Chapter 108: 107 Gotta Get That K/D Grind
Walking along the street, I tune out Bonesaw's ramblings as I focus on playing the part of bodyguard and ensuring that Bonesaw is never within five metres of Lucy, as she now apparently wants to be called.
When Hatchet Face came back earlier in the day, I was both disappointed and intrigued.
Disappointed because he didn't end up like Mannequin, and intrigued because of how he described the former Ward, and I have to say, I am certainly pleased with how she has turned out.
Hearing her say how glad she is to finally be free was amazing, because that feeling of freedom to do whatever you want is truly the best, and more people should be able to feel it.
Other than that, she is just generally interesting.
She seems to have taken to heart my words about her bosses not caring about her, and she hasn't so much as flinched yet, even when she Broke me down.
Clearly, that silly little 'heroic' mindset of hers is waning, and Bonesaw's test will probably be the first step towards getting her to truly disregard the lives of others.
She isn't quite free of morals just yet, I don't think.
I focus back in on Bonesaw's words as we reach our destination and walk through the shattered glass doors of a fairly large mall.
It has two floors, but only on the edge of the room, allowing a clear view of the sky from the middle of the ground floor through the shattered skylights.
"Which is why I like to give tests that give people the chance to use their powers in new and creative ways!" Bonesaw follows her exclamation by jumping forward a little and spinning around to face Lucy as she enters the building.
Lucy's impassive face gains a slight furrow as she frowns at the sight before her, and her dead eyes pan from one side to the other before returning to settle on Bonesaw with a raised brow.
Following her gaze, I briefly turn to face the horde of innocent people loitering around, either standing or sitting as they huddle together.
They all understand the situation they are in by now. So no matter how much they might want to run, or how scared they are, none of them attempt to escape their fate.
There were a couple of brave fools who tried to run at the start, but I broke all their legs and then ate them alive in front of the others. Then I picked a few random people, equal to the number that tried to run, and I did the exact same thing to them as well.
I think I got the message across with that.
"Hatchet Face told us about your power when you met," Bonesaw continues, "and he said that you apparently don't have a lot of control over it!"
Lucy seems to get an inkling of what her test is going to be, but Bonesaw soon confirms it well enough.
"So! To pass my test, you just have to use your power to Break one person, without Breaking anyone else!"
One thing Bonesaw fails to mention is that the people behind us, some two hundred or so, are not allowed to move from where they are, so she can't split them up to get more chances.
I'd say that if she was standing in the middle when she used her powers, she'd probably kill about a dozen people at once.
Since she's going to be going in from the side, that number is probably halved, but still, she only has like twenty five-ish tries before she fails.
"...Can I just go straight to the punishment?" Lucy starts, her voice dry and annoyed, "because everyone knows that you can't train parahuman powers. Shakers can't learn to change their range, Strikers can't train to change what their powers effect and Thinkers can't Think harder."
You know, with my power being the way it is, I honestly completely forgot about that, but it is true.
There are of course ways to grow stronger with your powers, otherwise longer lived capes wouldn't be able to kick newbies' asses so easily, but that is more getting used to your power than changing it.
For instance, Shakers. Like Lucy said, they can't train to change their range. Though, supposedly the range or effects of powers can temporarily grow when in situations reminiscent of the user's Trigger.
But if said Shaker power fills your head with information about something, like the details of the stone around you or something, then you 𝘤𝘢𝘯 get used to all the information getting stuffed in your head, thus allowing you to more clearly understand it all.
Kind of like how Thinkers get more and more used to Thinker headaches the more they use the power, but that doesn't change the actual power at hand.
For example, March will be able to use her timing power more the more she gets used to it, but it's never going to change from being a timing power.
Ah well, sucks to suck I guess, couldn't be me.
"Don't be such a downer Lucy.~ You'll hurt Chibi's feelings if you don't even 𝘵𝘳𝘺.~"
My words cause Lucy to give me a withering glare and Bonesaw to clap her hands happily.
"Haaah, fine."
After accepting the task, Lucy proceeds to pull an impressive power move by walking straight at the two of us, forcing me to move Bonesaw to the side so she doesn't get mulched.
Ah well, I don't mind really.
She walks until it seems that there are only two people inside of the edge of her range when she pauses.
"Sorry," is all she says before everything around her Breaks, including both of the people she apologised to.
Except she seems to have miscalculated slightly, as another man is caught half in her power's range and half out, causing most of his body to Break and either hang limp at his side or fall off entirely.
He lets out a wet, gurgling sound that almost sounds like a scream, until Lucy takes another half step forward and puts him out of his misery.
This sort of scene repeats itself a few times, Lucy apologising every time, until about half of the people look like minced meat and the floor of the mall looks like a particularly disgusting beach.
On the bright side, it smells delectable.
Still, it's getting a little bit boring, so I decide to try and give a little advice.
"Maybe you should try touching them?~ Your power used to be a Striker right?~ Maybe you'd have better control with physical contact?~"
My words cause her to pause as she seems to consider it for a moment before accepting that it is indeed a reasonable assumption.
Truthfully though, I only said it because it will mean she's getting closer to the people, thus causing more of them to die in one go, meaning she can fail the test sooner.
There is only so many times you can watch someone crumble into minced meat before it just gets repetitive.
As expected, physical contact doesn't change anything. By the time there are only a few left, they decide that they'd rather die while trying to live, than just giving up.
By which I mean they all took a break for it, but before they even made it ten steps each, a spider bot dropped down on each of them and severed their spinal cords, disabling them instantly.
Lucy gave us both a look in response, but I just gestured with my hand for her to continue and soon enough we are standing in a room filled with nothing but piles upon piles of minced meat.
"D'awww. I really hoped you'd be able to do it," Bonesaw says, sounding supremely disappointed as she stares down at her feet, pouting.
Looking at Lucy, I can tell that she is more upset than she's letting on. I will admit that it's somewhat impressive how impassive she can keep her expression, but apparently I can cheat with my powers anyway, so it doesn't matter.
I wouldn't quite call myself an empath, but by now I can generally get the gist of what someone is feeling just by looking at them, which is neat.
I get the feeling that while Lucy was willing to kill all those people, she would really rather if she didn't have to.
I suppose we do have plenty of time to train that response out of her, otherwise she will never be as free as she wants to be. Morals are just as pointlessly binding to the weak as laws are, after all.
Good thing Bonesaw's punishment is perfect for helping her grow used to this sort of thing.
However since the girl in question doesn't seem to be paying attention, I give Bonesaw a little nudge on the back, and nod towards Lucy when she looks up at me, causing her to flinch in realisation.
"Oh! Right! Since you failed the test, that means you have to do the punishment!"
With that, both of us start walking to the opposite side of the mall as where we came in from, walking over all of the corpses uncaring of the way they squelch beneath our feet, or the blood that paints out clothes..
Though in an effort to avoid waste, I allow my tail to sprout, and I shift it's form until it grows a maw of feral teeth, following which a few more mouths take shape along the tail.
I don't know why I never thought about it before, but I only recently realised that I could 'eat' through my power, which is nice I guess, because it allows me to keep pace with Bonesaw while also swiping the tail back and forth to consume any flesh it passes.
It doesn't feel quite as rewarding to eat like this. I mean, I'm sure it's just as nutritious, but taste is dulled through me appendages, just like touch is, so it doesn't have the same luscious flavour that it does when I eat with my actual mouth.
Either way, we soon reach the back of the mall, Lucy following behind us at a reasonable distance, and both Bonesaw and I move to the side to allow Lucy to come out and witness the sight before us.
A parking lot, only it is devoid of any cars, and is instead completely filled with prone bodies.
Lucy's eyes widen at the sight and when she turns to face us I sense a hint of panic and apprehension coming from her.
Understandable I suppose. She has just keeled about two hundred people after all, yet in front of us, there are one whole thousand people lying unconscious.
It was a pain to rally them all up, but luckily we found a couple spots in the city where a bunch of people were gathering together, making this actually doable.
"As punishment, you have to Break all of these people as well! Five for every one you failed to save by not improving on your power."
Lucy briefly looks like she is contemplating lunging at us, but I just have to give her a smirk to dissuade her from that course of action.
To make things even better though, a few spider bots run through the vast crowd of people spraying a gas all over the place.
A few seconds later and people start waking up.
It takes them a couple of seconds to get their bearings from their impromptu nap, but soon enough a piercing scream rings out, snapping everyone else to wakefulness.
It doesn't take long after that for them to see us three, and manage to I give them a cheeky wave right before panic hits.
All of a sudden, there is a stampede of one thousand people running away in blind panic.
I turn to Lucy to see that she hasn't moved yet and decide to motivate her.
"You know, punishments are just to give candidates an extra chance, but if you don't do the punishment properly then you just die, so if you truly do want to be free, then stop binding yourself to those restrictive morals you've been conditioned to believe, and just get to it. Make sure not a single one of them live. You are the only one that matters here, not them."
She waits a single second longer to absorb my words, and then she is off, running into the crowd of people with her power constantly active.
Everyone who even gets near her immediately perishes, and looking at it from above, it actually kind of reminds me of those vacuum cleaner adverts, where the floor is super dirty and everywhere the vacuum goes gets super clean, leaving a clear trail.
It's a lot like that, the way she mows through them all.
Still, a thousand is a lot, so it's going to take her a short while to get to all of the stragglers that manage to get away.
But fuck it, I like her, so I'll at least be nice enough to track them down for her and give her directions.
"Aren't I just such a nice person?" I mumble out loud, yet my only answer is in the form of screams, cries, and desperate pleas for salvation as the slaughter before me continues.
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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
You know that feeling when you want to read something, but at the same time, don't really want to read anything? Yeah, it sucks real bad.
In other news, I installed this game called loot river, it's a small indie roguelike, but it's actually kinda fun. Granted, the graphics can be a little scuffed, same with the vibrations, leaving me unsure what's going on sometimes, but the parrying mechanism is fun.
Also yeah, I've basically run out of ideas for tests, so we're just killing people now I guess. Quantity is a quality of its own and all.
(5+)Advanced chapters with the links below!
pat/reon.com/user?u=41732867 (get rid of the first slash or check the description)
Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
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