The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism

Chapter 495: 495 | The Weapon. Where?

Granite skin’s shoulders tensed.

There it was. The tell.

"And the fact that you brought nullification and immunity variants to a flooded plaza full of first-years tells me you weren’t planning to leave survivors, which means whatever you’re actually here for isn’t about the publicity stunt your butler friend was selling upstairs."

Air-claw shifted his weight.

Another tell.

"So why don’t you save us both some time," I spun the staff again and felt Sadism purring approval through every rib that hurt like hell. "And tell me what the Twilight Society is really after before I have to beat it out of you."

Granite skin laughed.

It was an ugly sound. Wet, mean, full of the specific confidence that comes from knowing you’ve already won.

"You think we’re here for intel?" He rolled his shoulders and the stone rippled down his arms like liquid running uphill. "Kid, we’re the distraction. The real team’s already halfway to the objective while your instructors are busy playing hero with our disposable friends upstairs."

My stomach dropped.

"What objective."

"The weapon." He said it simple, conversational, like it wasn’t the worst thing I’d heard all morning.

"Command’s been planning this for months. Today was just the opening we needed, all those nice first-years clustered together while security’s running thin."

My mouth went dry.

Air-claw was circling closer now, those shimmering hands weaving patterns that looked surgical. Professional. The kind of movements that said he’d done this before and knew exactly which organs to remove first.

"Your boss tell you what happens when you corner a Belmont?" I asked it conversational, buying time while my brain worked through options that were rapidly approaching zero. The Oracle Feed was quiet, which meant it had nothing useful to add or was waiting to see if I’d figure this out myself.

"Your mom died doing rescue work," granite skin said it flat, casual, like he was reading a weather report. "Your dad died thirty seconds after her trying to pull civilians from a collapsing structure. You’re the last one, and you’re Unmarked, which means when I crush your skull nobody’s going to remember your family was worth a damn."

His hand flexed.

"Actually, scratch that. They’ll remember you as the kid who couldn’t hack it, who got into Halloran on a sympathy vote and died in his first real incident because he didn’t have the power to back up the legacy name."

Air-claw’s hands moved closer.

"We’ll make it quick," he said, almost kind. "Professional courtesy. Your parents were decent Heroes back in the day, even if their kid turned out defective."

The cold thing in my chest stopped laughing.

Something else woke up instead.

Something I’d been carrying since a conference room three months ago when a System decided I was going to survive in a dead boy’s body by becoming exactly the kind of person who could handle moments like this.

I activated Blitz and closed the gap.

Granite skin’s eyes went wide behind his mask because he’d expected me to be slower after the beating I’d taken, expected the debuff to drag me down, expected Unmarked physiology to fail under pressure.

I hit him with Joyful Cloud channeling every point of Strength I had through legendary multipliers and whatever was left of my stamina reserves.

The staff connected with his jaw at an angle that bypassed his stone skin’s reinforcement, found the gap where flesh became mineral, and something in his neck went crack.

He dropped.

Air-claw lunged forward, his hands still sparking with compressed force that he probably thought was going to be enough.

I spun low, brought the chain section up in a tight arc that caught his wrist mid-reach, and when the golden links wrapped around bone and tendon I yanked hard enough that his shoulder came out of its socket with a wet pop.

He screamed.

His Aspect flickered.

The moment the air around his hands destabilized I drove Joyful Cloud’s tip straight into his solar plexus with enough force that his entire body folded in half around the point of impact.

He hit the water face-first and stayed down.

The rain kept falling.

Nine bodies floated peaceful in Rina’s wool field, their breathing steady and their threats permanently revoked.

Two more lay unconscious at my feet in water that was still rising around their prone forms.

My stamina hit twenty-three percent and the world tilted sideways but I planted Joyful Cloud in the submerged concrete and held on and forced my legs to lock.

"Lukas?" Rina’s voice came down small and scared. "Are you okay?"

I wasn’t okay.

My shoulder had given up filing complaints and just hurt in a flat continuous way that suggested medical attention in my immediate future.

My ribs were making sounds they shouldn’t make.

My vision kept doubling and clearing and doubling again, and the emergency lighting was starting to smear.

But I was standing and the threats were down and Rina was safe and that was close enough to okay for now.

"Ren!" I shouted it up toward wherever he was lurking. "Need a platform here, the granite guy’s still breathing!"

Stone rose from the water, smooth and quick, forming a shelf that lifted me and the two unconscious bodies up above the flood line.

I collapsed onto it less gracefully than I would have liked, my legs finally remembering they’d been operating past redline for six consecutive minutes.

Granite skin was breathing shallow. Air-claw was out cold. Around us in the plaza, sixteen other bodies floated in varying states of consciousness courtesy of Rina’s Aspect making the concept of violence feel like a bad idea.

I rolled granite skin onto his back and pulled his mask off.

Underneath was a face I didn’t recognize, mid-thirties with a scar running through his left eyebrow and the particular emptiness in his eyes that came from too many bad decisions and not enough good ones.

"So." I sat on his chest with Joyful Cloud resting across my knees. "The weapon. Where?"

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