The new mall

We went outside and entered a limo. I had a feeling this would be a long and boring day. Boy, had I ever been more wrong? (Yes, but that's beside the point.)

We arrived at a mall and a lot of paparazzi were standing in front of it. I could pick up a little of what they were saying.

"Yes, we are standing before the newly opened Richards-mall, founded by the notorious businessman Dick P. Richards. This mall is supposed to be the new center for buying new stuff in Capital City."

So this was a new mall huh, nice I guess. I exited first then Taecillius and his friends and lastly, Thea and Night exited the car.

We started exploring for a bit and if it hadn't been for the size of Olympus' shopping center I would have been dumbstruck, this place was massive.

Taecillius and Last mostly looked at games, Bao Shing mostly looked at dolls and Ana mostly looked at food.

When we went to eat something, we, Bolt, Night and me, had to taste-test everything. They had bought hamburgers at this local franchise: Martian Lobster's Hamburgers. At first, I thought you could buy lobster here but it turns out you can't and that's just the owner's actual name.

Who would want to be called Lobster or any derivative of Lobster like Lobski or something?

After I was done contemplating this we went ahead and bought a few games, some dolls, and some food.

'We were going to exit when the alarms started blaring and the entire mall went into lockdown. We have assessed a threat of at least A-rank, please remain calm, we will take care of it.'

Afterwards a voice I'd gotten to know this day started talking. "A-rank, now I'm just insulted." I turned around to look at Last.

"Excuse me? Last, that isn't funny, most people here can easily be killed by an A-rank threat." He starts laughing.

"Well, they'll get a lot more than an A-rank threat." After that, Taecillius drops to the floor like a ragdoll. Wait a minute, a ragDOLL, oh shit.

I turn around and dodge a knife headed for my back thrown by a mannequin.

"Get down." I quickly created a construct that could pinpoint the source of the hivemind and I got ... Nothing?

"The hell."

Last started laughing. "Did you really think the great general would waste more than one advanced doll on you. You're way too full of yourself.

Hello, we are the ... uhm ... we don't have a name yet but that doesn't matter. we're going to kill you."

Oh great, another psychopath.

I quickly summoned a knife and threw, too fast for someone who wasn't paying attention to my hands to notice and luckily none of them were looking at me.

Then something weird happened. "Last, dodge." This warning came from Ana.

How would she know that? I now know why but at the time, I was completely caught of guard and distracted.

Night had to save me from a punch in the face. He did something on his ID and a warning appeared on my ID. I didn't even know you could do that.

'Warning sent out. Due to close proximity you will be used to assess threat. Please fight for a bit." Gee thanks. I'm the guinea pig.

I summoned my knife and refrained from using my changing arm. I hadn't sent void energy through it today since I knew that I might need the full 24 hour use.

'Arm protection activated.' I had let this be installed after I found out I couldn't use my arm, making sure that it wouldn't be damaged in the of chance that I could heal it.

Steel plating suddenly covered my arm. I didn't know how they did it but I also didn't really care.

I attacked Last but hit one of Bao's dolls.

I attacked again but this time I was forming magic, hidden in such a way none of them should be able to see.

"Last, Bao, he's using magic!" Ana did it again.

Luckily for me, it didn't matter since it was something that couldn't be easily stopped.

I sent a Fireball towards Bao, she tried to stop it with a doll but the ball swerved and immediately focused on her again.

At the last second, Last jumped in front of the fireball getting hit full force. His shirt was blown off and his skin was burned to a crisp but he seemed in extasy.

"Hahahahaha, yes, this is what I'm talking about." While he said that a lightningbolt was sent towards him and a cut appeared across his chest, Night and Thea had finally attacked.

"You really think this is enough to beat us, you probably don't even stand a chance against me."

After that Last started ripping of the damaged skin and a new perfect skin appeared.

"Oh shit, Leo you have a big problem." I looked towards Athena without understanding what had just happened.

"He's an Astrictum."