Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 235: Interlude Whack-a-Mole

There were many mysteries in this world, questions beyond counting.

Why did the gods fight this proxy war?

Why were human beings so inherently self-destructive?

Where the actual fuck had Isaac Thoma found that terrifyingly capable investigator of his?

And, of course, what trouble could a mischievously inclined [Rogue] get up to using said information? Especially when his “orders” were to “go crazy and ham it up”?

This wasn’t meant to look like someone working specifically to save Karl Siegel, someone who had personal skin in the game, but rather someone who decided to take care of things out of an overly-developed sense of “justice”, in the comic book sense of the word.

Jason North was fully aware of how he could come off to others, but honestly, playing it up was fun.

The warehouse looked like any of the dozen others that surrounded it, a tall ceiling, corrugated iron walls and ceiling, three stories of offices making up one of the sides, loading docks on the opposite side of those. A place that no one really cared about, no one watched over, where no looky-loos or busybodies to call the authorities.

In other words, the perfect place to prepare for a high-profile assassination in, especially when said assassination involved innumerable large pieces of equipment.

The mercenaries within were technically official military contractors with all the required licenses and paperwork to operate legally, but they were suspected of taking on quite a few decidedly illegal tasks due to how well they paid. In addition, they apparently had an unhealthy level of self-esteem, if they were willing to take a contract on an S-Ranker.

During the last few days, Jason had run all over the globe, picking fights with hitmen, mercenaries, A-Rankers of dubious morals, and a single S-Ranker, each time, he’d come out on top after delivering some kind of admonishment, making it abundantly clear that he disapproved of the actions taken, becoming an urban myth overnight. After all, none of the people he’d gone after had been in a position to call the cops, not without revealing their own crimes. But rumors still circulated.

And now, he’d gotten the heads up about this group, already in the same city as Karl, preparing to take action. Heavily enhanced firearms that could breach an [Engineer’s] personal armor, MANPADs to stop an escape via air, [Tacticians], and a [Mercenary Commander] with [Skills] that could lock down an area, [Snipers] and [Heavy Weapons Specialists] to do the actual killing … it was a good spread, one that might even let them succeed. Maybe.

Jason didn’t know everything about Karl, he lacked a full breakdown of the man’s capabilities, but he’d become an S-Ranker with a non-combat [Class]. He had to be powerful.

Either way, no one would ever find out how an ambush would have gone because these jackasses were getting ambushed first.

[Round Table: Borrow Skill: Unknown Fear]

A simple little trick, borrowing Isaac’s version of [Privacy]. Combined with his own [Face in the Crowd] that fed the information of random nearby individuals to anyone who tried to inspect him, getting any kind of information on Jason was literally impossible. No one on planet Earth had two separate, maxed out, anti-[Inspect] abilities, for the next ten minutes, nothing and no one could get any kind of information on him.

“You know, they say there’s no honor among thieves, but really, I’d have thought even the lowest of the low would have some standards.” He announced as he walked into the warehouse. Behind them, the four pieces of the door hit the floor with a loud clang, neat cuts having separated it into evenly sized chunks.

[Flickering Dodge] took him a few meters to the side without requiring him to pass through the intervening space, causing his opponents’ initial salvo to go wide. Twin daggers appeared in his hands, and glowed briefly as the effect of his maxed out [Blades] was applied. Until he picked another weapon, they were both tough and sharp enough to be used by even a Level 137 [Rogue of Myth and Legend] without fail.

“I mean, we’re talking about someone who changed the world with his inventions, who’ll be mentioned alongside Tesla and Eddison, Newton and Einstein. But someone got butthurt about a loss in profit and now you’re ready to gun him down in the streets like a dog? HAVE YOU NO SHAME?”

The second salvo was far less ragged than the first, with nearly every one of the twenty people in the warehouse either having drawn their guns or begun casting spells. They still missed, though, and his next [Flickering Dodge] took him right up into the face of a charging [Rogue]. Or at least that was what the man looked like based on his build, mana level, and defensive [Skills].

[Piercing Strike] sent both blades plunging into his opponent’s body, then a re-cast tore them through his flesh, gutting him like a fish, and then, he [Snatch]ed several internal organs away. Knife fights were an ugly, ugly business, and most people who regularly engaged in them almost always grabbed regeneration Aspects to rapidly recover from injuries. But missing organs were a bitch to fix.

“People suck, I know, but you and everyone else who’s decided to accept a contract on the man who changed the world for the better, you’re special. You actually manage to suck badly enough to piss me off. And now, sow wind, reap the whirlwind and all that.”

This group had a grand total of four melee combatants to engage their targets while everyone else tore them to pieces. Well, one of their frontliners was currently busy trying to recover his innards behind him and the other three weren’t going to last long either.

[Shuffle] randomly switched both his position and that of up to three enemy targets.

Suddenly, the second enemy [Rogue] found himself in the path of his comrades’ fire while Jason’s blades plunged into the side of the toughest-looking guy melee fighter, [Down for the Count] ensuring that his opponent wasn’t getting up anytime soon. Every injury was affecting his victim nearly as badly as they would have a standard human. Most people at this level would think nothing of running around with cut abdominal muscles, breathing deeply with broken ribs, walking on broken feet, but any normal person with those kinds of injuries would be curled up on the ground, waiting for an ambulance.

Pricey in terms of mana, yes, but letting that guy get back up would have extracted a price in blood, so it was worth the cost.

One guy was gutted, the second shot to hell, and the third one was currently discovering that his wounds were both far worse than they should have been and were refusing to heal. And the last one wouldn’t last long either.

Several walls of concrete erupted from the ground to hem Jason in, at the same time, two overlapping area [Skills] hit him. The first rooted him indelibly to the ground, stuck until the effect ended, while the second would draw all ranged attacks in the area towards him, including his own.

So they were already breaking out the cooldown [Skills]? That meant they’d be going into the next fight underpowered, but apparently, they were acknowledging him as a true threat.

The opening salvos were simple magic spells that flew through the few openings left by the walls, as a hail of bullets sped past them. If he stayed here, he was screwed, but leaving wasn’t an option while literally fused to the ground.

A lesser version of that [Skill] could be beaten by simply taking off one’s shoes, but that wasn’t what he was dealing with here.

[No Prison Can Hold Me] was one of the most variable [Skills] he’d ever heard about. Depending on the situation, this third Evolution cooldown ability could manifest a lockpick into his hand, which would disappear once the lock in question was open or … or it could do something a little more extreme.

As he fell into the ground, phasing, the last thing he saw was his feet still standing where he’d left them, and then, the concrete covered his view. But on the way down, he reached into his [Thief’s Pocket] and dumped out every single alchemical weapon he had in there that couldn’t be traced back to him.

The ground rocked all around him as he pulled himself through the rock and dirt until he reappeared just outside of the warehouse, pausing only long enough to down the strongest healing potion he had. It restored his feet in the amount of time it took to stand up, at the cost of almost all natural healing, including that provided by his regeneration [Skill], for several hours. So he’d better make sure the next go around didn’t go as badly as the last one.

Entering [Stealth], Jason strode through the open door and scampered up into the ceiling rafters, staring down into the mess below. Smoke bombs, alchemic frag grenades, incendiary devices that these guys were still struggling to put out, they’d all made one hell of a mess.

“Looks like you enjoyed my presents.” He called out, pulling out a dozen throwing knives from his storage and unleashed a [Blade Fan], the weapons spreading out in a perfect arc and cutting into the nearest group of enemies.

Amidst the flames and smoke, the enemy formation was in chaos, uncoordinated as hell. The group’s [Healer] was easily identifiable, as he was trying to fix the most badly injured member, a perfect target.

A thrown dagger tore cleanly through the man, flinging him off the slowly recovering melee fighter. Neither of them was dead, but decidedly out of the fight. That explosion should have also brought down the authorities on this place, by the time these guys were fully recovered, they’d be in handcuffs.

“Eat [Steelhail]!” someone yelled and suddenly, an artillery shell appeared in his face. Uh-Oh.

He leaped backwards, phasing through the ceiling in the split second before it detonated, tearing the metal between them to pieces. Thankfully, the shrapnel lost most of its momentum in the process.

Every single person able to get a bead on him as he fell back down opened fire, unleashing enough firepower to kill him a dozen times over. Did they really think he was stupid enough to not have a mid-air mobility [Skill]?

[Always on Solid Ground] let him walk on anything and everything that wasn’t empty air. Fog, clouds, insects, random leaves flying in the air, and yes, smoke, all of it might as well have been a paved road.

A series of overlapping explosions tore apart the place he’d been a split second before.

His next target was a [Sniper] who’d set himself up in the corner of the room, complete with [Skill] generated cover, an energy field meant to deflect ranged attacks and more he couldn’t identify just yet.

The sniper rifle barked once, twice, thrice, each sharp report wiping out all other sounds in the warehouse, spewing a trio of glowing projectiles at him. His knives cut two of them out of the air and the third grazed his arm, leaving behind a burning trail of pain. But now, he was in ra- …

A minefield. A minefield that had not been there a millisecond previously covered not only the round in front of and underneath him but a good third of the warehouse, too densely clustered for even a [Rogue] to move through safely.

A simple leap took Jason back into the ceiling, but as it turned out, those mines weren’t nearly as simple to evade, detonating as he passed over them, shaped charges spitting pillars of fire at him.

Slightly turning his body let Jason avoid most of the force of the nearest blast, letting him catch the shockwave in a way that tossed him clear of the mess. And then the instant he was no longer in a position to threaten the [Sniper], that jackass opened fire again.

Police sirens were already loud enough to let everyone here hear them, which didn’t leave him with a whole lot of time. Most of the group was down with various degrees of injury, but that sniper was still looking hale and hearty. Along with three of his compatriots. If he let the cops confront four fully healthy, high Level individuals, he’d never hear the end of it.

Once again, he left the warehouse and phased back in. The proper counter to that trick was to move away from the wall, forcing his enemies to abandon their perch, leaving them vulnerable.

The claymore someone had left behind for him still would have blown up right in his face if he’d jumped in right where they’d been. Instead, he phased back in through the ceiling and dropped down in a place that left his enemies between him and the majority of their comrades.

[Retrieve Blades] caused every single knife he’d thrown in the course of the fight to fly right back towards his [Thief’s Pocket], the people standing in the way be damned. And that was the fight. The last three enemies were pulled along by the knives stuck in them until they managed to turn far enough that the daggers pulled themselves free, slamming home into his storage while his last opponents fell to the ground.

The sound of a portal opening echoed from somewhere nearby and heavy boots began to clomp over asphalt. Oh great, someone had called the cavalry. That was either GSG-13 or the military, which meant that he was officially no longer needed here.

As Jason vanished into the night, [Leave no Trace] activated, burning away any trace of his presence, from random skin cells to the severed feet he’d left behind.

Under the effect of the world’s strongest identity disguising effect, with [Hundred Faces] altering his features, his identity would forever remain a mystery. The mercenaries trying to kill Germany’s new favorite son weren’t going to get any mercy from the police or the courts, and they weren’t in any shape to run away.

***

And now to deal with the real problem, evil, annoying corporation number … how many had he picked fights with so far? Eh, it wasn’t like it mattered. Number one, number fifty, number sixty-nine, who cared?

The proper way to deal with them varied from company to company, depending on just who was responsible for the attempt. In this case, hiring the mercenaries had been a joint decision from most of the company board.

So he marched straight into the lobby of the company’s headquarters, still covered in blood, during one of the board’s meetings.

“I won’t be needing these back.” He announced, tossing his daggers onto the security guard’s desk, and walked in through the metal detector. It didn’t go off, he’d made sure to pick an outfit that didn’t contain any metal, not even in the belt bucket, just to fuck with the guards.

“Hey, stop!”

After a split second of stunned silence, the guard leaped up and charged after him. Too late, too slow. He was on the staircase a moment later and running up, leaving behind a trail of bloody footprints.

Behind him, an alarm began to wail.

Oh, where was the records room again? [Remember the Plan] … ah, there we go. He left the staircase, noticed that his shoes were looking a little dry, and pulled a blood packet from his storage. An expired one he’d saved from the hospital trash. It splattered against the ground, and then the packet itself disintegrated under the might of his evidence-destroying [Skill] and he charged through the growing crimson puddle, tracking bloody footprints all over the place.

Finding the records the police would need to prove a link between this place and the warehouse mess would have been a pain in the ass under normal circumstances, but he did have a plan, drawn up by the living embodiment of invaded privacy that was Isaac’s investigator. And, of course, he also marked files that were incriminatory in other ways, belonging to other cases. Blood was smeared across all the right drawers and files, and that was that.

The cops had obviously been called about the bloody lunatic who’d charged into the building, most likely before he’d even left the lobby, and they’d be following the blood trail. They wouldn’t find him, but they would find all the clues he’d “marked” and there were laws about how evidence discovered by sheer happenstance while, for example, chasing a criminal across private property, was admissible in court.

Walking into the boardroom, on the other hand, well, that was just to fuck with people.

“Good afternoon, assholes and bastards.” He declared loudly as he kicked open the door “I won’t take up too much of your time, I’m sure you’ll have your hands full all too soon, but until then, I do have a little time.”

“Get. Out!” the guy at the head of the table yelled, finger jabbed at the door, showcasing far more bravery than Jason would have given him credit for.

… On second thought, it was probably stupidity.

“Eh, I don’t think so.” Jason shrugged and approached the man’s chair, prompting the idiot to leap out of it in fright. He took the proffered seat and plopped his dripping-wet shoes onto the table.

“See, there’s being an asshole, and then there’s being an asshole. I know your company’s hurting, but you’re not going to fix anything by killing the guy who invented the new generator. The whole thing is already open source, killing him is just next-level petty. Super pathetic, really. I mean, I’ve slept on [Raid Bosses], that damn monkey, tin-pot dictators and superpowered serial killers. But you guys … you actually managed to piss me off. That’s why I’m here.

“I’ve been grinding away with the [System] ever since it launched, and it was fun. Really fun. And now, you’ve made me get off my ass to come yell at you guys. Fuck you.”

A huffing security guard burst into the room, gun drawn.

“Well, I’d say ‘see you around’, but I don’t think I’ll be visiting you in jail,” Jason announced as he rolled off his chair and withdrew the mother of all paint bombs from his storage.

Red, sticky, functionally impossible to remove paint splattered across the boardroom as he backhanded the balloon.

Two more security guards arrived and opened fire alongside the first one, but he just threw himself out through the window, phasing briefly to avoid showering the sidewalk below in broken glass.

Jason cackled as he fell, activating his stealth [Skills] to become functionally invisible. Then, he switched his outfit using [Phantom Armor], replacing his blood- and paint-covered clothes with simple jeans and t-shirt. A few seconds later, he landed lightly on the street opposite the building he’d just leaped out of. The cops had arrived by now and noticed his swan-dive, charging towards him, but he just ran off, cackling silently. His ribs still smarted from the fight, he’d avoided taking another potion so his normal healing could come back into effect, but damn, that had been fun.

***

Someone had run around picking fights with hitmen and mercenaries, embarrassed businessmen who’d hired them, and given cringy speeches all the time, but never left behind anything revealing their identity or killing anyone. The “victims” were all but gift-wrapped for the authorities, with their attacker having already reached the status of an urban legend. No one was sure if it was all the same person, or if there was a group running around pulling those stunts.

And then, they gave the police a reason to have to investigate the people hiring assassins. Blood trails, weird smells that indicated the presence of a corpse, and chemical spills that looked serious to even investigative [Skills] despite being harmless, all positioned in a way that brought the investigators into possession of other evidence.

Habicht sighed. Those stunts had Isaac written all over it. The planning part, at any rate. The good doctor had an alibi for almost every incident. Based on the [Skills] used, the “ghost” was Jason North, especially when one considered the speeches he’d given.

But he didn’t know, no one ever told him anything. They couldn’t, not with how often high-level officers talked about active investigations. There was always the risk of him having to tell a lie to avoid spilling the beans about one of his [Round Table] colleagues, so it was best he didn’t know any specifics. He could put together most things from context anyway, it wasn’t like he needed proper confirmation on this stuff. But he still had to deal with some of the fallout, unfortunately.

“I need protection from that lunatic!” the small little man who’d somehow reached his office screamed at him.

Habicht sighed “No.”

“But he’s coming for me next, serve and protect, isn’t that your job?”

“First, that’s the American police department’s motto. Ours is ‘the police, your friend and helper’,” Habicht sighed “And secondly, as far as I know, you’re not a target.”

“But he’s come after a whole bunch of energy company executives!”

“No, this individual or group of individuals goes after people who tried to get Karl Siegel killed. The fact that many of them happen to be energy company executives is mere correlation. So unless there’s something you’d like to confess, we’re done here. Also, if you’re not out of the building by the time I figure out who you bribed to get into my office, I will be arresting you for bribing a public official.”

The man blanched and scampered out.

Habicht leaned back in his chair and sighed. He’d heard that Jason was already dealing with something else, so the people who’d tried to commission Karl Siegel’s murder had probably been dealt with and his visitor wasn’t on that list. However, the man was clearly fearing repercussions about something he’d done, so a little investigating was probably in order.