Chapter 49 What We Aim to Do Part 2

“You are a disappointment, a demonstration of the failure of hero ideology. For all your long life and power, you have accomplished nothing.” - Unknown, to Paradigm

In an empty part of the forest, a man stared disdainfully at the corpse of an elderly man with a cane.

“You can’t even take an ability user from some savage island nation,” the man spat.

There were signs of Simple Reinforcement being used, but it had evidently failed as his ability told him the elderly man had perished due to severe internal lacerations.

“A boogeyman ability,” the man noted, “a crutch of the weak to reach their betters.”

But he had to admit the facts, the glass shards inside the corpse had enough Priority to overcome the nullifying effects of Simple Reinforcement. And the elderly man had completed his job.

Adam no longer remembered the person who killed him, only the other body still on the train.

“Clean up the corpse,” he commanded to the empty clearing. “We need to stall for time as much as we can.”

The body slowly rose into the air, as if being lifted by something.

“What are the status of our other agents?” he asked as he walked, the corpse floating behind him.

“Hmm?” Adam replied, “That’s good then. The more of these savages we kill or disable the better. Disperse their numbers as much as we can, only one mission here is important anyway.”

He pulled out something that looked like a stylised smartphone with an owl cover design.

“We simply need to get the One Man Army to attack my ability,” the user of Owl City said.

Both of them knew the weight of such a mission, even if their tattoos were removed, they still felt where it would be.

The only metahuman of Ozzstraya that could be considered a National-Level Hero by their system, Wendel Richard Monger.

For the sake of such valuable information, even if their entire company was annihilated, it would be worth it for their country.

The military police station was an area of calm.

Of quiet footsteps and clicks, of people going about their jobs as usual.

Aiden gave his best witness report, detailing every single action, movement, and thought that was relevant upon encountering the boogeyman.

From start to finish, no one asked him to remove his mask.

The honestly rather shoddy taotie mask stayed on his face for the entirety of his stay, and the medic’s later removal of his staples and bandaging of his cheeks only served to obscure his face just slightly better.

That might’ve been the point, now that Aiden thought about it. They saw full well that his cheeks were already regenerating.

He was asked after giving his account to stay for at least twenty-four hours to ensure an unknown secondary effect didn’t activate on him. Some part of the officer’s tone informed Aiden it was completely optional, and that they would not do anything to stop him should he try to leave.

Aiden informed M.I.A. of his absence tomorrow without stating a reason.

It should get cross-referenced rather quickly with the military police database, but he never put stock in keeping his identity secret.

“There is no real point,” Aiden told Ranpo. “It is rather impossible to stay anonymous in this age under any sort of scrutiny.”

In his previous world, random internet goers could find a flag from nothing but the location of the stars and the airplane trails that were in the background. With specific information gathering powers existing here on top of that, it was a matter of time and scrutiny before his dollar store mask was unmasked.

Still, all official public records listed Tāo Tiè as the one staying the night, likewise, Aiden’s private school record would list his absence as occurring on an entirely separate month and day.

This, Aiden knew, was a small exchange and understanding. Sending a notice of his absence the minute after he was asked to remain for the night and day after was a clear signal for officials who cared. But people had a vested interest for the unlicensed to continue meta work. If even the police pretended they didn’t know your identity, who would prosecute you?

All to keep the absurd state where the government could still freely harvest abilities through Law, but still have a significant unofficial meta presence being ‘good samaritans’.

So Aiden and Ranpo were left resting in a private lobby with a minifridge of drinks, a TV, enough trashy magazines to make him think he walked into a barber shop, and told if he wanted some food he just needed to hollar.

Some morbidly curious part of him wondered if he should try to ask for bird seeds for Ranpo, to see just how far the depths of hospitality for metas went.

“Do you think we can ask for bird seeds?” Ranpo asked. “I’m kinda curious how far this meta privilege goes.”

“Ranpo,” Aiden chided with his better judgement, pretending that he was not thinking the exact same thing, “I’m still unlicensed, they can’t be overtly supporting people like me.”

Though that did bring to question what it would be like once he got licensed.

Ranpo quirked his head, “That is true, though as I am bird and you are a monkey, if you are fed and I’m not, it should be a case of race privilege.”

“Really?” Aiden asked, shaking his head, “You’re pulling the racism card here?”

“Or is it specism?” Ranpo mused, “All you humans look the same so the context of the word doesn’t really work here.”

“Can you really not tell the difference between two humans?” Aiden asked, quirking his head to the side, much like Ranpo did.

He tsked, “No, crows are obviously capable of that, not that you would know anymore- Wait, you would know. It’s been a while since you made me, and you’ve been reading up, haven't you?”

Aiden nodded, “I just wanted to stimulate conversation.”

That brought a moment of silence.

“How was it?” Ranpo finally asked.

So far, they hadn’t had an opportunity to discuss his close run in with death.

“I felt like I was going to die,” Aiden said, “thankfully the boogeyman was meant to kill tougher things than me.”

It felt counterintuitive to say he survived because of the ability’s lethality.

But that was the truth. Aiden suspected that the original version of the ability was what the entity had displayed to him through the Hand Reveal, placing a zipper on something, and through unzipping it, severing or opening it, if that wasn’t true, the Hand Reveal wouldn’t have functioned because it would be a deception.

That original version might’ve been limited by touch, so the additional conditions were meant to give it the ability to instantly apply numerous zippers at once and at range. Once the target was restrained, the entity would walk towards the target and unzip them piece by piece. Leaving a… rather butchered body behind.

“Why it continued to ask questions instead was what mystifies me,” Aiden continued explaining to Ranpo. “It had already locked me into an effective checkmate.”

Ranpo ruffled his wings in thought, “What’s the general equivalency of conditions and benefits? How much does each new effect cost in conditions, and how much does each condition earn you?”

“I have no fucking clue,” Aiden answered honestly. “Even asking around hasn’t helped me a lot, since the general consensus is that it is different for every ability, different conditions have different weights and results for what you’re trying to do. Genelines know theirs because it’s been passed down, but we’re stuck with trial and error.”

“The scientific method,” Ranpo stressed, “that sounds so much better than saying you have no idea what you’re doing and are just blindly groping in the dark.”

“Not entirely groping in the dark,” Aiden muttered, “I was taught a lot.”

“You have a blind man’s cane with you, congrats.”

The bird thought about it for a moment.

“Do conditions have to occur before the activation?”

Aiden paused.

“No, nothing anyone has told me thus far has restricted a condition to needing to be fulfilled before activation, heck, some are just punishments that’ll occur if you don’t do something a certain way.”

That was used to speed up the enhancing of powers through conditions, like Darius vowing he would lose his powers if he broke out of his specific soda can summoning method.

But looking at it another way, the power enhancement Darius got was the ability to skip the months or years of repetition needed to fully set down an ability modification, while the condition he paid was his loss of power if he ever went back on it.

“Thus, thinking like this, the questions could be fulfilling conditions required to entrap you in the first place,” Ranpo analysed, “the only difference is time and-”

“Risk,” Aiden muttered. “Giving the target an opportunity to escape.”

Before he shook his head, “But why? There must’ve been easier ways to do it. Easier ways to straight up kill someone.”

“That is,” Ranpo interjected, “if you presume this ability was working alone and not in tandem with someone else.”

And Aiden froze.

“I was still able to interact with you even when you were locked in place.”

“Fuck.”

It wasn’t a killing ability.

It was a targeted isolation and entrapment ability.

While the original ability user trapped someone, their teammates would have continued to attack the unmoving target, and any allies of the entrapped would not be able to interact with the user of the ability or fall prey to the same trick. In fact, given the woman’s hurriedness for an answer, an ability that straight up removed sound from a target would be utterly lethal with it.

“But what was the spatial effect? That world of inverted colour? Why was it that it was only visible to me and not you?”

“Invisibility to certain targets would be an additional effect,” Ranpo murmured.

“But what designates a person to be able to see it?” Aiden asked, “Do they choose from a case by case basis or is it preset? And if it is preset, could being unable to affect certain targets itself be a condition?”

Limiting your ability to hurt targets that could not see you, making the strength of invisibility itself a weakness in a certain sense.

“And the spatial effect matches Expansions which I’ve heard about, but it felt more limited compared to the descriptions I’ve heard. It was only an overlay on reality while true Expansions are more like pocket dimensions.”

“Descriptions? Didn’t you say one of the teachers could pull one off?” Ranpo asked.

“Trist Brake, yeah, I asked her to demonstrate, but she declined,” Aiden replied. “She said that such things are generally last resort trump cards, since their Hume cost is nothing to scoff at. She didn’t give me anything specific, but noted that even among people capable of one, they’re usually limited to once every significant period of time…”

Aiden paused.

“What if the conditions were meant to cheat out an Expansion? Lower its Hume cost to a manageable sum so that it could be repeatedly used at the cost of making it more specific?”

Aiden suddenly began reevaluating the entire thing once again.

Which was which? Where did the conditions begin and the bonus effects end?

Aiden rubbed his brow, a headache already coming on.

“I feel like I just cracked open a microwave and am trying to understand how it works with only high school level education.”

“There is a certain advantage to making your ability utterly incomprehensible,” Ranpo noted. “Nonsense conditions could give you additional effects while not bound by any logic that an opponent might predict and exploit.”

Aiden nodded in response, “Doesn’t make me want to slam my head into a wall any less.”

Oros looked sympathetically from his shoulder, his scarf wrapping a bit tighter around him, in part to comfort him with warmth, in part to soften the blow on his head if he did slam it somewhere.

“I just barely got used to my own abilities and am thrown into this shit.”

“Look on the bright side,” Ranpo said, “You could be going at it blind.”

“I thought you said I was blind with only a walking stick?”

“Semantics,” the crow shrugged.

Aiden wanted to retort but instead, he just sighed. “I need rest.”

This body was healthier and fitter than his old one and he was well used to forgoing sleep, but he knew that debt had to be paid eventually.

And it was rather late into the night now, a quick glance at the clock showed four AM.

So, he leaned back into his seat, eyes fluttering closed, telling Ranpo, “You should rest as well.”

“What if the secondary effect they’re worried about only triggers when you fall asleep?”

Aiden’s eyes didn’t open, but he did raise an eyebrow, “Then I die tired instead of in my sleep, it makes little difference.”

“I suppose…” Ranpo muttered. “Just making conversation.”

A moment of silence passed.

“Aiden… Am I useless?”

Only a snore answered him.

The next morning, Aiden returned home.

Unwrapping the bandages around his face, he found the pale white scars extending from the corners of his mouth to the edges of his cheek.

“You look creepy like this,” Ranpo said.

Aiden nodded in agreement, “My cheeks weren’t healing together, I suspect the ability might’ve interfered with my regeneration. If not because of an intended effect, then because of the sheer difference in Priority.”

He glanced at his arm stump.

“Maybe I should try creating a condition…” he quietly muttered.

“The ideal for a single person is to create a set of conditions that are meaningful but don’t matter,” Ranpo murmured in response. “A set of conditions that exist but can’t be exploited by an enemy and aren’t too difficult to fulfil.”

“And for a group?” Aiden asked, despite knowing the answer.

“For everyone to play a role and build a greater whole.”

Aiden’s thumb traced the scars from his mouth to his cheek, as it moved, Aiden created Human Skin over it.

Ranpo hopped towards the mirror. “The scars are covered… but the bumps are still there, it won’t hold up if someone is too close or touches it.”

“There’s a medical mask in the med kit, I can just fake germaphobia,” Aiden replied.

Ranpo scoffed, “Fake? Given your record, I think that should be rather easy.”

Aiden rolled his eyes.

“So, what’s your idea?”

“Probably something simple,” Aiden replied, glancing at Oros. “Have you heard of compound interest?”

“Hmm?” Ranpo asked.

“The simplest condition to do is timegating your power so that you can bring forth a stronger portion later on,” Aiden replied. “I don’t have to do the full thing, but suppose I stored away twenty percent of my Hume every day from say… nine am to ten am.”

“You want to see if the stored Hume gains ‘interest’ and increases so to speak?”

He nodded, “Constantly investing Hume into myself, so that I can withdraw it later on as I need it, that’s the idea.”

Aiden was already doing something similar in his MT class, expanding it slightly shouldn’t be too difficult.

He continued to bounce some ideas off Ranpo, but he wasn’t going to attempt such a thing so soon. Though he didn’t have anything else to do that day. Huang’s store wasn’t yet open in the morning and Aiden had already submitted his absence notice, while he could return to M.I.A, it would be rather awkward.

So Aiden left his home. Only a normal medical mask covering his face as he went on a walk.

Strolling around the city, without a particular destination in mind, simply just seeing the familiar yet alien sights.

Still, he passed by the farmers’ market, buying some fruits as he made his way to the hospital.

Jaiden was as she always had been, and though Aiden sat down beside her, he did not come closer, simply silently taking out and peeling some apples.

It was slightly more difficult, for one, he had no sensation in one of his ‘hands’, and every action done with it wasn’t instinctual, but thought out from the start to finish.

Still, several apple slices were arrayed neatly beside her table.

He opened his mouth, but closed it, sighing.

“You cannot hear it even if I say anything,” he murmured.

So instead, Aiden stood up, leaving the room.

There was a sound behind him.

His head turned around, looking back at the hospital room.

Nothing was different.

“Did you hear that?” Aiden asked.

Ranpo in his tattoo form poked his head out of his pocket, “Heard what?”

Raising an eyebrow, he simply shook his head and left, heading back home.

As he returned, he greeted his old neighbour, Mrs Jemina as he went up to his apartment.

But as he stopped by his door, he paused.

Something was wrong.

“I don’t hear any of the crows.”

Aiden pushed open the door, seeing the inside of his home.

And who was sitting on the balcony in a lotus posture.

Appearing almost like a perfect jadelike doll, the Rain that Beholds the Morning Grass meditated silently, only opening her eyes as Aiden stepped in.

“What may you be doing in my home, Ms Rain?” Aiden asked.

She reached into her pockets, withdrawing a bunch of photos. “My benefactor wishes to blackmail you.”

And she tossed the photos towards him.

Quick reactions allowed him to grab some as they flew by, but their images made his face turn cold.

“These are…” Ranpo began, before turning silent.

They were all of Jaiden in her hospital room, some of them had him in the frame, peeling apples.

“Did you take these?” Aiden asked, voice completely cold.

Instead of answering, she took out a laptop, opened it and began tapping the keyboard. “He will speak to you himself.”

A few silent moments passed as Aiden stood there, completely still with his eyes glued on the woman before him as she used the laptop.

Then she frowned.

“How do I use this thing…” she muttered, before turning to the table between them, “Doorman, help me use your strange formation spells.”

A moment passed.

Then, under the gaze of both Aiden and Rain, a pure black hand reached out of the shadows underneath the table. A male, with their entire body covered in something like black paint pulled himself out of the shadows. He walked towards Rain, crouching down as he helped her use the laptop.

Finally turning the laptop screen towards Aiden.

There was a live video call, showing an older dark haired male wearing a business suit and a scarlet ring on his left hand.

“Are you from the Scarlet Letter?” Aiden asked.

The man nodded with a business-like smile, “Greetings, I am Ya, unofficial leader of this small group, I heard much about you from Rain here, whom you may be acquainted with already.”

Aiden’s hand tightened into a fist.

“What is this about blackmailing me?”

For a moment, a pained look appeared on Ya’s face as he glanced towards where Rain was, but it was quickly wiped away. “Just a slip of the tongue by Rain here,” he laughed it off, “she doesn’t quite get everything in this world.”

Rain shrugged, “I speak as I see it.”

“I am simply here to offer employment,” Ya cut in, “you require a lot of money to pay for your sister’s medical bills, I am here to offer you a worthwhile job that can cover such expenses.”

Aiden rubbed his brow, “You people are smugglers correct? Along with doing numerous other petty crimes.”

“I’m just a businessman selling things people want,” Ya replied with a smile.

“Not good, but not bad either. I know first hand the sort of money that can be made like this,” Aiden muttered, rubbing his brow. “This is a decent proposal worth considering.”

Before he lowered his hand, eyes glaring at the three of them, “That is, until you horse-faced gobshits threatened my fucking sister.”

A moment of silence, before Rain smiled.

“This is better,” she said.

“Negotiations have completely broken down because of you,” Ya said with an exasperated tone.

“Those with power require beatings to fall in line with you,” she said as she slowly rose from her lotus position. “Otherwise they will hold no respect, only bound by interest.”

“Maybe in your insane world, but here, interest is usually enough, and learn to use a fucking laptop, you forced Vanta to reveal himself for your stupidity.”

“A thief has little use in a fight,” Rain replied.

“Ranpo,” Aiden said. “Leave.”

The crow moved, but ‘Vanta’ moved as well. He threw out his arm, spraying what looked like black paint into the air. It stopped before reaching Aiden, but wherever it hit, it stained all with black.

And when the black paint hit Ranpo, he disappeared as the paint flew through where he was, splotching the walls with black.

“Ranpo!”

“I’m still here!” his voice yelled back, coming from where the paint was. “It’s all dark here!”

“Create me a proper arena, doorman,” Rain commanded.

Vanta crouched down, touching the floor.

“Paint It, Black.”

Black paint flooded out of him, covering the floor, Aiden jumped back, but that was a mistake.

For the second he was in the air, the Umbrella’s effect no longer covered the ground.

The black paint sped up behind him, covering the entire floor in black, and when he fell, he found it was as if there was no longer a floor underneath him, as he fell through the black paint and crashed into a perfectly black space underneath.

Above him, he could see the apartment above him.

“The black paint is a portal!” Ranpo yelled out, now beside him in the same space.

Various muscle fibre tattoos covered Aiden’s legs, he crouched, tensing all the tattoo muscles that covered his legs, and leapt.

He didn’t go far compared to his normal leap, but it was far enough. His head popped outside of the black paint for a moment before he fell back down.

But now it was too late. The black paint was being withdrawn and the portal above quickly shrinked to only a small circle above them.

A circle from which Rain fell through, landing gracefully onto the ground.

Tattoos covered Aiden’s eyes, ears and nose, greatly enhancing his senses.

“I am the Rain that Beholds the Morning Grass,” she said as she slowly rose, “Disciple of Overcoming the Eight Shattered Mountains Sect.”

Aiden’s coat and clothing turned scaly and reptilian, and underneath on his bare skin he manifested a Gorilla Torso, using the stronger muscles of the tattoo to strengthen his body slightly.

Rain’s fist hit her palm as she bowed, “Warrior of the Airless Lands who cannot sense Cultivation, I am a Cultivator of the Sixth Stage. Let us trade pointers.”