So... the name of this Arc is Boss Fights - plural. Join Taylor Hebert and James Barron and find out why. Beta by Faria Lyton.

Boss Fights 3.2

Once James and I got over the shock of being alive, we both had a ton of pop-ups waiting for us. I received three levels, a ton of skills, and some welcome stat improvements. Then there was the loot: four perfume bottles filled with red liquid, a thick leather-bound tome, and stack of… money?

James picked up the cash and counted it. "Four hundred and twenty, in tens." He split the stack and offered me half.

"Your power created cash?" I raised a hand to my mouth and fake coughed, "Bullshit." I still took the money. Where had it come from? I stuffed the wad of bills into my utility belt. It felt weird carrying that much cash which was silly given that I was dressed in a sparkly gold costume.

James slid his money into his inventory. "So, how about we hit up Book Brothers again after school tomorrow?"

"Oh yeah! It's a…" Not a date. "…quest." I hurriedly picked up the book thankful that my mask was hiding my face. That could have been awkward. The book had no title, just a picture of a gray-green man on the cover. I read the pop-up that appeared.

[You've obtained the skill book [Zombie's Hide]]
[A magic to grant the user skin like a zombie. 30 MP activation]
[Blocks .5% of physical, electrical, cold, and acid damage.]
[Reduces likelihood of infection by disease or poison by 1%]
[50 Additional MP used per minute.]
[Warning! [Zombie's Hide] gives the user the corpse-like skin while active.]
[Would you like to learn [Zombie's Hide, Lvl 1]]
[Yes] [No]

Oh, wow! I wanted it. I still hadn't learned the [Physical Resistance] skill yet, but it wouldn't be right. This was something that James's power had created. I'd already gained so much in the past few days. He was my partner, not my personal trainer. I extended the book to him. "James, I think you should look at this."

James stared at an invisible pop-up briefly. "You should take it. I've already got some damage resistance."

"I have my bugs for [Combat Mapping] and [Dodge]. You're more our Brute; you should take the book."

"The Legion Zombie also dropped HP recovery potions. They might not even work for anyone but me. And it was your plan that took it down. You should take the book."

"Oh, is that what those perfume bottles were? Doesn't matter. The potions might work for me too. Not that we should rely on them or waste them on checking, but your powers made this book. It belongs to you."

James looked annoyed, but was cheerfully polite about it. "How about we flip for it?"

"Fine." Not my preference, but I didn't want to argue with James either. "But, loser has dibs on the next book that appears out of nothing."

James pulled a quarter out of his inventory. "You call it."

"Heads," I called as it spun in the air.

James snatched the coin out of the air. "Heads it is. Your book."

That was my LUK. I wanted to lose the toss, so I won. Oh, well next book was his. I pressed [Yes] and the pop-up flashed a warning red.

[Your INT is too low to learn any more skills at this time.]

What the fuck? My intelligence was my second best stat. What did it mean my intelligence was too low? I dutifully read the message to James.

"Does it look like you've got as many skills as your INT score?" he asked.

"[Status Window]" My INT was 34 (33+1). Hmm, something was off with that. I moved to my [Skills] tab. "Huh, both [Cryptography] and [Computer Programming] claim to give me a +1 INT, but my intelligence is showing as 33 + 1. And as for skills… Looks like you're right. I have thirty-three skills." I glanced at James. "You aren't going to just take the book now, are you? Fine. One point to INT. Just enough to check."

Having our total number of skills limited by our INT was a bit of a bummer. INT was hard to train. Damn, now I was regretting [Knife Throwing] and [Singing]. When would I use those? I'm likely end up putting a lot of points into intelligence later, but one was enough to test things. I pressed [Yes], and felt a flow of something in my head. Propagate^2. Coil+{Sour}∈F-sharp. Litmus?gREEN|transcend. BuzzΣDEATH=satoriΔlemon.

[Translation Error]
[You must either know this language or possess [Gamer's Mind] to learn [Zombie's Hide]]

"What? Translation error?" Learning to deal with bug senses literally drove me insane for a few days, that weirdness had been more disorienting than painful. "It says that since I don't have [Gamer's Mind], it can't teach me skills in a language I don't know." I flipped through the book and it was as bizarre as what I'd just experienced. The print is some kind of color-coded cuneiform that seemed to be crawling off the page. "What the…"

"Do you mind?" He took the book and looked through it. "I don't think we're going to find a book that teaches this language. We could hire a..."

"No." Obviously the Cthulhu-book was not for me. "We're not finding a linguist to spend years figuring out the language just so I can learn the skill. Go ahead and learn it now."

"Do I still get first dibs on the next book?"

I shrugged. If the other books were like this, then they were all for James. Really that was for the best. It was his power after all.

James tapped the air, and the book dissolved in James's hands. When the last sparkle vanished, James called out, "[Zombie's Hide]." He hopped around a bit and punched the air a few times. "That feels weird."

I looked him over. "Well, you don't look any different. Whatever it does it's subtle. That's good."

"It's off now. But yeah, doesn't seem to make me look different."

What now? We should probably get home. Uh-oh. Given that we'd just been in fight for our lives, slain a creature way more powerful than us, gained ridiculous levels, and won equally ridiculous loot, was it surprising that I'd forgotten the time? We'd started our last run well after sundown, and it had lasted quite a long time even before the boss zombie had spawned. Add in the time we spent running around until the rope was ready, and the time we'd spent fighting the boss… It must be well past my curfew by now.

"James, what time is it?" My watch was under my costume and not easily accessible.

He checked his wrist. "Shit. It's almost midnight."

"Shit," I agreed. I was supposed to be home by 10:30 PM. Even if we jogged all the way home it would be well after midnight. I'm pretty sure that my father would have forgiven me if I'd been a little late. Ever since the locker incident he'd treated me like I could break at any moment. However, I'd never pushed his boundaries this far. "I'm going to be in for it."

"You and me both." He laid a hand on my shoulder and thrust his hand in the air. "[ID Escape]!"

The sky above us shattered like we were on the inside of a snow globe that someone smashed. The effect lasted only a few seconds before fading. While still dark the clouds had thinned enough to reveal a half-moon hanging low near the horizon. It wasn't much light, but it would have been nice to have even that much when we'd been running from the boss zombie.

"Hmm, [ID Escape] just leveled." James pressed some unseen buttons, and his costume started to vanish.

Ulp. Almost naked James. "I'm going to go swap out my costume." I retreated around a corner, so I could change in privacy. I'd worked up a good sweat during the course of the boss fight, and even a few seconds of night air on my bare skin gave me the shivers. I was also a little annoyed that James hadn't given me a chance to save my best bugs. I didn't care about most of them that we'd left behind in the instance, but I would have liked to have saved the black widows, fireflies and a few others. However, I didn't want to wait five minutes for them to be released.

I picked up my makeshift knotted rope and coiled it. My skirt-nets weren't too much of a loss, but the two pieces of cloth that made up my cape annoyed me. They were made of two layers: one black and one red with black spots, sewn together. I would need Parian's help to get the silk dyed just right. Plus it was an essential piece of my costume. Without the cape I looked like a golden knight instead of Lady Bug, but there was nothing I could do about it here. I tossed the coiled up 'rope' into my backpack. Maybe I could cut the silken-bound knots apart at home. However, that would have to wait. While I'd been changing, I'd also been organizing the local bugs to set up my bug-dar. They'd found a problem. I swapped back into costume and headed back out to James.

He blinked at me. "Did you decide to not change?"

"No." I shook my head at him. "Keep your voice down, and I think you're going to want to put your costume back on. Someone – make that at least five someones – are sweeping the Ship's Graveyard."

"You think they're looking for us?"

I shrugged trying to be nonchalant, but I was a bit worried. "How would I know? I think they're a gang. Can't tell which one, but there is one group of two and one group of three. They're armed and have their weapons out. Only one gun, but they all have knives, and one has a bottle. I think it might be a Molotov cocktail." My bugs smelled gasoline. What else could it be? "Also by armed, I don't just mean they're carrying weapons. They have them out and ready. They're also prowling. They might not be looking for us, but they seem to be searching for someone or something."

"[Inventory]," and the James peepshow started up again. "Can you guide us around them? And do you really think sparkly gold armor is best for stealth?"

"That's what the black side of my cape was supposed to be for." Until I sacrificed all my nets to make a rope. That had been worth it, but from now on a rope was going into my standard carry. "I'll deal. They're spread out far enough apart we should be able to get through. Plus we can always escape into one of your illusion barriers. Unless…"

James was now dressed in his horrible costume again. "Unless what?"

"Unless the reason they're looking for us is that someone has a power that detects when we're opening up pocket dimensions."

"It's possible, but maybe they just come out at night to patrol or maybe there's a turf war going on. Who knows?"

"Give me a moment. I want to try something. Maybe I can find out." Over the past few days I'd been practicing opening up to what my bugs had to tell me about taste and smell. I'd only leveled up [Sense Processing] once, but it felt like I was making progress. I moved more bugs in close to the two groups that I was monitoring and tried to open myself up to what those bugs were hearing. Pain and cacophony. A thousand fingernails on blackboards competed with Madison's sing-song voice. Sounds were not merely garbled, but mangled and mutilated. I tried to make sense of all that while ignoring the shrill pain of dentist's drill in my brain for all the good it did me. "Nope. That's not working."

"Are you okay? You sound funny."

"I'm fine." Really the pain was already backing off now. "I tried to eavesdrop on them through my bugs. I've got this [Sense Mapping] skill that should let me listen and see through my bugs, but I guess that I need to work on leveling it some more." I took a few deep breaths of the cold night air. That helped a lot. I'd like to wait a bit longer both to let my head clear and to wait for my bugs to return from the illusion barrier, but that option wasn't available to us. "The group of three is heading this way. Would you mind storing my backpack?"

"Sure. Good idea." James took my backpack from me and shoved it into his inventory.

"Okay, let's go. [Stealth]."

"I'm getting used to the other vocalizations, but..." James shrugged. "[Stealth]. Oh well, if it works..."

I shrugged. "Most of the other skills seem to work better when called out." However, it did feel silly.

Dodging two groups of unknown hostiles in the maze of the Ship's Graveyard didn't seem like it would be that difficult. Unfortunately as we left those two behind others came into range. While I did earn a [Stealth] level from avoiding the unknown groups, we had to detour to stay away from them. We escaped the beach, but were forced to detour west into the run down and poorly lit streets of the Docks area. However, the detours weren't getting us where we needed to go. In fact…

"James, either they're herding us somewhere or they're all heading to the same place."

"So, what do you want to do? We're planning to be heroes, and we're in costume. Sounds like the kind of thing we should check out. I'm not going to get in more trouble for getting home at one o'clock instead of twelve thirty."

Maybe that was true for James. My father was undoubtedly waiting up for me, but I had more important concerns. "Your costume isn't ready. If they just had knives that would be one thing. Too many of them have guns. One of them has something I'm pretty sure is a submachine gun. Your armor won't stop bullets."

"It doesn't need to. I've got [Physical Resistance] and can stack it with [Zombie Hide]. Add in all the HP that I picked up from leveling, and you're squishier than I am now. I regenerate. You don't."

My armor would probably stop bullets, but I had never tested it. More importantly, even if my armor did stop bullets from punching holes in my body, being shot could still cause me a world of hurt. Since James regenerated, he actually did have a point. I was just reluctant to admit it. His powers were also untested against gunfire, and he'd approached me. I felt like it was my duty as the senior hero not to let him out before he was ready. Although his costume wasn't ready, I couldn't really deny that James was ready after the boss zombie. Something was obviously up tonight, and I couldn't walk away and call myself a hero. "Fine. You're right. If they're hunting us, we really need to know that. If it's something else, it's our duty as heroes to find out what." Oh well, I was already in trouble with my father anyway.

James gave me a nod of approval. "Good." His helmet at least made him look serious and, he blended better than I did into the shadows. "So what's the plan?"

Fortunately, I had a plan. I directed a bunch of bugs land on us, and had James open up an empty illusion barrier. I used my bugs to carry my makeshift rope up and over the lower rung of the fire escape. That let us snag it and pull it down so we could climb up and on the roof. From there we broke back into reality and waited to see if the groups would converge on us and climb the roof or not. While we waited, I coiled the rope around my waist and tied it into an impromptu belt.

We didn't have to wait long. "They're passing us by, so good news: they're not after us." I caught a glimpse of them in the lights shining through the tenement windows as they crossed below us. Even from a distance they looked Asian, plus they were wearing red and green. "And, it looks like they're ABB."

"That's not really a surprise. We're in their territory now. So now I open us another empty illusion barrier, we climb down the fire escape and follow them?"

"Yes, that's the plan." We could cut and run now, but that wouldn't be very heroic. "We're just gathering intel. Be ready to open up an illusion barrier. If they spot us, we run. When we fight, I want it to be on our terms."

Now that we were behind the ABB gang members, following them proved to be ridiculously easy. The streets were all but abandoned. Plenty of buildings sat abandoned for anyone to squat in for the night. Other than the gang members we followed we only passed a few cheap whores and unconscious drunks. We avoided them and stuck to the shadows. I picked up another [+1 Stealth]. Apparently following armed gang members was as good for leveling up [Stealth] as hiding from them. As we walked, I continued pulling in bugs to my swarm. It wasn't as strong as the one I had against Legion Zombie, but it was gathering strength. My outlying bugs reported other groups converging in from all directions. As well as a congregation in the street.

"This way," I whispered to James before pulling him down a narrow alley that was little more than a footpath between two buildings. From what my bugs were telling me this would take us right up to the meeting place and was empty except for a mother cat and her litter of kittens. When we reached the end of the alley, I stopped well before the end. I could hear some voices, but they weren't speaking English. I also had a count of the number of people out there, eighteen of them, with more still joining. "I'm staying back here. See if you can spot Lung or Oni Lee with [Observe], but be careful."

James didn't even speak. He just flashed me a thumbs up. The alley was so narrow that I had to press up against the side of a building to let him squeeze through. While he did his [Observe] thing, I kept pulling in bugs and spreading them around the ABB members. Attack was not my plan. Oni Lee was a teleporter who left a clone behind for a few seconds before it turned to ash. Lung was a pyrokinetic that got stronger the longer a fight lasted, eventually turning into a dragon. Either one would be a nightmare for us to fight. However, it certainly couldn't hurt to be ready. I tasked some of my more useless flying bugs to ferry in more and more fire ants from a nearby nest. I had tons of 'useless' bugs like moths, beetles, and small spiders. I sent them on suicide missions down the barrels of guns. Hopefully, they would gum up the works. I filtered out the more dangerous bugs, and assigned wasps to carry my black widows and brown recluses. Better to be prepared and not need it, than to need them and not be prepared.

I noticed James stiffen up at the same time the crowd outside all turned and oriented in one direction. Right, something was obviously happening. A new person joined my map, taller than the others with a metal mask. Both Lung and Oni Lee wore masks, but I was pretty sure that Oni Lee was short. The new person lacked a shirt, which made this Lung. Everyone else fell respectfully silent. Many of them bowed deeply. Then Lung started speaking. I couldn't really make out what he was saying. Something about Ruby Dreams, which was ABB's not-so-secret casino, but his accent made it hard to make out what he was saying. I moved some brown recluses onto the cuffs of his jeans and positioned wasps and hornets in the shadows close to him.

The anger in his voice was clear enough, and as he continued to rant his voice grew louder. "…the children, just shoot. Doesn't matter your aim, just shoot. You see one lying on the ground? Shoot the little bitch twice more to be sure. We give them no chances to be clever or lucky, understand?"

What the fuck? They were going to kill kids?

[New Quest Alert: Save the Kids!]
[Prevent Lung and the ABB from achieving their dark goal tonight]
[Reward: 5000 XP, Increased Reputation with ?]
[Failure: Injury, death, and/or loss of general reputation]
[Bonus Goals: Save the kids without assistance]
[Bonus Reward: 5000 XP]
[Accept?]
[Yes] [No]

Well that was new. I'd never received a quest alert before, but the latest weirdness from James's power was trivial compared to child-murder. I pressed [Yes]. Quest or no quest, I wasn't going to let the ABB kill kids. I was getting a bonus reward for doing what I planned to do anyway. The real question was how the hell we were going to stop them. The thugs didn't scare me. I think I could take the gang members with my bugs alone. More painful for them since I didn't have my skirt-nets, but I could do it. The problem was Lung. Kyushu 1999 – nearly ten million dead and two left standing: Leviathan and Lung. Empire Eighty-Eight had a dozen or more capes, many of them heavy-hitters. The ABB had Lung, and they were evenly matched. Hmm, I still had my makeshift rope tied around my waist as a belt. Silk was at least somewhat flame resistant. However, Lung's pyrokinesis ramped up, and he wasn't stupid like the Legion Zombie. He'd see it coming.

Suddenly James was in motion. Had he completely lost his mind? That was Lung. Yet, James charged him screaming with inarticulate rage. After one split second of hesitation I followed him into madness. With my physical body I sprinted right behind him, and in thousands upon thousands of tiny bodies I unleashed my wrath upon them. In a way I was merciful. I held back my more poisonous insects from the ABB thugs. While I had a few epi-pens I didn't want to risk killing anyone by a bad allergic reaction. So I merely ravaged them with what I'd named my [Swarm of Doom], a thousand fold attack by cockroaches, mosquitoes, beetles, fleas, spiders and ticks. I both heard gunfire and sensed it through my bugs, only one person aimed at me and I dived and rolled even as his gun misfired. Most of the guns misfired. One that I'd jammed full of bugs backfired, and the thug collapsed to the pavement screaming and holding his hand. I didn't stop every gun. James took a few hits, but kept running.

Meanwhile, I sent my deadly bugs at Lung. How hard to hit him? I didn't want to kill him, but if I held back then he would kill James. So I hit him hard with dozens of my nastiest bugs: bees, wasps, black widows, and brown recluses along with all the fire ants that I could muster. None of which were arriving fast enough. While his minions were screaming, twin streams of pyrokinetic fire shot out from Lung's hands above the heads of his minions searing huge swathes of my bug swarm.

[Your reputation with the Azn Bad Boys has decreased!] pop-ups flashed repeatedly in front of me. Thankfully they were the type of pop-up that quickly faded on its own and didn't have to be acknowledged.

[Reputation with the Azn Bad Boys has changed from 'Unfriendly' to 'Hostile'.]

Right. I got it. They didn't like me. I had other problems. A screaming man wielding a pair of those L-shaped tonfa sticks ran towards me. I stepped up, met him with a [Rising Strike] and aimed him at Lung. He went flying, but fell far short. A part of me registered that I'd hit a human being just like a zombie and probably broke bones. I'd worry about that later when we weren't in the middle of a mass melee. Meanwhile, James had made short work of the first gangbanger in his way with a series of low kicks and advanced on Lung. James might have had more trouble, but the crowd was parting to allow Lung through. That just made sense. No one with half a brain would stand between an angry fire-throwing Lung and his intended target.

I ignored still more pop-ups and focused on the fight. I had bugs on Lung now, spiders biting, bees stinging, and thousands of less dangerous types attacking. I wasn't sure how much good they were doing. Lung didn't seem to care or even notice, and the few ABB members remaining between him and James scrambled to get out of the way. I directed my bugs to get nasty and attack softer tissue: eyes, nose, ears, and even crawl inside his clothes to attack his junk. I sent stink bugs up his nose and had them use their spray inside his nasal passages. While I was doing that, I tried to make my own way to Lung. Most of the ABB gang members had either fled, or were trying stop, drop and roll to kill the biting bugs. However, two of them were converging on me despite everything. I dubbed them Shorty and Fatty. The names fit and I didn't have time to be clever.

Shorty had a butterfly knife which made him the more dangerous of the two in my mind. [Aikido] helpfully offered me too many options for disarming him. I preferred the added range with my bat and laid into him with a [Power Strike]. I caught his forearm with a loud crack and he lost the knife while screaming in pain.

And Lung suddenly had a clear path to James and lit him on fire with twin blasts from his hands. "I'm going to fucking kill you!"

"No!" The scream came from my voice at the same time a pained cry came from James. His clothes were on fire and he flew back, landed hard, and rolled away.

What had I done? I'd held back some from fear of killing Lung, and gotten James fried. I sicced every last poisonous bug I had on Lung: bees, hornets, wasps, black widows, brown recluses, and more. If it bit or stung I sent it after him. Meanwhile, I turned my back on Fatty and sprinted for all I was worth towards James and Lung.

Lung quite literally exploded. He turned into a ground zero of blast that set fire to his clothes, several pieces of trash, and two of his own gang members. I felt a flash like air from a hot oven roll over me. I lost almost every bug in his immediate vicinity. The few that didn't die instantly were crippled by explosion. Correction – almost all my bugs. A handful of aptly named fire ants had managed to get under his eyelids. They along with a few bugs inside his ear canals survived. I directed them to continue biting and stinging Lung's eyeballs and eardrums.

We three were the only combatants left. With the exception of the two guys that had been caught at ground zero of Lung's fireblast and weren't moving the rest of the ABB, including Fatty, had fled the scene. James was down. Being prone saved James from some of the blast, but he was still on fire and rolling to smother the flames on his clothes. Meanwhile Lung seemed stronger than ever. The silvery scales had spread to cover more than a third of his body now. He'd also gained a little in height. Meager scraps of clothing still clung to his body but were burning away.

I needed to buy James time, so I sicced what bugs I had left at Lung. He had fried my best bugs in that fireball. I still had bugs that could bite and sting, but I doubted fire ants, horseflies, fleas, mosquitoes and other pests would finish him. Still I had to try, and sometimes quantity was a quality of its own. I layered them on him, stinging and biting every part of him not covered in scales.

Lung laughed, a deep throaty chuckle that didn't sound quite human any longer. Fire danced around his hands, and he bathed himself in his own flames. My bugs died in the thousands, even the ones that had crawled into his eyes, ears, and up his nose. The flame stuck to his skin enveloping Lung in an aura of flame that put an end to any more insect attacks. He beckoned me with his hand daring me to come to him.

I charged him and screamed out, "[Rising Strike]!" as I met him. I swung my bat a little lower than needed for the maneuver.

Lung caught my bat in one hand, wrenched it out of my grasp and tossed it aside. "My turn." I thought James was fast. Lung had speed and power out of nowhere.

I barely dodged his fist only to take a knee to my abs which sent me flying. At least [Aikido] was good for turning my flight into a somewhat controlled roll of a landing that ended up with me back on my feet. I hurt all over, and something felt wrong where he'd kicked me, but I was still in the fight.

So was James. He'd put out the flames and was back on his feet. His costume was in tatters, burnt and smoldering with huge rents all through it. The tin chest plate had come loose and flopped about as he moved, yet his skin beneath didn't show signs of burns or abrasions. Instead his skin was the gray-greenish color of a zombie's rotting flesh. I had bugs on him again, and he settled right into a fighting stance like he hadn't just been flambéed a short while ago.

Bat gone. Bugs all useless or gone. Rope tied around my waist and too slow to deploy. What did that leave? I faced Lung. "Is that the best that you can do?" I copied what he'd done earlier and beckoned him to come and get me.

He took the bait and charged me. "Kill You!"

Lung had both speed and power, but by charging me he was committed. Even knowing it was coming he still almost punched me, but I ducked under his fist, spun, grabbed his flaming arm, and pulled down while I popped my hips. Foot here, arms there, my center below his, and toss – Lung went flying right toward James.

"[Grounding Strike!]" bellowed James as he brought a fist down on the back of Lung's head and smashed him to the ground.

Lung's fire aura flickered and died. I pounced on him with more bugs even as I charged towards him. Lung ignored the bugs and backhanded James hard.

James staggered backwards, but recovered and snapped a kick at Lung's knee. "[Power Strike!]"

I hurriedly recovered my bat and charged, but the fight was one-sided. James kicked and punched to no obvious damage, but every one of Lung's attacks almost knocked James down. If there was a bright side, it was that Lung's attacks grew more obvious as he got angry. I joined in laying into Lung. Nothing seemed to hurt him, but he wasn't getting bigger, his scales had stopped spreading, and his attacks were slowing down. Were we winning? Suddenly Lung stopped and just roared at the heavens. Fire danced around him killing my bugs again, and then he detonated.

A wave of heat and pain hit me like a truck, and I found myself flying backward. I managed to tuck myself into a ball, so that I half-rolled and half-bounced along the ground until I met a brick wall hard. If I was a cartoon character, I'd have little tweeting birds circling around my head. Instead I had a ringing in my ears and pain all over my body.

Even while that was going on another part of me maintained control of my bugs and even reestablished my [Combat Mapping] after the fireball. James was still alive and moving. Lung still stood right where he was, but even as I lay there he swayed back and forth and then fell down face first on the pavement. The familiar cleansing sensation of multiple level ups washed all the pain and exhaustion from my body. We'd won?

[Quest Completed!]
[You have gained 5000 XP]
[Bonus Completed!]
[You have gained 5000 XP]
[Your reputation with the Azn Bad Boys has decreased!]
[Reputation with the Azn Bad Boys has changed from 'Hostile' to 'Hated'.]

Of course. I could do without James's power stating the obvious, however I couldn't complain too much. I still hurt, but I counted myself lucky that I could move at all. I pushed myself up and looked over to see with my own eyes what my bugs and James's power had already told me. Lung was indeed face down, and James was walking toward me.

"If you ever do anything that crazy again, I'll kill you myself!" I hugged him hard and then stepped away. Too much hugging. Plus I wanted to slap him, but we'd taken out Lung...

"If I ever do something like that again, you probably won't get the chance!"

I sighed. I wasn't angry at James. I just really needed this night to be over. However, it wasn't going to be over any time soon. We'd taken down Lung. We needed to call the Protectorate. Hopefully one of the two thugs had a cellphone. I glanced at the two bodies on the pavement. Shit. Those were people, not zombies. I had to focus. I was in charge.

"Beetle Knight. Check out the two downed gang members. Use [Observe]. If they're bleeding out you might have to use those red bottles." I was going to add check them for cellphones, then I wised up. There were plenty of lit windows around us. People had been watching this fight like it was entertainment. Someone would have called it in by now. "Be discreet. We've got an audience." I gestured up at the lit windows. "I'll secure Lung."

James looked at me for a moment. Obviously he was also having trouble changing gears. "Right. I'll go do that."

I removed my makeshift rope from my belt. It might not hold Lung for long if he woke up, but silk was somewhat fire resistant. It was scary approaching Lung. I half-expected him to leap back up like some kind of horror movie monster, but better to have him tied. It would be a little safer. Since he was facedown, I hogtied him: wrists together behind his back, then used the ends of the rope to tie his ankles together. I knew nothing about knots, so I just tied them tight. I didn't have to worry about cutting off his circulation. He could regenerate. While I worked, I cleared the pop-ups around me, reading them quickly and dismissing them with a quiet "[Close Window]". Levels. Skills. Stats. I finally got [Physical Resistance] and was too numb to process it.

In the process of putting Lung in a hogtie I found our loot: some kind of earring made out of a tooth and four shiny triangular dragon scales. I stowed them in my utility belt. I didn't want James to use his [Inventory] while we were being watched by who knows how many people. Some of them had cellphones out. This would be all over PHO tomorrow.

While my hands were busy tying knots, my bugs weren't idle. I'd been pulling them in and throwing them at Lung. With the fight over I pushed them out to extend the coverage of my [Combat Mapping]. I was just being cautious in case Oni Lee or someone from the ABB thug auxiliary decided to show up. I didn't find the ABB, but what I found was potentially worse – four capes along with three gigantic creatures on a nearby rooftop watching us. Wasn't this night from hell ever going to end?

"Beetle Knight, keep your guard up. We're not alone."

Author's Note: I moving most of the game mechanics out of the storyline. For those of you interested Taylor gained:

[Level +7] [Aikido +3], [Blunt Weapon Mastery +2], [Combat Mapping +3], [Dodge +2], [Light Armor Mastery +2], [Mental Control Area +1], [Physical Resistance 1], [Power Strike +1], [Rising Strike +1], [Swarm of Doom +3], [Stealth +2], [Tactics +3], [AGI +1], [WIS +1], [1 Stat Points for INT +1]