Meeting espers

After the two had stared in the distance for a while, Boom suddenly came to his senses.

"Ah, I missed my chance!" He exclaimed.

"Missed your chance for what?" Fubuki asked confusedly.

"Krhm. I guess I need to inform you of this as well, huh. I want to date your sister." Boom decided to be direct.

"You what?!"

"I am in love with her." He said without blinking an eye.

"No, you aren't! What was this, your second time seeing her? Get real." Fubuki started to get irritated again.

"Fair point, but my decision is final. I only met her once, three years ago, and I still remember that moment perfectly. That isn't normal, right? On top of that, I had never actually thought about anything related to romance before, but after that encounter it has become a daily topic for my thoughts. And now, when I finally saw her again, it only confirmed my feelings for her. Trust me, this definitely is bigger than some random crush." Boom told her his impeccable logic.

"..." Fubuki couldn't make out any words for a moment. "Let me give you this friendly advice. She isn't going to like you back, so you're better off just giving up now. The first thought that will come to her mind when seeing you will be that you are a burden, I guarantee it."

"Thanks for you consideration. However, I could already tell that she will not give me a positive answer when I ask her out. My priority for now is to just let her know how I feel. I have to start somewhere."

"...She is also mean and got a foul mouth." Fubuki still tried to talk him out of it.

"Oh, come on. She spends her days fighting monsters and apparently evil organizations too. Those are acts of heroism. Anyone who does that can't be all that bad."

"Sure, whatever." Fubuki felt like this conversation wasn't going anywhere so she just gave up on it.

"Anyway, I need to go after her now. Do you know where she went?"

"Now? Why on earth would you go after her now? The timing couldn't be worse."

"There will always be an excuse to not do it. If I delay it now, I feel like it will become easier and easier to delay it later too, so it's better just go for it now. Besides, it's still in the middle of the day and I've got nothing better to do."

"...Fine, if you really want to go after my sister, suit yourself. She's likely to go to this location. Don't bother her too much, for your own good." Fubuki gave her the coordinates.

"Wow, thanks! I appreciate it, really." Boom started running to the direction of the given coordinates.

Fubuki silently watched him go and sighed.

'Such a shame, he would have been a fine addition for my group. If only he wasn't dropped head first to the ground as a child.'

***

Boom was currently standing in front of a storage house in city J.

"This should be the place but I can't feel her presence here." He pondered for a moment wether to go in. "Oh well, maybe she's just hiding it."

He opened the door and went in and found a dark, empty room with stairs leading downstairs.

"Talk about creepy."

When he got downstairs, he found another empty room, 2 unconscious people laying on the floor. Boom recognized them to be the twins from before.

'Yikes! No mercy, huh.' He thought as he saw the gruesome state they were in. He then proceeded to wake one of them up by knocking his forehead once as if he was knocking a door.

The man woke up and immediately started pleading, with dried snot and tears still on his bloody face. "Please, no more! I'll never hurt your sister again! No, I'll never even see her again! I swear on my life! Let me go, please!"

"Wow wow wow, hey. Wake up." Boom had to gently slap his cheek a couple of times to get his attention. 'Note to self, never harm Tatsumaki's sister.'

"What happened here? Where is Tatsumaki?" He asked the fearful man.

"S-she's gone?" He looked around, searching the room, until he finally realized who he was talking with. "It's you!"

*Sigh* "Yea it's me. Now tell me where Tatsumaki is, and then we can go our separate ways."

"You'll let me go if I tell you?" The blonde asked to which Boom answered with a nod.

"She questioned us about our hideout, so I'm guessing she went there after dealing with us."

"Coordinates, please." Boom handed him his mobile device and the blonde filled in the coordinates. "If I find out you lied to me, I'll make it my life's mission to find you, and arrange a meeting between you and Tatsumaki." He then knocked the psychic unconscious with a hand chop to the back of his neck.

***

This time, the coordinates led Boom to a small, broken down mountain south-east of City L. That's right, the mountain was broken down. It looked as if it's top half had been ripped off of it, wrinkled like a piece of paper, and then tossed aside.

"Wow, at least now I'm pretty sure I'm in the right place. But am I late again?" He didn't hear any sounds that was expected from a battle that left this kind of aftermath.

There was only one way to find out. He climbed the half-mountain and found a large hole in the middle with no end in sight. He dropped down and jumped from wall to wall to cushion the landing in case the fall was too big.

After a long drop, what he assumed was about a km, he finally saw the bottom which was the end of a corridor that was lit up with candles on both sides. Since there was only one way to continue, he followed the path before him.

***

"Hmm?" A green-eyed man who was wearing a black suit, noticed something. His most noticeable feature was the 3 green stripes on the side of his black hair.

'An intruder? Surprisingly strong for a human, is it a monster?' The man pondered.

He then formed a telepathic link to inform the others to get rid of it. "An unexpected intruder has come to our base. I suspect it to be a decently strong monster. Get rid of it."

"Sure thing, boss. I'll go." A youthful male voice answered through the telepathic link.

***

The corridor lead Boom into a dead end in the form of a wall of rock.

'You've got to be kidding me, a dead end?'

He placed his ear on the wall and knocked on it, noticing that it was only about half a meter thick. He had wanted to come quietly but it seemed it was time to give that up. He broke through the wall and found an empty room with the path continuing from the other side. There was an empty table and 2 chairs that had fallen to the ground. There were some traces of blood on the wall on the right. Otherwise the room was empty so Boom kept going.

The following path divided several times and he always chose the right-most one. At some point, he encountered a boy who couldn't be more than 16 years old. He had dark brown hair and yellow eyes, and was wearing black sweatpants and a hoodie.

"Whaat, a human? Hey, you!" The boy shouted while pointing at Boom.

In response, he looked around the empty cave until stooping to look at the boy with a questioning look and pointing at himself.

"Yes, you! What are you doing here?"

"I'm here looking for Tatsumaki. Do you know where she might be?"

"Ohh so you're here for that little girl?" The boy's expression then turned into an evil smile. "Sorry, but she's not currently available, nor will she ever be to you. Since you now know about this place, I can't exactly let you live."

"N-no! There's a little boy threatening to kill me! Somebody, please help!" Boom shouted in sarcastic anguish.

"Tch! You really don't seem to recognize your bet-!" The boy gritted his teeth in anger, but was interrupted by Boom's face right in front of his own.

Next thing the boy knew, a fist connected to his stomach, causing his eyes to water, snot to fall from his nose and empty his bowels. The following neck chop rendered him unconscious.

Boom felt that the boy was about as strong as the twins from before, so he knew he could finish the fight quickly. He decided to finish it as fast as possible because he didn't want to drag the battle out and endanger the cave to collapse. The cracks formed to the ground by his quick lunge wouldn't cause anything like that.

On another thought, Boom could now assume the enemy was already aware of his presence here, so he needed to be careful of any surprise attacks from now on.

***

The leaded of the group, the same green-eyed man, felt the boy going unconscious.

'What? Jasper got defeated? Did I miscalculate its strength? No, it should definitely be equally strong to Jasper, at most. So the intruder is very skilled. Also, knowing Jasper, there is a possibility that he let his guard down. But he is only unconscious, and not killed... Could it be that the intruder is not a monster? A machine? No, the energy signal doesn't match that. A human? And skilled enough to defeat Jasper without killing him. Tch, I would like to go myself just to make sure, but I'm currently occupied. Those 2 should be handle it.'

He once again formed a telepathic link with the two remaining people. "Hairo, Matilda, Jasper got defeated. You 2 should be able to handle the intruder together, but I advice utmost caution. I now suspect the intruder might be human, but it is uncertain. It is currently headed to the base's western opening. I recommend you face the intruder there, since there is more space."

""Understood"" Both of them answered through the telepathic link.

***

Boom was currently standing in a large opening with a pondering expression, looking up at the 2 people who were floating in front of him.

One of them was a red haired middle aged man with blue eyes, wearing a brown sleeveless shirt and light brown shorts. He was surrounded by 5 floating swords, which he was controlling with psychokinesis. The other was a beautiful woman with curly blonde hair and light blue eyes, wearing a form-fitting, black one-piece dress.

Both people were staring at Boom with cold expressions, ready to fight at a moment's notice.

'Hmm, they sure are keeping their distance. I can't win against these guys the same way as before. It feels like these guys are a little weaker than the boy from just now, but now I have two opponents at the same time.' Boom thought and then asked, "Have you guys seen Tatsumaki?"

"You do seem strong, but not strong enough to beat Jasper that easily. As I thought, he must have let his guard down again. Im starting to wonder how that brat is still alive." The sword man, Hairo, said, ignoring Boom's earlier question completely.

"Never mind that. For now, let's focus on taking out this intruder." The blonde woman, Matilda said coldly.

"Ok, don't answer my question. I'm fine with that. It's not annoying at all..." Contrary to Boom's words, his face told a different story.

Soon, he started feeling the pressure of gravity increase several fold in where he stood. The source was the blonde woman, who was currently pointing at Boom's direction with her palm. However, it was only a fraction of what he experienced from Tatsumaki before coming here, and Boom knew she wasn't even doing it seriously back then.

What made things more difficult though, was 5 flying swords flying towards him at fast speeds, trying to impale him. But even this didn't concern Boom much. Even with the increased gravity, he managed to deflect the swords with relative ease.

"Wow, if you guys increased the gravity and pace of the swords a bit, this'd go for some pretty good training." Boom taunted them.

"Grr, don't get cocky! Matilda! We have to go all in and finish this quickly!" The middle aged man shouted to his partner.

Both of them gritted their teeth and veins started showing on their foreheads as they increased their psychic outputs to the max.

Boom could feel the pressure on him almost double, and had to actually get very serious. He didn't think these two could put him in such a disadvantageous position.

Moving under the increased gravity started to strain his body, and the swords were moving even faster than before. He had to fully concentrate on defense. If this kept going for too long, he might actually lose.

'Tch, this looks pretty bad. To think these two could exert this much power. I thought they were already using pretty much all of their power based on the gut feeling I got from them. On top of that, they seemed to want to end the fight as quickly as possible, so why did they start with only half of their strength?'

However, only after about 10 seconds from when the barrage had started, the pressure stopped and the swords fell to the ground. Boom then saw both espers fall from their floating positions to the ground.

"...What the hell?!" He exclaimed.

He walked up to them cautiously and confirmed that they were both unconscious.

'Did they go over their limits? So much so that they could only do it for that long. What a way to battle...'

Boom decided to leave them there and awkwardly continued the search of his favorite esper.

The exit from the entrance ended up in a corridor with several rooms that acted as bedrooms. There was a bed and a table in each of them, otherwise they were pretty much empty. Two of the rooms contained a person sleeping on the bed.

One of them was a muscular man with a brown hair in a crew cut, while the other one was a curvaceous lady with long, strait, purple hair. They were fully clothed for some reason. Boom tried to wake them both up to try his luck on asking for directions, but neither of them reacted in any way.

'Weird.'

Continuing his search after that, Boom started thinking.

'How come I still haven't found her. The other espers aside, based on that kid's reaction, I got the impression that Tatsumaki hadn't brought them any trouble at all. But when I saw her leaving the park earlier today, her expression didn't belong to someone who wanted to have a friendly meeting. The condition of the twins also said so. And based on the opponents I've faced so far, there's no way they could have bested her. Could they have someone as strong as her, or did they somehow manage to trap her. If the opponent was that cunning, they certainly haven't showed that to me yet.'

After searching the underground base for about 10 more minutes, Boom finally found the person he had come for. The problem was that Tatsumaki was currently in a pretty bad spot. She was laying on a metal table with her head and all of her limbs strapped into it. A man in a black suit was standing beside her. He seemed to be in his thirties and had black hair with 3 green stripes on the side.

"Welcome, intruder." The man said, not at all surprised at his appearance.