Greedy Cataloger 11 (Patreon)

Greedy Cataloger

Chapter 11

-VB-

Mercy was the prerogative of the strong, and I was not strong enough nor heroic enough to be able to save every single innocent individuals who had been turned into exotic bombs.

The only mercy I could give them was to turn them into ashes so that they could not cause damage to others. A quick, if violent, death where they would feel pain for less than a second. One moment of overwhelming pain that their bodies could not even register properly and then gone.

I stood at the center of the first floor of this business where one such execution had just taken place, and the people who I just saved didn’t know whether to thank me or to run out.

“Go back home and barricade your doors and windows. Don’t leave unless you have to or until the authorities clear the city of the current situation,” I ordered them before menacingly letting my flames flare up to light up all of their faces with my flame’s light. “It would be horrible if you were turned into glass or ash and your families couldn’t find your bodies, no?”

The dozen plus people in the restaurant quickly ran out. The owner of the business was quick to do the same, just spending some more time locking everything down and then pulling down the metal shutters which was common to all buildings and businesses in the city.

The rotund man hesitated before he nodded. “Thank you.”

And then he fled as well, getting into his twenty year old sedan and driving away hastily.

I snorted to myself as I walked away.

“This is Tephra, over. One incident over at Roosevelt Ave and 31st Street. No bystander fatalities.”

Normally, I wouldn’t listing all of this out, but Taylor and Kayden got it in their heads that they had to be professional about their heroics. Again, I didn’t care but they did, so I followed their lead on this.

“{So Bakuda doesn’t even care about that area,}” Lisa hummed through the telepathy connecting us all. Lisa was, of course, overwatch. “{Okay, thanks for that Alan! I have Bakuda’s location down to five locations now.}”

“[Where are they?]” Kayden’s eager voice chimed soon afterward.

“{Two are in Docks South and three are in the Docks proper,}” Lisa responded with glee. “{But the Docks South has to be fakes. The rate that the conscripts are flowing out of those fake labs are slower than the three within the Docks proper, and there is no flow of ABB conscripts going from the Docks South to Docks proper, which is not true for the reverse.}”

I frowned. We already knew that the Docks was where they were operating, so this wasn’t new information. However, Bakuda had been somewhat tricky and set up shop all over ABB’s fringe and heart territories. Some were traps and some weren’t.

While the rest of the heroes and villains moved slowly to fight back, we narrowed down Bakuda’s location. I knew that Kayden and Taylor were happy about that.

“And of the three, where is she actually?” I asked.

“(All three of them,}” Milly responded, working as co-overwatch with Lisa. “(She’s moving from one location to another every six hours or so and changing the lab that she sleeps at.)”

It’s only been two days, so she must have had only two sleeping sessions, if not less. “Do you know which locations she slept in?” I asked.

“{Yes, why?}”

“Because that place might be a trap.”

There was a pause before she answered. “{Wait, are you thinking that the last place she hasn’t slept in will be a trap?}” Lisa asked.

Her power was getting ahead of herself in trying to model me despite the restrictions and limitations it faced when dealing with me.

“No,” I replied, which I knew for a fact that irked both Lisa and her power, if only minutely. “I want Taylor to go over and scout it out.”

“-... Okay, I’ll head on over there. Lisa, can you tell me where it is?-”

“Taylor, remember. You don’t have to go close. Just scout it out from the edge of your control radius.”

“-Okay.-”

I waited at the intersection as Taylor flew over from wherever she had been at. Currently, it was day, so her new flaming Shroud shouldn’t attract too much attention. As for where I was, there was distinctly less people. Despite the fact that this area had just been suicide bombed, the people here were being skittish about coming out into the street.

It was probably because they saw a hero when everyone knew that this was Empire territory.

I sensed them before they saw me.

“Tephra.”

I turned minutely and saw, of all people, Victor.

“Does the Empire Eighty-Eight wish to fight me?” I asked him. “They send a skill thief to talk?”

Victor paused, obviously only realizing it now that his appearance didn’t bode well for the Empire’s intention. He came here, probably at Kaiser’s order, to recruit me, and had done so with a smile on his masked face.

A smile that might have alerted people considering who it came from.

I did understand why Victor wasn’t considered a big shot in Brockton Bay; he just didn’t have the oomph needed to become a big shot, despite the fact that his power would have been enough for him to become a ruler in smaller cities and towns.

After all, the threat of someone stealing your skills permanently would have been enough for most to submit. Breathing was a skill, after all.

“I’m just here to extend an invitation for you to join us at Somer’s Rock.”

“... No thank you.”

“No? You could-”

“I’m not interested in mingling with you.”

I then shot up into the air and flew away.

By the time I made it to the Docks proper, Taylor found Bakuda.

“-She’s in an abandoned four story office building at Richards and Echarts.-”

That wasn’t too far from where I was.

“Any civilians in there with her? The ones that can still be saved?”

“-... No.-”

“Okay.”

I knew what I had to do.

I flew over to the location and saw the building in question.

I didn’t even bother walking in or facing them up front.

Even though my Shroud has proven to trump over one of Bakuda’s bombs, I didn’t know if that would hold true for everything she had.

I came down onto a roof across the street from her hideout.

And let my Volanic Shroud bring up the earth.

I grunted in exertion as magma rose up from the ground at supernatural speed, melting and devouring everything in its path.

And then -!

The building shuddered as did the rest of the neighborhood. It felt like an earthquake, which naturally didn’t happen in a geology that Brockton Bay sat on.

But I wasn’t doing shit naturally.

I roared to the sky as I brought my clawing hands up into the air with my Volcanic Shroud in full flare mode.

Magma burst out from the ground as lava and crashed into the building.

And the building sunk like a rock into the pool of lava that opened up below.

“Keep an eye out for Bakuda. Don’t let her escape.”

Taylor sent back acknowledgement, and I continued to sink the building into the molten ground below.

No more than ten minutes after I got here, it was done.

The building was gone, completely under the ground and melting still, and no one had escaped.

And just like that, Bakuda’s Rampage was done within two days.

I ignored the way the rest of the cerebral bombs exploded across the city with Bakuda’s death.

“Done. Let’s go take the rest of the day off.”