The Protagonist System

Miss Militia's eyes dropped from my smile to the dissolving body of the leader of the ABB Gang at my feet. “You need to stop that before the evidence is completely gone.”

“I'm sorry, I can't do that. There's a chance he'll regenerate if he's not completely destroyed.” I lied. I just didn't want his genetic material to somehow get into some lab rat's hands. Or worse, Bonesaw's.

Miss Militia let out a sigh. “That was a concern about him if he was ever successfully taken down. They wouldn't have to pay out the money if he regenerated and didn't actually die.”

I nodded in agreement and she used her cell phone to record the last of his body as it disappeared. “I'm sure there are several brave people around here that recorded the whole fight. It should be easy to confirm it was Lung and not a copycat or a clone or something.”

Before she could say anything about that, a grenade flew through the air towards us. I leapt up and caught it in my hands and crushed it, landed, and it dissolved away.

“Oni Lee.” Miss Militia said and had her weapon out and pointed at the teleporting cape on a nearby roof.

Oni Lee looked at us and tilted his head, as if he was trying to figure us out, then he pulled two strings on his vest. The six grenades he had strapped there had their pins pulled and the restraining handles were flung off, which armed the explosives just before he disappeared.

“No!” Miss Militia gasped and the man appeared right in front of us.

I moved instantly and used my fingers to poke both of his eyes, which crushing them and stopping him from teleporting away. “One one thousand.” I said as I grabbed his vest and threw him into the already wrecked warehouse to lessen the collateral damage. “Two one thousand.” I counted and stood in front of Miss Militia just before the grenades exploded.

The military-themed cape hunched slightly and her eyes were extremely wide as shrapnel filled the air around us and peppered against my back. The rest flew past us and most of it pinged off of her motorcycle and the patrol vehicle. The four PRT officers had already taken cover after putting Squealer in the back of the SUV.

“Are you all right, Miss Militia? None of that hit you, did it?” I asked her.

Miss Militia shook her head and moved slightly to the side to peer around my broad shoulder. She looked a little pale, so I was pretty sure Oni Lee was now dead.

“That death might be a little harder to explain in your paperwork.” I said with a sigh.

Miss Militia nodded and motioned to the two PRT officers. “One of you needs to call this in. Priority code One-One-Beta.” She said and turned back to me. “Beta means the encounter is over.”

“Then would Alpha mean you needed immediate assistance?” I asked and she nodded. “Cool.”

Miss Militia raised a single eyebrow at me and I chuckled.

“I'm sorry, I was a cape geek before I triggered.” I said and her eyes softened. “Now that the immediate danger is over, I should introduce myself.” I said and tapped the golden Earth symbol on my chest. “My cape name is Atlas.”

Both of Miss Militia's eyebrows rose this time. “You named yourself after the fabled man that held up the entire world on his shoulders?”

I wasn't embarrassed by the implication, even though the old Greg would have been. “I haven't officially registered my name yet because of the lawsuit.”

“Lawsuit?” Miss Militia asked.

I bent slightly as I leaned in close and whispered. “I'm Greg Veder.”

Miss Militia caught her breath and stared at me.

I stood up straight and smiled. “It really is nice to meet you, Miss Militia.”

Her eyes went down to my feet and slowly made their way all the way up to my face as she drank all of me in. “The videos don't really do you any justice.”

I chuckled. “I know. I watched them all to see if there were any redeeming qualities.”

Miss Militia looked up at my hair. “The fades on the sides of your haircut are a nice touch.”

“Thank you. I knew it was time for a change before what happened, happened. After that, it was a necessity, because most people won't recognize me without the bowl cut.” I said with a chuckle.

Miss Militia let out a soft chuckle, too. “I understand. When I have my hair curled and fluffed out, even my close friends have to give me second and third looks to make sure it's really me.”

I smiled warmly and glanced at her long straight hair in a ponytail and imagined it all teased out into a large curly mass to frame her face. “I would have to look several times myself, just to admire you more than I already do.”

Miss Militia looked surprised and then smiled. I could tell because her eyes crinkled at the edges slightly. I was about to say something else when my Danger Sense went off slightly.

“Duck!” I shouted and Miss Militia dropped to the ground and rolled out of the way as a full garbage dumpster reached us. I put my hands out to stop it and not to catch it, so it banged against my palms and dropped to the ground.

I wasn't the only target, though. A second dumpster was shot towards the patrol vehicle where Squealer was secured and it clanged against the armored side of the SUV. The vehicle rocked from the impact and Squealer squealed as it teetered on its wheels.

I ran over and caught the next dumpster and shoved it out of the way, then grabbed the front tire of the SUV and gently set it back on the ground. I saw the back door was bent slightly and I pushed it closed, then pinched the metal to keep it that way.

“You fucking cock-sucking cock sucker!” Skidmark shouted and a pile of trash beside him pushed another dumpster and two trash cans into the small glowing field in front of the villain cape. “Take this! And this! And this, too! Choke on it all, you fucker! Hahahaha!”

I knocked the dumpster aside and caught the two trash cans and tossed them behind the SUV.

“He's high as a kite.” Miss Militia said and jogged over to behind the patrol vehicle and aimed at Skidmark. Her rubber bullets bounced off of that same field and came right back at her. “Dammit, he has too many push fields stacked to get anything to him.”

“Then switch to a laser weapon. There's not enough mass for that small of a gravity field to affect it.” I said and knocked aside another dumpster.

There was a brief lull as the pile of trash, that I assumed was the cape villain named Mush, gathered more things to throw at us. I glanced back at Miss Militia to see if she changed to a laser weapon and all I saw was her kneeling behind the hood of the patrol vehicle with a useless rifle aimed at Skidmark.

“You've been in the Protectorate since you were a teen and not one person handed you any kind of prototype laser weapon to try and add the basic pattern to your power?” I asked her.

Miss Militia looked embarrassed and didn't respond.

“It's not your fault they're so shortsighted, so don't worry about it.” I said and my Danger Sense warned me something was coming. I turned back and swatted aside a car's engine block and it slammed into one of the dumpsters with a loud clang and crushed it. “I'm not paying for that.”

One of the PRT officers laughed and was hushed by someone else.

“I really wanted to keep this in reserve.” I said as my right hand glowed. I caught a car's tire with my left hand when it flew at me and I aimed with my right.

A bright concussive blast shot down the street and slammed right into Skidmark's chest. He yelled in pain and was flung backwards almost ten feet and fell to the pavement. He clutched his ribs and wheezed as the slightly blue field he had created faded away. The next tire Mush tossed over to it, dropped to the pavement and wasn't flung towards me.

A moment later, a hail of bullets from the PRT officers peppered Mush and he held up his trash-covered hands as he stepped backwards, then he turned around and picked up Skidmark and lumbered away.

“Skiddy!” Squealer yelled and started crying. “Don't leave me here for real!”

Miss Militia came around the hood of the SUV and put a hand on my shoulder. “Standard rules are to let them go if they choose to disengage. We can't afford to escalate with civilians nearby.”

I wanted to say how stupid that was, then sighed. “I need to get back home anyway. My mom thinks I'm in the bathroom.”

Miss Militia laughed and then coughed to stop herself. “Ahem. Yes, you should go home and make sure she's okay. You can make an appointment to come down to PRT Headquarters later and give your official statement about what happened today.”

“Only if you are available to take it.” I said and she gave me a questioning look. “You're here and I'll only be corroborating what you already know. I would have to explain every single thing from the bottom up if anyone else tried to take my statement.”

Miss Militia nodded and reached into a pocket and pulled out a business card. “Call this number when you have some free time, either tonight or tomorrow. I'm always on call and will be available to answer.”

It took me a moment to realize what she meant. “Even if you're a Noctis Cape and don't have to sleep, you still need to have some downtime.”

Miss Militia smiled again and her hand on my shoulder gave me a little squeeze. “I appreciate the concern; but, I'm a big girl and can handle myself.”

I glanced down at her slim waist and back up to her face. “Why are you lying so blatantly?”

Miss Militia barked a laugh and cleared her throat. “I meant metaphorically, not physically.”

“Wait, you're not going to tell me that joke was terrible and that I should feel bad about making it?” I asked and grinned at her.

“I know a lost cause when I see it.” Miss Militia joked right back.

“Heh.” I said and she winked at me. “All right, I'll call sometime tonight.”

Miss Militia let my shoulder go. “I look forward to it.”

I nodded and let a slight golden glow cover me and I flew up into the air. I gave her a wave and flew off. Once I was far enough away, I cast a notice-me-not charm on myself and doubled back to head over where the slowly lumbering Mush was still carrying Skidmark down an alleyway.

I cast a detection spell and no one was looking or recording them, so I didn't bother giving Mush a chance to react and slid a black energy sword of disintegration through his back and into his main body. The villain cape didn't make a sound as he dissolved away into nothing and dropped Skidmark onto the pavement.

Just as the first curse word started to cross Skidmark's lips, I slid another sword into his heart. I had to cast silence on the alleyway as the man kept cursing at some invisible bastard killing him, and then he was gone. I didn't check the gains and losses, only the final total, and it was at a whopping zero again. Yay.

Neither of them had kill orders, so I wasn't getting any money for them, not that I had any way to prove I had killed them. That was one of the benefits of using disintegration magic and also the only downside. There was no evidence left to use to identify them.

I didn't really care about that, anyway. I just wanted to stop the idiot from attacking the PRT to get Squealer released. The only real crimes she had committed were reckless driving, drug distribution, and facilitating villainous activities. I wasn't even sure the last one was a real charge, actually. Maybe they would have to charge her with each individual act and see how many actually stick to her?

In any case, the vehicle tinker wasn't going to be sprung from jail anytime soon with no other ABB Merchant capes left to do it and the normal gang members were going to be easily handled by the Brockton Bay Police Department, because the gang no longer had any capes around to force them to be handled by the PRT instead.

It wasn't until I made a portal home that I realized no one except me knew that Skidmark and Mush were dead. It gave me a few days of leeway to either do nothing about it or to start seeding a few hints anonymously on the PHO message boards about not seeing Skidmark or Mush after today's altercation.

A lot of people had recorded Skidmark being hurt by my energy blast and I was sure that people were already commenting on him running away from the fight. After thinking about it, I decided to let things develop on their own for a couple of days before I acted. If no one figured out they were gone after that, then I would start to spread the rumors they were deep in hiding.

I stored my new costume and equipped jogging pants and a t-shirt, to explain why I was gone longer than a trip to the bathroom would take, and went downstairs. I saw my mother on the phone and she had a worried look on her face.

“Greg, there's no answer from his office or from the front desk.” Diane said as she glanced at the clock and it was almost half an hour past when dad should have been home. She hung up the phone and tried again, only to hear the endless ringing.

They probably cleared the whole place out because of the fire and the cleanup. I thought and walked over to her. I wasn't sure what to say, so I took her into my arms and hugged her.

My mom started to cry and she clung tightly to me as she hugged me back.

We stood there for several minutes until there was a knock on the front door. My Danger Sense wasn't going off, so I sat my mother down on the couch and went to the front door. I opened it and two officers with sad faces stood there on my front porch.

“We apologize for the interruption.” The man on the left said.

“Is Diane Veder at home?” The man on the right asked.

“Fuck.” I whispered and both officers looked even sadder. “She's in the living room. Come on in.”

Both officers nodded and I stepped back to let them pass and I shut the door. I walked by them and strode over to my mother, sat down beside her, and put my arm over her shoulder. The next few minutes was going to be very, very painful for the both of us after mom learned the truth.

David Veder, a mostly devoted husband and a kind of a bastard of a father, was dead.

My mother's wails filled the house for a long time after the two officers had retreated after giving their regrets. I held her and let her scream, and cry, and rant, and everything else she did to try and come to grips with the fact that the love of her life had been murdered during one of Lung's rampages. They at least had the decency to not mention that Lung had probably gone there looking for him.

I was still on the couch with my sobbing mother when the time approached for me to call Amy. I took out my cell phone and dialed, fully intending to apologize for not being able to talk. It only rang once before it was answered and not in the way I thought it would be.

“Hi, Greg. Is your front door locked?” Amy asked me.

“No.” I answered, confused.

The door opened and both Amy and Vicky walked inside. Vicky shut the door as Amy hung up her cell phone and she walked over to me. I nodded to my side and she sat down and cuddled in as she copied how my mother was cuddled into my other side. I set my cell phone on the coffee table and put my arm around Amy's shoulders and Vicky walked over to the couch.

Instead of complaining there was nowhere for her to sit and join in, she floated up off of the floor, flew around us, and laid down on the back of the couch and hugged us from behind.

“You didn't have to prove to me that you were both really smart.” I said and didn't have to see their faces to know they were both blushing. “Thank you.” I said and turned my head to kiss Amy, then I leaned my head backwards and puckered my lips to let Vicky kiss me, too. “Thank you so much.”

That was when my father's death finally hit me and tears came to my eyes. It wasn't overwhelming, thanks to my Mind Blank perk; but, it was enough that I had to silently cry over the loss. I was surrounded by people that cared about me and I leaned on that offered strength and support as my mother leaned on me for the same thing.

The four of us stayed there on the couch and cuddled until my mother fell asleep.