Alright, here's another one, a small time skip to generalize what is happening, as well as a small arc ahead.
Chapter 3
Weeks have gone by, an understatement actually, around three months have passed. After my appearance on the first night, every night after I found myself going out at night stopping all sorts of crimes.
Small time, most of the time anyway, purse snatchers, normal high speed chases that didn't involve guns, hell I got a cat from a tree once, though it was for a little girl instead of the cat of the old lady.
Rarely though did it ever evolve to something resembling my first day, robbery of a bank, a shootout, and a high speed chase, the only other that comes to mind is the hostage situation at a museum, which was easily handled with my dimensional hopping in and out, giving me the perfect opportunity to sneak attack the culprit.
After these past few months, I decided to build up a network, an informational network in the underworld. It gave plenty of benefits, mostly on information.
…now here's the problem, it took me two of the said months to find said underworld, both on the internet, and on the section of the city criminals tend to crawl at.
It takes time, a lot of time, to build up such a thing as an information network, the fact I needed to somehow dig into having connections to places, have informants that were trustworthy, as well as a certain level of anonymity, etc.
Finding potential informants for me was gonna be practically impossible for me, typically it can be done with money, but having a relationship solely based on money is only gonna cause trouble, either them getting greedy, or stabbing me in the back.
Not that that isn't an option, paying them with money, that is, there are several things that just simply weren't invented yet at this time and age, if he just so happens to invent games like Risk, Monopoly, Clue, Uno, before anyone else…who can blame him?
But I would rather it be above just money, or at the very least my most trusted informants anyway, in the rest of the month of finding potential informants (which I find most of them to be mostly slimy folks), I only really found one, whose son was taken from him by a bigger gang to have said criminal do work for them on threats.
After recovering the child and having the gangs arrested, the said criminal was more than happy to be an informant of mine against bigger fishes that were bigger than grunts.
For the entirety of the whole month, I only found one, it was a start, the guy was a solid foundation, but I was gonna have to expand, and hopefully I would not have to rescue them in some way and form to have them work for me.
It's a working strategy, but I would rather genuinely find people to do the work without having to add people based on Luck alone, I mused at the fact while I was jumping across the roofs of buildings, adjusting my weight accordingly when needed.
…you know what, I was going to go through with the board game idea, while gratitude is fine and all,…it wears thin real quick when you are asking to do things near this consistently, so payment needs to become a thing in order for them to actual want to keep it up.
And while I had quite a good bit saved up…it's not gonna be enough for something I was thinking of in the matter of quantity, so I would needs to start making more.
And while the government is grateful for all the help we heroes are providing,…they more than likely don't want to spend that much tax on us, some small stuff and tech here and there, sure, but not something to call on for every nick and nanny we find.
Arriving at my destination, an "abandoned" warehouse of sorts, I quickly turned into gas, keeping my eyes formed, and flew in through the vents, making himself small enough for the task.
Speaking of my informant, dear Joffrey heard murmurs of a gang that was smuggling and distributing drugs through the area, offering jobs doing the distribution and let me know.
A more mid-level job than anything else, though anything that doesn't enter the news is typically not on a high end, as he went into a room, and started mapping out the area, keeping my surroundings clear.
The way I usually like to work depends on if it is public, or in the shadows, preferring the latter in all honesty, no civilians, can be stealthy, and the unsuspecting, incompetent bad guys to catch surprised.
I like gathering info, it generally makes things flow more smoothly, no need for any reckless actions to occur, if the situation is bigger than me, I can always call in the police in my unhackable/untraceable phone, or even other supers if it's something on a level of a supervillain team.
And while I can handle my own quite well I would like to say…
I scanned the hallways, making sure the grunts that were passing by, lazily patrolling, did not notice me as I moved from room to room, locked doors not a problem to gasses.
…I'm one man, one pretty versatile guy, but one man regardless, with the combination of of my perks and powers…, sure I could compete with the likes of Mr. Incredible, who was rated by Syndrome to be a 9.1.
In all honestly…don't know what I would rate myself, Gamma Jack was all in all a jackass and a pain in the ass with his beliefs that I only had to experience once in a course of five minutes, but he was rated a 7.9, and he could control radiation from causing a burn to complete disintegration in a max range of 100 meters.
I at first wasn't sure back home what exactly that meant, could he fill the area with disintegration radiation gas? Or was it something similar to laser eyes?
Turns out it was the latter, which in hindsight made sense, if he could just disintegrate the Omnidroid in an area around him, it wouldn't exactly be able to kill him, especially when Robert was rated as high as over 9.
So if I would have to say…I would say I am a solid 8, which may sound arrogant, considering Jack was labeled the 2nd highest rated threat to Syndrome, but…I can kinda mimic Incredible's strength on a lower level with my density shifting, especially when I speed myself up by being light then increasing my weight.
But it's pure speculation.
I think of this as I gently cut off the oxygen supply from a very much struggling grunt that was too close for comfort to my position.
I didn't quite understand how Syndrome rated the heroes, was he only considering how far their superpowers can take them? Was he measuring them based on how successful they were? Or was he taking account of how strategic and intelligent they are.
Overall, I was confident I was at the very least a 7.5, a 7 at worst, as I systematically began to take down grunt after grunt that was alone, and while I was pretty good at being stealthy…
"DIE! YOU FREAK!" The Idiot shouted out while rapidly firing his gun instead of just shooting at me without speaking, though not that that would have mattered as the bullets went past me.
…There was always these little accidents that occur while on the job, and to be fair I was very new considering this is the start of my fourth month
I was starting to develop a habit that whenever someone spoke to me, or spoke very loudly that I automatically lowered my density to the minimum, in my personal opinion going intangible was better than freezing up in surprise.
Especially when I'm on missions like this, where there was always a chance he could find an actual "competent" bad guy, so unless he was attacking he generally kept to his gas form for defense.
Sadly, the gunshots had only attracted more gang members, around a dozen of them, each armed with a weapon…though three for whatever reason had melee weapons like a medal bat and a kitchen knife of all things.
Instantly as the guns were aimed and fired, I teleported behind two of them that were closer together than most of the others, and rammed their heads into one another, thankfully they didn't really have any protection gear for their heads, just cloth masks.
With the two knocked out I teleported to the next one that had readjusted faster than the others and socked him twice in the face with higher-density fists.
One of the guys that had a bad came over yelling and was wildly swinging his metallic bat with all the finesse of a bandit of his standing, I ducked and rolled from two of the swings and teleported to the other side of the bandit, teleporting my rolling body into a standing one, as I hit the guy in the back of the head with my reinforced gloves, the guy dropped to the ground.
Teleporting to the farthest guy in the room as to where I was was suddenly being filled with lead, I jabbed him in the forehead as he stumbled back, only for me to teleport to where he was stumbling back to and once more smacking him.
This quickly repeated before it started to look like I was playing human wack-mole in a speed run, obviously the guy being knocked out by now, I grabbed him, and teleported above a group of three disoriented gunsmen and dropped their friend on top of them, before I quickly finished them off.
As to the knife guy, he came running in, he attempted to stab me and took a sidestep, he tried to slash me, but all that got him was my right arm blocking the knife with my stupidly durable suit.
I grabbed his forearm with my left hand, and spun around and hit the thug with the back of my right hand, sending him to the land of dreams.
This continued, finishing off the remaining three, one in the matter of a spin kick, another by me introducing him to the floor with a drop kick, and apparently, with me being so awesome, I found the remaining guy fainted on the floor, like a bitch.
I spend a good minute or five gathering the guys, putting them in groups, and tying them up to metallic pipes.
I spend the additional five making sure they were not armed with anything that could resemble a weapon, afterwards, I utilized Instant Access to bring my phone out of…somewhere.
I honestly didn't know where I'm getting my stuff from, because I didn't really have a warehouse, or I did but it is currently only accessible through my perk, because as far as I am aware there really isn't a way for me to open a dimensional space to store shit.
Looking at my phone, I send the police my location, number of captured culprits, as well as pictures of the evidence of what they were trying to distribute in the rooms I was in earlier.
I transported into another dimension, honestly this was probably my most busted ability, since I could spy on anyone, be actually intangible, it was literally another dimension that I can see and hear through, the only real downside is that I have to be actually out of it to affect the world.
Otherwise? No time limit, no other downside, it was incredibly sweet, with its biggest advantage being it's secrecy, he had used it as sparingly as he did for the sole reason of it being his trump card, most are already aware that he can teleport, but with Dimension Four he could fake his death if a powerful villain were to come around.
The reason for his cautiousness was the fact that, like the description said, as well as the movie he remembered, there were ways to make it trackable, so it was best to not use it often, and if it was used, hide its nature from the villains.
Not even the NSA, the government branch that came to people and offered training to become a superhero, well to be fair he didn't use it often, in fact if he wasn't aware of the fact he was a jumper, he wouldn't even know he could do it in the first place.
The Fourth Dimension…is basically a blue version of the world, a world where you can float around, listen in on, and fly through structures. It was basically how I imagined the ethereal plane of DnD to look like in all honesty.
Floating as if I'm in zero gravity, I walked upstairs and came into the one room that I haven't gone in, fully expecting people on the other side to be alert with guns out.
What I didn't expect once I flew right in was the classical music that started playing in it as two people were talking in it, it took me a moment to realize that this room has been sound proofed for privacy.
…kinda dumb that whoever hires the thugs and builds these rooms to not think about having a system that alerts intruders, be it a fancy tech or one of minion calling directly through the phone.
"-aying that in order for me to get my promised product, I will have to pick it up myself…is that what you are telling me?," said a deep, rough voice, though it kinda sounded weird, kinda like when you make your voice sound hoarse, but clearer.
Looking at him, the guy was of an impressive size. Even while seated behind a desk, he wore a metallic mask that exposed his eyes and mouth, painted black and green, he was also wearing some sort of metallic armor and Gauntlets, with a large pipe on his back.
There was another grunt in front of the guy, though dressed differently, while the others looked to be dressed like any other civilian, this was wearing a laboratory coat and a construction helmet.
The smaller guy was fiddling with his square glasses he wore, "I'm afraid so, Metalico-".
I deadpanned, 'you cannot be serious,' as I processed the fact that that is what the guy chose to call himself, was it supposed to reference the metal he's wearing? Or does he have powers based on metal?
The guy continued, "We are consistently been having trouble with Blazestone in recent weeks, she has been hounding down our organization whenever we so much as make brief contacts with our clients, we are aware that it is not ideal, but we belief it would be entirely better if you yourself pick up your requested machinery,".
The big man himself grunted in annoyance, very well, make sure it is ready by Thursday or else you will-," he paused before he looked towards the window leading outside the streets.
There were police sirens flashing outside.
I cringed at the fact the police arrived at a very inconvenient time before I could learn anything else, perhaps he should've told them to be more discreet.
Metalico turned back to what I assume is some sort of scientist/engineer, and spoke, "there's trouble, it seems my man has managed to screw things up, like I said, be ready on Thursday, I'll be there,". And with that he stood up, the smaller man taking two steps back, cold sweat dripping down his face at the fact.
I moved myself back behind them just as they were about to take their leave out of the room, the supervillain taking out his massive pipe, I silently took out two signal transmissions and threw them as I got out of my dimensions.
Suddenly, something in the smaller guy's breast pocket began to make noises, catching is all off guard, me included, thankfully the two small bugs were planted onto them before they turned back.
We kinda stared at each other for a second, 'well shit, I kinda wanted to plant the things with neither the wiser, but I kinda can't go back into my dimension without them getting suspicious over what I'm doing is teleporting or not," I just stood there with my arms crossed.
The guy scoffed, his eyes angrily narrowed, "So you're the one that was causing this mess, I should've known my useless underlings couldn't take on a damn hero, LET ME CRACK THAT SPINE OF YOURS REAL QUICK!" He yelled the last part as he lifted his massive pipe in this, surprisingly, really high ceiling room, the smaller guy as the guy was speaking simply opened the door and ran like a bitch, letting the sound of sirens in.
The big guy came in, and dropped his weapon of choice, and naturally let the weapon drop through my head, body, and to the floor.
Now, there were a few things I expected, I expected the guy to get disbalanced at the fact he didn't hit any of the expected weight, and I expected the pipe to deal superficial damage to the floor, maybe break through it only a little bit.
None of that happened.
I stumbled as I lost my balance when the impact of the pipe caused the floor to collapse onto itself to the floor below it. I damn near didn't catch myself with the flight boots, as I watched the furniture crash down below, I looked back to see what happened to Metalico.
The guy however was fine, in fact he was also flying, or well "flying", as it was less aerial movement and more he was gripping onto the metal stick that was doing the flying, though super strength was a very real possibility as well when you look at what he did to the floor.
…okay, what the fuck was up with that pipe? It didn't look damaged, so it was somehow strong enough to take the impact, or the fact it was capable of even doing that sort of damage in the first place, and now it has a flying feature.
"Well, well, well, it seems a little bug is just as hard to hit as a regular bug, I wonder if you can keep it up," the guy taunted, as I felt my eye twitch.
I may not be a 8 foot tall tower monster full of muscles, but I would hardly call 6"6 bug size, hell, it wasn't even a perk bought height, I was naturally this tall in both lives.
He then went to "fly" over to me, MCU Thor-style, and swiped my head.
I was now blinded, but from the air that came from the swinging of the weapon I could tell he was still going at it, which unfortunately meant I was gonna be blind longer as Metalico wasn't given me the time to reform my face, no matter in what way I moved, I especially got worried when I stop hearing as that was probably one moment where I didn't dare lift my density back up.
The guy was relentless.
Thankfully, I did get back my hearing and sight, though to come back to looking at a very angry and growling, as he gripped his pipe tightly wasn't a pretty sight to look at anyway.
"FREEZE!," we both turned to look to the direction the voice shouted, three policemen were pointing their guns at Metalico, I only now just realized that we were only around 4 feet off the ground.
I could also tell that while I was busy, that they have collected the gang members based on the fact I saw two other cops dragging away a criminal each.
Metalico scoffed as he dropped to the ground and started to make his way over, the cops once more shouted to stop, and when he didn't listen they shot out bullets.
What happened next surprised me as I fully reformed, the bullets stopped mid air, just a foot away from his face, and the fact he was smirking was pretty telling he was the one doing it.
Okay,…some sort of metal control, or magnetism, painting a pretty scary picture from the sheer range of what he can do.
I also wasn't going to take any chances, I immediately went to the tech pad in my forearm, and pressed a button on it.
Metalico suddenly began to violently spasm as the tech bug I planted onto his back tased the shit out of him, bullets fell harmlessly to the ground.
The strategy behind the stuff was to let gang members go and let them lead me back to their base, and when I figured out the situation beyond the organization, form a plan, and just taze the grunt.
The thing is, it's a one time only thing, it only had enough charge to taze once, and it would fry the bug to stop working, so he had to only use them in an emergency.
And considering the fact he was smiling maliciously I wasn't going to take the chance of him not shooting the bullets back at the policemen, he has already shown he can do a lot with his power.
I couldn't afford to take the chance he wouldn't do it, me being wrong would result in death as I wasn't fast enough to catch those bullets, "TAKE COVER, I'll deal with him," I called out, the guys spooked enough didn't hesitate to follow my advice.
And it seemed I was right, as the guy was beefy enough to tank what amounted to a tazer to the back.
The guy stood up straight, put the pipe to his shoulder and grinned widely, "alright, I guess I'll take you seriously, hero, so far, it's true I haven't gotten a hit in, but all you were able to do was dodge,".
He got down in some sort of stance, wielding his pope as if it was some sort of spear despite a lack of a sharp point.
"I'll be sure to land a hit on you first," he finished with a malicious smirk.
All I did was wait in preparation
Name: Jonathan Rustav
Origin: The Tourist, Super
Gender: Male
Age:21 (Chronologically: 1)
Perks:
Body Like A Jumper :
Mind Like A Jumper :
Sexy and I Know It (50cp):
Self-Motivation (50cp):
No Matter Where You Go, There You Are (100cp):
The Road Goes Ever On And On (Free for The Tourist ):
Seeing The Sights, All The Sights (200cp, Discount for The Tourist ):
What's Mine Is Mine (200cp):
Eagle Scout (100cp):
Lone Survivor (100cp):
Be Not Afraid (100cp):
Screw the Devil (100cp):
Universal Translation (100cp):
Harmony (400cp, Discount for The Collector ):
Boredom Immunity (100cp):
Instant Access (Free for All):
Body Mod Reward (Free for All):
"I can handle anything this baby can dish out." [200, Discount Drop-In]:
"Jammering, yeah!" [100, Free Super]:
"We're superheroes. What could happen?" [400, Discount Super]:
"Your identity is your most valuable possession." [100, Free Super Kid]:
Teleportation [300]:
Dimension Four [200, Requires Teleportation]:
Molecular Density Transformation [400]:
Items:
Your Best Friend (50cp):
Smartphone (50cp):
Security Pass (100cp, Free or Discount for The Tourist ):
Franchise (100cp):
Super Suit [Free]:
-Luck Favors The Prepared [200, Discount Designer]:
Drawbacks:
Randomized (+100cp):
Long Run (+100cp):
Drop In (+200cp):
Three Sea Shells (+100cp):
The Glory Days [+0]:
The Long Haul [+0, requires the The Glory Days]:
Wicked! [+100]:
"Special Needs" Babysitter [+200]:
