A Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay 25 (Patreon)

A Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay
Chapter 25

-VB-

The call came when I had only ran two blocks from the sight of my near-death. “Trumpteer down, F-9!”

I ran … and then turned around.

With my newly healed body, I sped towards F9 and found the aforementioned cape. She struggled on the flooded asphalt road, legs and arms trembling while blood dribbled down from her head and chest.

I landed right next to her and splashed water everywhere. I quickly scooped her up and then bounded away.

After failing one and nearly dying myself, Trumpeter was the first life I saved in this battle.

-VB-

Leviathan “fled” after putting a hole in Brockton Bay twice as big as I remembered from canon. The storm abated and … well, it wasn’t pretty.

The idea of a tilting building always seemed like a realistic thing to me. It was just a building leaning on the side, right?

No, what I was seeing told me that all those leaning buildings were but a danger to everyone nearby.

Because with the water’s pushing force gone, these buildings began to collapse, and as if Leviathan was the architectural Simurgh, those buildings fell at the most inopportune moments.

I rolled with the nearly dead cape in my arms onto the road as the building they were under collapsed under its own weight. Concrete rubble bounced away, smashed into the ground, and pebbled my back. I grunted in pain, though slightly protected by my currently self-repairing power armor’s undamaged backside.

I felt each and every impact, though, because the missing front side could’t absorb the kinetic energy.

And then it was over.

Grunting in pain of rocky assault and exertion from the seventh hour of excavation and search and rescue work, I jumped away once more towards the triage point.

Only two minutes later, I arrived and gently set this cape down on the nearest empty bed. “MEDIC!” I shouted. “Bradycardia and hypotension! Open wounds on their legs and torso!”

And then I left to rescue another person.

In and out.

In and out.

With each person I rescued - and with each person I failed to save - and with each rubble I had to dig through, I grew progressively dirtier and dirtier.

When I finally stopped as the sun began to set, my pristine silver power armor was now black and brown from soot, dirt, mud, blood, and asphalt.

Hungry, exhausted, and mentally drained, I collapsed next to the triage tents and fell asleep.

-VB-

“ALAN!”

It was Amy.

My eyes snapped open and I whirled around.

I was still next to the medical tents, but it was night now.

Where was …?

I felt someone crash into me in a hug, and I absentmindedly hugged them back.

It was Amy.

She started crying. Befuddled, I just rocked her back and forth as I sat there.

Why was she here?

Oh, right. The Endbringer fight was over. Of course, she’d come back home.

I closed my eyes as I continued to rock her back and forth.

I felt so tired.

My eyes drifted close again.

-VB-

“Master, must you leave?”

Master stared back at me, stroking his short platinum white beard and moustache. “If I do not leave, then you will never grow.”

“But I learn plenty from you!”

“No. There are lessons one must learn by themselves without help. All of the wisdom you can gain from me have already been given to you. I cannot help you anymore.”

“But-”

“But nothing. I leave now with a heart full of pride, because I believe that you will succeed in the world out there. No, I know you will.”

“Then … why must you leave?”

Master smiled.

“Because you love me like a son loves their father, but you are too cowardly to leave on your own. So just as a tiger kicks their cub down a slope and forces it to get back up, I too must do the same. Goodbye, Qi Huan. May you break the Will of the Heavens.”

-VB-

When I woke up, I was home.

Blearily, I sat up. I didn’t have the armor on me, I was clean, and I was super hungry.

Pushing myself up, I felt … wonderful. My body didn’t feel like it got punched by Leviathan or spent half a day rescuing people out of the wrecked part of the city.

I looked down and saw Amy.

She had dark bags underneath her eyes.

My heart clenched at the sight of it, and knew that I was the cause.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered as I laid my hands on her.

She slept soundly. She must have been tired.

Did she work while I was out? She was still Panacea to the world. She must have.

Stifling my groan, I got out of the bed.

Perhaps she’ll like breakfast in bed.

I walked downstairs from our bedroom and paused.

On the couch was … Neil and Sarah?

I checked the other rooms.

Crystal and Eric were in our first floor guestroom. Victoria, Mark, and Carol were in the upstairs guest room.

…

I guessed then that I was making breakfast for everyone.

Humming lightly and quietly, I walked into the kitchen to make food.

‘Why were they here?’ I thought as I cracked the eggs open and dropped the egg onto the pan, throwing away the shell to the food waste bin with a precise underhand toss. ‘Something must have happened to their houses, which are in Downtown.’

As far as I know…

…

I ran from Leviathan while running through Downtown.

‘Oh God, am I responsible? Did their homes get wrecked? I didn’t go near where their houses are, but it’s Leviathan. He wrecks entire cities, their regions, and sinks islands. So what if I didn’t go near, it’s still within his area of effect,’ I thought dejectedly.

I laid down stripes of bacon on another heated pan.

I opened the fridge, and pulled out a heart of romaine lettuce. I deftly pulled out a knife from the rack and sliced away into bite-sized chunks before tossing them all into a bowl. Rather than use anything heavy, I chose to go with simple salt and pepper seasoning for breakfast.

“Alan…?”

I looked over my shoulder and saw Victoria.

“Hey,” I grinned as I turned back to focus on making breakfast. “Breakfast will be ready in about five minutes. Do you mind waking everyone up?”

“O-Okay.”

They all woke up and I served breakfast. It was a humble affair of fried bacon and egg, reheated mashed potatoes, and lightly seasoned romaine salad. Our dinner table wasn’t big enough, so some of us had to sit on the couch and eat there.

To my surprise, breakfast turned out to be a quiet affair today.

Why was it?

“... So what’s the aftermath of the battle like?” I asked when we finished eating.

My head snapped to the side. My cheek hurts.

I’ve … been slapped?

“You’re not allowed to die,” Amy hissed from the side.

“... Understood.”

And that was that.

Sarah cleared her throat. “Coastal Downtown is heavily damaged. Most of the infrastructure is down. Say how are you getting electricity here?”

“I have batteries.”

“For house electricity?”

“Part of how I have powered armor. What about the rest of the city?”

“The Docks suffered the most damage. They now have a lake that takes up half of the Docks. Docks South survived for the most part. Trainyard was untouched, but it is heavily flooded.”

Amy, at this point, leaned on my shoulder, and I wrapped an arm around her.

The Protectorate ENE was half dead. What had remained of the Empire Eighty-Eight was more or less gone. Coil supposedly died. The Merchants didn’t suffer any damage. ABB lost Bakuda and Oni Lee. These were only the big players. A large number of small-time villains - and not a small number of independent heroes - had also gone and got butchered by Leviathan.

Wait.

“Does that mean…?”

“Yes, heroes now outnumber the villains two to one.”