Chapter 37
“What do you mean there are three Roaches?” Kim hissed. “How are there three?”
Dragon cranes continued to attack the military caravan, swooping in and picking off women around us while they tried to get the trucks moving over the roughly cleared wilds.
Pratt had ordered the line forward, and there was some progress, but it was slow.
“Each of those hooded figures has over a dozen powers, and they all look like Roach. So, we have a problem. He has way too many powers. It’s not supposed to be possible” Even with my suped-up brain, I couldn’t figure out how he could have gained so many powers.
“Monster fruit?” Kim asked, glancing accusingly at Daeva.
“No way. Even if he took monster fruit, he can’t have a dozen powers. Until the monster fruit we just made, no one was getting an entirely new separate power.” Daeva was just as confused as the rest of us.
“Does it matter?” Sidi asked. “The target is here. It’s time to execute the plan.”
“Cloning is the likely scenario,” I pointed out and looked at their powers again. “But the powers are all different. Shit, what is going on?”
Chewing on my lip, I wasn’t sure if we should abort the plan and try to regroup. It was a pretty big gap in our intel, and I wasn’t sure we could take three of him on successfully at that moment.
The man was full of surprises.
The three cloaked figures shot back into the air, taking the dragon cranes head on and stalling the cranes while those on the rail guns could continue to whittle them down. But with them busy with that, I could deal with Pratt.
The cloaked figures started dropping the cranes left and right, and I saw my opportunity.
“Obby, stay safe. Sidi.” I leaned over and kissed her again. “Get to work.” I slapped her ass, and she immediately started splitting and pouring into the camp, her shadows going to work.
“Kim, Daeva, with me.” I flew around the trucks and shot over to Pratt, where I locked him down.
The general was surprised to see me, a flicker of confusion flashing over his face before it was replaced with a grin. “Color me surprised. I thought you were thoroughly whipped by all the women who surrounded you.” His eyes flicked to Daeva. “I see you brought reinforcements. Typical, relying on a woman to solve your problems.”
“Shut up, old man,” I snapped as women in the tent were rounding on me. Several had their hands on guns. “Ladies, calm down.”
One snapped her gun up. Half-way to getting it raised, she was blown into a red mist.
The general scoffed. “I see Project Cerberus is protecting you.” He glanced at Daeva. “Is that how she got her hooks so deep into Point City? And now she’s coming here, now that New Haven was destroyed?” He wasn’t an idiot; I could see the gears turning in his head as he tried to figure a way out of the current situation.
“No. I just killed your soldier. Daeva is just here for backup, and because she’s immortal.” I smirked at his confusion. Despite my desire to paste him, I needed information he might have. So instead, I went for sheer intimidation. I put a layer of darkness over me and became Void for a moment. “Surprise.”
I pulled it away and grinned at Pratt, whose face fell. A moment later, he exploded into a cloud of smoke and tried to run. But I’d seen his power. I had expected him to run and was ready for him, making a solid, invisible cage around him.
“Pratt, for every second you waste my time with that form, I’m going to kill one of yours.” I blew two of his soldiers to mist before he reformed.
“You… you are Void. But we killed you.” Pratt was now showing fear.
“No. You couldn’t kill me if you wanted to.” I grabbed my chest and ripped it apart.
The general winced and looked away for a moment, glancing back for his eyes to nearly bug out of his head when he saw my hollow insides. “What?”
“I’m a being of pure energy. There’s nobody to kill.” I smirked at him as he tried to understand just what I had become. “Now, what the fuck is going on with Roach and the three bodies?” I asked, my body sealing right back up.
Pratt got himself under control. “You could join the Brotherhood. Our cause is just. Men were shoved down because there were so few of us, but we are meant to be more. The world might now be focused on women, but we can fix it. We can bring them back to their knees.”
I clicked my tongue. “I expected better of you, General. What do you expect to happen, even if Roach can do that?”
Outside the tent, there were screams as Sidi got to work. I glanced outside, seeing her clones hopping in the trucks and driving them away to expose soldiers that had been hiding from the dragon cranes. And then they’d use those trucks to drive them into an unsuspecting soldier of Pratt’s. They were causing complete chaos.
“You wouldn’t understand. Men were great, once. Roach has already taken over Point City, crushed New Haven,” Pratt bragged. “The brotherhood has already won. The glass ceilings will open up because Roach has taken control of the leadership in multiple cities.”
I laughed. “No. I fought off the Fenris Wolf when it attacked New Haven, and then it went for Point City, where I destroyed it. Then I went and killed Hendricks, along with everyone working for Roach. Pratt, you’ve lost and you’re cornered. Tell me what I want to know.”
His jaw flopped open. “Impossible.”
“It seems well within my capabilities. Now, tell me about Roach, or die.” I refocused on him.
Pratt squirmed under my gaze. “Try and kill me.”
I pasted his arm. But it didn’t paste as I’d expected. Instead, it became a puff of smoke before it reformed.
He laughed. “I didn’t survive monster attacks, get captured and tortured, to just bend over when some upstart that doesn’t know his—”
I blew his entire body away only for it to reform.
“That doesn’t know his ass—” the general continued.
I kept blowing him up. And it was like hitting an old toy punching bag that tipped over and then righted itself. And every time he appeared, he had an obnoxious face that just made me want to punch it again.
Pratt reformed once again.
I sealed him in a double layer of kinetic energy with a vacuumed gap between them to silence him, but it didn’t stop his mouth from running as he continued to insult me.
I hardened the interior layer against radioactive particles and then created a glowing ball of radiation inside with him. Not wanting to keep losing time, I created several.
It was a first for me, and I could feel the pressure on the inside shield grow more intense by the second. Pratt exploded into smoke to escape it, but it seemed that even he had a limit. He reformed a minute later, his skin reddening. He looked like he’d been out in the sun too long.
Everyone nearby watched, horror growing on the faces of Pratt’s people.
One drew their weapon, but Daeva was on them in an instant, crossing the distance in a blink of an eye. Her first fist crushed the gun before the other blew her away.
“So, you’re just going to kill Pratt like that?” Daeva asked. “Or are there more questions?”
“Pretty sure he knows he’s dead.” I looked at the old general trying to escape the glowing green lights, but he was trapped in with them. “But might as well check.”
I gathered the radioactive energy and contained it before launching it high into the sky. I wanted to keep it away from everyone down below.
Taking away the two layers around Pratt, I let his voice come through once more.
Pratt hissed from his burns and shrank away from me. “You killed me.” He knew he was a dead man walking after that much radiation.
“Yeah. That’s a bitch, isn’t it. Consider it payback for all the women you’ve killed here while you served Roach. Why does he want the vault, anyway?”
Pratt sneered at me and tried to escape once again, turning into a cloud of smoke.
I trapped him again, and the second he became physical again, I shook my head and clicked my tongue. “You really should stop trying that. Pretty sure I’ve given you enough radiation that even if you get away, your life will be short-lived.”
He glanced to the side and the hairs on the back of my neck prickled right before a roaring fireball consumed the tent and all of us in it.
I wrapped the girls in a shield.
My avatar could register the heat, but I was just energy. There was no skin to burn. Beyond the fire, I could see that one of the Roaches had noticed my interrogation of Pratt, and the other two had noticed Sidi’s destruction of their forces.
Sidi was cloning herself like mad and taking down the defenses of the other soldiers, exposing them to the rapidly decreasing number of dragon cranes.
I did a quick survey of the camp. Most of Pratt’s forces were gone. I would have liked to have seen Sidi in action, but my focus had been elsewhere.
The fire abated after a long gout. The tent was gone; the metal poles that had held it up were melted puddles on the ground, and everyone that I didn’t have in a shield was gone.
“Well, Pratt. Look how highly he thinks of you. He killed all your soldiers in here, too. Then again, Roach has a very bad habit of leaving bodies wherever he goes as soon as he’s met his goal.” I gave said villain the side eye.
The Roach that had sent fire over us disappeared before reappearing next to me. His four arms burst out of the cloak and blurred as he punched me with both super speed and super strength.
I was pretty damn happy I was the new and enhanced Miles at the moment.
Roach punched into my avatar, but I was made purely of energy. And I had a mind that had no physical limits of processing speed. I matched the super speed of his four arms, blocking them and pushing them to the side as they continued to blur.
Unfortunately, I was no martial artist. A few of the hits got through, hammering into my chest and creating a shockwave that blew away grass and debris from me.
I held my position, my avatar unaffected by the blast. Seeing an opportunity, I stepped into him, throwing a punch of my own that broke one of his arms and powered through to his chest.
A shockwave that shattered the ground blew up and tossed a nearby truck, sending Roach flying.
I didn’t reform myself. Instead, I moved the avatar in a blink of an eye to catch Roach mid-flight. As I reached out and grasped him, for a moment, I forgot about my new body and nearly flinched, expecting pain from my previous injury. But there was no strain.
Spinning with Roach’s momentum, I added more to it as I slammed him into the ground, shattering it and sending debris everywhere.
Fire washed over me, but it did nothing before my fist slammed into his gut, pressing him further into the ground. I used my full force, and cracks appeared over his body as his chitin broke and yellow blood oozed out.
My fist stayed on him. I wasn’t about to let up.
I built up a bead of destruction in the fist and then blasted it out at point-blank range. The world went white as light bled out from the black beam that crushed him further into the ground and made a large circular hole.
But it apparently hadn’t been enough to vaporize him. Roach was pitiful- looking, like a squashed bug.
I scoffed and looked up at the other two that were floating in the sky. One reached its hands up, and lighting crackled overhead before jags of lightning poured down from the sky, as dense as rain drops.
The entire area was covered with lighting as I returned to Pratt, still shielding everyone. “Last chance, Pratt. What is going on with Roach? He killed everyone you brought here. Your grip on Point City is gone, and you are dying. However, if you work with me here, I’ll let you live out what life you have left.” I was fairly sure it was short; his reddened skin was peeling.
“Roach can take the powers of bugs and give them to others. Those copies? They are people he’s mentally dominated to the point that they think they are Roach. And he’s given them numerous powers. They must all have some power to change themselves, because they all end up looking like him. Now, let me go before more of them show up.” Pratt kept a frown on his face.
I released him from my power, but Kim stepped forward and immediately torched him.
“Like hell you get away.” Kim wrapping him in her infernal flames. The flames had a physical strength to them that bound him. “Not after the shit you’ve pulled.”
He tried to turn into a puff of smoke, but I kept him from getting far.
If Kim wanted the kill, I’d let her.
Pratt returned from his smoke form, screaming and gasping for breath as Kim’s fires blackened his skin. He tried to smoke away again, but his power must have failed him. He only puffed out for a moment before Kim finished him.
Lightning still filled the air around us, but my shields were easily grounding it away.
“Sidi, Obby, get clear of here. Worst case, I’ll meet you back at the lake. Daeva, Kim, are you ready?”
Kim turned to Daeva. “Punch me.” She pointed to her gut. “As hard as you can.”
I threw Sidi and Obby far away and didn’t watch Daeva hurt Kim. Thankfully, Kim didn’t make much more noise than a grunt.
When I looked back, she was missing a huge chunk out of her shirt, but her smooth skin was already almost filled in. Kim needed to be hurt to strengthen her other power. One of the reasons I never intended to take her power.
“Okay. Let me at him. They are keeping this lightning up for some reason.” She frowned.
“Pratt made it seem like there were more of them,” I pointed out. “Let’s deal with these two and get to the vault. I have a bad feeling.”
Roach was probably already inside, stealing more powers from insects that had been saved. It was a veritable feast for his power. But if he couldn’t sense power, foraging for insects was likely a lot of trouble. It would take him some time.
Kim ran headlong out of my protection as lightning converged on her.
I winced and looked away as the damage was done, but the light changed from the bright white of lighting to a warm red of fire moments later. Kim’s clothes were barely hanging on as a blood-red bonfire roared around her.
“Let’s go.” I grabbed Daeva, knowing both of them felt like they had something to prove to me. Rather than help, I let my powers billow out past this fight, looking for the rest of Roach’s clones.
We both shot out as Kim swallowed the world around us in flames. Two giant fists of fire grabbed the Roaches and slammed them to the ground. The lightning cut off, and her two giant fists were blown away by the Roaches. Both disappeared from sight.
One appeared a moment later, standing right in front of Kim and blowing her away. It didn’t take too much; her body wasn’t much more durable than a low-level super.
But the fire didn’t go out. Instead, it got bigger, consuming the whole clearing as Kim reformed herself. She was as naked as the day she was born. Only her hair danced among the flames, fire flickering off the ends, while more fire burned in her eyes.
“Die!” she shouted, and the flames grew higher. Large fists formed and hammered down on the Roach that had attacked her.
Daeva let out a soft whistle as the second Roach appeared before us. She caught its first and second fists, but the third and fourth blurred as they pumped into her chest.
She only grunted. Unlike the Fenris Wolf’s ability to slice through nearly anything, Daeva was as durable as Fortress had once been. The Roach’s punches didn’t do more than make her grunt before her forehead snapped into his face.
His neck bent back at an ugly angle, and his arms stopped moving. I could tell he was trying to heal, but at that moment, he couldn’t move.
Daeva put her foot on his chest and ripped two of his arms off before she knocked him to the ground and started to beat him with his own two arms.
It was a bit brutal.
Kim was locked in a battle of attrition with the other Roach. It blew her away several more times, but now she was a raging wildfire. I felt like she was containing it rather than having stopped growing. And the area was getting more and more sweltering.
I scanned the surrounding area with my power and found Obby and Sidi, but there was one other person still alive and around. “Wrap it up, you two,” I told them.
Kim made a giant out of fire that grabbed the Roach she was fighting, pinning it to the ground and pulling until it was ripped in two.
Daeva sent a final punch, reinforced by telekinesis that shattered her Roach’s head.
Kim still had fire wrapped around her feet and shot up to me as more fire covered the important bits, but not much else. She had a big, satisfied grin on her face. “Where are the others? I haven’t had the chance to let loose like this in a while.”
She held out her hand, and the blazing inferno around us all condensed into a small ball of blood-red fire.
Daeva raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t say anything else as she held herself aloft.
“This way.” I moved ahead, ready to finish our mission.