I tore the bronze ticket.
[Flash Grenade]
|Common Ability|
Allows you to conjure a ball of light that detonates into a blinding flash and concussive noise, disorienting enemies and severely harming dark-aligned targets.
I tapped my chest. A faint gold sheen settled over me as I pushed a minor blessing into endurance, then flicked the slot and keyed in Flash Grenade.
Below us, Ridley’s last burst of fire had carved a burning line straight through the street. Flames roared outward, heat and smoke forcing most of the capes to scatter.
All except one.
Lung stood there, scales overtaking his body as he swelled larger than a man, staring up at us with naked vengeance.
“All yours,” I said, pointing down. “Go crazy.”
Ridley answered with a primal screech and folded his wings, diving.
Watching him snatch Lung mid-roar and haul him bodily into the air was satisfying. Fire and scales twisted together as the space pirate carried him off, both of them vanishing upward in a trail of heat and fury.
I turned away and cut hard toward the Empire capes.
They’d taken cover behind a hastily raised wall of metal, but it was already breaking apart. When it finally peeled away, six of them were exposed.
Kaiser was impossible to miss, wrapped in sculpted metal armor. Alabaster lay sprawled nearby, already knitting himself back together. Hookwolf hadn’t shifted yet, all coiled teeth and impatience. Crusader hovered farther back, pale ghost-soldiers drifting at his shoulders. Stormtiger was already airborne.
“Do you want a war?” Kaiser shouted. “Every villain in the Bay will hunt you for breaking neutral ground!”
I tilted my head. “Bitch says what…?”
“What—”
I answered by tossing a Flash Grenade.
I was already shooting straight up as it went off, the blast softened by distance.
Even then, it was fucking loud. The sound hammered into my ears and left spots dancing across my vision from up here. I could only imagine how bad it was right below. The Empire squad staggered under the wash of light and noise.
A lazy wave of my hand pulled my familiar inventory open.
A shadowed knight dropped from above, blade already moving.
I’d briefed him during the break. Igris knew the capes and their abilities. His longsword cut Alabaster cleanly as he landed, driving straight into the cluster and forcing the Empire to react.
Hookwolf transformed with a metallic snarl and lunged. Crusader’s ghosts surged forward. The Empire tried to dogpile Igris all at once.
I didn’t let them.
I dove, swinging my pilfered katana straight at Kaiser. Spears of metal erupted to intercept me, steel blades lancing in from every angle. I parried what I could, but there were too many. The force knocked the katana from my hands. I kicked off the air and shot back upward.
Hit, retreat, reposition. I wasn’t trying to win. I was keeping them off balance, splitting their focus, forcing mistakes.
A notification slid across my vision.
I looked down.
Igris stood over Alabaster’s body, sword dripping. Alabaster’s head was gone. His heart rested in Igris’s gauntlet.
I grinned.
[Feat Achieved! Double Tapped!]
[+1 Silver Gacha Ticket]
Hookwolf slammed into Igris like a freight train of metal and teeth. Wind howled as Stormtiger followed, the air buckling under the combined impact.
Igris barely moved.
Steel rang. Wind screamed. The knight met them with calm, brutal efficiency, blade carving controlled arcs that drove Hookwolf back while Stormtiger’s gusts broke uselessly against his stance.
[Rolling Silver Gacha Ticket]
[Bear Form]
|Rare Ability|
You can turn into a Bear or a Bear hybrid at will. As a bear, you gain enhanced physical stats, fangs, claws, and a thick hide, providing you with enhanced defensive capabilities as well as any other characteristics the average Bear would possess.
I slotted it and dove.
As I fell, my body thickened, muscle piling on in heavy waves. Fur tore through my skin. My hands stretched, fingers fusing into claws as mass settled into me with bone-deep force. The air resisted me now.
I welcomed it.
Metal pikes erupted from the street. Ghostly figures surged upward, spears raised.
I broke left and rolled through the air, slipping past both attacks by a hair as I closed the distance.
My paw slammed into Kaiser’s face.
Metal buckled. I felt his armor dent under the impact, the shock traveling up my arm. Ghostly blades raked across my side, scraping fur and hide, but I didn’t slow. I grunted and followed through with another mauling strike that sent him skidding backward across the pavement.
I flowed into roses, mass collapsing into motion, and shot for Crusader.
A howl of wind smashed into me mid-lunge and hurled me aside. I shot him an irritated look as I reformed, then dissolved again as Crusader’s ghosts tried to pin me in place.
I zigzagged across the ground, left and right, petals shredding and reforming as I dodged the pursuing spirits. Steel pillars burst from the asphalt in my wake as Kaiser tried to box me in. The ghosts hovered overhead, angling to cut off my escape if I took to the air.
I twisted hard to the right and emerged from rose form fully, the bear form slamming back into place. I swatted a spear out of the air and barreled forward, shifting in and out of form to stay ahead of the metal traps.
I drove straight through Kaiser.
He didn’t get his barrier up in time.
I tapped my back.
The cloak launched skyward, snapping forward like a living thing. Ghost-spears tried to intercept it and passed straight through. Crusader’s inverse Manton limit kicked in, and magic fabric apparently didn’t count as alive.
The cloak wrapped around Kaiser’s head.
He staggered, hands flying up, clawing blindly as panic finally cracked his composure.
I didn’t wait.
I shifted back into rose form and reappeared directly in front of Crusader. His eyes went wide. One of his ghosts dipped, trying to lift him up and away.
I opened my jaws and bit down on his leg.
“AHHH—”
I shook him violently, then shifted mid-motion into hybrid form and drove a punch into his torso. I felt his ribs give. He went limp and crashed to the street as the cloak snapped free and returned to me.
I turned.
Kaiser was on his knees, armor warped and filthy, breathing hard. He shuffled back, hands raised.
“I’m a powerful man,” he said quickly. “I don’t know what you want, but I can help you.”
“Do you know where Coil is?”
“What? That small-timer? No, but I can—”
“Then die.”
I was already moving, bear claws coming down on him.
I mauled him until even the armor couldn’t pretend anymore. Each strike landed with the full, ugly weight of a bear behind it, metal screaming as it deformed.
When I finally pulled back, dark blood seeped through warped seams and pooled beneath him.
Instinct took over.
I threw my head back and roared.
The sound tore out of me, raw and triumphant, echoing off the shattered concrete.
[Feat Achieved! Decapitate the Empire!]
[+1 Platinum Gacha Ticket]
Heavy footsteps approached. I turned, still grinning, as Igris walked over. He held a blue tiger mask in one hand and a metal wolf mask in the other, dropping both neatly at my feet. Behind him, the street was littered with mangled weapons and bent steel, the remains of what the Empire had tried to bring to bear.
Igris straightened and gave me a thumbs up.
“Good job,” I said, the grin widening.
I ripped the platinum ticket.
[Servant Voucher]
|Epic Item|
A coupon that allows you to summon your own Heroic Spirit for free, the summoned heroic spirit depends on you as a person. The servant is bound to you in standard Grail War style, with them receiving mana through you, and you possessing 3 command seals to give absolute commands to them. Cannot summon Divine Servants(Divinity above C or explicitly a god) or Servants that qualify for a Grand position. A Servant summoned cannot exceed the performance of an Elite Rank familiar.
I willed it from my inventory, and a multicolored coupon—almost like a Saint Quartz—dropped into my hand.
I crushed it in my fist.
The air whirred. Lines of light spun and locked together as a pentagram flared into being.
A young boy appeared at its center. Short, white-haired, dressed in ornate, almost theatrical clothes.
“François Prelati, at your service,” he said, grinning with a devilish tilt to his smile. “Shall we make the world mad, my master?”
Did life just want to fuck her up?
Lisa didn’t know, but it really felt like it. Her parents. The asshole Coil with a gun to her head. And now this mess.
“Oh, there goes his head,” Alec whistled, watching the Empire brawl with the new cape. “Guess his power doesn’t let him come back from that.”
They were sprawled on a rooftop across from Somer’s Rock. The Undersiders didn’t have anywhere near enough clout to be part of the meeting, but they were here anyway, all on that bastard’s orders.
Coil had called her late last night and pushed her to the brink, making her use her power to analyze everything about the insane new cape. Her head was still killing her.
It didn’t help that he’d followed it up by ordering her to convince the rest of the Undersiders to set up an ambush at Somer’s Rock. Yeah, like that was going to go well.
Admittedly, Rachel and Alec had been easy sells with the payout Coil offered. That only made her more nervous. Brian had been harder. Coil had skipped her entirely and spoken to him directly. She didn’t know what he’d said, but Brian had agreed despite everything.
It stank of desperation. Normally, she might’ve gone along with it just to gain an edge against that bastard, but now… now she was having second thoughts.
“Is that a freaking bear…” Brian muttered.
She raised the binoculars and sucked in a sharp breath. Kaiser and Crusader were down.
Freaking mauled!
“Big,” Rachel grunted.
Lisa turned her head. In that direction, all she could make out were faint distortions, the air warping from the sheer heat rolling off the fight. Lung had grown even larger; the last remnants of his human shape nearly disappearing.
And the purple-silver dragon was still tearing into him, with something disturbingly close to joy.
Shit. Coil wanted them to fight these guys?
Her phone rang. She picked it up.
“Tattletale, I’m preparing to move in. His injuries from dealing with the Empire should be substantial. You need to capitalize on the injuries—”
“Uh… boss, I don’t know what you’re seeing, but Kaiser and the Empire are kind of…” She grimaced as a shadowy knight literally tore Hookwolf in half. “Losing. I’m not really seeing injuries here—”
“What? How? I chose—” He cut himself off, muttering under his breath.
She nudged her power up, just a little.
Confusion.
Misinformation? No. False results.
Using his power. Seeing different outcomes than reality. Intersection between two powers clashing?
Clairyovance? No predictions of some kind. Coil is a precog.
She winced as her head started to throb, but it had told her enough. She’d been trying to pin down the exact details of his power for weeks. She would’ve been grinning at the breakthrough if the situation weren’t such a complete disaster.
“…maybe the Protectorate,” Coil continued muttering, his voice edging into something close to panic. “Tattletale, wait for the Protectorate to arrive and look for an opportunity to attack him. All I need is one chance, and one of my men will do the job.” He rattled it off and cut the line.
She bit her lip as the connection went dead. He really must be getting desperate.
The sound of engines filled the air. She turned and spotted several Protectorate capes making a straight run for the battle.
Crap. There was no way they could fight in that mess. They were supposed to be escape artists, for god’s sake.
Should she ignore him? This might be her only chance. Whatever the new cape was doing was messing with Coil’s power, and if she wanted out from under his thumb, now might be the best shot she’d ever get.
“What’d the boss say?” Brian asked, eyes still locked on the fight, shoulders tight.
She frowned, hesitating. “He…”
“I make an offering. To this broken world I offer blessings and thanks and sacrifices!
I offer thanks to mother Até, born the embodiment of madness!
I offer blessings to the holy spirits of the world, who taught me magecraft, the madness of men!
O saint and knight who showed me a different madness, neither of you were mistaken!
I make an offering!
To all humanity, permitted by this broken world, I offer the sacrifice that is me!”
A young boy’s voice filled the air. It wasn’t loud, but it was perfectly clear.
One moment, they were sitting on the roof of an abandoned building.
“Grand Illusion!”
Reality lurched. The buildings vanished, replaced by a snowy flatland ringed with trees and dark woods. The roof beneath them softened and reshaped, becoming a low hill blanketed in snow.
Slowly, she dug her hand into it…
Regular snow.
Lisa looked at the rest of the Undersiders and made her choice.
“He told us to get the hell out of here!”
For the first time since the team’s conception, none of them argued.
They hopped onto Rachel’s dogs and hightailed it the hell out of there.
***
Comments and Thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Likes are like a drug to me and boost my creative juices.
I have advanced chapters if you wanna read ahead.