Chapter 12

Peter had a much easier job finding a target than last time. It was self-evident in a way. Criminals tend to be more courageous at night than in broad daylight, since it is much easier to hide in the dark.

This was another reason most the Fireflies would wear casual clothing because their uniform was bright red, making it useless for stealth. As a consequence, the easy targets basically made flares out of themselves.

The one Peter found was trying to pick open a bike lock and was failing miserably at it. There was no need for a distraction or to try to be quick. There was time to make sure everything was going to work out.

[Entity class 3.]

[Abilities: Flare, Fire manipulation]

The class 3 label was a bit intimidating, but Peter thought that as long as he got his opponent by surprise he could come out on top. The only uncertainty was that he didn't know what Flare was supposed to do.

He activated the Shadow body and carefully walked up behind his victim, then hit him with the method that seemed to be quite effective so far. After the hit the branch was still intact and his hand didn't hurt as much as it did before, but unfortunately the opponent was still standing.

The hit came as a surprise to the gangster and because of this he hit his head again into the bicycle he was trying to steal. Quickly getting back his composure, he stood up and turned around, to find no one behind him. He reasoned that he wasn't seeing anyone because it was dark and not because his assailant was hiding.

To solve the perceived problem, he used his ability to light up his own hands in flames. This action unintentionally revealed a slightly flustered Peter, who managed to get a few ideas about his opponent.

It was obvious that the man was immune to his own ability, but was also quite limited in its use. He was afraid that the man might start throwing fireballs at him, but they were standing in front of each other for a while and that didn't happen, so his adversary either couldn't throw fire at him or couldn't do it reliably.

He went to attack again but this time his strike was blocked and his weapon caught on fire. He tried to hit a third time with the flaming branch, but seeing that it didn't achieve anything he threw it away because his clothes were about to be caught on fire.

Instead of trying to attack again, Peter decided to fall back to the shadows. He wouldn't have done so against a someone else, since he also had trouble seeing in the dark, but the man's ability made him clearly visible even from a distance.

His opponent panicked after seeing him disappear. Peter waited around a little for him to calm down and think he's safe. When the gangster extinguished his hand, he ran behind him and grabbed his shoulders before kicking him in the back of the knee. The man reacted by flaring up his back, burning Peter's hands a little, but that was all he could do before he ran out of power and was left defenseless in the dark.

While all of this was happening, Anthony was conflicted. When the fighting began he considered jumping in and putting an end to the whole ordeal. He stopped however when he saw that Peter was handling himself quite well.

Then he had another problem to deal with. The initial hit was extremely loud, even without his super hearing, so naturally some experienced gangsters who had a good idea of what was going on, started to head towards the scene.

To avoid any unnecessary complications, he decided to take out the newcomers while trying to hide himself as much as possible. He was a well-known public figure so he couldn't risk anyone seeing him beating up random people at night.

When he was done with the last of them, he had time to think about his initial conflict. He certainly wasn't happy about his son going out to fight criminals at night, but he was also curious. The ability Peter used was new to him and this made him the only one of the orphans with an actual ability.

He also hasn't found a single worthwhile clue about that system thing the kids were talking about, so he decided to repeat in the future what he did that day, observe and protect Peter.

The boy in question was collecting the night's rewards, oblivious to what was happening around him. He got 30 UC from the dispatched officer alongside a nice little power boost for his efforts.

[Successfully absorbed class 3 flame blessing.]

[Result: STR +0.05, AGI +0.05, MGC +0.04, EXP +30]

Both father and son got home past midnight. Only one of them had trouble getting inside quietly.