Honest to Himself 31 (Patreon)

Honest to Himself
Arc 5: Scion
Chapter 31

-VB-

The forest was receding.

Armsmaster stared at the edge of the forest that his team has yet to burn and saw the forest retreating on its own.

As if to tell him the reason for this retreat, he heard explosions deep within the forest.

“... Stitches is still fighting?” he asked.

“Yes,” Dragon replied. “And he’s winning.”

Colin thought about the situation. Barrow and Stitches fighting each other was disastrous for the city. Neither parties cared for infrastructure nor the people, so if their fighting grew out of control, then they would cause extensive damage to this part of the suburbs.

The problem laid with power.

Did the Protectorate have enough power behind them to fight both Stitches and Barrow? The former has shown time and time again that he cared nothing about the Unwritten Rules and the latter had a variety of capes underneath his control, most of whom were unknowns to the Protectorate. Engaging the two, separately or together, would be walking into a minefield where no one knew where the mines were. Never mind individual capes. What about power interactions?

But perhaps that was the point of the Protectorate: to fight even when it was certainly some of them may not return home.

“Dragon, inform the director. I am moving in.”

“... Be careful. I will continue to provide you with live satellite feed.”

“Thank you.”

Armsmaster turned to the men underneath his command. Most of them were PRT agent and the only other hero on the scene was Velocity. While the former was equipped with flamethrowers, the latter would be useless in this fight.

“Velocity.”

The hero looked towards him.

“I want you to keep an eye out for any more capes who might enter the scene. Keep them out and request for reinforcements if you need them.”

Velocity nodded and sped off.

Activating his mic, he opened a channel to the secured Protectorate channel. “Triumph, Dauntless. I need you both at the coordinates I’m sending right now. If you lose track, then remember I want you at the intersection at Fallow Street and Cardigan Avenue.”

“{Got it,}” Triumph drawled casually.

“{Acknowledged, leader,}” Dauntless, the former police officer, replied. “{ETA 10 minutes.}”

Armsmaster nodded and waited.

He wasn’t stupid enough to walk into this unprepared. If he had to wait for his teammates, then so be it.

-VB-

C114 ducked underneath an ent-like monster’s tentacle-branch assault before teleporting not behind it but far behind him and next to a cape who’s been increasing the size of the monsters.

The cape saw him and screamed, but it was too late.

C114’s gun blasted thrice, punching two holes through the cape’s chest, and then he roundhouse-kicked the back of the cape’s head with his [Regeneration]-boosted Changer state’s strength.

[Insomnia] should already be working, but something was preventing all of their enemies from falling asleep.

{Find the cape keeping them awake!} the gestalt consciousness of the original demanded.

As one, five more clones teleported in. The additional reinforcements brought up their numbers to eleven, and this was more than enough to start overwhelming the enemy.

One of the clones brought grenades a plenty with him, and began to toss them everywhere.

The effects of eleven clones layering their [Insomnia] also began to settle in, and some of the enemy monsters and capes began to falter.

Someone screamed from the other side.

---

“Fucking bastards!” Barrow roared as he directed his woodland creatures.

Even as his eyes drooped, he fought against the sleep that came over him because he knew that he was fighting someone who didn’t care for the usual rules of the capes.

The deaths of Carrion and Baneberry at their tinkertech weapons and machetes told him as much.

Worse, because of how many distinct powers were being used, he couldn’t tell if new powers or tinkertech would pop up!

He’s never been backed to a corner like this before, and his usually methods of subverting invaders into his woodland was not working on them! How?!

“Carolina, kill them!” he ordered as he backpedaled from the slashing strikes of one of the attackers.

Barrow Carolina, a teen boy he picked up from Connecticut, roared as he charged forward. The boy’s blood was an aerosol kill-agent. The more he bled, the faster he would kill his enemies if they remained in place.

He could even change his entire body into his blood that he coul-.

But then the boy charged right into one of those yard-long stakes that glowed ominously in dim red light that defied the sunlight. As soon as the Breaker/Shaker touched one of them, he blew up.

He just … stopped existing.

Barrow felt his jaw drop.

“What…?”

“The poor bastard was composed completely of his power, wasn’t he?” the interloper cackled. “Whatever his power was, it was the perfect natural prey to our tinkertech!”

“What did you do to him!?” Barrow roared.

The attacker closest to him - kept back by his personal bodyguards - grinned. “Those stakes are Power Nullifiers. They reject the changes to the world that does not occur naturally. It is the ultimate counter to Breakers and Shakers… and you just sent one of your Breakers to fight us. The moment he changed his form, his death was a forgone conclusion.

Barrow felt his stomach drop.

W-Was that why his forest disappeared from where the stakes were?

Barrow realized something right there and then.

The stakes and their creator was an existential threat to him.

They must die.