Honest to Himself 27 (Patreon)

Commissioned by Kejmur

Honest to Himself
Arc 5: Scion
Chapter 27

-VB-

Stitches

I stared at the device in my hand.

After nine iterations of Tinkering with one thing in mind, I have created something … usable.

On the surface, it looked like a baton with three-quarters of its length missing.

Once activated, it would form a hard light stick two feet long.

It would, however, strike through any and all dimensions. While it wasn’t a good weapon, it was possibly the only weapon I knew of that could directly strike at Strangers and Breakers’ original forms.

This was also the latest iteration of the first weapon that my clones tested out in the field.

Namely, they went after both the Protectorate and the Empire in a protracted battle on two separate occasions.

Now, I had to go and turn this either into an “all piercing” sword or a ram of some sort.

This was going to take a lot of time…

So I was going to hand it off to the clones, and while my clones continued to work on this design, I now needed to do the opposite and create a tinkertech that could defend against such weapons and abilities.

I needed to do that because the moment Scion was dead, I knew that Cauldron wouldn’t be so kind as to allow me to continue to exist as I did and I’ve handed them Eden’s Sting to cement our current alliance.

And what was Sting if not a projectile version of my anti-dimension stick here?

But first, I had to go and exercise. I spent too much time tinkering to save the world.

A round in bed with Sophia was in order.

Oh right, my clones were gangbanging her right now.

Drats.

I mean, the clones were me, I saw and felt through them, but I kinda wanted it to be personal today.

Whatever.

I guessed that I was…

Nope. Everyone else was also part of the orgy.

Ugh.

There were too many me’s and not enough women, wasn’t there?

… I supposed that it was time for me to go out and bring more women back to base.

Who should I go for?

-VB-

PRT ENE

“Nothing?”

“Nothing,” Renick replied with a grimace.

Stitches had come out of nowhere and attacked the PRT once again, and this time, he left half a dozen operatives dead and Triumph critically injured.

“This can’t go on,” Piggot growled as she tapped on the table with one hand and massaged her temple with another.

“We know that he still resides in the city,” Armsmaster added. “The problem is that he is probably using his teleportation to move directly from his hideout to strike at his targets, and since all of his clones would rather kill themselves than answer any question when caught…”

The PRT wasn’t incompetent. No, they always managed to drive back Stitches whenever the bastard appeared, and even caught a few of them.

This, of course, meant nothing to a literal hive mind clone. It was an expendable footsoldier. A limb that could be grown and replaced on the spot.

Piggot sometimes hated being on the defensive like this.

“We have, however, confiscated all of the tinkertech he used in the skirmishes.”

And that was another odd thing. Stitches had a very clear modus operandi before this: kill obstacles and kidnap women. What he did with them, no one knew. The only victim to ever be released was one Emma Barnes, but she wouldn’t talk.

‘Or rather she can’t.’ Emma Barnes had been missing for exactly nine months and had been “returned” in a state of fatigue and exhaustion. ‘I don’t need to be a woman to know what went on with her.’ There was a very strong implication that Emma Barnes had been impregnated and given birth to a child, and if her unwillingness to cooperate on any details was an indication, then it was that Stitches was holding the child as a hostage.

With an estimate of nine women he’s kidnapped, Piggot knew that more and more of the city would eventually be cut off from reinforcement or help just as it had happened to Toronto and Heartbreaker.

Except these new attacks with new and random tinkertech broke the trend.

And these weren’t ordinary tinkertech that focused on the flashy and powerful. She read the report on the third tinkertech her department confiscated: a hardlight quarterstaff. It ignored the vast majority of Assault’s kinetic absorption. What could have killed a normal man merely knocked him out and gave him a concussion.

“Your request to research and disassemble Stitches’ tinkertech has been approved,” she relayed. “And I want you to find out exactly how many Tinkers may be working for him.”

“Yes, director.”

“Good.”

-VB-