Side Quests Now: Collectibles

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Third Person P.O.V.

Hector stays in the dark for an unknown amount of time… It’s what would normally happen to an average human.

The blindfold, the muzzle, and the noise-canceling headphones are not as effective as the agents imagine. Obviously, he can’t see or speak, but he can feel - and even hear - with his whole body.

His body feels the movements of the car, every turn, mapping the route, and even measuring the speed and distance.

His mind is still sharp and calm enough to count the time. His concentration and multitasking are beyond human capabilities.

And sound is vibration… He can hear with his whole body, with his bones… with the water that is 70% of every human body.

‘That is a good skill…’ He thinks while hearing people talk by vibration alone, but not being able to understand the words ‘I should train this.’

He was never a prisoner or even got into such an unfavorable situation. As self-imposed as it is, it is still a new and learning experience that created a breakthrough.

If he uses brute force all the time, he would miss things like this.

‘Oh… It stopped.’

He feels the car stopping and the agents around him standing up. Two grabbed his arms and pulled him towards the exit. His legs are cuffed, and he can only take small steps, so the agents are almost dragging him out.

‘If you are gonna get impatient with my pace, don’t cuff my legs, dumbasses. At least strap me to  one of those things with wheels, like Hannibal Lecter.’ He is annoyed but holds back.

After more steps, he is forced to stop, and then he feels himself going down… An elevator.

‘A very long elevator…’

When it stopped and he was pushed by someone, he almost stopped playing along, but his self-control won.

‘Be mature, Hector… That is a test of your patience, too. You will find worse situations in the future.’

He holds back, after all, he needs to wait for the right moment; it will all be for naught if he is too eager. But his patient was really tested, especially when he was shoved. He goes back to that arrogant way of thinking, “I’m better than all of them” so that he can ignore the treatment.

‘Hm, the air flux changed… A closed space instead of a corridor… A cell?’ His guess is spot on because after the agents force him to kneel, they remove his blindfold and headphones.

Hector blinks a little because of the light, his blurry vision showing him how his cuffs are being chained to the ground. On all corners, there are agents in tactical armor holding rifles and batons.

“Don’t try anything.” The agent kneeling in front of him threatens while methodically removing the rest of the cuffs “Don’t move a muscle till we are outside.”

“...” Hector just stares silently at him, not even bothered, but that seems to unsettle the guy even more.

With some brusque movements, the guy finally releases Hector in the small cell before everyone leaves orderly, but still keeping an eye on the prisoner.

It looks bad, like Hector was dumped into sub-human conditions, but…

‘They are too nice…’ He doesn’t think they are bad enough.

Free limbs and a small cell with a metal bed? That is too generous in his eyes. After all he has done, he was expecting to be kept trapped like in a cocoon of restraints till the second order.

‘I guess that is my reward for holding back and acting like all my powers came from the talismans.’ Section 13 is feeling safer now that he is just a normal person again.

And that is a big mistake.

Hector does nothing for now; he just sits on the bed with his back to the wall, facing the only entrance. He already looked around and sat a little far away from the only air vent in case they released some sleeping gas on him.

‘No cameras that I can see, but any edge and light can be a camera…’ He feels the cell with his back. ‘Concrete and the door looks just average metal… It will not be hard to escape.’

Now he waits. ‘It has been roughly 26 minutes since I entered the car… So it must be 17:32. I will not even try to guess when they change shifts, but normally it ends at 18. Half an hour is enough time for them to put the talismans together with the others. In the worst-case scenario, they will figure out that they are fake and come back to interrogate me. If that happened, I will stop pretending and interrogating them back… I still have my A.I. that can invade their systems and access their cameras… But that will be my last resort.’

His mind is thinking a thousand scenarios, trying to predict all future possibilities, and preparing himself for the worst… in the end, he decides to just wait for now.

‘Ironically, the best move is doing nothing.’ He closes his eyes and rests, but is still on high alert.

Thirty minutes till he makes his move.

…………………………………

On Uncle’s Rare Finds, the mood is still strange because of what happened earlier, but the residents are occupying themselves by cleaning the mess on the front door.

“It’s not that messy…” Jade comments, downcast while picking some books from the floor.

“Yes…” Jackie says while organizing some shelves

They understand the reason why things are not that bad. Till the last moment, Hector did not want to damage the shop; he brought the fight outside. All this destruction was brought by Hak Foo with the Dark Hand.

It’s not hard to see that the Chan family has mixed feelings about Hector. The guy who was initially only some free labor that Uncle acquired is now being missed.

Not even Hector would imagine that; he just acts as a side character, never imposing and keeping himself at some distance from the Chan family, but this trio is too nice, already considering him an addition to the family even if he stayed on his line.

Maybe he has some hidden charisma… or it is simply the fact that people naturally like humble and polite people.

“Jackie…” Jade asks, her voice laced with a rare tone of vulnerability “Why did he do that?”

“...” Jackie was fearing a question like this. He sighs before trying to find a good awaner to Jade “I don’t know…” It’s the only thing he can come from “He said that he was doing that because he wanted to. It’s about his feelings; it’s hard to understand other people’s feelings with our own views.”

“...” Jade doesn’t say anything, only keeps pouting. It’s unclear if she understood.

They continue cleaning till Uncle walks down the stairs, holding a backpack… Hector’s backpack.

“I went to get his things… Only now I noticed that he has so little.” Uncle puts the backpack on the table, and the contents spill over it.

Two shirts, one black and the other white, a hood, a shorts, some underwear, a notebook with his studies in chi magic, and other amenities.

“He never cared about material things, but he wants the talimsnas?” Jade thinks that is strange.

And she is not the only one. Even Jackie is growing too…

“Strange…” He comments, checking the pockets of the backpack. He only finds things like a toothbrush, some pocket money.

“What?” Jade asks

“His clothes… Those black ninja clothes he used when he took the Dog Talisman from me… It’s not here!” Jackie exclaims.

There are also many things that they saw Hector using that are not in the backpack.

“Are you sure you got everything, Uncle?” Jackie asks

“Hmpf! Who do you think I am? I searched every part of his room…” Uncle scoffs “I know my house very well, I didn’t find anything hidden.”

“...” Jackie then starts to think back. There’s a feeling of incongruence growing on his chest.

There is really something gnawing on his mind… Something he is forgetting…

Suddenly, his eyes widen “Ah!”

“What is this?” Jade asks in a hurry, anxious

“Uncle! He used the power of the Rooster Talisman in the Netherlands!!” Jackie

“You told me that… We even suspected your spy friend…” Uncle says “But are you sure that you remember correctly?”

“I am! he made me float and all that!”

“Why didn’t he fly away today then?” Jade asks the right question.

“...” Uncle and Jacie turn to her in silence. Realization hits them at the same time.

Hector is hiding more. And why?

“The Section 13!” Jackie exclaims in a loud voice.

……………………………………………….

Section 13

“It’s showtime.” In his cell, Hector finally opens his eyes and smiles.

He stands up, moving from his relaxed position, removing his back from the wall and walking to the door.

His smile continues plastered on his face as his hand lights up with a green light, and suddenly, he is holding his Talisman Belt. The real one.

Unceremoniously, he puts it around his waist and…

Boom

The metal door is forced open by a strong blast of fire.

“I thought I would need to hit more than once…” Hector emerges from the smoke holding two devices.

One of them is the Talisman Locator he took from the dark hand, and the other is a smartphone. He looks at the screen and points the Talisman Locator to his right.

“So a little below me… Okay.”

He starts floating a little above the ground just to be sure that he is not gonna fall into any trap. Not that he is worried about them - he has the Dog and Horse Talismans after all - but he doesn’t want to be slowed down.

That is why a scene of almost carnage blossoms on Section 13. Hector doesn’t kill anyone(he thinks), but he ruthlessly deals with everything that crosses his path with efficiency.

Doors? Heat vision.

Agents? Telekinetic blasts.

All of this while moving at such speed that he becomes a blur, hitting the unaware people with his body, sending them flying.

He only stops for a few seconds to check the directions. With the transmitters inside the fake talismans and the Talisman Locator, it didn’t take long for him to find the right place.

“I saw this on the cartoon…” He comments in front of a big metal door, like a bank safe that is holding billions of dollars. 

He would try to test the power of his AI and the tools he got in the Post-Apocalyptic world if he had time. There’s a high chance that it would be able to hack the place, but…

He does not have time.

Boom

The first door is open with an explosion.

He floats and finds the second door…

Boom

That suffers the same fate as the first door.

“Finally!” He says, seeing the talismans in front of him, all staying in a cone structure. The real and the fake ones.

He watched the cartoon, so he remembers the lasers with motion sensors in the wall…

That is why he blasts everything with his heat vision.

Fssssh

Hector then raises his arm and pulls the whole structure to him. He briefly looks at the fake talismans, focusing his eyes on the three that are real.

The Rooster, the Monkey, and the Sheep.

Dramatically, like Thanos with the Infinity Stones, he puts the talismans in their rightful places on his belt. With his telekinesis, he twists the little button that makes the slots tighten to hold the talismans in place.

While he was feeling himself, more agents appeared at the entrance of the safe and pointed their guns at him while assuming a formation.

“I have to admit, you guys have courage and don’t give up…” He smiles while slowly turning around “That is why I will not turn you all in rats.”

He points at them with his arm. Bullets fly at him, but he ignores everything while his arms blast a magic ray that hits the agents.

When he ends the attack, Hector is standing above more than a dozen honey badgers.

“Hahaha!” He laughs while floating out of the reach of the crazy creatures. He is sure that they would attack him, even in this form. “Now your exterior reflects your guts!”

Monkey Talisman tested. He can’t test the Sheep talisman now, so he decides to try to fuse the Rooster Talisman with his telekinesis.

“Hmm… It lacks my subtlety, but yes… It’s boosting it. It enhances the power of my telekinesis!” He exclaims and laughs like a villain.

Now, without wasting more time, he looks at the ceiling, flexes his legs and then shoots out like a rocket, a fist above his head to blast through all the floors of Section 13 and the ground above him.

It is not as easy as he thought, taking an embarrassing amount of effort for someone who wanted to make a great exit, but eventually he emerged under the dusky sky.

“Hahahaha!” Hector laughs with his arms open as he shoots higher and higher.

Relief and accomplishment after a successful mission wash over him. He could have done it differently; he knew that it was a plan with a high probability of having some problem appearing, but he proceeded with it nonetheless.

More than anything, he was curious if it would really work, maybe even expecting that it would fail in some way and make him deal with that… grow with the experience.

“But everything went according to the plan.” he smiles “That is a fucking nice feeling~ I should do it more.” 

Brute force is maybe the easiest answer, but it is not always the best; he should leave it as the last option.

Hiding his powers proved to be incredibly effective, especially his pocket inventory. With it, he was able to hide the talismans and even remove his cuffs(it was not needed, but he thought about that).

He decided to keep it as a trump card as much as he could. It’s a rare ability even in high fantasy worlds.

“I want to test the Monkey and Sheep talismans, but I have something to do now.”

He pulls his smartphone from his pocket again and changes tabs from the tracker app. He didn’t only put trackers on the fake talismans. There’s a reason he let the three fools of the Dark Hand go unscathed.

Getting the general direction of where the three are, he flies there fast, practicing using the Rooster Talisman to boost his Telekinetic Flight.

………………………………………..

On a high-level building, Valmont, the crime lord in charge of the Dark Hand, is once again being admonished by the statue form of the Demon Sorcerer, Shendu.

“Once again, you failed me, Valmont.” The round statue says in a serpentine voice, only the eyes shining with each world, while the maw of the dragon remains still “I am unsurprised by the development… Your failings seem as certain as the sun that rises in the East.”

‘Damn, that dragon can roast with more than his fire breath!’ Hector, who was hiding at the corner of this unnecessarily big room, invisible, exclaims in his mind.

He is a little cautious in case Shendu may feel the talismans, so he is keeping his distance. He almost came here only with his Astral Projection, in a way to test the Sheep Talisman, but he is too paranoid to leave his body unattended.

His infiltration was easy because he was lucky enough to have the door open to him as the dumb trio left with ashen faces.

Now Hector is here, debating if he should simply take down Shendu now.

‘If I destroy this statue, his spirit, or whatever, goes to where his siblings are and then Season 2 would start earlier…’ He ponders ‘I am not sure if I can seal him with my means.’

Predicting that he would be exactly at this point, he obviously studied everything that could be done against Shendu and his demon siblings. The problem is that the Chi magic from here uses a lot of strange mediums that he doesn’t have.

‘I think I will drop him off at Uncle’s… But Uncle may not be ready either, and there’s the Shadowkhan.’

The options are in front of his face, and he hesitates. A choice appears when the door of this secret room opens again by Valmont, leaving after assuring Shendu that he has a plan to steal the talismans from Section 13, while the Demon Sorcerer said that “it’s better to work or Valmont would never see a piece of dust from the Lost Treasure of Ching Xi Hung”.

‘Ching, heh~’ Hector decides to leave.

He is still the strongest person in the world. Shendu can’t take the talismans from him if he puts them in his inventory, and if even in the worst-case scenario…

In the case of Shendu getting the Rat Talisman before him, and gets free from his statue prison by the power of Animation. Hector would still be stronger.

Keeping the two parties fighting each other will make his victory easier in the end.

There are also other ways to get even stronger, so he will not remain idle.

………………………………………….

Hector P.O.V.

The cartoon Jackie Chan Adventures has five seasons.

The most eye-catching plot was obviously of the Twelve Talismans and then of the demon siblings of Shendu, each with one season. I think there is even a PlayStation 2 game about it.

But then what about the other seasons? What about all the “filler episodes” between the main plots of the seasons?

What I am trying to convey is that the cartoon showcased many more magical items than the famous Twelve Talismans.

I ignored them for now because the Talismans are the best, but now that I do not need to stay with the Chan family… I can seek the rest of the magical items that I saw in the episodes I recorded in the previous modern worlds that I visited.

“Thankfully, this show is old enough to be part of the universe I traveled…” I comment while shooting magical rays of the Monkey Talisman at some rocks, making them turn into statues of animals. “But maybe I should visit a universe specifically to get more material. The Big Bang Theory is a very good option.”

I shoot another ray, and a big rock becomes a monkey… So if it is an inanimate object, it continues to be an inanimate object. Okay, I can accept that. The power to animate things is with the Rat Talisman.

What I am more interested about the Monkey Talisman's ability to turn the user into an animal. What happens with the talismans I’m wearing? This bullshit magic made the people I turned transform together with the clothes.

“Probably because it's a kid’s cartoon, but mostly because… Magic~”

If I become able to turn into an animal and keep the talismans, even the Monkey one, hidden somewhere in my new magically created animal body… Wouldn’t that make me a magic version of Beast Boy?

“Or a druid…” I say while hitting a sparrow flying over me and turning it into a bald eagle. It struggled a little with the new body, but still flew relatively well.

I roll the talisman between my fingers; there are inscriptions behind it…

“Maybe I can train with it… This can be more than simply a way to punish my enemies like a scorned witch who turns people into frogs.” I stand up and put the Monkey Talisman in its slot on my belt. “Well, I was a WoW player, so I will make a trend of turning people into sheep.”

Without wasting more time, I shot to the sky and part to get the first item on the list.

………………………………………..

My first destination is Venice. Not because there rests the strongest magic item, or a favorite… No, there is the most convenient one.

The Eye of Aurora is a necklace that grants the user the ability to teleport anywhere in the world!

Ridiculous overpowered. The only reason I didn’t go from it already is because the talismans are a first target by the people around here, and because I’m not sure where the thing is.

It’s in the sewers of Venice, somewhere in a dark labyrinth that smells bad and may be flooded depending on the time frame. Why the heck would I come on a goose chase here?

With talismans in hand, it would be easier to find the location.

The Eye of Aurora was used by an ancient Egyptian princess who used the magic item to steal treasures around the world. I don’t know how it ended up here in Venice, but well… it’s someone who can teleport, I  will not think much about it.

“Haah~ This will be troublesome…” I sigh while finally entering the sewers while pulling a flashlight from my inventory

First, I will try to speedrun it with the Rabbit Talisman. If I don’t find the place, I will search with more scrutiny.

“Ugh, I will really pull an all-nighter, huh?” Thanks to the Hercules Method, it’s not really a problem, but is still unpleasant.

I like my nappies.

…………………………………….

“Son… of… a… fucking bitch! Fucking finally!” I try to refrain from cussing, being cool and all, but damn it makes me feel better.

It’s almost night of the other day!!

I stayed in this putrid place for an entire day searching for this shit, and I finally found it!

Huff The relief came immediately, but I have to say some bad words.

I needed to dive under a hidden area to find a hidden temple, like… What the fuck? A hidden temple under Venice?? I guess it was easy to find; it would already have been found by someone.

“I really don’t have a drop of protagonist luck, huh?” Why can’t I stumble upon some magical artifacts while taking a stroll? Those wuxia main characters… Lucky bastards… I swear one day to steal your opportunities.

I reach for the sculpture bust where the necklace lies harmlessly. It’s a thing that I would never wear in normal circumstances, thick and made of something that looks like gold.

“But I think is possible to hide under a thick shirt or hood.” I grab it and… “Hm? Oh!”

Zap

In a flash of light, I teleport to the same temple in the Himalaya where I got the Horse Talisman.

“...” When I touched it, I felt the power reacting to me, so I decided to immediately test it. “I can use it without having to be around my neck.”

That can change things… Unfortunately, the necklace is hard, like a circlet, so I can’t roll it around my wrist.

“Maybe…” I try to put on my head like a crown. “No.” I try to put it on my arm, pulling it till it rests on my biceps.

“Oh, if I get older and more muscular, it works, but the protuberance is pretty obvious.” I guess it needs to go around my neck… Ugh…

I’m not that confident that I can alter the shape of this thing. It will be a huge loss if I break it.

“I didn’t go to a world that has teleportation means yet, because it may change from universe to universe…” I thought about going to the Marvel Cinematic Universe only to learn how to open portals, but is a little too dangerous for me. And also unclear if it will work everywhere. “But it costs nothing to get this one now.”

In the worst-case scenario, it will not work in any other universe beyond this one, but even so, it will help me get everything that I need.

Now, with the necklace around my neck, I teleport to my next destination…

A fucking resort because I need a fucking break! 

I will search the rest later, and taking a break will also allow me to check on the moves of the Section 13 and the Chan family.

Despite having more than enough, I still want the full collection

“Will they notice the hidden cameras I left behind?” I guess not. “It’s really nice when everything is under control.”

…………………………….