"Daddy!" Claire screamed, scrambling at the mess of gore that had been an arm wrapped around her just a moment before.

John saw no more of the father-daughter drama. Curtis was in the process of shoving Claire behind him with a grunt, his face a rictus of pain, when John sunk into the familiar cadence of Accelerate, leaping forward on instinct and aiming an Ultimate Shot at the follow-up laser beam that would have liberated Curtis of his other arm.

+1000 Aura

Ultimate Shot roared, trailed by countless elemental effects, and it struck the green laser dead on, halting its advance with an explosion that appeared instant even in Accelerate's dilated perspective. John squinted past the explosion with Eagle Eye, and saw the Gundam guy standing on the roof of the part of the hospital that was still upright. The fucking douchebag had his arms crossed, those metal wings spread wide. From here, they looked like a moth's wings, four glowing green spots on each wing. Their lighting was inconsistent: two were neutral, one was dim, and a fourth was bright, and getting brighter—John realised what that meant almost too late.

In that moment, John wished he had more of a detachable shield. For now, all he could do was meet the ranged assault with ranged attacks of his own, cancelling out the beam by aiming a shot into its trajectory—no easy feat, when Marksman was at a relatively low level. He knew immediately that the laser moved faster than his Ultimate Shots, and this strategy wasn't sustainable in the long term.

+1000 Aura

The thing was, no strategy was going to be viable if he had to fight all five enemies and protect Curtis and Claire at the same time. He Flash Stepped over to the duo, slapped his hands down on their shoulders, and Teleported them a further hundred metres away, dropping them in a small wooded pond area that bordered the park and a residential neighbourhood on the edge of Watford proper. It wasn't perfect cover, but it was better than where they had been, evidently. The Gundam had been able to see past the bushes simply enough.

As soon as he emerged from the Teleport, John threw himself into another Flash Step, chaining it with an Air Step to take him up and over the trees, where he could fire off more Ultimate Shots unimpeded.

Already, the two golden warriors were leaping from the hospital, soaring over the trees that had been half-felled by their destruction of half the building. They seemed to float with each bound like gravity was less concerned with them, but in return they were slow. John had to fire leading shots to hit where they were going to land, hoping to disrupt their rhythm and slow their advance while he thought—he was extremely reluctant to kill anyone on Curtis' behalf, but these people had made it clear through word and action that they were going to target Claire too, and he wasn't going to stand for that bullshit.

John grimaced as he fired off more shots as fast as he could. The Gundam remained on the roof, arms crossed, firing his own lasers to intercept John's shots now. The guy with the futuristic emerged from the treeline behind the golden duo, aiming his crossbow minigun but not yet firing it, for some reason. His footsteps were loud even from 200 metres away. The only one he couldn't see was the Illusion lady, which was concerning in its own right, but not something he could focus on right now.

Conflicted thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant, with moral calculus performed in the span of a heartbeat. It came down to this: he couldn't let these people torture a kid to death. Whatever other dilemmas he faced, at least with that one he could be sure without having to even think about it. Deciding what to do with Curtis could come later.

And besides, he had planned to fight these lot anyway.

Resolved, John raised a hand to the burning sky and called forth a Meteor Strike from the heavens, directing it right at the still-smoking wreckage of the hospital. It descended with the power of a vengeful god, tearing a shockwave through the air from the sheer speed of its passage. The sound when it crashed into the hospital was deafening. Another dust cloud erupted into the air.

+2000 Aura

The Gundam had been forced to leap away at the last moment, some kind of sensor suite alerting him of the incoming attack, while the two golden armours had been sent hurtling through the air as the shockwave from impact caught them in the midst of one of their moon jumps. The Storm Trooper was thrown sprawling to his hands and knees, forced to drop his crossbow minigun to catch himself rather than faceplant into the grass. Still no sign of the Illusion lady, but in one attack, John had knocked almost all of the enemy off their feet.

But he didn't stop there. Stepping forward, John activated Tornado, spinning up a vortex of violent air. He sent it hurtling towards the enemies with a push. In moments, it sucked up huge quantities of the lingering dust, turning the twister from a cloudy white colour to a muddy brown in seconds. The two golden armours threw themselves to each side in near-perfect sync.

The Storm Trooper, meanwhile, still on his knees, snatched up his crossbow minigun. The weapon buzzed like a chainsaw as it spun, letting out a stream of projectiles. Each bolt twinkled like the sun reflecting off the ocean, moving in slow-motion to his Acceleration-augmented eyes.

Evidently they had some kind of magical effect, but John couldn't fathom what the man had expected them to do against a tornado. The vortex sucked them up without slowing down, and the Storm Trooper was forced to run to one side at full tilt to avoid the oncoming storm.

Only the Gundam had the wherewithal to focus his efforts on John. His wings didn't appear to be capable of true flight, only letting him glide down to the ground from his previous position on the hospital rooftop. However, the trade-off for that was they could still fire even while keeping him in the air. Four green beams lanced towards John's location, only to crash through empty air and burn a line through the grass.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

John appeared two dozen paces away, firing off Ultimate Shots at the human-sized mecha suit the moment he emerged from his Flash Step. The Gundam was forced to take evasive manoeuvres, dipping lower, and redirect his lasers to intercepting the incoming attacks.

+1000 Aura

John returned his attention to the golden duo. They'd been attempting to move forward while he was distracted, heading towards the copse of trees where he'd left Claire and Curtis. Some well-placed Lava Spheres disabused them of that notion; magma erupted in front of them, cutting off their advance.

+1000 Aura

It felt like every time he showed a new attack, he received Aura. He found himself wondering, for an instant, what was going through these people's minds every time he pulled out another ability. He could imagine they had come prepared to face Curtis, banking on knowing what he could do and countering it, and hadn't expected him and his wider repertoire. What had run through their heads when he'd dropped a meteor on the hospital? When he'd summoned a tornado? When he'd fired off dozens of projectiles that seemed to boast a plethora of elemental effects?

And what would they think next, when he summoned a scythe from nowhere and a cloud of red mist erupted from his body and formed into a crimson doppelganger that had multiple distinct abilities of its own? He liked to think they were regretting their decision to come here, today.

+1000 Aura

As Accelerate came to its end, he returned his scythe to his Inventory and backtracked a bit with his real body, deciding to focus on range while his bloody clone rushed forward, going on the offensive. Sanguine Clone had plenty of tricks in its own right, and he showed a few of them off immediately. Force Pull and Force Push allowed him to select a point that the body could push and pull against, and in this case he designated one of the golden duo as his target and sent the clone hurtling towards her.

Having a human made of blood wielding a scythe suddenly hurl themselves at you was probably an unpleasant experience, and he made it even worse for them with the Hydro Stream aspect. With this, the clone could utilise its liquid nature, turning part of its body into a spout of blood. In this case, the arm not holding the scythe suddenly elongated ten metres, crossing the rest of the distance to the nearest golden warrior and smashing her in the chest, spiking her straight out of the air, mid-jump, with the force of a cannonball. She was sent flying, landing hard on her back several metres away from where she'd started, where she let out a wheeze of pain that shouldn't have been so satisfying, but was.

The other golden warrior shouted in alarm, voice shrill, "Millie!" Then she turned to John's clone and roared, "You bastard!"

+1000 Aura

While all this was happening, John was also at work in his real body, harassing the Gundam and the Storm Trooper. With Sanguine Clone active, he could only fire off Ultimate Shot from one arm. That wasn't utterly detrimental, since the cooldown was basically nonexistent; all he had to do was straighten his fingers, then clench them into a fist, over and over again. But it did mean he could only focus on one of the ranged enemies at a time.

The goal here, as he saw it, was to beat these guys until they decided going after Claire and Curtis wasn't worth the trouble and retreated—escaping wasn't on the cards even if he thought he could get away without losing Aura for "cowardice". Teleportation's cooldown ruled it out as a viable escape strategy when the enemy was employing a detection ability of some kind, and his other mobility Spells and Skills weren't exactly suited to passengers. Ideally, the enemy would conclude their vendetta wasn't worth the risk and give up sooner rather than later.

And he could gain some good Aura while he was at it. If he was going to bodge together some upgrades for Biomancy that would allow him to heal Claire, he was going to need a lot of points to work with.

Thus, he did his best to look completely unfazed about fighting outnumbered. Since he could only use one Ultimate Shot while Sanguine Clone was active anyway, he put the other hand in his pocket and affected a slouch, firing off the absurdly noisy ability with abandon. For the most part, he focused on keeping the ranged enemies from blitzing his clone, which didn't have any particularly noteworthy defences against such things. His blood meter had regenerated enough that he'd be able to summon a second if the first was destroyed, but that was obviously far from ideal.

Ultimate Shots kept roaring out. He alternated his focus between the Gundam, which had almost landed on the grass now, and the Storm Trooper, who was taking cover behind a small rise in the field and poking his head up to take shots with the crossbow minigun. The Gundam was forced to shoot them out of the air, or take evasive manoeuvres using the small thrusters on its wings.

Occasionally, he'd aim some at the golden duo to stop them from flanking around his clone, too. The one he'd landed a good hit on had gotten back on her feet almost immediately, and they'd adapted to the clone's harrying, timing their jumps so they spent less time in the air where they were vulnerable. He got the impression their builds were all about mobility, seeing as they were able to twist themselves around and do absurd somersaults as they sailed through the air, defying gravity. If they had any notable offensive abilities, they were keeping those cards close to their chests.

He kept his clone body chasing them, not keen to find out what they could do, utilising Hydro Stream, Force Push, and Force Pull to get in close, then swiping at them with the scythe, where it could utilise Wind Shear to elongate its slashes—though they typically twisted out of the way of those attacks.

Unfortunately, even with his clone active, he wasn't in complete control of proceedings. The Gundam had four lasers to choose from, though they seemed to have cooldown of their own, and the Trooper's minigun could fire off an absurd volume of projectiles. John was forced to Flash Step his real body to a new spot plenty of times to avoid taking damage, though he did his best to keep his bearing casual, unbothered, which earned him more Aura every time.

By the time the Gundam finally got its feet on the ground, the battle had settled into something of a stalemate. John somewhat gained the upper hand when Accelerate's cooldown ended and he could throw himself back into dilated time; both his main body and clone received the benefits of the Skill, and he was able to close in with the golden duo far more reliably for a time, while also taking control of the fight against the ranged opponents as he abruptly went from firing one Ultimate Shot a second to four or more.

Soon, the Gundam was on the retreat, the Trooper barely had time to stick his head up above the rise, which was rapidly becoming less of a rise as the elemental effects of John's attacks chipped away at it, and the golden duo were being beaten back, forced to stay on the ground as their jumps were just too vulnerable against the clone's speed. His Aura was soaring, and so was his confidence.

Then a scream came from the trees where he'd left Curtis and Claire, and he remembered, all too late, that the enemy had started off with five. He knew immediately that the Illusionist had snuck past him, and he threw himself into Teleportation without hesitation.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.