Lag 6.13 (Un-Betaed Preview) (Patreon)

Lag 6.13

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“Fuck the plan! I can take him!”

If he had the time, Hardkour would have laughed right in his face.

Instead, the blond jumped back far, flinging himself backwards twenty or thirty feet to land back on the street again. He touched down in time to spot the mass of translucent roiling air Stormtiger had sent his way suddenly veered off. Greg made to move again, the thought that the blast could follow his movements suddenly his primary worry.

Huh. His concerns went unrealized as the air bomb swung wide to the right, the entire thing smashing into a parked car with metal-shredding force. The turbine-like roar the air bomb gave off as it flew came to a sudden end, every other noise dwarfed as the sedan went up like a bomb.

Holy sh- Greg barely had the time to raise his eyebrows slightly, half a second to take in the raw power, before Stormtiger let out another scream at the top of his lungs. The aggravated cape followed up the roar of anger by launching another large air bomb from his other hand, barely a second of windup before it was airborne.

This one…

Blue eyes widened slightly as [Danger Sense] buzzed a redundant warning. Faster.

It was about twice as fast as the last and that one had already been a good deal faster than the one Stormtiger had managed to land on him minutes earlier. In fact, it was so fast that the teenager almost found himself taking a slash of shuddering air head-on.

Almost.

Instinct had him pull on all the Will he could manage in an instant, the amount not even enough to light up his body with the faint golden glow of [Reinforcement]. Hardkour forced himself into motion the instant his muscles flooded with power, body jerking in the opposite direction without waiting another second. A moment later, the powerful bolt of air screamed past his head, the roar of wind overpowering Stormtiger’s own belligerent vocalizations.

Can’t let him push me back like this, Greg thought to himself, his plan for focusing on Krieg becoming less and less likely with every passing second. Speaking of Krieg… Wait, what’re they doing?

From the corner of his eye, he could see the other Empire capes still maintaining their same position, neither Krieg or Nordwind moving an inch as the other woman stood between them. Her hands glowing as they rested on both of their shoulders, it was clear that whatever she was doing wasn’t going to help him out.

“Wha-” Greg bit his tongue with a wince as his head buzzed with a warning of danger, the signal as irritatingly obnoxious as usual. Obnoxious or not, the pulse of [Danger Sense] rang a second too late.

“Jesus!” was the strangled cry that left the teenage boy’s lips, a shout of pain and shock as something tore through his sleeve and past his forearm with the force of a bullet.

- 40

Bright blue eyes shot over towards Stormtiger’s direction and those same eyes found themselves going wide once again. Without pausing to think or process, Greg simply moved.