Chapter 56 Without You Part 2

“...and we retain the right to declare our independence from Law and all other Living Concepts enshrined within.” - The notes of High Justice Blind

Blood dripped down the painted man’s chin.

Both men circled each other warily, Aiden’s enemy was poisoned, clutching his wound, but still conscious. Aiden briefly considered running, acting defensively while the poison killed the man. But Johnjohnjohnjohn’s brutal lesson sparked Aiden’s decisive decision.

Augmented legs brought him beside the painted man in an instant, ropes exploded onto him. His enemy responded in kind as he expelled more junk, throwing off the initial assault and creating a smoke screen. An explosion of noise was all Aiden heard as hundreds of bullets shredded through the trash right towards Aiden. His enemy kept firing his minigun in the general direction of him, ceasing only after a moment to watch the smoke clear.

When it did, all he saw was a wall covered with bullet holes except for an untouched portion in the exact shape of a human silhouette, as luckily all of the bullets missed Aiden.

Aiden’s clawed hand clipped his head, knocking his torso down as Aiden followed up with a knee strike to the chest. Breath escaped the painted man as he swung his minigun in a wide arc, drawing a line of destruction. Aiden was too slow, the barrel pointed directly into his chest.

Luckily, the minigun jammed at this moment, and not a single bullet touched him.

“Luck manipulator,” the man realised as Aiden’s leg slammed the minigun into the floor, his powerful, slashing, anteater claws carved a brutal scar in the minigun’s barrel. The painted man discarded it in an instant, swinging at him. Aiden’s tentacles caught his extended fist just as a sawblade spun out of it, shredding his ropes and luckily missing his face by an inch. A sword slashed out the painted man’s chest, Aiden’s mouth bled as Oros caught it with its mouth inches from his neck.

The painted man was slowing down as he discarded the sword and leapt back. Aiden easily caught up with him, tearing through a large pillow. A flying knife nicked his shoulder as one of Aiden’s last tentacles caught the enemy by the waist and drew him close before a couch flying out of his back loosened it. Aiden’s fist slammed into his cheek, his claw slashed his chest.

But something was weird, neither of the two blows felt right.

The painted man grabbed his outstretched arm with a smug smile, belying his previous physical weakness as he slashed Aiden’s chest with a knife and followed with a stab at his chin.

Luckily, when the sawblade crashed into the ceiling it dislodged some debris that now fell and struck the blade, slanting an assured strike into a small cut along Aiden’s jaw.

Aiden slammed the arm grabbing him with an empowered fist, freeing him as he leapt back.

There was a pause as Oros brought the severed inland taipan head to him. Absorbing it, Aiden realised something very wrong.

The bite wound wasn’t bleeding despite the venom’s effect. None of the wounds Aiden left on him were bleeding, there were barely any marks at all.

“Cat’s outta the bag I guess,” the painted man smirked as from his chest, right were Aiden slashed him, a torn wooden table fell out.

The overlap between their abilities were only ‘tattoos’, so he couldn’t turn any of Aiden’s creations into tattoos, but there still existed a layer of the crap he’s previously absorbed on his skin that acted as armour.

The inland taipan never bit him.

The painted man surged with hume as his hand reveal finished. It was minor, as the effect was already suspected, but at that moment, both came to the same conclusion.

‘I can’t beat him.’ ‘He can’t beat me.’

Without Luther Aiden would be dead four times over, and he wasn’t aware if he had already expended all the luck Luther had given him. The enemy’s ability also significantly outclassed him in defense and offense except perhaps at close range. Due to how dense and multilayered his tattoos were, it was also difficult to guess what equipment he had. The man might as well as have hammer space.

“Hey don’t think about running,” the painted man said, teeth red with blood. “I’ve still got hostages.”

Aiden scoffed. “Hostages? Where?”

The man pulled a gun and shot one of the concussed and knocked out goons on the floor.

“Make another move and I shoot him again.”

Beneath his mask, Aiden frowned, “He is your ally.” He tapped his notebook, drawing hume as he created a tattoo at the same instant, fast enough that the painted man didn’t notice a change in Oro’s body. The tattoo ran down the back of his leg, out of sight.

He shrugged, “You forced me to do this, if you didn’t bother us he would be with me home free with the money, helping his family live a decent life. It’s your fault. Now hands up.”

Aiden lifted his hands up, the floor was covered in debris and trash from everything the painted man expelled, he controlled the tattoo to move under them, hidden.“Is that what you tell yourself?”

“What I tell myself? It’s simply truth, cause and effect. It’s your fault he got shot, and because you’re mouthy, it’s your fault that I killed him.”

And he shot the goon in the head.

Aiden watched with blank eyes as the man sidestepped the blood and brain matter, casually pointing the gun at the head of another goon.

His message was clear, he had seven more.

A thin smile ran across Aiden’s lips.

“Want to kill someone else?” the painted man asked. “Not satisfied with taking only one life?”

“I will enjoy this,” Aiden said, as the Overpowered Dominant Formidable Tough Tyrannosaurus Rex tattoo deformed the floor under the man into the shape of a snapping jaw, forcing a pained scream out of his throat as the dinosaur bit into him like a vice.

Aiden’s tattoos’ capacity to deform materials into their shape depended on their own physical strength, his physically weaker spawns required bodies made to match their shape, and took time to fully ‘break into’ the right shape.

The t-rex that had the strongest bite known to man, further buffed by Aiden’s concepts, had no such requirement.

More and more of the dinosaur slid out of the floor, rising like a beast emerging from a lake, its tail remained attached to Aiden’s leg from the floor, granting him control over it.

The dinosaur slammed his prize into the ceiling, easily crashing through to the second floor, throwing its head like a dog might with a chew toy. “I got him,” Aiden said into the earpiece. He walked with a slid as to prevent his left foot from leaving the ground and breaking contact with the t-rex. Tearing apart the extendable dividers of the stanchions, he remade a few tentacles, pulling the knocked out goons towards him. “Yes, prioritise the knocked out ones.”

Suddenly, the front of a bus slammed into the upper jaw of the dinosaur, the moment it widened, the painted man slid out, the entirety of the bus slamming down beside him.

Blood leaked out of his waist, proof the t-rex bit through all his tattoos and touched the flesh beneath. As Aiden maneuvered the dinosaur to snap at him again, the end of a rocket emerged from his feet, blasting him through a window.

Aiden let the tail of the t-rex animate fully, ripping itself out of the floor and throwing him onto the dinosaur’s back, they slammed through the wall just in time to see a jetpack torn by the t-rex’s teeth crash into the ground. The painted man cycled through numerous flying machines, all of which had been damaged when the t-rex bit him, until finally he just decided to rely on the one rocket on his foot to fly blindly through the street.

Aiden gave chase, but the t-rex’s large legs misled him. The dinosaur could not catch up.

Far ahead, Darius, who was in the process of locking the grenades with clamps Wren had made, looked up, just as the painted man dropped a live grenade on him.

The grenade set off numerous secondary explosions as the other grenades went flying, Aiden raised the top of the t-rex to guard, but thanks to the distance none caught him.

They ran through the smoke to see him getting closer to the edge of the Gate, where the evacuated people gathered in crowds and Josh was helping by carrying several people. The tuba turned to see the painted man.

He threw a bomb, then immediately doubled back towards Aiden.

Aiden threw out a bird origami animated with a fast white-throated needletail that intercepted bombs, then a speedy Eurasion hobby that caught explosives, then a swift Mexican free tailed bat that grabs incendiaries. Josh leapt for it, as did a black shadow from above as Ranpo dived.

None of them were fast enough, as the bomb landed in the middle of a crowd. None of them were fast enough, except for someone within the crowd itself. An ordinary citizen saw the bomb fall and caught it, she screamed at everyone to duck as she threw the bomb into the air.

As it exploded, she, who remained standing took the most damage.

The painted man stabbed Aiden’s gut.

Aiden saw him coming, he recognised that the painted man was aiming at him. He could’ve dodged, he could’ve swapped his muscle tattoos for more defensive ones, he could’ve done a million things to prevent it.

But still he spent all his focus trying to catch the bomb.

“Another idiot with hero syndrome,” the man whispered as he ripped Aiden off the dinosaurs back. Holding him the air with the dagger as he orientated the rocket so that he slammed Aiden into a concrete wall. Then with a flick, threw Aiden to crash into the ground below.

The man landed beside his crumpled body, “If you want to blame someone, blame yourself, if you lack the self awareness to do that, blame the world for being terrible…” Hearing loud thumps, he turned to the side, seeing Josh running towards them chased by a maddened t-rex that was now without Aiden’s control.

“Come forward anymore and I will kill him!” the painted man yelled.

“TRY IT!” Josh Tuba screamed in return. “YOU CAN’T KILL HIM IN A WAY THAT MATTERS!”

“Well, you asked for it,” he shrugged as he pointed a gun at Aiden.

Only to see a blur as Jun grabbed Aiden.

|

Jun was helping a man onto an ambulance when she heard the explosion.

Her earpiece was a babble of noise and useless chatter, so she ran towards the action. Passing the people giving emergency first aid to the woman who caught the bomb, passing Ranpo as he flew enraged to the source of the attack. Reaching Josh as he punched the head of the t-rex, drawing its ire, just as the painted man landed beside Aiden.

Josh saw her, and nodded.

She nodded back, and time slowed down.

Tuba led the dinosaur on a chase towards the enemy and away from the crowds.

“Come forward anymore and I will kill him!”

“TRY IT! YOU CAN’T KILL HIM IN A WAY THAT MATTERS!”

“Well, youuuuuu…”

Time slowed to a halt as Jun reached Aiden, wincing in horror as she saw his… She tried her best to hold him without exacerbating his wounds, then ran back as Tuba engaged the enemy.

She ran.

She ran as fast as she could, time was sped up for her, yet every step seemed slow, a distance she had traversed dozens of times already suddenly seemed monumental. As if no matter how fast she ran, she was still back at that day, where no running could let her escape.

And yet, she still ran, swallowed her fear, swallowed her horror, swallowed her worry.

When she burst through the Gate, she gently laid Aiden down on an ambulance stretcher as time sped back up. Paramedics went to work around her, having already dealt with patients she had brought back. But they were too slow, Jun knew that they couldn’t do anything except stabilise him. Aiden’s regeneration was working, but it was weaker than hers.

She looked at her right hand, where Daycore remained a symbol, could she slow him down to a halt? Give him more time? But Aiden was a metahuman, his innate resistance meant she would spend many times more hume to affect him. She would be giving her life for him.

“Prioritise your own lives.”

“Follow your own goddamn advice, idiot.”

Oros looked up oddly at her, coiled tightly around Aiden, ready to act as his final protector, and prepared to be there when he passed.

Jun took off her Nightcore mask. She didn’t return it to a symbol on her hand, instead she reached to place it on Aiden. Not to simply speed him up, as the symbol did, she wanted to give Nightcore.

“This better work.”

As the mask touched his face, it changed. Morphing as it travelled up Aiden’s face before coalescing on his ear as a stud earring. A simple black circle with a crescent moon symbol.

Aiden’s body shifted in much the same way as when she put on Nightcore, and Jun saw his body healing. Bruises disappearing, cuts closing, bones snapping back in place.

As she manifested Daycore as a mask, she saw that while it was battered, cracked and peeling, her hume wasn’t being spent.

Instead, the relatively still topped up body of Oros began to shift as it was covered in plants, and Aiden’s hume was spent to power his regeneration.

|

“CAR!” Josh yelled as he threw a car at the man.

“The speedster already tried this,” he replied as the car turned into a tattoo on his body.

Josh stomped the asphalt, “ASPHALT ROCK!” Cracking the road and throwing one of the pieces at the painted man.

He responded by launching that same car at him.

Josh punched it, smashing through the vehicle. ‘Absorption nullifies all momentum, it seems he can throw it back with the same speed.’

Rushing past the man, the roaring t-rex made a snap towards him.

As the painted man dodged the dinosaur, Josh thought, ‘He’s still afraid of Aiden’s ability, might be the only thing that can bypass it.’

“MANHOLE COVER!” He grabbed a manhole cover and threw it at him like a discus.

“It won’t work,” he mocked as he absorbed it too.

“IT DOESN’T MATTER IF IT DOESN’T WORK NOW!” Josh yelled back. “YOUR HUME MUST HAVE A LIMIT! YOU’VE BEEN IN THIS GATE THIS ENTIRE TIME AND FOUGHT MY COMRADES!”

He grabbed a postbox, “I SIMPLY NEED TO KEEP HITTING YOU UNTIL IT STICKS! POSTBOX!”

This time the man didn’t have a pithy comment as he absorbed it.

“You wouldn’t last that long.”

Josh mentally smirked, ‘He believes me.’

He didn’t need to defeat him, Jun got Aiden, everyone was evacuated, there was no need for this fight to continue. He was only buying more time for them.

“I WILL CHASE YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH!” Josh screamed back in response. And who wouldn’t believe that? The image his family cultivated was that of over the top madmen and women. “T-REX!”

The man turned in shock as the extremely loud and clad in tubas Josh had drawn enough attention for the t-rex to sneak up on him. The painted man fired upon it, bullets riddling its face and eyes, making it miss him. When he turned back, the Tuba was gone.

Without Aiden, the creature was a dumb beast, and the painted man continued firing upon it.

But even though his automatic rifle drew blood through all the toughness Aiden had granted it, even as the painted man kept just out of its reach, it did not flee, it did not whimper, it did not fall.

It was a dominant creature, and it refused to die. The painted man could only reabsorb his gun in frustration before turning to run.

“ROAD ROLLER!”

The painted man turned to the direction of Josh’s voice, only to see a voice synthesizer that Wren had made.

The actual Josh threw a road roller from the other direction.

The massive vehicle slammed into his back, absorbed in an instant.

Josh tsked, ‘It must be a toggle rather than reaction, even when he’s not paying attention he absorbs things. The size of the object also doesn’t seem to matter.’

“I thought I told you that wouldn’t work!”

“AND I TOLD YOU I WON’T STOP UNTIL YOU CEASE EXISTING!”

“You fuckers, I’ve already wasted enough-”

A figure slammed into the ground beside them. He wore martial robes, his face was covered by an old and cracked fox mask.

Josh turned to Jun, he met his gaze.

“I know what you’re thinking Josh, but I’m just here to work off steam.”

And Jun leapt towards the man. “Daycore!”

“More and more of you, coming out of the woodwork,” he spat in frustration as he threw another debris wave at Jun.

He slammed through it, fist raised.

The man completely ignored the coming blow, calmly raising a gun and aiming it at Jun’s face.

And Jun’s fist connected, smashing into his stomach, blood and spittle left the painted man’s mouth as he went flying, slamming into the ground and rolling a good few feet.

Before he left Aiden, Jun had taken his Slitted Decapitator glove.

The painted man had barely gotten back up before Tuba threw a street light into him. “STREET LIGHT!”

“You’re supposed to say it before you throw it!” the man yelled at him.

He dodged a wide swing from Jun just as Tuba threw a bin into him. As he prepared to attack Jun, Josh suddenly rushed him, his own fists raised. A flash of hesitation as he feared Josh could somehow bypass his ability as well caused him to divert the attack to the Tuba, just as Jun struck his back. A metal board with a fist imprint slammed into Jun, followed by a grenade, but Jun was timing his time slow, raising his durability just as attacks landed and immediately lowering it back down.

The painted man turned to dodge Jun, but Josh swung a bench into his face, obscuring his vision for long enough that Jun landed another punch on his arm.

The man screamed, and a massive amount of his tattoos exploded out of his body, forcing both of them to stop in their tracks through sheer mass. When both pushed through it, the man was running.

Josh leapt after him first, “GET BACK HERE!”

Jun, without Nightcore could only follow after him. Though Daycore improved his overall physique with speed included, the time slow largely overwrote it so that he was still slower than average even at the lowest time slow.

Their enemy made good headway, confirming Jun’s suspicions that he didn’t just have his tattoo power, but an improved physique on top.

A crow cawed above them.

As they turned a corner, the man paused.

Ahead of them was a person. His mask remained the same, but his face was softer, his hair grew a bit but remained short, giving him an androgynous look. His clothes had completely changed though, he wore torn jeans and a baggy hoodie with the words MILI X H△G on the sleeves. When Jun first saw it, it reminded him of grunge.

It was Nightcore Aiden, and he rode an extremely pissed t-rex.