This is still a story of the Becoming Monsters universe by Ai Loves, setting used with permission. All canonical and mechanical errors are my own. The yarrb is the exceedingly cute creation of FelisRandomis, used with permission.
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Chapter 50: Friendly Fire
The crowd thankfully backed off to get back to the track meet, other than people who had to talk to police and assessors about property damage. My part was done, though, we could leave after giving our account and links to the videos. Apparently, there were already people commenting about how I should have aimed for more trucks. Go figure.
"You realize you just made my brother the coolest kid in his school, right?" Amber was taking a breath next to me, her emotions still in a whiplashed state.
"That was part of the point. Nate has a lot to learn, but he's earned a lot, too. This will do both."
She looked at me sharply. "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean that the first thing I want to know as he becomes my apprentice for real is whether he will let the game go to his head. Whether he will still maintain his studies and his practice. Whether he will stay the good person he is now. Plus the people who will challenge his new place, forcing him to discern between when force is required and when it isn't in order to defend himself and to apply his decision. The fame will fade eventually, but the lessons will hopefully stick."
"Jay, that is simultaneously the hottest and most terrifyingly cold-blooded thing you've ever said to me."
We began to walk back towards home. No need to waste Hunger flying if we were willing to hoof it, as the afternoon started to move on. These things could be sudden in the city, if you weren't on a street going just the right direction. One minute, you have light. The next, and the sun ducked behind the taller buildings, plunging the street into shadow despite the relatively early hour. Well above us, the blue skies and white clouds showed that it was daytime in the city. Where we were, though, was dim enough that the street lamps began to come on. The pools of light they cast only served to contrast the dark.
It was near one of these that we found monsters far worse than the ones we had just dispatched. Two shots rang out, the flashes drawing the eye, the sound of both bullets striking concrete instead of flesh distinct to our ears. Without hesitation, all four of my group broke into a dead sprint, directly towards the flashes we'd seen. Towards four Humans cornering a very different humanoid, a woman with skin the black of the void between the stars, clutching a paper bag in her overly long and spindly arms.
The four were all armed, each carrying at least a pistol and two of them also having carbines. They wore civilian-wear tactical vests, velcro patches showing defiant logos and slogans. Skulls, serpents, and altered flags featured heavily. One was holding his pistol pointed towards the woman, the barrel literally still smoking. It made the following seconds much, much easier.
A single slice of my Guild Leader's Saber passed directly through the outstretched weapon, severing it in two less than half an inch away from the man's finger, still resting on its trigger. To my left, another of them spun towards me, only for his weapon to glow red-hot in his hands before he could bring it to bear. He dropped it from blistering hands to the concrete, where it proceeded to melt into slag. His view shifted suddenly as he was seized by my wife's telekinetic might and suspended fifteen feet in the air.
A third clawed to get his longarm off his back, but encountered a problem. Specifically, being grappled by someone with four arms and much better combat training. He was in a full Nelson and a rear neck choke simultaneously, which could not possibly be a fun position to be in. That was still better than Dude Number Four, who found himself casually lifted in the air and pinned against the wall of the building by Whitney.
The entire encounter had taken perhaps five seconds from start to finish.
"What are you DOING?" I practically roared at the man before me. The way the others moved, along with my read of their emotions, placed him as the pack's leader.
"A black woman robbed a grocery near here! We, the Militia, were conducting a stop!"
I saw bright red. "Did you ever stop to consider that there are over
a hundred thousand
black-skinned women in this city, or that she's carrying a bag from a hardware store? Or that she's a Corporeal Shade who
doesn't eat
?"
"She wouldn't respond to our commands!"
"She DOESN'T HAVE VOCAL CORDS, you idiot! How DARE you call yourselves a Militia? Out here in tactical gear looking for an excuse for a fight. Where were you thirty minutes ago, huh? We had a Gate event you could have helped with. No, you saved your ammo for an innocent woman you could bully. Those weapons are worse than worthless in your hands, pointed at the people you are supposed to be protecting. Get lost, and pray we do not meet each other again. Next time I have to stop you four, we won't aim for the weapons. Ladies, drop them."
Amber's target got off easy, she merely released her hold, letting him stumble away gasping for breath. Lucy lowered hers to about six feet before dispelling her Telekinesis and landing him in a heap. One which Whitney casually tossed her target onto.
They got themselves unscrambled, but I could feel the rage under the surface. Rage directed at me, personally. Best get ahead of this. "Don't even think about trying it. You are out-leveled, out-trained, out-equipped, and starting from a severe disadvantage in position. If I see one of you draw a weapon, I will strike to kill. This has been your last warning under Delver code. Back. Off." This last was accompanied by a blast of fear from my Aura.
I backed off the anger projection spike at the last second. Figured I didn't want to risk an accident.
By now, all three of the women behind me knew what it felt like when I was the one pushing emotions into the area. Even negative forces, coming from me, were familiar to them. Not so much the bunch I was staring down. What they felt wash of them was terror, with me as the object of their fears. An entity they now understood only let them live because they were so far beneath that it was not worth my time to kill them. That trying to press the issue would be a none-too-fancy way of committing suicide.
They didn't need to know I wouldn't strike to kill, not against people. No matter how monstrous their behavior, people aren't monsters. The next scramble had them running, as fast and as far as their feet would carry them. I slumped a bit, deflated, the bright blue and white of the skies above contrasting with the blood red glow of the still-heated slag that was once a carbine. "Lucy, kill the spell. Amber, once you can, collect the bits they dropped." I took two steps over to the woman, black as night and still pressed against the wall. "Ma'am, did either bullet strike you?"
She shook her head no. I'd normally have checked her directly, but no longer being in an emergency meant I couldn't Scan her and I didn't want to risk touch-based life drain.
"Alright. If they come back for round two, contact me through the Guild Halls. Ask for Jeremiah, they'll know. Have a good rest of the evening, ma'am."
The group was quiet the rest of the way home. I know my own body was delivering me an aftershock the likes of which I never got while dealing with monsters. My gut was an acidic mess, my chest heavy. Words would not come from my mouth. It was... an immense frustration. An eternal fact of my existence, one which would leave me alone for only long enough to forget it amongst the other pressures I faced. People who should know better. People I should not have to be intervening against.
It really boggled my mind still, just as it had before the Change. Why, when so much was so obviously wrong in the world, do people act like... that. Waste the time and the resources on people who were not problems. People who were just trying to live their lives.
The gloomy thoughts lasted until we got to the elevator at our apartment building. As soon as the doors closed, Lucy decided to dispel them rather directly. She jumped into my arms and practically shoved her tongue down my throat, pressing her supernaturally sexy body into mine as Whitney and Amber nodded approvingly.
It was Amber who decided to narrate, since Lucy's mouth was busy. "Jay, we don't have long. Lots left to do today, as soon as we get up to the apartment, but for this afternoon? Get your head out of that amazing rear end of yours. It was the right thing, no matter how hard it was, or we wouldn't have backed you up like that."
The elevator pinged, the trip having gone remarkably faster than I could ever remember. Reluctantly, Lucy hopped down to the ground and brought her questing tongue back to herself in order to let us walk out. Not sure why she bothered, I could carry her and that was one amazing kiss. Maybe to encourage me to have my eyes open? Trying to actually get her head back in the present for what we were getting to walk into?
Maybe give my own head some time to stop spinning from the kiss? Either way, the rather gloomy train of thought was thoroughly derailed.
There were two very different things going on inside. On one side of the living room, Emily was patching Paige up, the Kitsune taking the opportunity to give our youngest team member a stern talking-to about unnecessary risks. On the other, Gloria was talking to a couple of visitors. Chaske and Misun, the twin cephalopods who had been running our drones and social media presence, seemed simultaneously excited and out of sorts. They noticed as I came in, and all three scrambled my way to get the details of what happened and
why I did something like swear in a new member after cutting the feed
