Chapter 11

I waited until the guard patrolling the cell block went to go get his replacement before I made my move.

Once he left I opened my inventory with a thought and gently plucked a lockpick out of my personal hammerspace. With some clever wrist and hand movements that would make any girl instantly fall in love with me, I picked the lock of my handcuffs and watched the restricting metal clank to the floor. Nodding to myself I lazily hefted my body upright from my bench and sauntered to the cell door. I gave as good a look down the hallway as well as I could manage to double check if any officers were coming, once I was sure I was in the clear I stuck my lockpick into the cell door and went to town. Picking locks really makes me wonder why the police still use key cuffs and locks when Remnant is suppose to have some pretty crazy technology.

With a satisfying click the door swung open and I tossed my lock pick back into my inventory as I whistled a tune and simply walked out of the cell and loitered in the hallway.

"Now, how should I do this…" I mused to myself as I rubbed my chin. "The front door is a no-go, too many people in the main building. I might be a confident man, but I don't like my chances with that many people."

I bit my lip, I needed to come up with a plan quick. The holding cells only have one entrance and the surrounding walls were thick concrete, the direct route is obviously out so that only leaves an alternate way. I don't have enough Dust on me to blow through the walls, but, well, I have something better.

"Rumble," I spoke into the air.

"I am here," came the deep voice of my earth elemental, like boulders tumbling down a mountain.

I looked over at a nearby empty wall and gestured, "Think you can tear part of this wall down? Like it was hit by an explosion or something?"

"Yes," Rumble spoke.

"Good, do that for me, please," I politely said, never forget your manners, kids.

Without another word Rumble simply channeled some of my aura and touched the wall, the concrete cracking and exploding into pieces. It wasn't loud enough to draw attention, which annoyed me because I'll have to now use some of my own Dust to draw attention and that costs money. But I like style and a chase through town sounds fun, so I can live with it for now.

"It is done. Do you require anything else?"

I shook my head, "Not right now."

"Then I shall take my leave for now."

And with that Rumble crumbled into dust, his objective fulfilled. Not willing to waste anymore time, I opened my inventory and scattered a few Dust crystals around the hole. I backed up until I went a bit further down the hallway and took out Melodic Cudgel, I smirked and pulled the trigger, watching the flare-like missile shoot out and explode on the Dust. There was a deafening boom upon contact with the Dust and I could feel the floor shake just a bit from the force. I looked back at the hole through the dusty air, it wasn't any bigger than before but it did sport some new scorch marks and made the rubble spread out more chaotically.

Perfect.

I started my way to the hole just as I heard yelling come from the main area of the building, I hopped over some soot to avoid getting too dirty and gave a cheeky wave to the first cops that arrived at the scene. I was disappointed Jeanette wasn't one of them, but I figured she might be somewhere else.

"Later boys, you will always remember this as the day you almost caught Roman Torchwick," with that almost total ripoff from one of my favorite movies (as I'm not a captain and don't own a ship yet), and I should look and see if Remnant has anything similar, I fired my cane at the officers as a distraction and fled the police station through the hole.

"Hoo boy, running from a police station after escaping, setting off some minor explosives, and shooting at some police officers is actually kinda difficult," I muttered to myself as I ducked under a stray bullet while sprinting down an alley. Not too long after my escape the rest of the police force mobilized to try and stop me. I've spent the past ten minutes running around Vale, ducking into alleyways, and sprinting around corners to try and ditch them.

Speaking of corners, I just shot around another one as a bullet slammed into the wall and kicked up some brick dust. As I quickly look around my new surroundings I silently thank my meager luck stat, a tall ladder was bolted to the side of the wall. I used all my strength and agility to dash at the ladder, using my momentum and even more strength to launch myself into a jump that would make an Olympic athlete blush. I launched myself a good sixteen feet at least.

Just as I grabbed the ladder I got myself a notification.

[Due to the use of a special action, the skill "Power Jump" has been created!]

[Power Jump (Active) Lv1 EXP: 0.0%]

Jumping is something the average person can do, but with the introduction of Aura and your very own muscles you can jump higher than that average person! Flip across the battlefield like a pinball of death or just use it to get into those hard to reach places, the choice is yours!

Height jumped is based on the player's STR, DEX, and the amount of Aura(MP) put into the skill. The higher level the skill, the less Aura is needed to go a certain distance.

MP Cost: Varied

Cool beans, jumping around like a Jedi sounds pretty sweet. Climbing the ladder up didn't take much time and I managed to pull myself over the edge of the building in no time at all.

"There he is!" Shouted a voice just as I stepped onto the roof.

I turned my head and saw a gaggle of policemen come running around the corner, one of them dramatically pointing up at me. I can assume he was the one who shouted.

"Shit, I was hoping I'd lose them before they came around the corner," I muttered to myself and took off across the rooftop. It wasn't all that big of a deal, they'd just have a better idea of which general direction I was headed. As I neared the edge of the roof I held my hat down with one hand and powered up my newest skill for a jump onto the slightly taller building in the way. Might as well get a feel for things while I have the chance to use it.

I wasn't sure on how much I needed to use on my skill, not like the skill's description was of any help, so I just dumped two hundred Aura into it. Once I got near enough to the edge I jumped and used the skill, sending me more than high enough to clear the distance and do a flip for style.

I landed crouched and began running and roof hopping my way over Vale.

"Minimap," I thought to myself. A transparent screen popped in front of me, giving me a detailed idea of where I was. "Alright… so I just need to go there, turn that corner…" I muttered to myself as I jumped into a construction yard and carefully planned my route back to base, I didn't need anyone to follow me there after all.

A rather large and very loud boom interrupted my thoughts and I came to a sliding stop in front of a crater. My minimap blinked out of existence as I readied my cane. The dust cleared and my favorite policewoman was revealed in its epicenter.

"You know," I started. "You really shouldn't destroy the ground of this construction site. Those workers put a lot of effort into making it just right you know, you're wasting precious tax money doing things like that. Not that I care, really. I don't even pay taxes."

She kept silent as she tensed her body and darted straight at me.

I made my move the instant she moved, dodging her first strike and slamming my cane into the back of her head. Or that was the idea anyway, she ducked under that swing and used her legs in a classic leg sweep. I gracefully backflipped over that attack, a feat that if you asked me a few months ago I'd deny I'd ever be cool enough to do, and hopped a bit further away from her.

"Not feeling up for pillow talk? Such a shame, and here I thought young girls liked a bit of romance," I mocked as I used my new skill to even better use to jump over another attack, this time Jeanette's fist smashed into the ground. I landed on one of the girders of this new building's metal skeleton.

I eyed the new crater her fist made, "Seriously, just what is your problem with the ground tonight?"

"Shut up and fight me! This is serious!" Jeanette shouted up at me.

I tsked and shook my head, "No can do, blondie. I have very important plans I need to move forward on and I can't waste anymore time dancing with you tonight."

She leapt onto the same girder with me and went straight on the attack. "What plans?! If you're planning on hurting the people of Vale then I'm going to stop you!"

I leaned aside and let her fist sail past my chest, "Now now, I'm not about to tell you all of my plans. Do I look like some sort of cheap two-bit villain to you?" I hooked my cane around her outstretched arm and used her momentum to flip her over my shoulder. She slammed into steel, but that didn't seem like it would slow her down.

As expected she picked herself right back up and she charged me once more, not like there was much room for any other kind of attack. I simply power jumped straight up, grabbed the girder above us with one hand and swung myself up to the next level. This level of the building had more going on with it, a temporary floor had been constructed to cover most of it. I wasted no time and began sprinting across, a thud and more pounding feet signaled that Jeanette had also follow me up.

I jumped over a set of tools in the middle of the level's floor and scanned the area for anyway of escape, I really didn't feel like fighting right now.

Then, everything seemed to stop and my sight darkened by a lot.

I couldn't hear anything. My breathing, Jeanette following me, my feet pounding on the floor, in fact, I can't even move or breathe. But oddly I wasn't struggling for air. A bright blue screen appeared in front of me and I knew it had something to do my Gamer ability.

[You have just encountered your very first quick-time event! These special events sometimes appear whenever you do something that needs to be done using quick reflexes. Quick-time events are often combat related and can only be triggered when on the defensive.]

"Interesting…" I thought to myself as I blinked and mentally made the box blink into the next one.

[A quick-time event relies heavily on the Gamer's dexterity stat and also takes into account various speed, perception, or reflex buffs and debuffs to increase or decrease difficulty accordingly. As you will likely come into contact with these events often, it would be a wise move on the Gamer's part to increase their dexterity whenever they are able.]

[While in a defensive quick-time event you will see vague shadowy "ghosts" that signal where an attack will likely strike. The darker the ghost, the closer this particular attack of the event is to follow through. Be sure to place yourself out of harm's way before it goes completely black.]

[Bullets are slightly different, each bullet has a brightly lit path it follows that fills up as the bullet reaches you. Because of the speeds bullets can reach, time will stay slowed down as you react to them. If there are multiple bullets coming your way then it is up to you which bullet you'll react to first. Remember, if both a normal attack and a bullet attack are coming at you at the same time, any action on the normal attack will resume time and you won't be able to do anything further on the bullets.]

Kinda weird, I've deflected bullets before and they didn't trigger this "quick-time event". Even if deflecting bullets is admittedly mostly instinct based on my part, I can still do it easily if the weapon my enemy is using is a single shot. Guess this new addition is meant for something more… tactical? Make it easier against rapid fire? I mean, I'm pretty sure I can't casually deflect bullets from a machine gun or Gatling gun without some sort of assistance. Those things shoot really fast.

[How much time, in your perception, you have to react before the outline turns black is determined by your dexterity and any buffs or debuffs that apply. Once you are out of the way, you decide to block or parry, or if the ghost turns fully black, then time will return to normal.]

[Please note: time will resume and be slowed, not stopped, upon closing this box and the quick-time event will begin. In the future, you will not receive a prior warning when a quick-time event starts. Your personal movement speed during the quick-time is also affected by your dexterity and other speed buffs or debuffs.]

[Quick-time events can be rendered obsolete by obtaining certain skills.]

This was unexpected, but I guess it isn't something inherently bad. Hell, it sounds kinda fun.

I closed the box and immediately started turning around, everything was slowed down exactly as the short tutorial said. I could see the black outline of some sort of rectangular box slowly turning black in front of my face. I glanced over at Jeanette and saw a brick slowly tumbling through the air at my head. With all the speed of my slow-motion movement, which is agonizingly slow coupled with my perception of time, I slowly leaned to the side matrix style and let myself do a bit of a rotating hop.

Time resumed its normal pace the instant my face was out of the way and the brick nearly shaved some skin off my nose. I used my hand to spring myself back to my feet and make the momentum of my dodge turn into a sliding stop. I had a brief moment to reflect on how easy that quick-time event was, but I figured it was probably because of our differences in dexterity.

The two of us stood facing each other in the middle of the floor, Jeanette armed with more bricks in each hand. The silence and stillness was only very brief before we exploded into action, Jeanette fired off one of her bricks. Time slowed and I made my move, which was a simple lean to the side. The brick sailed past me when time resumed, only to be slowed again as another brick outline was aimed at my face.

I didn't have the luxury of wondering if she had something personal against my face, the outline was turning black faster than before. I just barely got my head out of the way before the outline turned black and the brick slammed into a vertical girder behind me. I got a brief glance at the girder, it was dented and brick powder was still hanging in the air. Sheesh.

I jumped to the side as the world slowed around me as yet another brick tried to slam home into my chest.

"Where the hell is she getting all of these bricks from?"

I looked over at the policewoman and saw that she was standing next to a large stack of bricks.

"Oh."

I aimed Melodic Cudgel at the stack and fired off a few shots. Overkill, maybe, but they were kind of annoying.

Jeanette dodged the blast with a roll and came up pulling out a bulky looking sword she had holstered behind her back.

"Going for the melee approach, eh?" I asked the cop, readying my cane.

She didn't answer and simply flicked the sword to the side, the weapon began transforming from a simple looking and bulky broadsword into a machine gun. Just as the weapon finished clicking into place Jeanette slammed a magazine into the bottom of the gun-sword and pointed the barrel at me.

"Of course, it's also a gun," I muttered to myself just as Jeanette pressed down on the trigger and the world slowed.

I could see a lot of brightly colored lines pointed at my body, each one filling up to inch ever closer to me. I didn't have much time to work with so I used all of my intelligence to plan the best way to deflect all of the bullets and my dexterity to make that happen. I placed my cane into the path of the first bullet and felt the tiny bit of metal slowly bounce of my superior weapon, the second I was safe from that one I began moving my cane again. The next bullet was deflected, plus an additional one as I angled my cane in a way that caught two at once.

Hey, the tutorial didn't say I couldn't affect more than one thing at a time if I wanted to.

I spent what felt like minutes just slowly inching backwards while deflecting and slightly dodging bullets in slow motion or tanking what few I couldn't react to. When the last one was finally sent off away from me time resumed back to normal. Honestly, I wish I could have seen that from an outsider's perspective as it must've looked sick as fuck.

[Quick-time event has ended!]

I brushed the tip of my hat at Jeanette with a finger, "Thanks for the fun, it's been awhile since I've entertained a lady wanting to dance with me so badly." I twirled my cane and glanced behind me at the edge I've found myself at, "But I'm afraid I'll have to cut our date short."

With that I pointed my cane to the side and fired out of the building, hitting a crane holding a metal girder. Not the safest thing construction workers should do, but I'm not about to complain. I hit something important and it made the crane swing its load wildly around the site, I quickly shot my hand out and the charging policewoman and used a quick bind spell.

The swinging girder came by my spot and I flipped my cane around and fired the hook at one of the metal wires keeping it connected to the crane. I gripped the cane's shaft tightly and let myself be taken away, I immediately retracted the hook and dragged myself to the girder. I grabbed the hunk of metal with one hand and unhooked my cane, once the spinning piece of construction material passed over a different building I let go and dropped to the roof.

I wasted no time, sprinting across the rooftop and away from any crazy cops. I winced at the sound of screeching metal and only glance back to see the building tearing itself apart.

I dramatically opened the doors to my safe house, making the nearby goons jump in shock and ready their weapons. Good, that means they aren't completely useless.

"Anybody miss me?" I asked the crowd.

My sharply dressed men just stared at me like I had grown a second head, I just sighed and closed the door. Jerry, my ever faithful Commander of the Goons (That's not to be confused with "Second in Command", that spot is reserved for Neo) came running up to me.

"Boss! You're back already! I thought you said you'd be there for a few days at least?"

I cracked my neck and replied, "Well, I had a hunch that they, or one of them at least, were trying to streamline me through the whole booking process. Instead of staying in a holding cell for a few days while they dealt with bureaucracy, I would have been shipped off to an actual prison by the next morning. That would've been a lot more annoying to deal with."

I pulled out a cigar and lit it, taking a deep drag, "At least I came out of this with an official mugshot for my record, so I'd say this whole thing was a success despite not making much money off of it."

"We managed to get some loot," Jerry supplied. "Not as much as we hoped, but it's still something."

I nodded, "Good, get that sorted out if you haven't already, I'm going to go plan and think for a while. Tonight was a bit of a setback, but if we let every close call with the authorities hold us back then we'll never get anything done." I pointed my cigar at the general direction of the rest of my posse and grunted out, "Also, all of the men will be doing some combat training. I don't like that you all can't hold out even a little bit against a single super cop."

"Got it boss," Jerry saluted and rushed off to get stuff done. God, I'm so glad I got him.

I walked over to my planning area and studied the map of Vale for a bit.

[Story Mission Completed!]

Reward: 50,000EXP(+25,000EXP with title bonus), 25,000 Lien

[Tier 2 Title "Kingpin" Unlocked!]

[You have gained a level!]

[Your bounty has increased by 10,000 Lien!]

I dismissed the notifications and checked out what my new title is supposed to give me.

[Kingpin - Tier 2 title]

You are now recognized as a legitimate player in the criminal underworld. You have gained some notoriety and at least a few will recognize who you are on sight. Keep it up and you will rise even higher than a small time Kingpin.

-Guild membership limit increased by 30.

-When completing a Guild Mission with your minions, gain an additional 100% EXP from the mission.

-When fighting with your minions, your minions gain an extra 50% in damage.

Wow, that's a pretty big upgrade from the previous title. Hell, the extra Guild members doubled, the extra EXP I gain from Guild mission's doubled, and the damage my minions do when I'm around more than doubled.

I switched my titles and focused on the large round table with an empty fruit bowl sitting in front of my map of Vale. I opened my inventory and started placing some of the dice I stole from a shop along the way into the bowl, when the bowl was full enough I picked it up and said, "At least half will land on an even."

I dumped the bowl over and let the dice roll across the table, a good portion of the dice landed on odd. But fortunately, pun intended, luck, heh, was on my side for this first attempt.

[You have gained 2 Luck!]

I grinned in delight. Sure, I only gained two luck because my luck stat was low and I was using a lot of dice at once, but it proves that if I mix things up enough then I have the best luck grinder in the world. I'm just glad I don't need to gamble with money, luck isn't that narrow.

Time to plan which place to rob next and grind luck.

Hi.

Name: Roman Torchwick

Class: The Gamer

Level: 38 (Next Level: 56,420/74,100)

Title: Kingpin

Bounty: 38,000 Lien

HP: 2,544

MP: 4,326 [3,328 + 166.4(5%) + 832(25%)]

STR: 49 [Base 35 + 10.5(30%) + 3.5(10%)]

VIT: 64.4 [Base 46 + 13.8(30%) + 4.6(10%)]

DEX: 164 [Base 80 + 12(15%) + 24(30%) + 8(10%) + 40(50%)]

INT: 142.8 [Base 102 + 30.6(30%) + 10.2(10%)]

WIS: 56 [Base 40 + 12(30%) + 4(10%)]

LUK: 13

Elemental Affinity: Earth (10)

Attribute Points: 10

Lien: 3,628,690

Status Effects: Inactive Aura(Toggled Off)