Save Scumming

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Four - Looking for Help

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Four - Looking for Help

I Reloaded, of course. Even allowing that little shit Ernest to arrest me wasn't worth it. Mostly because the moment I was down, he walked over and kicked me in the kidneys, then summoned some sort of glowing chains of light to hold me down.

I was... not a fan of this guy. Still, I did listen to him. He was an ass to the team as well when they returned from breaking into my apartment. Looked like he couldn't help rubbing his success in their faces.

So... change of plans.

I reappeared in my bed and let out a contented sigh as the pain in my back faded away to nothing. Damn, those kicks weren't a joke.

Ernest, however, was. "Screw that guy," I said to the ceiling as I rolled over and out of bed. The first thing I did was pop my laptop open to do a bit of research. Looking into Ernest Glover in... well, in earnest, was kind of a waste of time.

He had profiles on a few sites, but they didn't amount to very much. Ernest had been working for Seraph since before he hit C-rank, so that was impressive, but it meant that Seraph was able to clean up his look online. Everything I found was very sanitized and safe. At most I was able to confirm that he had gone to a few shows recently and was currently single.

Judging by the shows he went to, he had shit taste in music. Another reason to dislike the guy.

A corp controlling one of their employee's social media crap wasn't too unusual. Especially not for a C-ranker. People were important enough by the time they hit C-rank that they could be considered very, very micro celebrities.

A B-ranker was definitely someone that a lot of people would know the name of, if only within the industry. Some of them did the athlete thing. They had sponsors. A-rankers were definitely on the famous side, obviously.

Midnight Tea Garden had paparazzi that followed them. They had fan pages. Hell, that one guy, Bloody Violet? Just him arriving in Fortress ENE made the news.

Seraph had six B-rankers and two A-rankers. It was very possible that they considered their C-rankers to be future potential. It would even make sense, I think, from a pure corporate viewpoint.

Taking out a team of D-rankers like I planned would be tough. But it would send a message.

Bypassing them and kicking Ernest's kidneys in? Hell, maybe killing the man if it came to that? That would be a much stronger slap to the face.

Losing a few D-rankers to another was rough, but losing one of their C-rankers to another corp's D-ranker?

Yeah... plus I figured taking one dude out was easier than ten.

Conventional knowledge was that one C-ranker was worth ten D-rankers, yeah? But I had cheats.

There were two other factors at play: injuring or killing ten guys would weigh on my a lot more than doing the same to one guy; and I just really didn't like Ernest.

I nodded, then went back to bed, setting my alarm for an hour before the Seraph people arrived.

I woke up, dressed, put Mister Couchtop in his cat carrier, then left, leaving my door shut behind me. I made my way downstairs, stored my cat in a maintenance locker, then stood aside and waited while Seraph stomped through the front lobby. They never noticed me.

I waited until the elevator was up, then called it back down. When it arrived, I blew up the control panel inside then stepped out. Now if they wanted to follow, they'd have to take the stairs.

Walking outside, I cracked my neck left and right, then started towards Ernest.

He noticed me stalking his way. "Sup?" I called out to him. "Wanna chat, or is this going to turn into a fight?"

"You're... I see. Were you informed? No, it doesn't matter. We'll find out later," he said before raising a hand towards me.

I stepped to the side, narrowly avoiding his light beam attack, the triple helix zooming past me. I raised my revolver and shot.

And much to my dismay, that didn't do jack. The round exploded off of a rounded pane of something that looked almost like glass, a ripple of power rushing through it.

Ernest glared. His next attack had two beams of light, smaller, faster, and curved. I managed to dodge one then gasped as the other punched into and through my leg.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

I Reloaded before I hit the ground.

Okay, attempt three...

This time I waited outside. This was more of a test than anything, but I stepped out from cover when Ernest was looking the other way and shot him.

The round bounced off the same shield. He turned and blasted the corner I was in with enough force that I, along with a good chunk of brick and mortar, was sent flying back.

I Reloaded.

Okay... so maybe C-rankers were a step up from D-rankers in a big way.

I tried two more times. It didn't amount to much more. Shadow Bolt barely tickled and it didn't seem to do that much more against his shield. Emptying my revolver was enough to pop his bubble, but he could summon a sort of wall of brilliantly-white light that was blinding to look at in a blink. It was like a wall of Fran's little lightsaber.

"Damn," I said as I Reloaded.

So... no, taking him out was not that easy. Maybe I could do it with sufficient explosives or something, but it was starting to look like I had severely underestimated how strong a C-ranker was.

There had to be some weaknesses, though.

So I looked into it. I had seen a few of his spells, and while I wasn't used to searching into Light spells, I could use those spell-finder sites pretty well.

Those were tier three and four spells. A good couple of steps past what I could manage.

I let out a huff of air, then leaned back into my desk chair and thought. There was a common bit of knowledge that some elements were stronger than others. I had access to Dark. In theory Dark was stronger than Light, and Light was stronger than Dark. It was one of those... magic is complicated things.

Could I beat Ernest? Like, in a fair fight?

Fuck it.

I Reloaded.

I packed up a few things, loading Mister Couchtop into his carrier, then grabbing some clothes. Enough for a couple of days out of the house, at least, plus a few essentials. Then I headed out, loading the cat onto the back of my bike.

An hour later I was pulling into the private parking lot of a nice apartment block much deeper in the city. It took some doing to convince the guard there that I wasn't here for trouble, but I think having a cat of all things with me helped.

Thieves didn't carry cats with them into places like these. Still, because I came in the official way, word was sent out ahead, and by the time I was in the elevator, I had 'permission' to enter the building.

Annoying, that.

I came up to a nice, reinforced door, then knocked.

It opened and instead of coming face-to-face with who I wanted, there was a beef wall of a man before me. He eyed me up and down, clearly judging. "Come in, Miss Ojou is expecting you," he said.

"Thanks," I replied.

Fran's apartment was as shiny and top class as I remembered it being. Fran herself was there, clearly dressed for an evening out, though I imagined at this kind of hour the evening was done. "Hello," she said.

"Sup?" I asked as I tried to not look too desperate.

I wasn't sure how well that worked out, because one eyebrow perked and she looked me up and down. "Is everything well? I didn't expect to see you tonight. Drink?"

"I'd love a drink," I replied as I set Mister Couchtop down on one of the counters. There were two guards here. One I recognized, the other I didn't. They both stared as I opened Mister Couchtop's carrier and let the cat out.

"Is that... your cat?" Fran asked.

"This is Mister Couchtop," I said. "If anything bad happens to him I will burn this city down then jump off a bridge."

"I see," she said. Her corpo training was really good, I could almost not tell that she was absolutely lying there. I don't think Fran was a pet person.

I set my hands on my hips, then stretched. "Okay... I need a huge favour," I said.

"I'm listening," she said as she poured a finger of something dark into two wide cups with ice within.

"So... I'm a time traveler, as you may have guessed, and I need training to kill a C-ranker Light mage that had been really pissing me off. Think you could help me with that kind of thing?"

***