Honest to Himself 33 (Patreon)

Honest to Himself
Arc 5: Scion
Chapter 33

-VB-

The moment I saw that Armsmaster’s entire goal had been to steal one of my Tinkertech?

I went ballistic and sent waves of clones after him.

While we couldn’t directly port into the Forest or the battlefield because the Lost Garden’s forest still made it hard for me to navigate, I could teleport above the forest.

We dropped in like paratroopers sans the parachute. Forty of us rolled onto the ground and activated [Insomnia] all at once.

Triumph couldn’t take it and immediately crashed, slumping onto the asphalt road.

Dauntless resisted, but even he still grunted with exertion. Did it have something to do with his helmet? It was a blank spot in my [Offscreen Travel]’s detection just like Barrow and his forest.

And as for Armsmaster, I could sense his -.

Wait.

What the fuck?

He went from nearly falling over to full wakefulness.

How?

“D-Did you just shoot up meth?!” one of my clones barked in outrage.

“Just adrenaline,” he grunted back as he continued to run. “Dauntless, grab Triumph! We’re leaving!”

“You’re not leaving with my stake!”

Dauntless jumped, grabbed Triumph, carried him under his shield arm, and then ran away in one smooth motion that left me impressed, but I wasn’t impressed enough to not strike to kill.

Clones pulled out their guns and began to fire.

Dauntless grunted as he whirled around during one jump and held out his shield. Energy cracked like lightning across the shield and then expanded outwards into a larger if a simpler version of the shield. Bullets slammed into and then pinged off of this energy shield.

I blinked.

I didn’t know Dauntless could do that with his shield.

Three clones teleported behind him and struck down with fire axes and sledgehammers.

One nearly struck Triumph, but Dauntless lashed out with his spear.

The very air around us exploded.

“YOU WERE HOLDING BACK!” we laughed in hilarity.

“I don’t need to use these on normal crooks and jokers!” he spat back as he skidded across the ground, slowly whirling around while still moving away from us.

Nine of us teleported above him at the same vector and dropped live grenades before teleporting towards Armsmaster.

Armsmaster somehow predicted and grabbed one of the teleporting clone’s ankles, whirled around, and slammed him into another clone.

The two clones flew away in a tumble even as they teleported out only after a second.

‘How did he predict that?’

More clones teeleported, but instead of striking down from the air, I had them strike low, middle, high, and from the air. The clones came rushing at him, some even turning to strike at Dauntless.

But Armsmaster somehow fucking predicted them again!

He lashed out with a kill strike, then spun his halberd in a wide arc, and finally tranq’ed a clone as a final fuck you to me.

I was getting a little desperate now.

Half of the clones in base dropped whatever it was that they were doing, if it wasn’t critical like our children, teleported to the armory, grabbed whatever weapon we had, and teleported in.

“You let me see too many of your moves, Stitches,” Armsmaster taunted me as Dauntless ran past him into the forest. Our clones teleported in but we couldn’t see anyone within the forest. We couldn’t keep track of them. Worse, we had other problems behind us. In our focus to take out the heroes, Barrow and his ilk reorganized and came back at us with a force that actually presented a threat.

Armsmaster twirled his halberd around and then slammed the butt of it down onto the ground. “It was your mistake to come out of hiding,” he snapped at me.

“You think you can get out of here?” I asked through the clone closest to him. “The moment you leave the forest, I will be coming after what is mine!”

“You are welcome to try, but you will fail like you failed now,” he grunted. “Justice will triumph in the end!”

‘... Wait, is drug-addled Armsmaster a Hammy-master?’

There was no way that he was still up and about without drugs, because there were now over a hundred of my clones blasting [Insomnia]. Hell, Barrow might have reorganized, but I could see it clearly on his face that he was seriously rethinking it. I didn’t know how he was countering my effects, but it was also clear that it wasn’t that effective for everyone.

Armsmaster jumped into the foliage, leaving me to deal with Barrow until Armsmaster appeared back on my mental map from [Offscreen Travel].

We turned back to Barrow, and the man looked like a deer in the headlight.

He realized, I think, that he was about to be fucked.

-VB-

I didn’t know how, but Armsmaster and the heroes escaped Barrow’s forest without getting detected.

But I killed Barrow, took what few members I liked at a first glance, and torched his forest.

Said fire was spreading to the city, too, and a lot of firefighters deployed to keep it contained.

…

This was my first loss, and I didn’t like it.

I guessed that I needed to go and teach the Protectorates a lesson on why they should leave me alone.