There was something to be said for the cathartic effects of screaming your lungs raw. The act was, at its very core, an emotional outburst of unfocused rage with the simple purpose of venting a harmful emotion.

No words could express anger with as much purity as that of a raw scream. It was the epitome of uncontrolled stress, anger and projected emotion.

Greg Veder knew none of this.

Even if he did, he wouldn't find it in him to care.

He screamed because it came naturally.

He screamed because he wanted to.

He screamed because—

"I'LL KILL Y-nnnNNGGGH!"

Another explosion went off to his right, a wave of heat and force nearly catching him off guard yet again. Pain throbbed from his entire right side as his head snapped back from the sudden shock but Greg roared through it, swinging wildly at the cloud of smoke to his left. Arcs of wind shot forward from the thin blade with every manic slash, each one chipping away at the cloying smoke that hung in the air with all the thickness of sand and soot combined.

The ground under his bare feet should have been scalding to the touch, burning from the raging flames, the heat just shy of what it would need for the tar itself to boil. The fires of his rage burned nearly as hot, their literal manifestation only making the smoke worse.

He could barely see, eyes darting from side to side behind a mask that was only threads and remnants of metal by now. His right arm hung limply at his side, a broken mess of blood and meat. Greg ignored it, letting his Willpower numb it for him.

He didn't have time for pain.

A pulse went off, quick and sharp, an alarm warning of danger.

Blue eyes snapped up, less shock in his gaze than calculated expectation. The blond darted back, quickly kicking off the ground with one leg and letting the force of it carry him back several meters. He looked back, thin sword held out in front of him as he sent a furious glare at the wall of glinting weapons jutting forward from the ever-growing cloud of gray smoke.

Greg grit his teeth and quickly spun on his heel, a visible film of air coating the edge of his blade. By the time he had performed a complete revolution, it all but obscured his weapon completely.

He came to a sharp halt, eyes quickly darting down to note the gale-like winds whipping about the sword, and released the build up as he flicked his katana upwards in a rising slash.

A vertical crescent of cutting wind shot forth from the blade of his weapon, slicing through the smoke as easily as the sword itself would through flesh in Greg's hands.

Through the meter-wide path in the haze, Greg spotted his target.

The mask leered at him as several duplicates appeared beside, simply falling into existence without warning as if they had always been there. Behind all of them, some sort of device bobbed up and down in the air, hovering without any sort of propulsion below it, the blood red lens it bore perfectly matching the masks of a dozen murderers in front.

Without a single thought, Greg lunged with a [Dash Straight].

Five meters became none in the blink of an eye.

The weapon in his hands came down with all his force, the boy himself roaring at the top of his lungs as he did so.

"Oni LeeeeEEEEE!"

Mob 5.12

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

April 20, 2011

12:08 PM

It had started with red.

No, no…

He was getting ahead of himself.

It had started with fire.

He had been running over rooftops, heading towards the next place on the list Big Ken had given him, when he saw it. Black smoke rose into the cloudy midday sky, easy to spot even from several blocks away.

From what he could hear, firefighters were either already in place or so close to the fire that any real distinction was pointless. In fact, just down the street, he could see a few trucks trying to hose down the quickly rising flames that threatened to spread further down towards him.

Greg blinked at that sight, a frown growing beneath his mask. Something was wrong here, he knew that for a fact. How could there be a fire breaking out closer to him and several blocks down the street at the same time with no spread in between them?

He came to a sudden realization as he felt the slightest of pulses at the very back of his thoughts, the sensation catching his attention immediately. Someone's setting these?

A sound like a peal of thunder cracked through the air, Greg tensing up as a faint rumbling din followed it.

What the hell was that? He glanced up, eyes scanning the skies for any signs of an oncoming storm. Apart from that of the smoke trailing upwards, the sky was otherwise free of any dark clouds.

His hand tightened around the katana on his hip, slightly tense at whatever could be twigging his Danger Sense out in the open like this. Nozarashi, as the thing was named, was a trophy Greg had taken from an ABB eager to use it against him the night before. The thing hadn't actually possessed a name before Greg had subdued its owner. No, that had come about a few hours or so later as Greg finished up two quests, gained a skill-up or two and received a level up on top of another for his troubles. As such, the blond had felt just happy enough to indulge himself. (+ 2 to Beginner Combat)

Quest "ABB II: Big Trouble in Little China" Completed!

Gained 2500 XP

Gained 2 to [Observe]

Bonus: Failed

Quest "ABB III: Kung Fury" Completed!

Gained 15000 XP

Gained [Enemy] Reputation with [Azn Bad Boys]

Gained 15000 XP (Bonus)

Gained 5 to Beginner Combat (Bonus)

The name Nozarashi had come about from that moment of pique, one that Greg didn't regret in the slightest. The thing had been a bit chipped along the blade and clearly a little dull, so what little Japanese Greg knew had inspired its new appellation: Weather-Beaten Skeleton. It came from an anime, one Greg wasn't really a fan of except for a couple bad-ass characters here and there.

Still, it wasn't like that mattered. Not only did the now-named weapon come with its own set of bonuses — albeit weak ones — it also had the ability to grow further if that "Lev. 1" by its name meant anything. Another weapon in his arsenal that could potentially rival Gram could only mean be a good thing for Greg.

While he hadn't gotten much use of it in the past eighteen hours it had been in his possession, the thing had helped him turn what would have been relatively prolonged fights into much shorter affairs.

Through Intimidation, that is. (Intimidation + 1)

Greg waited for a few seconds more, hand still resting on the hilt of his weapon as his eyes flickered between both blazes. As firefighters hosed down the raging flames, the blond kept his guard up, muscles tensed for quick action. When his Danger Sense began to die down and nothing seemed to cross his attention after nearly half a minute, he Inventoried the sword at his hip, letting out a somewhat relieved sigh as it dissolved into blue particles of light.

Greg shook his head, raising a hand to cup his concealed face. Okay, one less thing to w-

BOOM!

The familiar sound of a violent detonation broke into his thoughts, jarring the blond back several feet before finally falling with his back to the rooftop floor. Greg whipped his head around to search for the source of the sound, eyes quickly locking onto what had to be the remains of another explosion less than half a block away, the roof of an apartment building collapsing in real time. What the h-

The thought was snatched from his head as the blond flinched, mouth agape as something blurred past the edge of his blindspot in a burst of speed and rushing air. Several more somethings quickly followed, Greg barely able to glimpse what looked like flurries of red light as they blurred past him with speed he couldn't even track.

The teen couldn't react, barely able to get a word out as his head began to pound like a drum. In the same instant, a figure appeared at his side without warning, crouching on the edge of the roof in all black. Far behind him, the sound of a powerful impact met his ears, but Greg was unable to process it as he stared at the silent figure just a few meters away from him.

Raw surprise overtook the instinctual rage he felt crawling up in his chest as a red mask stared back at him, horned face smiling like the demon it represented. An instant later, several short, thin metal items fell to the ground, clinking on the rooftop between them.

Blue eyes widened, everything slowing down in an instant as his heart began to race.

No.

Oni Lee lunged forward, grenade primed and ready. Greg scrambled back, instinctive reinforcement granting him the agility to move even with his back

Nononononon-

A split second later, Greg felt a violent force strike his body, the sound of thunder and a burning red light tearing all thought from his mind.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

April 20, 2011

12:14 PM

Status Effect: Crushed Arm (Right) - 3 Hours

Status Effect: Shattered Ribs (6) - 1 Hour

Status Effect: Bleeding (Heavy) - 1 Hour

Status Effect: Concussion (Moderate) - 1.5 Hours VIT + 1 Resistance: Blunt Force Lvl Up!

64→66

Resistance: Piercing Lvl Up!

33→37 HP: 994/1747 [Shock negated by Gamer's Mind]

He woke up with gritted teeth, instinctively fighting the urge to scream.

Past the sound of his own strained voice as he tried to get his bearings, all he knew was darkness, screaming, and the continuing thunder that slammed into his head like a nail being driven into his skull.

What felt like hours later, Greg Veder opened his eyes.

He was greeted by a world on fire. A scream threatened to leave him once more when Greg suddenly tensed, the familiar sound of colliding forces drawing closer again. Warmth ran down his face. Tears or blood, he couldn't determine which. He wiped it away, growling as he blinked.

Blue screens filled his vision, one after the other, each one taking up more and more space in his head as he tried to think. He dismissed them without a second thought. He couldn't — didn't — read them. They weren't important right now.

Not in the slightest.

A stream of red light raced past the blond's line of sight with a rush of air. An instant later, a car alarm rang at full blast for a single moment as the kinetic burst struck a white news van, but the sound of warping metal and a forceful impact all but drowned it out. Safety glass flew loose in a hundred pieces as the entire side of the vehicle warped inwards from the force of the blast. The destroyed vehicle was barely useful anymore, even as cover for the two men hiding behind it as it continued to whine pitifully, alarm dying away as the men ran for better cover.

Greg Veder forced his head upwards, eyes searching for the source of the blasts. He spotted it quickly, a feminine figure zig-zagging through Downtown's smoky skyline with a trail of red light making her easy to track. Behind her, she wildly fired beam after beam without bothering to aim properly, each one racing at near the speed of sound as they left her.

Laserdream, his labored mind supplied. A couple of identical flying objects, both colored a gunmetal gray, flew several meters away from her at both sides, each one quickly buzzing away from the few blasts that were aimed at them, humming with the sound of hidden rotary wings and warped anti-gravity fields.

His gaze focused for a moment, narrowed eyes darting over to a large bubble of red light trailing directly behind her, a figure in a blue-and-white costume that Greg recognized almost immediately lying prone in it. Shielder?

His eyes unerringly locked onto the figure that suddenly appeared in Laserdream's flight path. The celebrity cape glanced over her shoulder at the wrong moment, another blast charged to fire as the figure in black launched himself at her undetected.

The red mask.

A concave shield of red light materialized in front of Laserdream instantly, shattering less than a moment later as the ABB assassin's primed grenade detonated. The force of the blast launched her back, showering the blonde girl in a mess of white carbon ash. Hurtling back, she barely avoided crashing down onto a close rooftop, her brother following behind her in the bubble she kept up.

As she made landfall, she put up another larger bubble to surround the both of them, a layer of red fields erected in a last-ditch attempt to ward off Oni Lee. Several Oni Lees came into being around the college-age girl, immediately throwing themselves at the collection of force fields. In the face of all this, Laserdream did her best to replace the fragile scarlet walls even as each layer collapsed under the force of a single detonation.

She was going to die without help, Greg realized. A familiar feeling rose in his chest as the thought sunk in.

[Status Effect: Enraged] Quest Created!

ABB V: Head of The Snake Pt I

Details: Defeat Oni Lee or Force Oni Lee to Retreat

Success: [Nemesis] reputation with ABB, +75000 XP, + 5 SPD

Failure: Potential Death

Bonus: Kill Oni Lee Quest Created!

Waving Hello: Laserdream

Details: Protect Laserdream from Oni Lee

Success: [Accepted] Reputation with New Wave, [Friendly] Reputation with Pelham family, [Trusted] Reputation with Laserdream, +10000 XP, 1 Perk Point, 5 Stat Points, [?]

Failure: Death of Laserdream and Shielder

Bonus: Keep Laserdream out of the fight

Greg suddenly found himself on his feet, the sound of his heartbeat pounding in his ears drowning out everything else. A heat collected in his chest that bordered on painful and the blond began to move. Nozarashi appeared in his off hand, parts of his body flaring with yellow light as he surged forward.

Wind rushed around him, the swirling air parting itself to open a clean path as he forced himself forward. Uncovered soles pounded the ground, the blond not seeming to register any discomfort. Bare skin met burning metal for a single instant as he leapt over the husk of a burning car.

Someone screamed something, the feminine voice just another one atop a mountain of others.

Greg Veder jumped.

He surged forward, wind howling in his ears as he ran on air.

He screamed.

He slashed.

"DIE!"

The world exploded with flames.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

"...series of explosions right… r-right behind us. I'm not entirely sure right now of the situation but we had to m-make a rapid evacuation of our news van a-a-a…" The reporter on-screen, a clean shaven black man in his mid forties, drenched in sweat and grime, nearly jumped up from his hiding spot, eyes practically bulging out of his head in shock at the sudden explosion amidst the flaming carnage behind him. "As you can clearly, cl-clearly see, Oni Lee has been on the assault for several blocks as we followed the action from down below on the street. You can still hear the explosions right now as Laserdream fends off the villain but we're not sure how much longer she can keep this u-up."

He slid further down behind the alley wall he was using as cover, the man's voice cracking spectacularly as he tried to keep his cool. "Again, we suspect that she's waiting for reinforcements but the fight has been going on for several minutes now and a-as of yet, no such help has arrived. Firefighters have evacuated and PRT are believed to be en route but the fight is constantly m-m-moving." His voice jumped up another octave mid-word as another thick line of red light lanced through a street lamp on the street across from him. His next few words were drowned out by the screech of twisting metal as the pole caved in on itself and fell to the street below.

"...main unable to get a clear picture of Shielder but we have been able to confirm that Laserdream has him protected and is keeping him from sustaining any further injur-"

BOOOM!

"Jesus Chri- What was th…" The reporter's tone lost the professional decorum it possessed as he tried not to scream, running for cover as bits of masonry rained down on both him and his cameraman. The camera pointed upwards, screen swerving from place to place trying to keep track of what was apparently another parahuman who had jumped in to fight Oni Lee.

"Oh my God… Who is that?" The view shifted back to the reporter, the journalist repeatedly bumping into the cameraman and shaking the view as they both tried to keep track of what was going on while running for safety. "Ron!Ron! Are you getting this? Are you getting this? For the love of God, tell me you're getting th-No! Don't point it at me! Just move the camera! Move the cam-"

BOOOM!

Theo Anders stared at the mayhem on the screen, lips pursed on a face that was otherwise blank of expression. He lowered the remote control in his hand, placing it on a cushion, and nestled himself back onto the couch.

A bored sigh left his lips, eyes darting to the side to glance at the occupied infant playing to his right before settling back on the action-packed situation on the screen in front of him.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

"Oni LeeeeEEEEE!"

The guttural scream blared throughout the living room, both occupants reacting in very different way to the situation.

Manuel Victor Ramon let out a slight hum as he looked over his newspaper to glance at the television. Apart from casting a slight glance at his son, he wasted no time in leaning back in his recliner and returning to his crossword puzzle.

"...Jesus." Axel "Sparky" Ramon, on the other hand, could only whisper that single word to himself as he felt his chest tighten uncomfortably. The reporter taking up a good chunk of the frame continued to scream and shout to be heard over the mayhem behind him but the camera kept its focus on the action, the black-clad figures of Oni Lee and Greg dropping to the burning asphalt and pavement below to continue their fight. Whatever that explosive wave of fire that had appeared just moments before this was, Sparky wasn't sure. It had been strong enough to shatter several of Laserdream's shields and knock her down but he let that thought slide from his mind as the camera zoomed back to Greg's form.

Sparky winced, eyes half-closing for a second as he took in all the damage the blond had sustained. Shaky camera work notwithstanding, it was a gory sight.

What the hell, man? Sparky shook his head, doing his very, very best not to think about exactly how bad one side of the blond's body looked at the moment. Even in the short, blurry glimpses he could catch of him, a half-pulped arm dangling loose stood out in Sparky's mind.

"Fuckfuckfuck..." He kept the words as silent as he could, Sparky unable to actually voice his worries for fear of his dad overhearing. "Please don't die. Fuckin'... Jesus, please do not die on me, G." The mouthed words were accompanied with clenched fists, the teen literally on the edge of his seat as the fight continued.

"Hey, Ax," his dad spoke up, punctuating the short sentence with a slight yawn as he pulled himself to his feet. "I'm feeling the hunger pangs myself," he continued, patting his prodigious belly with one hand. "Gonna grab myself a plate from the kitchen. You want anything?"

"Hn." The teen didn't even shake his head, simply giving his dad a somewhat negative-sounding grunt as he tried not to wince at the footage of Greg being stabbed in the back.

"Well," the man chortled, one hand slowly tapping the doorframe, "I figured you'd say that. I'll ask your mom to fix you a plate and leave it in there for you. Pretty sure we have some left over pork and beans from last night. How's that sound?"

"Hn."

"DIE! DIE! DIE!"

"I have to admit, in a hundred years, I never thought I'd hear that friend of yours sound quite so angry. " Sparky barely acknowledged his dad's familiar, deep drawl as the man spoke up a third time, still waiting at the doorway to the kitchen, "Don't look so worried, though. Kid's got heart. He's fought worse, right?"

The statement hung in the air as his father walked into the kitchen proper, Sparky's attention still focused on the television.

Five seconds later, the words cut into his thoughts like a knife. The long-haired boy glanced up, pupils like pin-pricks as he tried not to lose his cool.

"...shit."

"Language, Axel!"

"...Sorry, ma." As the sound of his dad's belly laughter in the kitchen threatened to drown out the television, Sparky lowered his head into his hands, desperately wishing the last couple of minutes were just a products of his fitful, unmedicated and sleep-deprived mind.

"I'LL KILL Y-nnnNNGGGH!"

"Fuck. "

Sadly, no such luck.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

It was a dance as much as it was attempted murder on both sides: Greg, a human blender slashing so quickly that you could barely track his movements; And Oni Lee, an unending and seemingly immortal apparition just out of his reach.

Even with his injuries, Greg knew that he was the faster one in this fight. The agility of Oni Lee and his short-lived duplicates were firmly within the range of athletic human ability, albeit in the absurdly upper percentiles, and Greg had left that benchmark behind several weeks ago at the latest. From that alone, it had seemed like this fight would have been over in seconds.

"Fuck you!"

In reality, it was fast approaching two minutes with no end in sight.

As fast as he was with a sword and his rapid maneuvering in general, there was no doubt about it: raw speed was nowhere near enough to get the job done. Nozarashi was a blur, slicing through countless identical torsos and arms before they could pull the pins of Oni Lee's infinitely replicating arsenal of grenades, but the villain seemed to always be an instant ahead, somewhere else as a clone took the blow. The amount of times Greg had felt his heart leap in his chest at the sight only to watch Oni Lee's dead form erupt into white carbon ash moments later...

The sword shone with both the yellow light of reinforcement and the heat of Greg's pyrokinesis, the blond instinctively heating the blade as both blasts of wind and flame shot from it with every slash.

Reinforcement (Apprentice) Lvl Up!

22→23

Basic Pyrokinesis Lvl Up!

12→13

Even then, it wasn't enough.

Hampered by his own injuries, he couldn't actually keep up with the constantly replicating storm that was Lee. A missed slash here meant that the edge of a machete would find its way into his back. An over-extended movement in one direction was an opening for a grenade to go off scant meters away from his person.

As frenetic as the pace of the fight was, it didn't prevent it from being a slog.

A slog that was quickly chipping away at him.

Yet, Oni Lee was untouched.

"Fuck you!"

More than that, he was doing more real damage that Greg had yet to accomplish.

"Fuck you!" For every four clones that Greg bisected or beheaded, a single blade found its way into his ribs or slashed into his back. Every lunge he made only took him into the path of another grenade. If he was particularly unlucky, it was more than one.

He's playing with me. He's playing with me! He's playing with ME?! Greg poured on as much speed as he could manage, pushing back his pounding headache as he tried to force the masked killer to take him seriously.

Clone after clone after clone after clone after clone after clone after clone...

They were like after-images, Oni Lee created them so quickly. It was an army of remorseless phantasms, and each one he cut down was replaced by another and another and another and another — there was no end, no ground that could be won because there was always another grinning, ghostly mask, no small victories to be found in the destruction of clones and ash. Almost as annoying were the red pop-ups that continued filling his vision every time Oni Lee stabbed him. Unlike them, however, he was in no position to ignore Lee.

[Status Eff-

"Fuck you!"

The duplicates appeared with every movement Oni Lee made, each one so fast that it appeared like a single quick dash in one direction with a slew of after-images. "You think anyone's scared of you? You think I'm scared of you?"

He slashed again, slashing through yet another kamikaze attempt as he rushed forward to take on what he suspected was the real Lee.

"You? All you do is hurt people who can't fight back!" He forced as much anger as he could into that last syllable, screams past the point of hoarseness. He felt the heat in his chest build again as he pushed his rage out, something to fuel his anger just that smallest bit forward. "Innocent people!"

Anger or not, he knew he wasn't making any real headway and it was only pushing his buttons. Speed was less than nothing to an opponent like Lee. Someone who could vanish and reappear in less than a second, leaving a perfect duplicate of him at his previous location couldn't truly be beaten with the type of speed Greg had to offer at the moment. "People who… people who never hurt anyone in their life!"

"And you just kill them… for what?"Someone who could effectively move as fast as they could think with an unending army behind them had no real needfor speed. "For what?"

His weapon blurred in a horizontal cut as he decapitated four duplicates at once, the vorpal move resulting in a thick spray of blood. The red burst clouded his vision nearly as well as the smoke his targets split into moments later, before that too evaporated into ash. "Fun?! Is this fun to you?! You… you..."

He burst forward, relying on his [Dash Straight] to propel him once again. "Fucking-!"

Dash Straight Lvl Up!

11→12

Nozarashi swung downwards, a wind blade bursting from it and catching two duplicates mid-leap. "Ninja wannabe~!"

He followed the Taunt with a wordless roar as the dull-colored gas threatened to overwhelm his sight again, the scream followed by a powerful gust of wind that blew a good portion of it away.

Adept Aerokinesis Lvl Up!

3→4

Where there was only cloudy smoke, Greg could now see.

See several masked duplicates hurtling towards him from several angles, that is.

"Nngh-!" Before he could react, the edge of a machete scored a deep gash on the side of his face. Greg darted back before the weapon could do any more damage, reacting an instant later to thrust the heated blade into a clone's chest.

He resisted the urge to cradle his eye, not even wasting the time to wipe blood away from it. The cut had missed his left eye by the thinnest of margins, but it stung like the flames of hell regardless, the blood pooling in his eye socket rendering him half-blind. "I'm gonna kill you!"

The multitude of masks continued to smile back at him as the fiery pain in Greg's chest and his muscles only grew with each second Oni Lee avoided him. They closed in with menace, explosions and lethal edges, but Greg hadn't been idle in his thoughts and hatred. Even amidst the pain and inferno, and despite the failure of every approach he had tried thus far, his heart still sought victory. After trying over and over again, Greg believed he had finally, finally figured out the demonic villain's trick.

"Omae wa…" The whispered words came to his mouth almost by instinct as his remaining eye tracked the real Oni Lee past his trail of clones, something standing out to him as he forced himself to focus past everything else. He should have noticed it before.

The real Lee had a habit of huddling perfectly in the middle of each set of newly duplicated clones, always doubling back to the very end of the line as Greg fought through them and creating a new stack to hide himself in. Greg had previously gone for the ones hanging back before, assuming that to be the actual villain but he had already learned that lesson well enough.

I should have seen this before. He should have noticed it before, that much was true. At least, if he wasn't so caught up with slashing apart anything that came within his range. But, now wasn't the time to beat himself up for missing it.

It was time to throw caution to the wind. He had to act.

"Omae wa mou…" The words came to his lips again, Greg jumping towards the last Lee, once again moving to ignore all the others that rushed at him, allowing several errant slashes from a storm of knives and machetes to fall upon him and exact their bloody toll as he bounded forwards with a [Dash Straight].

The Lee he was targeting made to jump back, something Greg realized now was an obvious feint.

"...shindeiru!"

At the very last second, Willpower flared through his lower body and Greg twisted back, pushing himself as fast as he could in the immediate opposite direction. It was fast, faster than any of the Lees could react. A burst of wind in his wake blew several of them out of his path, three out of four of them outright popping by the time they hit the ground but Greg paid them no attention as his sword hit home.

The blade sunk hilt-deep into Oni Lee's open chest, the villain letting out a rattling gasp as he grasped at Greg's hands and clutched at him with the desperation of the dying. A savage smile grew on the blond's face as Lee held him tightly, body squirming on his sword. You deserve this, he thought, pushing the blade deeper. All of this.

It was a single moment later that a familiar tinkling noise hit his ears and Greg Veder instantly froze and tried to pull back, his mind associating that sound with imminent pain. Rather than let go, Oni Lee held tight to him, the smiling mask once again sending a chill down Greg's spine.

His Danger Sense blared too late as the Oni Lee he had just run through exploded with ash, heat and bone-rattling force. Shrapnel tore into Greg's reinforced skin, each individual shard cutting through metal and flesh in one painful instant.

At that same moment, something else ran him through.

VIT + 1

Several somethings.

Both his eyelids drooped for a second, legs going weak as he shuddered in place. What?

Status Effect: Impalement - 1 Hour

Oh. Greg Veder looked down at the machete blades sticking from his chest, blinking his one good eye as all but one vanished into smoke before his eyes. He stumbled back on unsteady legs, Danger Sense pounding as he looked up again to receive a boot to the face. Nozarashi fell from his grasp, clattering on the burning floorboards as it was kicked away by the villain in the demon mask.

"Hai. Omae da…*" The voice was strained somewhat, almost as if raspy from disuse. "...Demo watashi wa?(1)"

The blond toppled back, nearly crashing to the ground like a fallen tree before catching himself at the last minute. Slumped on his knees, Greg threw Oni Lee a defiant glare, unsure if the masked villain was still making duplicates as his vision began to swim.

"You're..." Greg tried to catch his breath past the unyielding pain in his chest, struggling to take in air or even stay upright as Oni Lee stood over him. "You're supposed to say... Na-"

The machete in Lee's hand swung down.

Once again, the sound of thunder and red light overtook Greg's vision.

He stared up, blinking in surprise as a battered Oni Lee off to his left collapsed into a pile of ash, then glanced to his right. Greg stared at yet another massive hole in a storefront window, one that had not been there moments ago.

Quest "ABB V: Head of The Snake Pt I" Failed! Quest "Waving Hello: Laserdream" Completed!

Gained [Accepted] Reputation with New Wave

Gained [Friendly] Reputation with Pelham family

Gained [Trusted] Reputation with Laserdream

Gained 10000 XP

Gained 1 Perk Point

Gained 5 Stat Points

Gained Mana Barrier

Bonus: Failed

Greg Veder let himself slump down to a sitting position and stared up at the screen hovering in front of him.

A moment later, he threw his head back and did the only thing he could think of doing.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

All Laserdream could do was stare, mouth open in complete shock as the bleeding, broken boy pulled a knife that was placed sickeningly close to his heart out of his chest with only a slight grunt and what might have been the faint end of a whimper, she wasn't really sure. The soft clink of metal on flaming asphalt met her ears next, the older girl still watching as he tossed it over his shoulder without even a word, spitting a thick wad of blood onto the ground a moment later.

With that done, he threw back his head.

The laugh that burst from his lips was another shock. Maniacal was one of the few adjectives she could think of that fit the sound. Hysterical was another. Insane was a third. "All that for a goddamn failure," she heard him mutter past the snap and crackle of another burning building collapsing down the street.

Failure? She frowned, somewhat unsure of how to take that. He survived against Oni Lee and he's treating it like some big disaster? Crystal shook her head in slight bewilderment, having seen this attitude from plenty of rookie capes before. Most of them hadn't lasted past their second fight. He should be glad he's alive, not worried about a win.

She watched him pull himself off from the hot asphalt, the Wards-age cape laughing the entire time, seemingly unaware of the blood, dust and ash coating his body and costume. The boy was still laughing as he turned back again to face the direction her blast had launched the real Oni Lee into, the hole in the storefront window clear for all to see, the villain himself lying prone amid the remains of blazing ceiling tiles and fallen, scattered shelving. Shelving and goods that were also blasted to bits by explosions and, again, on fire.

Everything was on fire.

Maybe a bit too much there, Crystal admitted to herself, surveying the hole with a critical eye from her vantage point on the rooftop across the street. Just a bit, she added after another second of thought, not really able to bring herself to care all that much about the homicidal cape.

Still, she acquiesced, wouldn't look good if he died. And she knew she'd take the worst of it, along with the rest of New Wave. Homicidal bastard or not, Lee had no Kill Order on his head.

At least, not yet.

Pushing that line of thought to the back of her mind, she began to drift down from the rooftop with Shielder in tow behind her in her bubble. She wasn't good enough with her shields to keep him safe unless he was close to her. Eric had always been better about that sort of thing with his powers. His flight speed and energy blasts, though…

Well, she loved her brother anyways, even if he couldn't hope to keep up with her. Crystal was his big sister after all. It was her job to watch over him. She was supposed to keep him safe…

Again, she shook her head, sending another train of thought to an impromptu stop. Making sure to stay a few meters above the street proper as a good chunk of it was still on fire, Crystal Pelham finally found the moment of silence to say the one thing that had been going through her mind as the boy's laughter came to a sudden stop.

"How are you still standing?!"

She blinked in surprise, both at the volume of the words that left her mouth and at how quickly the young cape spun to face her, his body literally blurring for an instant. His eyes widened behind the remaining half of his silver skull mask, and Crystal suddenly realized that he just now noticed she had still been around. With nothing more than a slight frown to show for it, she pushed her annoyance at that little fact to the side.

"What?"

'What,' he says, Crystal thought to herself with a mental scoff, like he didn't just go almost five minutes in a straight fight with Oni Lee. Blinking again, the New Wave cape gave a slight shake of her head and responded far more quietly, "You're bleeding all over, and you've got some…"

Again, she repressed the urge to cringe, "...pretty bad-looking burns. How are you not in, like, all the pain right now?"

To her surprise, the cape let out another small laugh, this one far more normal, and shot her a smile. Laserdream tried not to grimace when faced with his bloody mess of a mouth. Somehow, it was almost worse than the rest of him. How does he even speak?.

"This… This is just a flesh wound."

Laserdream blinked at the other cape's words. "A flesh wound?"

"A flesh wound." He nodded jerkily. "Technically, every wound is a flesh wound, amirite?" Another laugh left him, this one far more controlled as he tilted his neck from side to side.

Laserdream repressed the urge to backpedal, reminding herself that she owed it to this cape to at least try to help him… somehow. Before she could think of anything else, her media-trained public skills went to work and she spoke up again. "Could I ask who you are or what I can call you?"

"Me..." he interrupted himself with another burst of laughter before quickly calming down again. "Th-the… the name's Pr… Nah, I mean, Hardkour." He shook his head in a dazed manner, raising one hand to cup his head. "Y'know, I actually kinda thought of going with Edgelord, though."

Before Crystal could even process that enough to think of a suitable response, he cut in again, explaining himself. "'Cause I have a sword, y'know? And I'm wearing all black." The laughter returned with a vengeance as he gestured up and down to his mostly bare chest and remnants of a mask. The crazy cape actually threw his head back as he let it out. "At least I was… at some point. Hardkour is good though. I blame PHO."

After a moment, he tilted his head to the side again, a light frown screwing up his face. "Then again, when do I not blame PHO?"

Laserdream nodded her head slowly, doing her best not to cringe at the comment. "...You've... You've lost a lot of blood, haven't you?"

"You know," He tilted his head the way her own little brother used to, back when he was closer to ten than sixteen. "You'd think so, wouldn't ya?"

Again with the bloody smile. Laserdream chose to forgo responding immediately in lieu of glancing over her shoulder at her brother's semi-conscious form still in the bubble, trying to figure out if she would be able to carry both injured boys with her to the hospital. Calling 911 wasn't an option considering the wrecked streets and she couldn't even reach her family with her personal communicator wrecked thanks to that asshole Oni Lee.

The only option was to airlift them herself.

But how?

Maintaining two fields at once was already something she struggled to manage. Making that bubble any wider was out of bounds, too. Hell, just moving a single field of any shape was a workout. That was Shielder's thing, again, not hers.

Maintaining two while simultaneously moving them both was the closest thing to an impossibility she could think of at the moment. She shook her head again, expression tightly controlled as she did her best to put a smile on her face. She had to make a decision and fast.

One of them had saved her and her brother's life, true.

However, he was clearly some type of Brute and in good enough shape to make jokes about his own condition, as horrible as it was. He also didn't seem like he was on the verge of dying, despite appearances.

The other was her baby brother.

Her baby brother with an arm full of grenade shrapnel...

There was only one real choice here, as bad as she felt about it.

With a strained smile, Laserdream turned back around to explain the situation to the younger cape. Instead, she froze as she faced an street empty of nothing but debris, scattered masonry and a hard decision already made for her.

Hardkour was gone.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

* Hai. Omae da = Yes. I know you are

1 Demo watashi wa? = But what am I?

Well, that happened.

Quite a doozy of a chapter.