out several abduction and ransoms, hits and shakedowns. Once he'd even run a small meth operation under Bai Hu, the Chinese immigrant parahuman who'd come to become the leader of all of Brockton Bay's triad-descended gangs.
Then, a few years ago, the Dragon had come, and suddenly the small Japanese, Korean, Thai and other gangs that had been their primary competition had become their compatriots. The dragon decreed that years of hatred, grudges and rivalries had to be set aside, and such was his power that they did it, too. The parahumans who led the gangs he was merging had tried to resist, and they'd died for it.
Michael had been one of the Bai Hu's lieutenants by then, and it'd been him who had dug the grave for the tiger-themed Blaster and together with the man's other lieutenants, buried him in it.
The only remnants of that day and age, the heirs of men and women who'd competed with Allfather and Marquis's organizations, were men like Michael and a few in Lung's new group, and the Yakuza dog who'd been the first to bend to Lung, and thus the only one to live.
But if unity made them chafe and loathe each other and themselves, it'd also made them strong. Michael remembered the times after the Brigade had taken down Marquis. The Empire had run rampant, the disunited competitors too weak to fight them off. It'd only been once Lung had forged them all into one that they'd emerged as true rival claimants for the city.
And Michael had done well too. While he'd feared for what would become of him with Oni Lee as Lung's Second, the man seemed to have died inside at some point along the way. He had no ambitions beyond being Lung's loyal dog. No desire for territory, no input demanded on decisions… no, it was Michael and other men like him who ran Lung's kingdom for the Dragon.
Michael had, once he rose in the Dragon's favor, come to manage one of the most crucial properties of the ABB. The Farm they called it, and it was responsible for over half of their income. It was where they kept the whores, it was where they kept the earnings from the whores before they could be laundered, and it was where they kept the recordings of various people fucking the whores, recordings which, every now and then, turned out to be very useful indeed. People in the Brockton Bay city government, in the police, in the PRT and in the official positions in the other towns the ABB was in power. Businessmen, Judges… a lot of people had a fascination for being able to access whores that they could whip, belt, strangle or brutalize to any extent they wanted without needing to be concerned about it at all.
Only they did have to be concerned about things. Stop using those services? They were ruined. Fail to inform on their organizations to the ABB? They were ruined. Some of the businessmen were taxed on a regular basis in addition for what they paid to use the bitches. It was never too much for them to pay, and always too little compared to the cost of their lives burning down around them. No, Michael had a sweet spot for himself, and he was trucking along just fine.
That was, until he'd gotten report of the Empire attack on the Farm. Then he'd found himself clutching at his heart, with his family asking what had happened. He'd rushed here with a dozen boys to shore up the defenses and was even now trying to understand just how it could have happened. As it turned out, what they had presumed to be Hookwolf wasn't him at all, and by the looks of it someone had gotten into and out of the place while they'd been dealing with the imposter. The surprise was that they'd chosen to steal the whores in the place instead of the money or the information, but that was a small matter compared to the fact that they'd gotten here at all.
He'd ordered them to empty out all the whorehouses and bring the bitches here anyway, along with the people assigned to them. If whoever was doing it had value for them, one location with all of them would make for a better trap than having to defend dozens of places. He'd asked for parahuman support just in case the Nazis had reinforcements, but that was evidently not going to happen. Lung and Oni Lee had gotten a lead on the Undersiders and were heading out to finish them off once and for all. At least he had plenty of bombs.
"Anything?" Michael asks one of his people who was on the line with the lookouts parked ahead of them on the road to watch for anyone coming in.
"No, Boss." The flunky replied, turning his eyes back on his phone.
Michael tried to relax. They had over twenty of their people here, all armed to the teeth, all with tinkertech bombs in hand. They would be fine.
Naturally, that would be the time He chose to appear.
Michael's first warning that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong was when a series of harsh noises came from the outside, followed by his men crying out in alarm and pain. One, two, three… in less than five seconds four people cried out and fell over, just after heavy smashing noises came from their directions.
Running out, Michael came across the first of them. He was a man Michael had known well. He'd been to the boy's graduation, for fuck's sake.
Now he was lying face down on the floor, his head smashed open.
"There's someone here. Spread out, and search for him! Shoot the fucker!" Michael could feel his voice growing higher. He'd never dealt well with personal danger.
For several moments after the initial attack, there was complete silence, other than the footfalls of his people as they spread out around the Farm.
Then Michael heard a whooshing noise, like a gust of wind right next to him.
He whipped around, peppering the air with bullets… and found himself shooting one of his own men, who'd just been felled himself.
And so, it went. Wherever he went, it was like a spirit was striking from the shadows, with an imperceptible noise, a dull, wet thunk of something hitting a skull, and the sound of the body hitting the ground.
It was over two minutes and a dozen flunkies later that Michael first saw him, the man who was doing all this. And in an instant, he felt his breath hitch.
"He's supposed to be a healer…" Michael said to himself, as what couldn't be anyone other than the Blue Man appeared out of nowhere next to one of his people, and swung a wooden bat drenched in blood. Michael shot at the man with everything he had, but if any bullets hit the man, he didn't show it, disappearing just a moment later.
They'd known of the Blue Man for some days now, the man who walked the city in the night, healing the sick, feeding the homeless… he was supposed to be a bleeding-heart healer, not something like this!
The men were getting spooked, starting to panic. This was too familiar, too much like what they were used to laughing at. They were ABB. A teleporting cape moving rapidly across the battlefield, striking with impunity was nothing new, but he was supposed to be on their side!
"Bombs out! Everyone brings out the fucking tinker bombs, blow up anything that moves!" he ordered, keeping his voice level by sheer force of will. As if in a response to this, a mist suddenly appeared all around the farm, covering everything and making it all but impossible to see anything or anyone.
And from there it was a struggle between them to try and catch the man hunting them in the blast of one of the bombs, or for him to escape it. Michael struggled to deal with the wreckage the man was turning his crew into. He wasn't even limiting himself to heads anymore. More than a few times Michael saw one of his people on the ground, half his ribs on one side broken by the swing of a bat, before the man had taken the same bat to his hands.
Three times in the next ten minutes they caught him in one of the blasts, incinerating four of their own people in the process. Each time he shrugged it off like it was nothing, like it wasn't supposed to have vaporized him!
Michael tried to keep the men's morale up, but it was hard to do it, when they kept going down! Two of them went in at one side to check a sound. They were on the ground a second later, one man having shot the other upon hearing him stumble and hit the wall. Meanwhile the man had kicked the other in the head and sent him flying into the crowd, which had perforated their own man with bullets.
Michael was starting to think that having given dozens of trigger-happy men orders to shoot at anything that moved might not have been a good idea, especially when one of them came close to getting him with a shot!
And it was almost worse with bombs. While several of the grenades they had were smart bombs, in that they identified who they were being tossed at, and course-corrected midair to hit him. But that went only so far when facing a teleporter. And the worse part was, again, that he simply didn't seem to care when he did get hit!
To their credit, they lasted very long after a point. Every movement was a warning, and they learned to move away from it just as they learned to fire at it. And they lasted until there were barely a dozen of them left, before the rest finally, finally broke and ran.
Michael himself threw himself at the car, gunning it for everything it had and aiming straight at the gate… when he felt the presence in the seat next to him.
"Oh, it's much too late for any of that nonsense, I'm afraid." The voice was cultured and crisp, like a news announcer reading out a moderately interesting tidbit. It sounded utterly wrong from the psychopath who'd just ravaged more than twenty people in less than fifteen minutes.
"Curiously enough, you don't seem to have realized that the ones among you left are the leaders. The ones with useful information."
What? Michael felt his head jerk up, even as he abandoned trying to start the engine and started fumbling with the door. He had to get out!
"Well, that's not happening, is it? Like I said, much too late for that nonsense."
What the hell was the man talking about? Michael risked another glance at the man. He was Blue, he noted again. Somehow the sheer presence of the color seemed notable above and beyond everything else about the man. The shockingly green eyes and the ethereal silver hair just served to complete the look.
"Oh, stop it. You'll make me blush now." The man spoke again with that same voice, and for the first time this night, Michael felt true terror. Lung was scary, but he was scary in the way this man had been scary until a few second ago. Now he was edging into the territory of the nightmares everyone in America had, when sudden cuts appeared on you before a demented voice started speaking random things…
"Well, if it's any consolation they'll get theirs. It'll take a while, but they will." The man continued conversationally, and Michael Chen could no longer escape the conclusion that the man actually could-
"Read your mind? Well of course! How do you think I identified which of you creatures to leave for last?"
Before Michael could say anything, he felt an arm grabbing him, before he was squeezed, feeling like he'd just forced himself through too tight a hole.
A moment later he was falling, hands waving wildly before he felt himself land with a crunch. As lances of pain exploded across him, Michael Chen, senior Lieutenant of the ABB, concluded that he'd landed on the same car he'd been in five seconds ago.
"W-who are you? Why…?" he finally managed to get out, after a few tries. If he could get the man to bog himself down with him, the rest of his boys could get away, tell Lung and get him to tear the cape apart…
"Ooh, good point! Y'know, I think I like you ABB people now. I mean, y'know, the way someone can appreciate the efficiency of a well-designed sewage system." The man chirped in his disturbingly cheerful tone, before teleporting away, presumably to hunt down the last of Michael's boys.
Just as Michael had known he would. Now if he could just get the phone in the car underneath him, he could call one of Lung's phones and tell him this that way. He'd tried to do that since this started, but the cape had targeted anyone trying to call their Boss first and after a point people had started refusing flat-out.
It hurt like hell to extricate himself from the car roof, stand up and reach into the interior. The windscreen had broken and sprayed glass all over the interior, but the glove box…
The phone wasn't there.
"Well, duh. C'mon, give me some credit here." the cape's voice came from behind him.
Michael closed his eyes at the sound that followed, the eminently recognizable crunch of a smartphone being crushed to pieces.
Then he gathered every scrap of energy he had, whirled around and tossed the bomb he had in his hand at the man, activating it in the process.
The bomb flew through the air at the man where he was standing before Michael with a smile on his face, the detonation priming as it approached closer… and flew right through him, the illusion disappearing when it was disturbed.
"Your nephew pulled that one off better. Though I made him swallow his other bomb for how much that hurt, so maybe you come out ahead in the end? What d'you think?" the man's voice came from Michael's other side.
The man said a quick prayer for his nephew in his head, followed by an apology for dragging the boy into the business. Then he drew himself as straight as he could with the sheer pain that his back was and faced the man.
"I have lived with honor, you fucking coward! And I'll die with it." He said as loudly as he could.
He drew some satisfaction from how the words wiped away the man's smirk, even more from how, for the briefest of moments, an expression of pure anger appeared before vanishing under iron self-control.
"Honor." The man spoke, and for a moment Michael was struck by how… strange the man's voice sounded. He'd been too scared or too busy scheming to pay attention earlier, but it sounded like one of the strongest voices Michael had ever heard, while still being delicate enough for just about any song.
"Honor." The cape repeated.
"That's a strange word to put before a lifetime of brutalizing and torturing sex slaves. Of having them ripped away from their families, breaking their wills and having them raped by farm animals."
"What would someone like you-" Michael was in the middle of refuting the man, when all of a sudden, he felt his tongue burn. He closed his mouth instantly, but the flame burned for several more seconds before going out.
"You don't get to speak. Not anymore." The man said, before moving his lips as if to say something himself.
"… and neither do I, come to think of it. What am I even doing, wasting a Reason you Suck speech on a thing like you? No, I don't think so. No, I have actual work worth doing waiting for me." The man finished, looking at Michael like he was something he'd just scraped off his shoe.
And then he moved, one hand wrapping around Michael's neck and lifting him off the ground, before slamming him into the wall. Wincing at another several ribs breaking, Michael waited for the coup de grace.
Which never came. Instead, the man leaned in, settling his emerald eyes directly on Michael's. "It's just that there's quite a lot of useful information in that head of yours, which I want. So… Legilimens."
By successfully retrieving Neha Chopra, you have Completed the Primary Quest: The Dragon and the Maiden +10000 XP
By successfully retrieving all other ABB slaves, you have Completed the Additional Quest: Needs of the Many +20000 XP
By destroying The Farm, you have Completed the Additional Quest: Once and For All +15000 XP
You have defeated: 31 ABB Gangbangers! +9300 XP
You are now Level 11!
Your Skill: Teleport has gained a level! X3
Your Skill: Healing has gained a level! X2
Your Skill: Blunt Weapons Mastery has gained a level! X9
Through Completing a Primary Quest, you have successfully commenced the Main Quest: Yada Yada hi Dharmasya
You have Unlocked the Power: Crafting Magic
You have Unlocked the Power: Dimensional Manipulation
You have Unlocked the Essence: Adventurer
You have Unlocked the Essence: Crafter
Crafting Menu is now Available!
The Skill: Crafting has been Created!
Crafting is now at Tier: Greater!
The Skill: Inscription has been created!
Inscription is now at Tier: Greater!
The Skill: Enchantment has been Created!
Enchantment is now at Tier: Greater!
Summoning is now at Tier: Intermediate!
Summoning is now Level 66!
The Skill ID Create has been Created!
ID Create is now at Tier: Intermediate!
ID Create is now Level 66!
The Skill ID Escape has been Created!
ID Escape is now at Tier: Intermediate!
ID Escape is now Level 66!
The Skill Dimensional Magic has been Created!
Dimensional Magic is now at Tier: Intermediate!
Dimensional Magic is now Level 66!
You Receive: $250000!
You Receive: 30 sets of Automatic Weaponry!
You Receive: +5 to CHA"
You Receive: +10 to INT
You Receive a new Perk!: Invictus
You Receive a new Perk!: Iron Body[/SPOILER]
Bloody hell, that is a lot of alerts. I dismiss them after a cursory check, to look at later when I have more time. I'm standing in my safe house right now, about ten minutes after I finished off the last of the stragglers. Of course, I was interrupted by the intermittently exploding tinkertech bombs they had strewn around everywhere when they realized they weren't going to win. Victor Chen was… something, alright.
Having gathered up all my… targets, I turned them into pieces of wood and set them on fire, before staring on the actual building. I only got to destroy the surface, though. Someone in Chen's employ set off a self-destruct in the cupboard with all their blackmail files, and it spread pretty quickly from there.
But it's done now, and only the easy stuff remains. Looking around, everyone looks good, safely ensconced in dreamless sleep. I navigate my way through the beds till I can get to Neha. Now that I look down at her it occurs to me, I really should have brought her back home earlier, when I was healing everyone. She didn't need much of it anyway. Rajveer and Nikita have probably spent hours wondering what happened, at this point.
But try as I might, my powers don't include time travel, so there's no point in debating this.
Picking the woman up, I take a few quick steps to get clear of the beds, before I Teleport with a quick motion. I'm now standing in the same back alley I always use, right next to my house. Stepping to the main door… there's a small crowd at the Chopras' house, the usual assortment of the curious creature that is the Bystander Indian. Too cowardly to act at the right time and too nosy to stay away. Something in my mind niggles at me to try and imagine that they might be here to console the couple… but that's never how it works.
The buzz of the crowd fades into nothing as I approach, a sudden wave of silence staring from the ones looking out the window and covering the whole house in moments. They part as I step in, carrying the girl bridal style. They look at me, eyes wide. Some are frightened. Some I've seen in the past, lying around half drunken. Some I've seen do rather more unsavory things in back alleys.
None matter. My eyes are limited to Nikita and Rajveer, who sit in the center of the hubbub, eyes red and puffy and voices hoarse after being forced to relive the worst moments of their lives over and over by these 'well-wishers'. A wordless casting of Detect Thoughts assuages one of my concerns. They didn't divulge my identity. It never even occurred to them as a possibility.
The spell also makes my derision towards these people turn to ash in my mouth. Several of them have lost people to the ABB in exactly this way in the past. None were so lucky as to have me, though at least three will have cause for happiness in a few hours. The crowd remains silent as the grave, making every step I take in the restored, repaired living room sound unnaturally loud.
No words are exchanged as Nikita and Rajveer rise from their places, rushing to my side in an instant. They gaze at their daughter with eyes full of hope bordering on disbelief, and once they've gazed at her to their satisfaction, I set her down on a hastily emptied couch at the back of the room.
Comprehension is spreading about this, about what just happened, and I see some phones start to come out.
"None of that" I murmur ever so slightly, making Rajveer jerk up in shock. A moment later I raise a hand, and every smartphone not safely in a pocket zooms into it, moving straight into my inventory before I deposit them on the floor, switched off.
I see Rajveer and Nikita exchange a glance, before she opens her mouth to say something. I shake my head ever so little, all but invisible to the onlookers. She falls silent at the gesture, and I turn away before anyone can say anything.
A moment later I'm out of their house, and another second passes before I land all the way in the middle of the street a good way down from their house. I see people rushing out to see me, before I Teleport.
Arriving at the safe house, there's a few last things to take care of.
I dispel the protection spells on the place, turning the tigers back into trash and shutting down all the Glyphs of Warding too. I leave the sleep spells in place, though. Probably for the best.
Well, one last thing. I got a phone from one of the random ABB idiots I… er, 'removed from consideration'. I dial the number.
"Thank you for calling the PRT Helpline, this is Vivian, how may I assist you?" the woman on the line sounds far too cheerful for someone manning a public helpline at four in the morning on a Monday. Poor woman is going to spend a lot of time with voice analysts in the coming days. The name's probably a fake, or I'd send her a gift basket.
"Trace this call. This phone is currently placed in an abandoned warehouse, where sixty-two sex slaves liberated from the ABB are currently being kept safe. I've provided them some help, but they need support and assistance as soon as possible." I finish, before I pull the phone away from my ears. It has a full battery, so it'll last the while. I move to put it on a table, but a loud noise from the other side interrupts.
"Wait!" the lady is yelling. Evidently, she has some experience with callers like me.
"… yes?" I ask after a brief wait.
To her credit, she doesn't waste my time with any crap about 'if this is a fake call', or all that.
"We'll… er, need your name." the voice comes back, confident but with just the right tone of weakness interspersed. All the same I almost revise my estimate of her intelligence, before realizing what she's talking about.
"You mean, um…"
"Your Hero name, yes. Unless you're uncomfortable sharing it?" She asks once, tone again balanced just right.
Hm.
Huh. This seems to have been a curious lapse in my preparations. All those hours I spent planning and researching, and I haven't… huh. How about that?
I let my mind run wild for a moment, considering options.
With a bit of thinking, a name pops up. It's a real word, but this usage is from a series I read. A story about a world much like this one to be honest, except in all the ways it wasn't.
"Hierophant" I answer the woman on the phone.
Name: Amar Keshav Chandra
Class: The Gamer
Race: Human
Title: Novice Healer
Level: 11
Stats STR
CON 25
DEX 26
INT 38
WIS 20
CHA 43
Stat Points Available: 40
HP: 1225/1225
Full Recovery Period: 78.53 minutes
MP: 1290/1290
Full Recovery Period: 62.63 minutes
Skills Gamer's Body (Passive) LV Max
Grants a body that allows the user to live life like a Game.
Gamer's Mind (Passive) LV Max
Allows the user to calmly and logically think things through. Allows a peaceful state of mind. Grants Immunity to psychological status effects.
Observe [Basic] (Active/Passive) LV 52 Exp: 18.13%
A skill to find the target's information. Observe is obtained and improved through continuous observation.
Through leveling Observe past level 50, user unlocks passive INT-based deduction capabilities.
ID Create [Intermediate] (Active) LV 66 Exp: 0.00%
The ability to create various types of Instant Dungeons.
ID Escape [Intermediate] (Active) LV 66 Exp: 0.00%
The ability to escape Instant Dungeons and other pocket spaces.
Creation [Basic] (Active) LV 34 Exp: 48.43%
The ability to create things with magic.
Divination [Basic] (Active) LV 7 Exp: 0.00%
The ability to use magic pertaining to information.
Illusion [Basic] (Active) LV 24 Exp: 19.82%
The ability to use Illusion based magic.
Healing [Basic] (Active) LV 52 Exp: 94.83%
The ability to heal others.
Transmutation [Basic] (Active) LV 19 Exp: 27.13%
The ability to turn transmute things with magic.
Universal [Basic] (Active) LV 15 Exp: 31.42%
The ability to wield spells that do not fall under other classifications.
Unarmed Combat Mastery [Basic] (Active) LV 22 Exp: 0.00%
The ability to fight without using weapons.
Bladed Weapons Mastery [Basic] (Active) LV 16 Exp: 0.00%
The ability to fight using Bladed Weapons.
Blunt Weapons Mastery [Basic] (Active) LV 24 Exp: 96.87%
The ability to fight using Blunt Weapons.
Ranged Weapons Mastery [Basic] (Active) LV 10 Exp: 0.00%
The ability to fight using Ranged Weapons.
Teleport [Basic] (Active) LV 33 Exp: 63.46%
The ability to move further than humanly possible in an instant.
Crafting [Greater] (Active) LV 1 Exp: 0.00%
The ability to craft and create useful items
Inscription [Greater] (Active) LV 1 Exp: 0.00%
The ability to create runes and seals with powerful effects.
Enchantment [Greater] (Active) LV 1 Exp: 0.00%
The ability to enchant objects with magical effects and powers.
Dimensional Magic [Intermediate] (Active) LV 66 Exp: 0.00%
The ability to use magic dealing with other dimensions, universes, planes etc.
Summoning [Intermediate] (Active) LV 66 Exp: 0.00%
The ability to summon other creatures and beings with magic.
Pyromancy [Basic] (Active) LV 15 Exp: 70.36%
The ability to wield Fire based magic.
Hydromancy [Basic] (Active) LV 19 Exp: 84.12%
The ability to wield Water based magic.
Electromancy [Basic] (Active) LV 11 Exp: 67.82%
The ability to wield Lightning based magic.
Evocation [Basic] (Active) LV 12 Exp: 49.36%
The ability to utilize directly offensive magic.
Telekinesis [Basic] (Active) LV 13 Exp: 14.00%
The ability to move things without physical contact.
Aeromancy [Basic] (Active) LV 12 Exp: 9.00%
The ability to wield Wind based magic.
Bluff [Basic] (Passive) LV 11 Exp: 12.64%
The ability to lie, deceive and otherwise trick others.
Diplomacy [Basic] (Passive) LV 15 Exp: 5.96%
The ability to convince, charm and otherwise play well with other people.
Perform [Basic] (Passive) LV 20 Exp: 2.12%
The ability to deliver theatrical performances.
Software Development [Basic] (Active) LV 10 Exp: 0.00%
The ability to design and program computer software.
Linguistics [Basic] (Active) LV 10 Exp: 0.00%
The ability to use and understand languages.
Parkour [Basic] (Active) LV 6 Exp: 8.00%
The ability to move rapidly in urban environments
Geomancy [Basic] (Active) LV 1 Exp: 0.00%
The ability to wield Earth based magic.
Abjuration [Basic] (Active) LV 1 Exp: 0.00%
The ability to use Defensive Magic.
Mind Magic [Basic] (Active) LV 1 Exp: 2.17% Necromancy [Basic] (Active) LV 1 Exp: 0.00%
The ability to use magic to affect minds.
The ability to use Death based magic.
Feats: Silent Spell
Perks Comic Book Pretty:
Man of Mystery: You wear mystery like a stylish cloak. Provides Immunity to all abilities based on Supernatural Perception.
Special Snowflake: Provides Immunity to all hostile actions/skills/powers targeted at your powers/skills.
Beneficial Case 53: +5 to all Non-Mental Stats.
Invictus: Infinite willpower to keep going through any amount of hardship; even bloody and broken. You will not stop.
Iron Body: Immunity to all diseases, immunity to minor health problems, and the ability to consume anything that isn't actually poisonous or indigestible by your metabolism without any problems.
Powers: Hope Empowerment 9:
Dimensional Magic 5: Attunes you with the raw energies of the dimensions. Provides Bonuses to all related skills, provides Skill: Dimensional Magic
Crafting Magic 6: Provides all crafting related skills at two tiers pre-advanced, allows for casting of all manner of artifacts and objects.
LOCKED
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