2 Justice Has Arrived!!! (Patreon)

With the immediate assessments out of the way, Sebastian now has to focus on the next step; gaining a better understanding of his wider surroundings and finding somewhere to make a temporary base of operations.

Only once he has an area secured against divination and protected against potential hunters, can he take his armour off to do a more thorough examination of his self. After that, he will need some time to acclimate to the new world around him, and then he can start searching for a way home.

He quickly shakes his head to get the thought of home out of his mind. He'll apologise to them later, but he can't allow himself to get distracted thinking about his family, lest he run the risk of becoming paralyzed by indecision.

Right! So, the next step.

Ah, but before that.

He raises an arm and thinks about summoning a high tier divination detection spell he has in his inventory. But contrary to his assumption, the scroll does not just appear in his hand, instead, a portal of swirling black colours appears in front of his hand.

With only the slightest bit of hesitance, he reaches into the portal, and feels a scroll settle in his hand. Pulling out, the portal disappears and there is indeed a scroll in his hand.

"That's reassuring. Having access to my inventory will surely be helpful."

While speaking, he tosses the scroll in the air and activates it, causing it to unroll and promptly burn in blue fire.

As he is not a magic caster, he has a whole lot of scrolls to make up for his main weakness. He certainly can't cast a any tenth tier divination spells like the one he just used, which will let him know the exact location of anyone who observes him from a distance of greater than one kilometre or through a method that is not line of sight.

This way it is a precaution against both scrying magic and long range archers.

...He made sure to get many copies of the scroll after Peroroncino kept launching pot shots at him from five kilometres away. That was a very annoying week, but he supposes that he shouldn't have insulted his friend's... hobby.

One last thing to confirm before heading off.

With a simple thought, his sword and shield appear in his arms just as they always did in the game. Which is a great relief, as it would be troublesome if he had to draw them both from his inventory like the scroll if he were to be ambushed.

With all urgent tests completed, he promptly casts [Perfect Unknowable], a ninth tier invisibility spell. Once he feels it's effects kick in, he then casts [Fly] and rises into the sky once more.

Now that he is being more observant, he notices that the city he is approaching is a coastal one. East coast, if he isn't mistaking the topography. The city itself doesn't really seem to be much. Maybe a bit run down.

Though, saying that, he does notice a mot interesting structure out in the bay. Some kind of floating fortress domed in a bubble that seems to increase the contrast of everything it presumably protects, making the structure look some what supernatural.

Punitto Moe, the Guid strategist, would probably scold him for flying into an unknown settlement with only [Perfect Unknowable] to conceal him, and it is true that anyone else in the Guild would have been more cautious.

After all, if a Player couldn't see through [Perfect Unknowable] then they wouldn't be able to threaten them even if they were out in the open. However, any Player worth their salt that could be a threat would see through the spell with ease.

Thus, it would be smarter to avoid the open skies before getting an understanding of the powers present, just in case.

However. Touch-Me is an exception to this rule for one simple reason and one alone.

Touch-Me, World Champion of Álfheimr, is The Strongest.

And so, Sebastian flies into the city without any fear in his heart.

It really is quite fascinating to see, he thinks as he leisurely floats through the streets, just high enough to pass over the buildings, but low enough he can properly observe.

Sebastian was born in the year 2092, so seeing a city with such outdated architecture, not to mention, without so much smog that you can't walk down the street without a respirator.

Well, it's an interesting sight. And also an oddly melancholic one.

He is seeing a world that is just short of the tipping point.

Is this world destined to end like his own?

Before he can fall any deeper into his depressing thoughts, his enhanced hearing picks out the sound of a dozen or so voices all coming from the same spot.

Curious what a group of people are doing out at night, he pauses his flight to focus on his senses, only to freeze at what he hears.

"...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?"

The voice's accent is distinctly Asian despite speaking English, he notes. The voice sounds like it only learnt English in order to understand it, rather than out of any desire to speak it. He's met people like that before, who looked down on westerners but still had to learn the language for their jobs.

Letting out a sigh, Sebastian turns to the direction the voice came from and floats his way over.

His hearing must be even better than he thought, as he had to pass two streets to reach where the voices were coming from.

The sight that greets him when he passes over the final building is that of a little over a dozen men walking down the street together. Now, Sebastian isn't one to judge people by there looks, but these people couldn't look more like stereotypical gangsters if they tried.

It honestly almost makes him laugh, if only because he doesn't think they're role playing. If they were, he might have admired the dedication, but he's pretty sure they aren't... He's mostly sure...

Best to make sure.

Though, before he reveals himself, he flies past them and above one of the buildings. Now below him, there is one more person. A girl, clearly a young one, dressed in a pretty cool looking costume.

He noticed her because she tripped his divination detection spell, letting him know exactly where she is. Combined with his passive skill that makes him invisible to most forms of divination, and her ability to observe him has become his ability to observe her.

Though, she's lucky that it's him and not one of his friends. All of their anti-divination skills tend to be a lot less friendly than simple concealment. In fact, he's pretty sure only Nishikienrai was the same as him. The rest all either summoned some monsters or cast some spell on anyone who spies on them. 

Ulbert for instance has his anti-divination set to cast a [Widen Magic: Nuclear Blast], because he can't help but be extra.

Anyway, she seems to be observing the group down below, and the whole situation feels oddly nostalgic. 

After all, this girl certainly looks like a villain, and yet here she is, apparently waiting to ambush a group of nefarious people.

Though, despite his curiosity about her, he decides it'd be best to deal with the potential child killers first, and hopefully doing so will pave a way for friendly relations with whoever that girl is. It'd be nice to have a source of information available to him.

With those thoughts in mind, he moves in front of the group of men, noting how still no one has noticed him. It's kind of disappointing to be honest. A good duel would have probably done wonders for his state of mind right now. He has a lot of feelings he's bottling up.

Shaking his head once more, he bottles said feelings back away and takes a moment to strike a pose. First he summons his sword in its sheathe so that he can rest one hand on the hilt in an appropriately intimidating gesture. 

However, he fumbles for a moment on what to do with his other hand. Changing his mind, he unsheathes his blade, he figures the added aggression of a pose with a drawn blade is warranted with potential child killers.

Then he places the blade tip first on the ground, only to almost fall over when he puts his weight on the sword and the blade slides through the ground as if it were tofu.

Right. Real life physics, not game physics. The ground is real and can be interacted with. He'll have to make sure not to fight like he's still in a game later. It's good he learnt this lesson know rather than later.

Feeling slightly embarrassed, he jumps back, as the group had gotten closer while he was fumbling, and retakes his pose, making sure not to lean on the sword at all and simply holding it with the tip only an inch in the ground.

Pose achieved, he double checks that his cloak is active making it flutter even in the lacking wind, and only then, does he finally dispel his [Perfect Unknowable] spell.

Actually, he probably should have cast some buffs first...

"What the..!"

"A Cape?!"

"Who the fuck is that!?"

Welp, it's too late now.

Ah, he probably should have thought of what to say too. Clearly his mind still isn't as clear as he'd like it to be.

Oh well, everything will probably work out somehow. He'll just start simple and introduce himself.

"Hello there! I am Touch-Me! I apologise for eavesdropping, but I couldn't help but overhear you saying that you are planning to kill some children! If there has been a misunderstanding, then please do explain your intentions to me, if not, then I am afraid I must stand in your way!"

<>

It was supposed to just be a simple patrol.

It was her fist time going out as a Hero, or, Hero-to-be anyway, so she didn't expect much to happen. Maybe she would stop a mugging or two and then head back home. Really, the main point was just to ease herself into it all, to get used to being out at night and actively searching for danger instead of avoiding it.

Not to mention just feeling like she was actually doing something.

Well, she certainly got one part of her plan down in finding danger.

Only, she was thinking a normal thug or two, not freaking Lung! Running into the strongest Cape in the city, who happens to be a Villain, on her fist night out as a Hero was not Taylor's idea of a good time.

Which was why she was planning to just be like ships in the night and pretend she never saw him. Lung isn't someone she can fight after all. Not when all she has at her disposal is bugs and a thumb sized can of pepper spray.

But hey, who knows, maybe Lung is allergic to bees...

However, that plan was killed in its infancy when she heard the accented words the large gang lord spoke.

Children. They were going to kill children.

She wouldn't be able to live with herself if she stood by and did nothing knowing what was about to happen. She refused to be like them, and just look the other way, knowing that doing so would be condemning others to needless suffering.

However, just as she was about to send her swarm at the group of Asian gangsters, a literal Knight in Shining Armour appeared before them and brought the procession to a halt.

At the very least, after hearing the Knight's confident voice booming down the street she can be confident that he isn't another Villain. Even if he wasn't literally wearing incredibly fancy shining white armour, his voice alone just seems.. righteous.

She doesn't know how to explain it, but he just sounds like someone you can trust. Even if his name is kind of weird. Who names themselves Touch-Me? It honestly sounds kind of perverted

Also, he must be from out of town if he is both willing to stand alone in front of Lung while also calling the dragon man out for his intentions.

Killing children would hardly be the worst thing everyone in Brockton Bay knows Lung is guilty of after all.

Pushing her distracting thoughts away into her swarm, Taylor focuses back on the street below as she sees the group of thugs parting to allow Lung to walk to their front.

"You say you stand in my way," the gang lord's steady, imperious voice accuses. "You do not know who's path you block."

It is a statement and a question at once, but Touch-Me, who she is only now noticing towers over Lung by at least half a foot, doesn't so much as flinch or hesitate in his answer.

"Not even the slightest bit!" He admits with good humour in his voice, sounding like he's speaking with an old friend, not one of the most deadly Parahumans in the country. "Why, are you a celebrity or something!"

Why does he sounds like he's going to ask for an autograph...

"I am Lung."

"Ah, cool."

The silence that follows Touch-Me's dismissive response to Lung's proclamation is something even she with her social ineptitude can recognise as incredibly awkward.

"So anyway," Touch-Me moves on, "watcha doin'?"

"I do what I say I will do. You are either brave or foolish to stand in my way."

"Do those two things have to be exclusive? Can't I be a brave fool? Well, either way, you seem like the type that won't turn around if I ask nicely, so I'm going to beat you all up now."

Lung huffs out a breath of air at Touch-Me's audacious declaration. "Arrogant," is all he says before raising his arm, and without any further warning, fire erupts from his arm like a geyser, moving faster than any normal human could react and washing over the Knight.

Taylor feels her entire body tense as the flames cover his valiant form, not understanding why he didn't even try to move out of the way but hoping that he will be unharmed.

And it seems that for once, her wishes were granted, as when the flames die out, Touch-Me can be seen unmoved and without a burn mark on him. Even his shoulder cape is unsinged.

"Hypocrite," Touch-Me picks up and sheathes his sword, continuing with an oddly sheepish tone, " sorry, it's just that I didn't feel any danger at all from your attack so I didn't even think about dodging."

Everyone takes a second to process his words, and it's clear the effect that they have on Lung as fire starts dancing across his body which starts steadily growing in size.

Taylor takes that as her cue to get involved and sends in her swarm to assist her fellow Hero by dealing with all of the grunts.

In no time at all, she has thousands of bugs on each thug, biting stinging and more. She has bugs fly into all the guns she can find to block the mechanisms with their corpses. With how many insects she has, she's able to form actual walls of bugs to harry all of the thugs away from Touch-Me and Lung so that the Knight doesn't have to worry about any interference.

Once she's confident that none of those thugs are going to be doing anything other than writhing around on the ground for a while, she turns her attention back to the fight taking place further down the street, just in time to watch Lung's body launch into an empty building like a bullet, a crack of displaced air following his wake.

"Ah, I thought you'd be tougher since you named yourself Dragon. I don't get it, are you just that arrogant or something?"

Taylor once again finds herself baffled by this Knight. To treat Lung so casually, just how strong does Touch-Me have to be?

She gets a feeling her question will be answered as the building Lung was launched into explodes in fire and shrapnel. Out from the burning conflagration walks Lung, changed.

His previous six foot frame now stands around double that. His face has elongated into a long snout with a maw full of razor sharp fangs, his fingers have turned into wicked claws and all across his body silver scales have grown in, leaving him looking far more draconic than human.

"Oh, I get it now," Touch-Me comments, still sounding completely at ease as he looks up at the raging beast, not even bothering to draw his sword.

"I 'ILL 'OUUU!!!" As Lung's barely legible roars out, he explodes into a pillar of fire that reaches into the sky.

"Scary~." If it wasn't for how confident in himself he seemed, Taylor would have called out for Touch-Me to run, but as it is, she just watches instead.

And she is left in awe.

She watches as Lung leaps forward, wreathed in fire, and swings one of his giant claws down at Touch-Me, who simply steps to the side and avoids it, ignoring the fire surrounding them both, and retaliates by connecting a punch to Lung's gut that sends the dragon man tumbling down the street.

"What even are you?" Touch-Me asks the insensate Lung, though it is more like he is talking to himself. "I've never seen anything quite like you before. Are you a dragon masquerading as a human, or a human with the ability to turn into a dragon? A hybrid maybe?"

As he is speaking to himself, Lung grows another foot in height and suddenly sprouts a tail, while two bone like protrusions start pushing out of his upper back.

"Are you going to go all the way?" Touch-Me asks, sounding excited. "I want to see what kind of dragon you will become, Lung!!"

Lung merely roars in response, the sound rattling all the windows in the street and beyond, before launching himself forward once again, on all fours and wreathed in even greater flames.

Dauntless, Touch-Me responds to the charge with one of his own. Taylor can hardly believe what she's seeing. This is all so much further beyond the simple muggers that she came out planning to face.

Instead, she is watching what looks like a burning comet melting everything it passes just for being in proximity to it's heat, charging to meat a blur of radiant silver.

The two forces meet and it's like the world is ending.

A flash of light so bright it seems as though daytime returned for but a moment, followed by a thunderous sound so loud that she's sure it could be heard anywhere in the city, as if the very sky itself is being torn apart.

And then comes the shockwave.

She's lucky she wasn't in the ground zero, as every building next to the two monsters gets blown away and reduced to rubble as the street beneath them turns into a giant crater just from the force of displaced air.

Even while standing a good few buildings down the street, she is knocked on her ass by the shockwave, which is better than the air conditioning unit by her side that gets torn off of the roof and launched further away.

Then, before she can even think about getting up, comes the heat. A wave of heat washes over the building, and she's sure it would have at least left her hair singed if she wasn't already knocked over.

She doesn't know how long she laid there, waiting for the crashing sounds of impact to stop ringing in her ears, but she tries to distract herself from the feeling of mortal peril by focusing on her swarm.

Absently, she notes that her swarm has taken quite a hit. Most of the more fragile bugs, like spiders and flies, are all dead. The more hardy ones like cockroaches naturally mostly survived, but she'll have to take a walk if she wants to build her swarm back up to what it was.

She finds herself breathing heavily even though she hasn't actually done anything physically exerting, but she pushes past that to finally clamber onto her hands and knees and crawl towards the edge of the building so she can find out the outcome of their clash.

What she sees makes her revaluate the dangers of being a cape. Everyone knows that a normal person can't really compare to most capes, but this is just ridiculous.

The street is in ruins, to say the least. Half a dozen buildings simply are no longer standing and even more seem on the verge of collapse. The street is bubbling and glowing faintly orange with heat waves distorting the sight.

And in the centre of it all, the Knight in Shining armour stands over the felled dragon, just like some kind of fairy-tale. He doesn't even seem to be injured, his armour still shining as if freshly glossed.

And then, he simply turns around and starts walking away, in her direction.

Ah, he's looking at her.

He seems to recognise when she notices his gaze, as he raises an arm in a friendly gesture that she hesitantly returns. Only for some movement to catch her eye.

Behind Touch-Me, Lung's heavily wounded body starts knitting itself back together, an invisible heat spreading out from his position to further liquify everything around him.

"Look out!" She shouts to the Knight as Lung starts rising once more.

But this time, there is no man left to be seen. Instead, there is only a silver dragon.

Standing twenty feet tall and covered in silver scales, with hatred burning in his eyes, is a fully transformed Lung.

Taylor feels her bones rattle as a deep, deep growling fills the air.

Touch-Me pauses his walk and turns around to behold the new Lung, and for the first time since the fight started, his hand goes to his sword.

Finally, Lung stands tall and raises his draconic maw to the sky and spreads his giant wings out, each as large as he is, before letting out an earth shaking roar, one that makes the stones on the street bounce as the very city shakes under his might.

However, while she is frozen in terror, Touch-Me decides he is not done leaving her speechless as he laughs.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Now that, is a dragon! Ha! Ha! I apologise for insulting your name before, it truly is fitting!"

As his booming voice rings out, brimming with confidence, Lung falls to his now four feet and opens his mouth wide, whereupon a blindingly bright ball of fire forms and starts to grow, and grow, and grow, until it is so bright that Taylor can't even look directly at it anymore.

In direct counter to Lung, Touch-Me takes a stance with his sheathed sword, and the glow of his platinum silver armour starts to increase in radiance until he is glowing bright with a clear, silver energy surrounding him and spreading to the world around.

For a moment, it's almost like it's not even night time with how clearly everything is lit up, with not a single shadow in sight.

"However!" Touch-Me shouts as he crouches just an inch lower, and she almost doesn't hear the rest of his words, "you are only a dragon."

Lung releases his attack and the beam of white hot fire almost immediately reaches Touch-Me and then-

Ting.

A light metallic sound echoes unnaturally clearly for how it doesn't seam loud at all yet can clearly be heard over all other sounds.

And then, the beam of fire is deflected, abruptly changing course at almost a right angle and launching straight up into the sky for hundreds of metres before exploding like the world's biggest firework, lighting up the entire city for but a few moments.

Still feeling numb from shock, Taylor's eyes snap back down to the street just in time to see Touch-Me blur forward like a silver comet, only to pass Lung by and come to a sudden stop a few steps behind the dragon with his sword already halfway in his sheathe and the glowing silver light covering him starting to dim.

A beat passes where no one moves, until Touch-Me's sword clicks in place in his sheathe.

As if it were some kind of signal, Lung's body abruptly comes apart. It seems as though every major joint on Lung's body suddenly chooses to separate.

His wrists, elbows, shoulders, ankles, knees, hip, tail and wings all show perfectly clean cuts separating them and leaving Lung to collapse into a pile of meat.

A moment passes in silence before Lung's broken body starts to shrink and she lets out a breath she didn't even know she was holding.

It's finally over.

With the danger finally gone, Taylor no longer has the will to resist her knees giving out, leaving her to collapse on the roof panting for breath as if she just ran a marathon when she has hardly even moved.

...Maybe she should rethink how she's going to go about being a Hero. Because like hell does she want to get into a fight with anyone like that.

And speaking of, it seems that the Heroic but still totally terrifyingly strong Knight is now heading her way.

Taylor want's to go home...