Before retiring for the night, Peter was asked to pay a visit at the station the next day. Alexander didn't get an answer at the time but he hoped the boy was sensible enough to pay attention.
Peter would go there, just to be polite, but he didn't plan on paying attention to whatever they were going to tell him. He would visit mostly because it was on the way on the daily walk anyway.
He arrived at home a few minutes before midnight and was surprised to find everyone still awake. When he stepped through the door, he found James and Helen drinking while Sarah and Manda were furiously searching for something on James' computer.
Not wanting to ruin their fun with his bad mood, he headed towards his own room. On the way he passed by Anthony's office where he found the man quietly working on some documents. He stopped in front of the door for a while before speaking.
"Thanks, dad."
That was all he said before going on his way. Anthony just smiled and went back to his papers. Turns out his disguise wasn't as good as he thought, but he somehow couldn't really feel bad about it.
The next day Peter made his way to the police station alongside Sarah. The building was unnecessarily large for its purposes, other than that it was a fairly ordinary building. The siblings went inside and identified themselves, after which they were rushed to the top floor of the building.
They were guided to a room where Alexander was already waiting for them. The room was spacious with almost no furniture other than the police chief's table and a few chairs and the walls were full of decorations, mostly awards to the owner. The man himself looked like he hadn't got a minute of sleep last night.
"I was worried you would not come. I am glad you listened to my request."
He was speaking a lot more politely than at night, probably because he was scared of the half-naked man. Peter didn't really care about the chief's worries so he just tried to move the conversation along.
"Just tell me why you wanted to talk. I presume it has something to do with what happened yesterday."
"Yes, originally I wanted to ask you to leave the fireflies alone. They dealt with every bounty hunter around here with pretty gruesome methods and I wanted to prevent you from meeting the same fate. Now I understand why you were not concerned about retaliation, but I would still like to ask you to leave them alone.
Even if the ones around here cannot do anything to you, they have stronger allies and angering them is dangerous no matter who is protecting you."
Peter understood the man's intentions but he had no idea why those strong allies would put any importance on him and he had no idea how stubborn some people could be.
"Thank you for your concern, but I don't think I can do what you ask."
And with that he started walking out. Sarah, who was looking at the various wall decorations so far, ran after him.
Outside the building they saw a large group of people coming towards the station. All of them were wearing a red uniform and were led by an intimidating large man, Gregory Brann himself. When he saw the kids he stopped his group and a slightly crazed smile started to appear on his face.
"Just who I was looking for! I don't care who's protecting you, I'm going to kill you right here and now!"
He motioned his men to attack but before they could get very far, a gunshot was heard and the man leading the charge fell over, dead. The others stopped where they were and looked towards where the shot came from.
Helen and Manda were standing by the side with a group of green uniformed men behind them. The shot came from Helen, with the gun falling apart in her hands.
"Looks like we're just in time. I was afraid you would start things without us!"
The fireflies didn't move for a while. Some of them were scared, most of them were simply confused. The most dangerous weapon around fell apart in front of their eyes so they didn't really feel threatened they were just shocked and were waiting for their leader's orders.
Unlike what people would expect from him, Gregory was eerily calm. He slowly looked towards the uninvited party, the people he had been in conflict with for years now, took a deep breath and addressed the lady boss directly, with almost no emotion in his voice.
"Do you have any idea what this means?"
Instead of being intimidated like a normal person, Helen was standing proudly, with no hesitation in front of the man who the entire town feared, and gave her answer with a mad grin on her face.
"Of course I know. This means war!"
Gregory was red with anger. He was frothing at the mouth as he roared his order.
"Attack! Kill them all!"
With that, the two groups started attacking each other and soon the area in front of the Ambolt police station became a war zone.
The officers who were in the building all heard the initial gunshot and rushed out to assess the situation. Instead of joining either side in the fighting they tried to avoid them and started barricading away the area where the fighting was.
The fighting quickly became hectic as criminal gangs were not particularly famous for their combat tactics. Most of them were ill equipped to fight in the first place, while the majority had at least a knife to fight with, some of them had to make do with various blunt objects like baseball bats and bricks, or simply trash they found on the way.
The ones with stronger combat abilities were in a somewhat better position as they didn't really need a weapon to fight. The most notable example of this was a separated group of the fireflies who were throwing an excessive amount of fireballs around the battlefield.
Initially the fireflies seemed to be winning due to simply having greater combat power, but the situation slowly turned in the green dragons' favor thanks to them being present in larger numbers and having a prophet as their commander.
During the fighting, Peter and Sarah were separated and the boy was desperately searching for his sister. While running around he bumped into a Firefly member in the middle of passing out and took the opportunity to improve his chances of survival.
[Successfully absorbed class 5 flame blessing.]
[Result: STR +0.1, AGI +0.1, MGC +0.06, EXP +50]
[Level up!]
[Unlocked ability: Monster in the dark]
Peter quickly looked at the ability description but it didn't seem like a combat ability so he disregarded it for now. He had a lot more pressing issues, most important of which was Gregory Brann himself.
The man was completely covered in flames and the temperature was rapidly increasing as he made his way towards Peter, pure hatred clearly visible in his eyes.
[Entity class 14]
[Ability: Intimidation]
[Star attribute: <Restricted access>]
Before Peter could complain about the disparity between what the interface told him and what he was seeing with his own two eyes, the flaming man started running towards him.
He coated himself in shadows, not to hide, since his opponent was too strong to be tricked by it and it was daytime anyway, but to take advantage of the minuscule speed increase he got from it. He finished just in time to see the gang leader swinging his fist at him.
Peter narrowly avoided the first strike but he was hit in the chest immediately after. He flew backwards and crashed into another gangster before falling to the ground.
[Health: 58%]
[Achievement unlocked: Get below 70% health]
[Achievement unlocked: Get below 60% health]
[Total rewards: END +0.35]
This was the worst state Peter has ever been in, he was feeling dizzy, had difficulty breathing, he could feel his mouth gradually filling up with blood and was barely resisting the urge to start vomiting.
By the time he noticed Gregory coming to finish him off it as too late to react, so he raised his hands in an attempt to save his own life.
However, before the punch could hit him, someone unexpected blocked the attack. It was the man who was shot when all of this started. He was still dead, signified by the hole in his head being significantly larger than before, but he was still standing, protecting Peter.
Peter tried to look around for an explanation when he saw Sarah slitting someone's throat surrounded by a dozen walking corpses, clawing away at anyone who got near to their master.
Trying to get himself out of the horrible situation he was in, Peter grabbed a knife the dead man was carrying on his belt and tried to stab his opponent.
[Achievement unlocked: Star seeker!]
[Reward: All physical attributes +0.2, INT +0.05, MGC +0.05, EXP +100]
[Remaining tier 2 path achievements have been locked.]
Peter managed to stab the man's arm but even with the sudden strength increase, it did little more than scratch his skin before the blade started melting away. Seeing that he had no chance of winning, Peter desperately tried running away with the little strength he had left.
Gregory meanwhile simply tossed away his reanimated subordinate before the flames around his body started flaring up even more. Those unfortunate enough to be near him could see their skin slowly burning up before it started peeling away layer by layer.
There were only two people on the battlefield unaffected by the heat. One of them was Helen whose face showed only annoyance and a hint of sorrow as she was looking towards the single person other than herself who was left standing. Anthony Williams, the strongest person present.
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