I was mad.

It wasn't because Danny nearly died. Oh no. I was mad at Danny for not staying home when a fucking gang war was underway in the Bay. I was, however, significantly madder at the Teeth for making Taylor cry. I ended up spending the entire day and night just taking care of her.

We had planned to strike at the Teeth with her help, which would make finding them easy. Unfortunately, Danny was on the hospital and now Taylor was frantic and wouldn'tbe able to properly function. She spent days between visiting Danny at the hospital, or at home crying, I had to force her even eat.

So, I had to stay with her when she was at home, and thus had to abandon the plan we made because she needed me.

Just like now.

We sat on the couch, Taylor crying her eyes out while I held her. Her school had given her days off to come to terms with her grief. Honestly, giving her time away from the toxic school was the best thing the school administration had done.

"Alvin."

I opened my eyes.

Taylor remained curled up in my arms.

"Yes?"

"... Are you going to leave me, too?" she asked.

"No," I said. "I regenerate. That's one of my power. I won't leave you."

"... That's good."

She fell asleep.

When she woke up two days after her dad's near death, her eyes were lit with determination. "Alan. Let's go kill the Teeth."

I laughed.

Though it made her mad to do so, I sent her away from the actual battlefield and told her to dictate the flow of the battle by directing her bugs from at least two blocks away from me. I told her that she was not physically strong enough or mentally trained enough to jump into the fires of a battlefield.

She argued against me for maybe an hour before she gave in. She was too smart to pursue a path that even she knew was foolish.

And so, we dressed up in costume. I wore what I always wore when I was out and about: stitched up rags that were serviceable as a jacket, hoodie, and bandana mask in one. Taylor had only completed her mask, which was impressive given that she was only a cape for a month and was ambitiously using her spiders' silk to make that mask. I knew, however, that it would not be enough.

We were going after the Teeth, the murderous and brutal, raiding, looting, and raping, the most irredeemable of the irredeemable

I used all of the clothes she had and Unioned them all, which was basically stacking them in the same space they occupied without increasing weight or bulking up. By the end of it, we had a very, very ugly jacket that could instant a sharp knife thrown at it at 50 m/s.

With preparations complete, I went and stole a car.

Auto theft was slowly becoming a thing for now. How many cars did I steal now? Five?

It was a cloudy day. Its peace broke with each gunshot that rung out and the follow up sirens of the police. The weather forecast said there might be rain, but it mattered little to us.

I drove around the Docks, the Downtown, and then the Shantytown. The gang war was still going on, but I took more scenic routes under Taylor's directions to make sure that we stayed far from that mess as much as possible.

Eventually, though, Taylor found them. They were, surprisingly, still at Shantytown, where I kicked their ass.

"I need you to incapacitate everyone who is not the Butcher," I said as I pulled on my costume over myself.

Taylor frowned. "But who's the Butcher?" she asked curiously.

"The one with a bow. If it's a guy that's holding it, then it's a trap."

"Got her."

"Good. Now, where are they?"

"Two and a half blocks southwest of here. They are in a brick house."

"Got it. And if anything goes wrong, Taylor-"

"I'll tell you. Okay, okay," she grumbled. "... Just make sure you don't die or kill the Butcher."

"As my girlfriend demands."

She blushed prettily.

I hummed as I got out of the car in this underground parking lot in one of the beach hotels, and then flew myself away.

I rose high up into the sky until I had at least three blocks of the city in clear view. Just as Taylor described, two block-ish southwest from where I was, I saw the brick house. I also saw swarms of bugs just streaming into it.

I … didn't immediately jump in there. Instead, I dropped down to the streets where there were plenty of rubbles. I pushed their vectors towards each other as United them into one object. Instinctively, I knew that the object was now 1.2 tons, looking a lot like a rubble spiky ball. I pushed myself and the spike ball back up into the air, flying towards the Teeth's base.

Now, I didn't know which of the Teeth's capes were here aside from the Butcher. I knew that they had a cape named Animos (or something like that) who could cancel cape powers in his/her/their? area of influence. I did not want to bet on whether my power would be affected as well.

Taylor and I both planned for this, which was why she was assaulting their base first. It would draw out Animos (or if I and the internet was wrong, whoever was their power nullifier). "Give me a target, Taylor," I shouted, knowing that she could hear me. "Waiting on you, honey."

For a moment, the bugs grew far more erratic as if she was dumping her emotions into the swarm. Maybe she was.

And then it happened. Bugs around the building burst away but bugs inside remained … out of control.

Then nineteen bandits jumped out of the building's front doors.

One of them looked like a werewolf and bugs were constantly trying to get at him.

"Got you!" I hissed.

Now, this was the part where I used my vector manipulation to kill Animos. The thing about my VM was that it had a maximum speed that I could accelerate to. Once an object under my control hit that speed, all acceleration died on the spot.

But if I let it go while the acceleration was ridiculously high but just before that maximum speed limit was reached? Then it would continue to go on with both that speed and acceleration, which would, mere moments after being released, surprise my limitation.

That's what I did.

That 1.2 ton rubble spike ball? A ball no bigger the palm of my hand?

I flung it, accelerating it rather than giving it a speed.

Say…

100 m/s/s? It was close to the soft maximum of acceleration I could manage.

Now, I was not an aerodynamics major nor was I ever involved with that stuff. I studied and became a nurse and a hobbyist gardener. If I remembered my colleague physics math properly though, then Animos should be at the receiving end of a fist-sized projectile that's traveling at roughly Mach 1.

And if I remembered the famous Einstein equation, then Animos should be getting hit with … 49 MJ of energy.

As I watched the ball of doom shoot across half of the city block, I remembered that a 357 Magnum revolver fired bullets that each contained only 640-ish Joules of energy.

"Ah," I mumbled as I heard some equivalent to an artillery shell explosion go off and the body that Taylor had been "target painting" for me literally explode as the ball of doom strike its center mass and obliterate the creature's chest so hard that there was no chest. "Overkill."

I was certainly happy with the result.