A Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay 3: Training Paid Off... (Patreon)

A Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay
Chapter 3: … Just not How I Expected It

-VB-

We stared at each other. I stood by myself with an empty beer can between two fingers and two bags of groceries in my left hand and my right hand remained outstretched. The Undersiders looked at me, but it was only Tattletale who saw the beer can in my hand.

“Brutus, kill!” the barely masked butch looking teenager on top of another dog shouted. This had to be Bitch. The dog-monster she was on quickly sped towards me with its mouth open and fangs bared.

“No, wait!” the helmeted villain, who had to be Grue/Brian, shouted at the same time that Lisa did. 

I wasted no time, even if my vision was a little blurry and I couldn’t quite control all of myself to the fullest. Tossing the empty beer can in my left hand, I  slid across the ground and dodged the charging bulldozer of a dog. At the same time, as the dog-monster passed by me, I lashed out sharply and quickly with a single punch at its rider. 

The teenger took the hit and tumbled off of her ride, earning a worried whine from the monstrous pet. Said pet quickly turned on me when it saw that its owner was alright, and then growled at me. 

Darkness washed over me, and I knew that Grue had decided to fight. 

Instead of waiting for them to attack me, I dashed backward. I got out in seconds, only to be engulfed in the four sense muting cloud again. Clicking my tongue in irritation, I opted to not fight them in this state. Visualizing the area I saw from the brief glance I’ve seen just a moment ago when I initially escaped the black cloud, I ran for the open stretch of road as fast as my legs could carry me, despite my current less than ideal (and slightly buzzed? Definitely buzzed. Maybe more than a little buzzed) state. 

I didn’t know how many steps I took, but after what felt like fifteen seconds, I was out of the clouds. I twisted around and came to a skidding stop. I swayed a little to my right after stopping. 

The Undersiders stood across from me. Bitch was back on whichever dog she’d been on before, and Tattletale looked at me with such profound confusion that I couldn’t help but comment on it.

“Cat got your tongue, fox?” I asked. “Let me ask why the hell you guys thought it was a good idea to try and run over someone?” I swayed to my left a little.

“We weren’t trying to,” Grue replied. 

“You’re… not a cape?” Tattletale said out loud. “He’s drunk…?!”

Regent whistled. “He’s not a cape and he’s that fast? That’s insane,” he laughed. “Hey, can we have him on our team?”

“No, we have to run,” Grue shot back. He turned back to me. “I’m sorry about one of Bitch’s dogs almost running over you. Can we part ways with that?”

I stared at them for a moment. I … didn’t actually want to fight them. There was no point to, and if this was the point in the timeline that I thought it was, then I didn’t want to stop them either (Ruby Casino theft). 

Attacking them here and now would only draw the attention of Coil and the PRT towards me, which were not the attention I wanted on me right now. 

Not when I wasn’t ready.

“Very well,” I said with a huff. “But please keep your literal bitch on the leash more tightly.”

Grue nodded, and they sped off. I watched them go before I turned back to where I dropped my groceries, only to gawk as a truck loaded with gunmen rounded the corner and ran over them.

My groceries! 

While I lamented over my roadkill groceries, the truck stopped not too far from me and one of the gunmen walked out.

“Oi, crackhead, where did the monster dogs go?!” he shouted at me. When I didn’t respond because I was both a little angry and thinking about what exactly I should do to these gangsters (had to be ABB if they were asking for the Undersiders on the night of Ruby Casino’s theft, right?), he walked up behind me and pushed me forward with the tip of his gun.

While I wasn’t alright with getting Coil and PRT’s attention, I wasn’t above punishing these gangsters, especially on a new moon night like today that obscured my face. 

I spin-kicked, and I’d twisted myself so fast that I barely saw his face begin to change from irritated sneer into open surprise when my left heel struck his left temple. There was a sharp crack, and the momentum of my kick tossed him away like a ragdoll, flying nearly horizontally to the ground and letting go of his gun. 

While his friends gawked at the sudden attack, I grabbed the gun - a Glock - through my sleeves and took aim. Though I wasn’t experienced with guns, I had the discipline and muscle strength to keep myself steady. 

I fired.

Someone died.

I fired again.

Someone else screamed as they held their shoulder.

I fired again.

They began to hide.

I fired off two more shots before I ran for it. 

I wasn’t bulletproof. Not yet.

They fired back, but in the dark, poorly lit streets of the Docks South (again, why did I come out during the night for groceries?), they didn’t hit me. Their bullets struck the road, the brick buildings, and caused more noise than actual results.

With the sound of return fire to cover the sound of my running footsteps, I disappeared between the alleys.

Time to go home and enjoy this beer~!

-VB-

“I did what?” 

“You were laying there, on the couch, with blood all over your feet. Someone else’s blood.”

I stared up at Amy, trying not to think too hard because hangovers are a bitch and I am still reaching for that canon the countertop-

“Oh no, you don’t!” she shouted at me before knocking my hand away from the beer can. “Not until you explain the blood!”

“But I don’t remember anything…” I whined. “Give me my sip already!” I lunged for it, and even in my dehibilated state, I was still a martial artist. My body twisted under her clumsy and wide strikes, taking no more than a second to cross four yards in an instant. 

And then I gleefully stared at the beer can. I reached for it-.

“YOWCH!” I yelped like a kicked puppy before falling on the ground. “W-What the hell, Amy?!” 

She stood over me triumphantly. “It doesn't matter if you’re faster than me, Alan. I can still knock you out in one go, even if I’m seeing less and less of your body.”

“... you make it sound like I’m some kind of a prude to my wife.”

“Who would hang out with you?”

“You?”

“...”

She kicked him.

“Ugh! I thought you were supposed to be a hero! To kick a man while he’s down…!”

“Shut up, drunk!”

“Pot calls kettle black!”

“I do not go on murder sprees as a drunk!” she paused. “I go on a healing spree!” 

“Damn workaholic, give me my beer!”

“Not until we find out who you killed!”

-VB-

Whatever happened, Amy was able to piece some things together. For one, there was a gunfight in the Docks South and there had been at least two ABB casualties known to the police. Of the two, only one had been left at the spot.

And that man had his left temporal bones shattered to pieces, and his brain had been mulched on the other side. 

… If I had struck him with my heel at a certain angle, then I could certainly produce similar results; I don’t regularly break flat concrete ground with my heel strikes for nothing. 

‘Ugh, I feel like I’m missing something.’

“So the gun on the scene didn’t have any of your fingerprint, so the police is assuming that you 

“And how are you finding all of this out…?”

“I’m their medic. I’m everyone’s medic. They tell me things. Old men gossip like old ladies, don’t you know?”

“... Now you have me curious. How often do you have to heal PRT and Protectorate, nevermind the physically weaker and less armored police and firefighters?”

She grimaced. “Too many times,” she grumbled. “And sometimes, they have the gall, the gall, to wake me up in the middle of the night for things less than nearly fatal,” she groaned dramatically. “Can’t they just let me sleep? I can’t heal well if I’m dozing off every other minute.” She shook her head and then looked at me. “So you were probably defending yourself, even if you are technically a Brute,” she poked me in the shoulder, which did nothing but just barely dent my skin. 

“I don’t think I’m bulletproof.”

“Doesn’t matter to the PRT. Whatever, it’s not like I was going to report you,” she grumbled.

I perked up. “You weren’t?”

If she had said that she was going to report me, then … I don’t think I would have done anything, not against Amy anyway. First of all, she was my second, and second, she was my drinking buddy. Besides, what’s a few murder between friends? 

I grinned. “Really?”

“Yes,” she grumbled. “You already convinced me to make a beer tree, so what’s a self-defense manslaughter after that? It can’t be worse than my power.”

My grin dropped. This … was not where I wanted this conversation to go. 

Since I “took over” for this Earth’s Alan Marris, I have been doing the right thing by Amy. I made her feel comfortable, made her drunk in a safe environment, didn’t blame her for not healing more people, and helped loosen her creative side; aside from fulfilling her Conflict Engine’s requirements, people needed to be creative to fulfill parts of self-actualization.

AKA even if she used her powers, being creative was what I considered to be the fastest and best way for me to help her be … not the Red Queen.

“Amy, it’s not wrong to use your power however you want,” I told her slowly. “I keep telling you that your very thought process goes against our culture.”

After all, when one worked, they got compensated. 

Amy, however, worked without compensation. Perhaps surgeries and healing worth millions of dollars per month yet received nothing. Yeah, she volunteered, but there was a limit. Whenever she was in the mood to let me “try” to convince her, I did try to get her to demand from the hospital some sort of pay. I’ve even called them (while a little buzzed) to ask why Panacea wasn’t getting paid.

She refused and the hospitals said they had no choice.

Why?

Carol.

The Stockholm Syndrome-addled, baggage heavy, and strict to a fault Carol.

I was half tempted to start calling her a Karen, but that particular meme wasn’t popular here. Something about elastic capes with sex scandals that I didn’t quite understand...

“Don’t say it again,” she groaned. “I’m not in the mood right now.”

I wanted to push the issue, but it was best not to. Amy, if she was anything like Carol, was stubborn like a bull and tenacious like a donkey in heat. If she didn’t want to hear about it right now, then she would walk out of my house to not hear about it. 

Sighing, I changed the topic. “Still, you’re perfectly fine with a murderer for a friend, hmm? I thought your mommy dearest wouldn’t like that.”

She glared at me. “I am not fine with it,” she shot back. “In fact, I’m upset.”

“You are? Why?”

She slapped me over the head. “Because you got yourself in a fight or die situation, that’s why!”

“... I honestly don’t know whether or not to apologize because I don’t remember what I did.”

“Isn’t that what all of the boys say to the girls?”

“... It is.”

“Then what do you say?”

“Sorry?”

“I don’t hear the sincerity in that apology.”

“I’m sorry, Lady Amy.”

“Better.”

A pause.

Then we both broke out into giggles.

But on the inside, I began to ponder. Amy considered me important enough to look over a critical issue in her black and white worldview. That was a very good thing for me in more than one way.

That made me wonder… Could I get her to consider me as something … more?

But it was a question for another day and another time, because right now was drinking time.