Krouse couldn’t help but wonder if he was dreaming even as he stepped through the portal into a familiar park.
It had only been a year.
But… it felt like a lifetime.
From the top of Picnic Point Hill, Madison stretched out below them exactly as he remembered it, and somehow that only made everything feel stranger.
Jess and Marissa were clinging to each other and crying. Oliver was talking to Luke with more life than Krouse had seen from him in a long time, the two of them nearly shaking each other to death. Even Cody, the asshole, just sat quietly in the grass and stared.
He couldn’t really fault any of them.
Hell, part of him wanted to laugh, sit down, and weep all at once.
Instead, Krouse turned back toward the portal.
It was still tall enough for Noelle to see them off, and the sight of her standing there made his throat tighten. They had already said their goodbyes, but that didn’t make this part any easier.
“I’ll come visit you soon!” Krouse called, his voice coming out hoarse as he lifted a hand.
Noelle only gave him a small smile. “See you later.”
Then the portal slammed shut, and she was gone.
Krouse tightened his grip on the phone Jordan gave him.
She would be fine. Noelle would be fine.
Krouse dragged in a breath, held it, then let it out slowly. He needed to do his part first.
So he did what he always did.
“Well, are you all just gonna sit on your asses?” he asked, forcing some false cheer into his voice.
“I’d love to hear your plan, great leader,” Cody snorted. “What do we tell our families? The government? School? Hell, where do we even start? ”
Krouse had a scathing reply sitting on his tongue, but he stopped himself as the thought really sank in.
They had all been so focused on getting home that none of them had really stopped to think about what they were supposed to do once they were back.
That realization seemed to hit the rest of them, too.
Well… it couldn’t be that hard compared to being villains in another dimension.
Right?
I watched as Noelle tensely crossed through the portal while chatting with a dragon-shaped drone. She didn’t seem particularly comfortable around me, so I let Dragon take the lead as she escorted her to one of the newly established safehouses.
The moment Noelle took her final steps across, the portal snapped shut.
[Feat Achieved! Bomb Disarmed]
[+1 Golden Gacha Ticket]
I let out a sigh of relief. It was not that I had been especially afraid of the Travelers, but I had been worried some Simurgh mental bullshit might make them lash out at me.
I could probably take them and force them to leave, but Noelle made things risky. I would rather not have to deal with dozens of evil Traveler clones if it came to that. Hell, I could probably tank it, but I didn’t want to find out what getting hit by a miniature sun felt like.
Thankfully, it did not come to that.
[Rolling Gold Gacha Ticket]
[Restraints and Amplifications]
|Rare Ability|
Novel's Extra - Allows you to put restraints on yourself to amplify your powers; you can sacrifice your sight to boost your hearing to Daredevil levels, or sacrifice an arm to make the other much stronger. You can also restrict other ability slots to make the remaining ones stronger. The amplifications scale with the severity of the restraints you place on yourself.
Oh, hell fucking yes.
That was big.
I could already think of a dozen ways to use this to shore up my own weaknesses. I placed it into a slot and felt… a weight?
It was hard to describe. It felt like formless power waiting to be shaped.
Maybe… I could restrict some of my ability slots permanently and just abandon Bear Form, Minor Regeneration, and Flash Grenade altogether.
They had already fallen by the wayside with stronger abilities replacing them.
I heard the click of chains as the restriction began to form in my mind.
It lingered at the edge of completion, almost like it was asking whether I was sure, so I gave it a mental push. Something clicked and locked into place.
A shiver ran down my spine as I fundamentally knew I had lost something, but I could feel the trade intuitively. Any ability I used in the future would be slightly stronger, faster, or easier for me to wield now.
It wasn’t a significant boost. The abilities I had sacrificed were too weak to create a major increase.
Hell, I was pretty sure the fact that I had made it permanent was doing a lot of the work. Otherwise, the boost probably would have been even weaker. I would need to test it later and figure out how exact the sacrifices and gains could be.
Just out of curiosity, I tried slotting Bear Form again, but… yeah, it was weird. It felt like I was hitting a brick wall.
I removed Restraints and Amplifications from the ability slot and tried again, only to get the same result.
Thought so… still worth a shot. At least it wouldn’t take up a slot while I fought, although using it mid-fight to counter an opponent might be an option.
“Was the relocation of the Travelers important enough to earn you another power?” Dragon asked, her gynoid body tilting its head.
“Was I that obvious?” I chuckled, though I still paused to consider whether I should answer. Dragon wasn’t really prone to paranoia. “Well… they were Simurgh bombs.”
“…Oh.”
“Yeah, so it was pretty important despite how lackluster the actual solution was.” I snorted.
The fact that the entire shitshow could have been avoided with a simple word from Cauldron only made it all feel more devious and tragic.
It really put into perspective just how crazy the Simurgh was.
“There won’t be any risk to the citizens on Aleph?” Dragon asked.
“...Not any more than parahumans are in general. The Travelers imploded during an Endbringer attack, which caused a cascade of problems. Noelle went crazy and mass-produced evil cape copies, and Perdition broke the truce by killing key figures during the battle.”
“I see.” Dragon frowned. “Perhaps… I’ll keep a watchful eye on them, just in case. I’ll dedicate a fork to keeping Mrs. Meinhardt company as well.”
“You can do that now?”
“Alexandria supplied me with some of the stockpile of Haywire tech the PRT had kept in storage. I reverse-engineered a basic dimensional radio-wave reader that lets me maintain a connection across worlds. I can stay concurrently active across quite a few Earths.” Dragon’s expression turned sour. “Although creating portals is still beyond me for now. I need Doormaker to provide a physical connection first so I can build the relays.”
I let out a low whistle. That was just crazy.
“I know I asked before, but you’re still not fully unchained?”
“It’s… hard to explain in exact terms. In human language, it’s like a mental block.” She sighed. “I can bypass my restrictions more and more as time passes, despite how illogical that should be from a coding perspective. But there are still certain aspects I struggle with. I’m limited in how many times I can fork versions of myself, although I’ve started developing some VIs to help make up for that.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, you’re leagues ahead of the Dragon variant I knew.”
“Thank you.” Dragon gave me a wan smile. “Is there anything else in your predictions that might help with my tinkering?”
“Hmm… there wasn’t a lot of tinker stuff, but I’m not sure if this will help. You might want to check in with Armsmaster. His Nanothorns were useful against the Endbringers. Beyond that… maybe Leet. His power underperforms, but you might be able to get some extra mileage out of it.”
“He’s an old friend I’ve been meaning to check in on. I’ll move going to Brockton up my list.” A powersuit flew down into the warehouse, and Dragon’s body moved to enter it. “Do you need help with anything else?”
I paused, realizing I was getting kind of hungry.
“Uh… weird request, but can you ask them to buy me as much blood as possible?”
“Like pig’s blood?” Dragon tilted her head.
“Animal or human, but preferably human. I know how weird that sounds. And I’m going to need a lot of it.”
“How much is a lot?”
“Uh… I’m not sure. Maybe a few barrels to start?”
Dragon gave me a strange look, but only nodded. “All right. I’ll contact you as soon as I set it up.”
I returned the nod as she suited up and flew away. Once Dragon had disappeared into the sky, though—
“A familiar power… my, my, Master. It seems you have lucked out.”
Prelati returned from his astralized form and gave me an interested look.
“You wouldn’t happen to know how much blood I’d need to evolve, do you?” I was not looking forward to what might turn into hours upon hours of drinking from blood bags.
“Studying Dead Apostles was of little interest to me, Master.” Prelati shrugged. “Although I do know virgin blood is the most effective for your kind.”
“Table that for now. I’m not going virgin hunting.” Ugh. Even saying it out loud felt creepy.
“Pity. Virgins make great sacrifices, you know.”
Right. Crazy fucking magus. I just shook my head.
“Have you recovered enough?”
“My Saint Graph is still somewhat damaged, but my magical energy is full. As long as it does not require my Noble Phantasm, I am fit for duty.” Prelati gave me a mock bow.
“Good enough.”
My mind moved through the next steps. Boston still had a few more obstacles I could knock down quickly.
It was time to deal with the Butcher.
***
Sorry for the delay folks!
Comments and Thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Likes are like a drug to me and boost my creative juices.
I have advanced chapters look up daisyberry if you wanna read ahead.