Honest to Himself 30 (Patreon)

Honest to Himself
Arc 5: Scion
Chapter 30

-VB-

C114 glared at the freaky anaconda in front of him. He’d taken no more than a minute to find something wanting to kill him.

He pulled up his gun and fired.

The anaconda hissed at him while squinting its eyes close as the normal bullets bounced off of scales.

“Tch,” he spat. This was his fault for choosing a seriously underpowered weapon. Pistols were horrible! The only thing they were good for was its back-up potential and concealability!

Then it snapped at him, launching itself forward with a resounding crack and crash from where it had been lounging on tree roots.

C114 teleported out of the way even before it crossed half of the distance.

Now back in the lair’s armory, he grabbed a [Light Filament] two-handed axe.

Then he teleported back to the edge of the forest.

With a click, the metal tinkertech long handle lit up and a double-bladed war axe blared to life.

“Alright, round two buddy,” C114 growled as he ran into the forest.

He found the anaconda in less than a minute.

And this time, he chopped its head off.

-VB-

Barrow glared at nothing with his own eyes but saw and heard with the eyes and ears of his forest the intruder from the west.

“Who is he?” he asked.

His more tech-knowledgeable subordinates stepped up with a phone in his hand.

“What does he look like, Barrow?”

“He wears rags.”

“Rags?”

“Yes. He also teleports.”

Barrow Mawareal, a kid he’d picked up from Philadelphia, hummed as he tapped away at the smartphone. He frowned. “It’s a local cape. He goes by Stitches. A known kidnapper. He has a Kill Order on him. PRT will award anyone who kills him seven hundred fifty thousand dollars.”

Barrow looked at Mawareal in surprise. “Really now?”

“Yes, but the problem is that he’s a Master who makes clones of himself. If there is only one, then we can be assured that it is not the original, according to PRT’s public dossier on him.”

He lost the good mood he had for a second. While he and his Lost Garden was a self-sufficient group, having money never hurt, especially when they had to get luxuries from beyond the limits of the Forest.

“Then I’ll kill him. How goes the Protectorate and the PRT to the east and north?”

“They are still burning, but your forest is keeping up with the damages,” Barrow Rose reported from his side. His violent if docile in bed pet frowned as she used her power to look afar. “I see at least five Protectorate heroes.”

“Troublesome,” Barrow sighed. With the PRT and the Protectorate standing together to impede his progress, he knew that he wouldn’t be able continue in that direction. Worse, he knew that if he pushed too far, then they would use missiles on him. “Then I guess we will head north.”

“... Not much resistant in the north,” Rose supplied.

“Good. As for Stitches’ lonely clone…”

-VB-

C114 glared at the suddenly way too many freakish animals trying to kill him.

“Alright, fuck this shit!” he shouted before pulling out Convert.Bomb from his utility belt and slamming it into the ground.

There was a burst … and everything in a hundred yard radius returned to normal. The projections of the forest had also disappeared. He saw the asphalt road and parking lot that had been underneath the new old growth.

---

“WHAT?!”

---

C114 then drove the Convert.Stakes into the ground in a triangular formation around him, each ten yards apart. The normalized area that had been shrinking while he set up the stakes paused and then began to grow outwards, fighting against Barrow’s influence.

‘I want backup here!’ he intoned to the rest of the clones.

Most didn’t respond. Too many of them were fucking away at the wives, concubines, and slaves. Some took care of the children, though they all insisted on the mothers breastfeeding the babies. Even fewer were tinkering.

But there were some who were doing nothing. Or just relaxing.

They saw the situation, took a note of his memories, and … only four decided to join in.

As giant chimeras began to walk out of the forest along with capes, those four clones teleported in around C114 with more [Convert] tinkertech and others.

“You don’t strut into my city without my permission!” C114 roared as they all threw their bombs and drove stakes into the ground.

Their capes said something but they sounded like mewls in the face of the giant explosions and gunfires.

C114 personally teleported behind one and stabbed down for a kill.

Chaos erupted everywhere.

-VB-

“What the -?!” Velocity muttered when he saw the giant crackling explosion from the other side of Barrow’s forest.

“Dragon, I need satellite image of what’s happening on the other side!” Armsmaster asked hurriedly but not in panic or in desperation.

“{Hold on for a moment…}” the Canadian tinker muttered into the channel.

And then Velocity saw it appear in the laptop used by one of the agents. Colin probably saw it on his visor.

Robin saw … chaos.

Stitches, who had been sighted before, was there. There were at least four of his clones and they were fighting tooth and nail against Lost Garden.

The asshole was escalating the situation.

Armsmaster grunted. “Hold position.”

And that was that.

Velocity prayed that Barrow killed the original Stitches if he was there. Stitches was a scum that needed to go.