Got the Grimoire, Chapter 57

Chapter 57

Finding criminals who were high as a kite or peddling drugs wasn’t the problem. Finding ones who were actual members of the Merchants proved to be an entirely different one.

“This will go a lot easier for you if you just talk,” I advised the dealer. “Who are your suppliers? Is it Skidmark? The Merchants?”

“I dunno man, I dunno!” the dealer wailed. His eyes were bloodshot, pupils dilated. I suspected he was high on his own supply. “I just give the guy the cash and he gives me a backpack full of the good stuff, I swear!”

I tossed him casually against the alley wall, sensing the truth in his words. “Another bust,” I sighed.

Crystal nudged one last bag of drugs into place. “This is what, the fourth one tonight?”

“Fifth,” I corrected. I created a burst of golden flames that set the drugs alight, simultaneously creating a barrier around it to keep us from getting high off the fumes.

Between Crystal’s experience and my extra-sensory abilities, it was remarkably easy to find groups up to no good. Not to mention that in the area of the city we were patrolling, these criminals weren’t really used to being properly policed, meaning they weren’t making much of an effort to hide. They were far outside the bounds of Empire territory and right up against the ABB. They just hadn’t been a priority due to the other threats. I decided that BBPD would be getting a large anonymous donation in the near future. And I’d have to make sure that Kage, Firestorm, and Arachne put in more work. We had to break the Merchants’ power base before they began to truly take advantage of it and flood the streets with sheer numbers.

But that night in particular Crystal and I were trying to find any information that could get us to the real power. If we could tear out the Merchants, it would be a massive win, a lot more poison off the streets for good. We’d taken a lot of drugs off the market when the Empire collapsed, but those tended to be the ‘softer’ type of drugs, nothing hardcore and the ABB was still in the middle of imploding. We had pretty strict orders not to intervene unless civilians were in active danger or we saw a clear crime in progress. Things were going to get bloody and Piggot wanted to keep her people as far away from all of that as possible.

“Alright, let’s get out of here then,” I said, feeling rather down. “And you, get going. You probably won’t want to be here if the cops ever get around to showing up.”

“Wait, you’re just gonna let me go?” the dealer asked nervously.

“We destroyed your poison. If people were dumb enough to buy from you, then that’s their problem,” I said. “Get out of here, before I change my mind.”

The dealer stood and looked at us nervously before fleeing off into the night.

We stood there for a moment before Crystal glanced my way. “Did you get what you need?”

I held up a scrap of the guy’s jacket that I had ‘accidentally’ torn off while roughing him up a bit. “Another one to track.”

Even if the dealers didn’t have any reliable intel for us to use, they still had connections that we could exploit. Other dealers, customers who bought in bulk, and of course, our real target, the suppliers. Roughing up a single dealer or even five wasn’t going to do much in the long run, but tracking them and then hitting the suppliers? That would get a lot more done, even if we didn’t directly hit the Merchants themselves.

“One more fly around?” I asked hopefully.

Crystal thought about it a moment and then shrugged. “Sure. It’s been taking us longer and longer to find these guys for a reason though.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“A lot of dealers know each other. They’ve probably put out the word that a couple of capes are on the prowl tonight and any that we missed are going to be extra careful for the rest of the night and maybe the next week or so too,” she explained. “So let’s fly around a bit longer, see if we catch any particularly dumb specimens, and then call it a night if not. There’s an old movie I’ve been wanting to show you and I don’t have class until the afternoon tomorrow.”

“Deal.”

We took back off into the night sky, eyes alert for any other obvious dealers or crime. We’d taken down five drug dealers and put a stop to two muggings, and a crew that was trying to rob a bodega. A boring, if somewhat productive night. I just knew that there were other, bigger things I could have been doing and I-

Crystal’s elbow dug into my ribs. “Don’t.”

“What?”

“You’re doing what Ames does. Getting up in your head about everything you could or should be doing, instead of focusing on the good that you have done. It’s unhealthy, you have to take your wins when they come, no matter how small.”

“…Hm.”

“Oh don’t grunt at me like a moody teen,” she scoffed. “You know I’m right.”

“I know, but telling myself that I should feel a certain way and then actually feeling like that is… hard. Makes me wonder how God does it sometimes.”

“You’re going to have to elaborate on that one.”

“I have a lot of power at my beck and call and I get stressed out when I don’t use it to it’s full potential. And I basically haven’t ever since that first fight with the Simurgh. Sure I’ve done good with it, but part of me wonders if I could do even more good if I stopped limiting myself. God has all the power in the world and doesn’t really exercise it openly. Must be frustrating, watching us kill each other, knowing he could stop it all with a snap of his fingers.”

“I didn’t realize you were religious.”

“Yeah, Christian. Or I was. Am. I don’t know, faith is a hard concept to grapple with after I got my powers. I want to believe, but it’s hard sometimes,” I sighed.

“I can’t say I can relate super well, cause I’ve never been religious, but… I think faith that hasn’t been questioned or tested in some way isn’t real faith at all,” she said tentatively.

“I know a lot of people who would say the same.”

We continued in silence for a couple of minutes when an explosion broke through the night air. Both of us flinched in surprise and glanced at each other.

“What do you think that was?” Crystal asked.

“I think we’d be irresponsible heroes if we didn’t at least check.”

She nodded firmly in agreement and accelerated to her top speed. I followed as close as I could, but she was faster in a straight line than I was. I got to the site in time to spot a monstrosity of a vehicle, something like a mix between a tank and a monster truck, aiming a massive cannon at a costumed figure crouched behind a wall of flame, standing guard over a fallen hero in a bug costume.

Mimi and Taylor.

Rage raced through me and I went to summon a shield, but Crystal was quicker. A field of transparent pink energy came into existence right in front of Mimi. It wasn’t strong enough to survive, but it did manage to deflect the shell up and away before it shattered, the tank’s round exploding in midair.

I took a moment, mind magically enhanced and racing, to just examine what Crystal and I had gotten ourselves into. A burning warehouse set the scene. Mimi’s work no doubt. Several fallen forms attested to people that Mimi had burned or Taylor had taken down with her bugs. Not dead of course, but not enjoying themselves either between the burns and the insect bites. The tank had busted in through a chain link fence that set the perimeter of the warehouse’s property.

Merchant territory. Mimi and Taylor had attacked, noticing the criminal activity. Someone had called in reinforcements and a fight had commenced. It seemed that Skidmark and his ilk had no intention of abiding by the unwritten rules. The fact that I’d just watched them try and drop an artillery shell on my friends made that abundantly clear.

The cannon traversed and pointed skyward, right at Crystal and I. This time, I acted first. I unleashed a wave of golden light that smashed into the front of the tank and hurled it up and into the air before it crashed back down with a massive crunch of steel and dirt. It just lay there for a minute and I nodded to myself in satisfaction. Then I dropped down to see how Mimi and Taylor were doing.

“Are you two alright?” I asked seriously as I approached.

Mimi let out a shaky breath behind her mask and then slowly nodded, legs trembling ever so slightly. “I…” Her head ducked with what looked like shame. “I wanted to teleport out. Leave her to die,” she muttered quietly, just loud enough for me to hear.

“But you didn’t.” I rested a hand on her shoulder for just a second then kneeled down to inspect Taylor. Auriel’s shield lay nearby, it’s golden surface unmarred, but it was practically glowing with absorbed kinetic energy. “What happened to you guys?”

“We were bored, didn’t want to wait on-“ Her eyes flicked to Crystal, not exactly close as she went around cuffing Merchants, but still within possible earshot. “ -our third teammate. Figured between the two of us, we could put in some good work. Then we ran into this place. Thought about waiting, but we figured that since there were no capes, the two of us could take care of it. But someone called the bosses and they called the capes and well…” She glanced down at Taylor as I examined her. “She blocked the first shot with that shield of hers. Knocked her off her feet and through the air a good ways, but it didn’t detonate on her at least.”

“Yeah, lucky her,” I muttered. My brief examination revealed ruptured ear drums, several bruised organs, a shattered arm, and some very deep bruising on her back. All of that despite her shield, costume, and protection charm that I’d provided.

My teeth clenched. The people in my life were just so damned squishy sometimes. I’d need to do more about that than I already had. I couldn’t let any of them die when I had the power to make sure they didn’t.

“I tried hitting the tank with some fire, but it had some kind of forcefield around it, just made my flames kind of slide off, you know? Then they ignored me and aimed back at Arachne and I just… got between them. Didn’t really know what else to do.”

I allowed golden power to begin seeping into Taylor, knitting together the worst of the injuries. “You did good, but that was kind of reckless for the two of you to go out on your own like this.”

“Yeah, well our third member might be strong as hell, but he’s kind of flaky these days,” she said rather sharply.

Ouch.

“Well if you see him before I do, slug him in the shoulder for me. He shouldn’t have let you ladies out and about with so little in way of protective gear.” I lifted my head slightly. “Laserdream, can you check the tank?”

“Will do!” she shouted back. A minute later and she shouted again. “They’re gone!”

“What?!”

“Must have crawled out while you were busy healing and I was cuffing the small fry. I’m actually kind of impressed, that would have been difficult after you flipped it like a turtle,” she said.

“They can’t hide forever,” I muttered to myself. “We’ll find them.”

Firestorm slugged me in the shoulder. Ow. “Make sure to hit us up when you do. I’m sure she’ll be up for slugging it out again when she can see the tank coming this time.” She paused and thought about it a for a moment. “Assuming there is a tank still. But they probably only have the one and it’ll take them a while to build another, yeah?”

“You’re probably right,” I agreed. “Let’s just hope we find them before that, yeah?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Taylor let out a small groan and her head slowly sat up. “Firestorm? Are we still alive?”

“Nah, girl, this is heaven, VIP healing treatment from the city’s greatest hero,” she replied with a smirk, jerking a thumb in my direction.

“Magus?” she whispered glancing at my glowing hands as they hovered over her. “How bad was it?”

“Bad enough that you’d have had a pretty lengthy hospital stay if I wasn’t here. What exactly would you have told your dad if that had happened?” I asked conversationally.

“I’m not having this discussion with you,” she said flatly, then leaned back against the dirt. “Not when I’m in this much pain at least.”

“Fine. But it will be a discussion you’ll have to have eventually,” I said.

“But not tonight,” she countered.

“Alright. I’ll trust that you know what you’re doing,” I only somewhat lied. I’d let her make her own choices, but I didn’t trust the fifteen year old to make the best ones. But that was part of growing up, learning from your mistakes.

“Thank you.” She sat up and took stock of the burning building, the downed Merchants, and the flipped tank. “So other than needing a save, how’d we do?” she asked hopefully.

“Pretty well. Firestorm was telling me that you scoped everything out first, established that there was no cape presence, then decided to move in. But you guys are pretty lucky. If they’d had more serious hardware, they could have hurt or even killed you. Your costume is tough, but not invincible,” I chided.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she muttered, standing on shaky feet, until Mimi came over and helped keep her steady.

“Kind of reckless of you two, doing this all on your own,” Crystal chimed in, floating over and setting down next to me. “But gutsy. Good work. Did you call the PRT already?”

Both heroes shuffled in place, suddenly embarrassed.

“You didn’t, did you?” I asked flatly.

“We wanted to prove that we could do this kind of thing on our own,” Arachne said while crossing her arms. “We would have called them once this was all over.”

“Or your bodies would have been in the morning news,” I growled. “Seriously guys, I’m sure you’re both tough and powerful young heroes, but that doesn’t mean you take risks like this.

“In our defense, we had no way of knowing that Skidmark and Squealer were nearby,” Firestorm chimed in.

“They might not have been! Who knows how quickly that tank can move. You should have focused on disabling comms first, and then- Sorry, this isn’t an after action report, I just want you two to be safe, that’s all.”

“We’ll be better prepared next time,” Arachne promised. “So… can we go?”

“And skip giving your statement to the police and PRT and fill out all the paperwork?” I asked with a shark’s smile. “I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of such an opportunity.

Both girls shrank in on themselves.

Crystal, fighting back a laugh, turned her back on them and leaned in to whisper into my ear. “You can be such an evil bastard sometimes, you know that?”

“I know.”
***
A/N: Alright, another week, another chapter. Gonna get on my grind this upcoming week so that I'm not posting at this time next week, let's shoot for Friday or Saturday if at all possible. I am determined to have a healthier writing schedule and start pumping out more content for y'all.