Chapter 304 Fight.

Chapter 304: 304 Fight.

"Unlike you, villain, I deeply respect women!" he snapped, slashing wildly at my chest. The humming, burning blade buzzed dangerously close to my iron plating, the heat washing over my visor.

"Is that right?" I said calmly, deliberately letting him advance another step closer. Just a little more... "Good for you, buddy. Really nice glowing sword, by the way. Compensating for anything specific?"

"Crass, honorless bastard!"

"That’s me."

Spirit Sword violently widened his combat stance, shifting his grip on the burning katana. "Then let us see if your cheap metal can block this! My ultimate, devastating technique, handed down strictly from my master to me! Hrrrrraaaaaaa!"

An unnatural, dramatic wind suddenly whipped around him, his leather jacket fluttering wildly as his glowing blade actually started to physically grow, violently swelling with unstable, blinding power.

"Neato," I said, keeping my tone entirely deadpan. I casually glanced past his shoulder at Urchin, who was currently squatting down low, fully loaded. "This isn’t exactly my ultimate, ancestral technique, but try this one on for size."

I suddenly, violently darted to my right.

Spirit Sword’s eyes locked onto my movement, and he aggressively pivoted to track me, raising his massive, swelling sword high above his head for his final, devastating execution strike.

And in doing so, he placed his back directly, perfectly into the firing line of Street Urchin’s next heavy barrage.

Thwip-thwip-thwip.

The toxic needles slammed violently into Spirit Sword’s back, thudding effortlessly through his cheap leather jacket and burying themselves deep into his malleable flesh.

Spirit Sword violently jerked, his heroic monologue instantly dying in his throat as his eyes widened in shock.

"Wha... I... Oooooh."

His eyes rapidly rolled back into his skull. His glowing, ancestral sword sputtered and crackled into absolute nothingness, and the vigilante flopped face-first onto the filthy pavement like a severed puppet.

Urchin gaped in total, paralyzed horror at the unconscious, heavily poisoned hero. "I... I didn’t mean to..." he gasped, lowering his guard completely.

"I’m absolutely sure you didn’t," I said coldly.

With a sharp flick of my wrist, I let my magnetic field grab the heaviest chunk of the shredded steel emergency door and flung it directly into his purple face.

Urchin flew backward off his feet, the steel slamming into his goggles with a sickening crunch.

He hit the ground incredibly hard, rolling across the damp asphalt a few times before finally coming to a dead halt. He let out a low, pathetic groan that definitively told me he wasn’t getting back up to fight anytime soon.

Which left exactly one.

I slowly turned around to find that Windlass had somehow managed to drag herself back to her feet.

She was glaring absolute daggers at me, her teeth tightly clenched as her ponytail stirred wildly in a fresh buildup of aggressive wind.

"Vile, mechanical villain!" she spat, the atmospheric storm rapidly building around her hands.

"What exactly took you so long?" I asked.

"Silence! I am back on my feet now, and you will pay dearly for—"

"I wasn’t talking to you," I interrupted flatly.

Windlass stopped dead, blinking at me in total confusion.

She blinked again.

And then, deep within her irises, bright, glowing pink hearts suddenly hummed to life.

The howling wind died instantly. Windlass’s entire posture immediately sagged where she stood, all the righteous, heroic tension completely leaving her muscles.

A dopey, blissed-out smile spread across her face as her eyes grew heavy and lidded, and she began to hum a soft, absentminded tune.

"No, but seriously," I said, looking past the ensorcelled heroine toward the dark mouth of the alleyway.

Psyren casually sauntered into the glow of the streetlights, her dampening headphones pulled down around her neck, the neon pink hearts buzzing violently in her own eyes. "What kept you?"

She giggled, a bright, bubbly sound that clashed horrifically with what she was doing. "Aw, I was standing right here all along, bossman! But I honestly couldn’t resist watching you work for a bit. And can you really blame me?"

She stepped up to the paralyzed heroine, gently brushing her manicured fingers along Windlass’s chin. The heroine’s head lolled into the touch, visibly shivering in pure psychological ecstasy.

"It was soooo deeply satisfying to see you put them in their place."

I shook my head in heavy exasperation, retracting my iron visor. "You’re going to get me in massive federal trouble one of these days, Psyren."

"C’mon, boss! I know exactly how much you secretly love that kind of trouble," she said with a wicked, teasing wink. "Besides, I thought you could genuinely use the chance to blow off a bit of physical steam. You’ve been soooo stressed lately with all this Order bullshit."

Well, she was actually kind of right about that.

There was absolutely nothing quite like flawlessly trouncing a bunch of arrogant, D-list vigilantes to relieve some pent-up corporate stress.

"I guess," I admitted.

"Great! Now," Psyren added, her eyes flashing as she cast a sadistic, calculating glance down at the heavily ensorcelled Windlass. "What exactly do you want me to do with her? A bit of permanent lobotomizing? Ooh! I can easily make her strip herself completely down if you like. Let’s see if that skintight costume is really true to form underneath. Hm?"

"Nothing even remotely like that," I said, shaking my head with firm, absolute authority. I jerked an armored thumb toward the unconscious, groaning form of Street Urchin. "Just have her prick herself on one of those toxic spikes. Put her to sleep."

"Aw, you are so boring sometimes, bossman. But fine, if you insist," she sighed playfully.

She brushed her hand away from Windlass’s chin, casually tapping the heroine directly on the forehead.

"Hey, babe," she commanded, her voice humming with terrifying, undeniable psychic suggestion. "Be a total doll and go pull a Sleeping Beauty on one of those purple needles over there, would you? Just for me?"

Windlass violently shuddered in absolute, terrifying delight. "A-anything for youuuu," the heroine moaned out. Her facial expression was downright puppyish, completely overflowing with a sickening, artificial eagerness to please her new master.

"Good girl," Psyren purred, stepping back with a final, dismissive flick of the heroine’s chin.

Windlass shuddered again and blindly turned around. She took a few unsteady, practically drunken steps toward the unconscious Street Urchin.

Reaching out with an expression of rapturous, religious anticipation on her face, she gently pressed the very tip of her index finger directly onto the sharp point of a toxic spike.

"Ohhhhhh," Windlass moaned blissfully.

Her knees immediately buckled, dumping her dead weight onto the filthy asphalt as the heavy paralytic poison. She was out cold before she even hit the ground.

I shook my head, feeling a cold chill run down my spine despite my armor.

Fuck. Was it any real wonder that so many baseline humans were absolutely, fundamentally terrified of telepaths?

"Nice job," I said, keeping my voice steady.

Psyren giggled in absolute delight, pulling her heavy dampening headphones back up over her ears to cut the connection. "Ooooh, praise me more, bossman."

"I’d love to," I said, turning my back on the pile of defeated heroes. "But maybe wait until we’re in the car. All this noise is practically guaranteed to attract some attention, and I absolutely cannot afford to spend all night fighting capes."

"Aw, come on, boss! You could totally take them all!"

"Not really the point. Besides," I said, breaking into a brisk jog toward the alley entrance where the Crown was waiting. "There is going to be plenty of real fighting soon enough."