I curled up into a ball and screwed up my eyes, mana flowing over me, blanketing me in a wafer-thin facsimile of a black garbage bag. I didn't have the juice to spare on anything else, I wasn't healed yet and I was getting close to running dry.

The door opened further, the scrapes of the hinges outlining the echoes of an adult man. There was a soft whump, two men. One at the door and one at the jagged gouge in the concrete.

I cringed further into a ball.

Oni Lee shifted, his measured, unhurried movements making it difficult to hear exactly what he was doing.

A near-silent breathy sound as the clone at the door turned to powder, but the door did not close. Propped open, so he could escape in a flash.

I chanced a peek, opening up a pinprick hole in my cover. He was kneeling next to the puddle of my blood and vomit, red Oni mask turned down, examining it. He raised a phone to his ear.

"The infiltrator remains, hurt."

"Fuck's sake," the snarling feminine voice over the phone. Bakuda. "Fucking Strangers. You can't see them?"

"No."

"Are they there?"

"It's likely."

There was the faint sound of Bakuda spitting. "Use the Suck Bomb and stay alert."

Lee moved again, something struck the floor with the ring of a dropped metal cup, the sound wave outlining a second Lee who closed the door to the roof behind him.

The wind roared, lashing my ears, ripping my bin bag camouflage away. I opened my eyes again as I began to slide across the floor toward a miniature black hole.

I scrabbled against the concrete, stump legs finding no purchase until I adhered myself to the ground with mana. The suction grew, lifting me up off the floor to dangle by the palm of one hand, whipping the breath from my mouth.

I... I guess this is why the Protectorate don't just go and arrest the gangs, huh?

The suction cut out slowly, lowering me back down to the floor in a disturbingly gentle way completely incongruous with the situation. The concrete felt cool against my cheek, pressing my visor into the bridge of my nose. My rapid breaths stirred no dust from the floor, it was spotlessly clean; all dirt and anything not nailed down vanished into the fading black hole bomb. Jesus fuck.

The mechanism of the door clicked along its ratchet.

Of course, he wanted to fucking check. Shit. I ground my nose into the floor and cast Chameleon Skin, vanishing from view once again. I sank deep into my Hidden Movement skill, holding my breath, becoming the very soul of stillness.

Oni Lee paced into the room then stopped, for all I could tell just standing there. The seconds ticked by and my Health ticked up. Actually, this was good for me if he wanted to waste time. I had minutes left of invisibility and every moment that went by I would get back into un-mutilated shape.

I watched as my mana slowly dwindled. Lee had still not moved. I could hear him breathing, even and calm. What was he waiting for?

I might have to fight him. Fight him on next to no mana and no legs.

I'd lose, he'd kill me. He wouldn't care that I was a Ward.

"They appear to have died."

Cackling erupted from the receiver. "Great! Fucking great! One thing goes right today. Now get back here, ASAP."

The line clicked dead and Oni Lee turned and left, unhurried. The door automatically closed behind him.

I didn't let my breath out, didn't drop my invisibility or even move. It would be a classic ploy to fake me out by pretending to leave, then coming back once I'd foolishly revealed myself. I waited, heart pounding frantically in my chest until my mana ran out.

I let out a deep sigh. He had to have gone; I was safe.

I dragged myself over to the wall, huddling against a yellow steel pillar next to the raising garage-like door. The flesh on my legs and belly itched, slowly reforming as my powers tried to regenerate my health past full. I sank deep into my meditative state.

Normally, I reflected, this would be about the point where I gave up. Some last residue of the plague of my former cowardice remained, I wanted to run and bury my head in the sand as I had in every confrontation at Winslow. Shit was getting too real and, for all my big talk, I hated real shit. Fucking hated it.

But could I stomach it? If I couldn't it would mean abandoning dad, and if this was one of my wanky Xianxia web-novels that choice would be a permanently corrupting influence on my Dao.

When shit got real with Armsmaster, I stayed with him. The result was nearly dying and my chronic suffering. Would that happen here, now that shit was real? Was I going to have a thing about standing too close to people just in case they were dimensionally shearing bear traps?

For a very long time, I hadn't understood what 'being Triumvirate' meant outside the reality that everyone would love me. It meant shit like this though, getting your legs blown off by a psycho then regrowing them and going back for more because it was the right thing.

No pussying out, you had to be a Hero.

Even if Alexandria, Legend and Eidolon were up to shady shit as they tried to save the world they never pussied out.

I really wanted to save dad, but I wasn't sure if I had the battle tendency. That heat in my blood.

I watched as my feet regrew. I thought about the Ship of Theseus. Had enough of me been replaced that I could be a completely different Greg? Did that matter? Was my metaphorical past self being dead and buried just wishful thinking? I liked to think I'd changed, that me from the past would have given up, had he the chance, when he blew himself up fighting Hans but I as I was now would not. I'd had a lot of fantasies about that, working through the electrical burns to hurt him in various ways.

I guess it came down to what I could live with. If I dipped, went back to the van, and dad was rescued without me could I live with knowing I hadn't tried my best to save him? But what if I stayed, and I died for real this time? Would that be worth it?

I had the potential to be strong enough to help a lot of people if I gave it a few years. I'd be in charge of a whole department, geared to use those resources to better people's lives even after society's collapse. Would it be worth risking my future Good?

I know dad would tell me it wasn't, that I should play it safe and 'put all my money in a compounding fund' as it were. That I was worth more than him. But he was my dad, he had to say that. I know mum would say the same, but how could I ever look her in the eye after?

I wiggled the forming stumps of my toes, and didn't that feel weird.

My mana topped out and I hauled myself to my feet. I took a moment to wipe the moisture out of the inside of my visor and equipped my spare armoured uniform.

Yeah, I'm thinking I'm back.

I took a deep fortifying breath. Bakuda was prepared whilst I had run in like a big fucking idiot, half-cocked expecting to walk through like I owned the place. I didn't even need to be four times smarter than anyone.

You have created the spell 'Smoke Tag'!

Even chimpanzees understood a basic ambush.


My clone walked to the door leading further into the cineplex, a blank blue humanoid figure rather than anything identifying. Its hands touched the doors, pushing. The second the door opened more than a crack there was a terrific bang. I flinched, covering my ears as sound waves rolled over me in a vicious crescendo and bright blue fire splattered over the floor and walls, continuing to burn without heat.

I stood safely on the ceiling in the furthest corner from the door, invisible, and waited. I was sure Oni Lee would be sent back in to check and correct his fuck-up. They wouldn't send a normal human, given how easily I'd subdued them, and Bakuda would be too busy organising the defence. I didn't think Lung would be here just yet, it had only been some fifteen minutes since Armsmaster sent that text and, more importantly, I couldn't hear fighting from outside.

Without warning Oni Lee appeared in the middle of the room, gun drawn. In an eyeblink three more of him appeared at key points, keeping all of the areas within view of at least one of them.

I steeled myself. One breath in, one breath out.

On the end out the out-breath, my tags went off. Doors, windows, corners; anything that could be used as an exit point or hiding place hidden behind thick clouds of smoke before Lee could react. I took control of the smoke, expanding it without needing to touch it, coating the walls and ceiling.

"I'm trapped, dark blue smoke covers my exits."

I dropped lightly to the floor, commanding the smoke to fill the room.

"Dark smoke?" Bakuda's voice was an incredulous bark. "It was that fucking Ward?"

"It's closing in and I cannot see them."

"Shiiiiit. Well, kill them if you can and try not to do an actual suicide bomb."

"Understood."

He hung up and multiplied. Lee upon Oni Lee filling the remaining space, all firing their handguns at random into the smoke. Each time one turned to ash another took its place, endless Lee's and endless bullets sending sound waves disorientingly echoing through the room.

I held up my shield, Mana Object at a thickness tested to be bulletproof, jaw gritting as bullets splintered chips off of it. The smoke encroached further, each inch cutting off teleport space until only the original Oni Lee remained.

He went still. "I have failed to kill him."

"God damnit!" Bakuda hissed. "How did this happen? I'm smarter than this. You told me there was a fucking huge puddle of blood. What is he, fucking Brute five as well?"

Lee took a breath to answer but I was already moving. I dissolved the shield, one hand encasing his face and the other jabbing him in the neck with the sedative. I grabbed his gun, and leapt back, running up the wall to a window I'd left open and slipped out of it. I stuck to the wall, still invisible and took off. I couldn't take the chance he'd explode too, and he was packed to the gills with tinkertech grenades. It wasn't going to happen again.

I ran up, onto a different part of the roof with no access door. I huddled up against the only cover available, the ventilation duct and dropped my invisibility. I got out my phone.

Greg: oni lee tranqued

I had a few paths to go down. In one I would go find Lung and tranq him before the fighting started, which may actually make Bakuda surrender. Or it might make her freak out and kill everyone in the building including herself, in which case I would have to disable her first then get Lung, hopefully, once he wasn't too strong.

My phone buzzed.

Bromaster: thank you
Bromaster: get the fuck back here, now

Huh? A cold pit began to settle in my stomach. Something had gone obviously, terribly wrong. I slipped across the roof, jumping down to the ground and racing back to the group. Even as I neared I didn't drop my invisibility; Coil had snipers.

Armsmaster turned to face me as I neared, several people startling as he spoke.

"Dark Smoke. Good work on Lee, but it's provoked Bakuda ahead of schedule. She's just let us know that if we don't show her that you're here she's going to start killing hostages."

Oh shit, oh fuck. God, I was stupid. Why didn't I see that she was going to go with the hostages? It's so frikken obvious.

"With that in mind," Armsmaster continued. "We're going to move fully into the negotiation phase. This has unfortunately turned into a siege. I had hoped that Lung would show himself but he seems to have snuck in the back and is hiding with Bakuda. I have a feeling he's going to come out for a confrontation once he's ready, he has taken on our entire team at once before as I'm sure you remember."

His lips quirked into a bitter, brittle smile above his beard but there was something else in it, a reminder. Knowing him, he wanted me to inject Lung with his sedative then face him on his own while the gang leader was slowly weakened. I suspected he would take whatever win he could get though, even if he had to share it with the rest of his team.

He turned to the assembled heroes and troopers. "We're pulling forward, form up around the building."

The looks he got were vaguely mutinous. The mood had slid considerably when people realised the gist that not only was he talking to me, but had seemingly sent me into an incredibly hostile tinker trapped building to take down psychotic murderers.

Yeah, that sounded insane. Why had he okayed that? I was too keyed up about dad to think about it but as I watched him for a moment as people finally started following his orders, he was still vibrating with that manic intensity. This couldn't be about his job, or my dad, or else he'd have been pulling stunts like this for years. Even the time pressure of the Nine's appearance didn't make sense in pushing him this far…ah.

He thought they were here for Mannequin to do a hit on him and, wanted to go out in a blaze of glory.

That was why he'd rushed into this with no plan and was letting me do what I wanted, he didn't think it would matter. The cold pit that had been settling in my belly grew heavier, was this just some suicide mission?

The trucks began to move. I moved soundlessly to the portable toilet truck and slipped inside the cubicle. I fell to my knees, dropping my invisibility and vomited noisily into the toilet bowl, the pungent smell mixing with the faint notes of toilet chemical and shit. I rested my chin on the rim of the seat and sobbed quietly into my arm.

What the fuck was even going on.