31

O(I)O(I)

Niaz woke from his eye sockets roasting in a bath of sunlight. He was alive; unsurprisingly. He was also vexed at the realization he once again lost to the mob looking adventurer without a scintilla of mana or magical armor; couldn't use high tier magic or even a weapon at the sellers' market—he was bested by one punch.

He crossed his arms and tried scowling his expressionless face.

"I am the primordial god of this world; nothing can be defeat me!"

He vexed his vanquishment long enough to look ahead and see the engrossed faces of four species: slime, dire wolf, pixie-dragon and funny enough a human.

He was affronted to see human(s) mingling with monsters. He could alleviate some of his pent-up aggression wiping out the insect and the traitors.

"Listen to me and listen well you insignificant insects. I am Niaz Aaol Gown; the most powerful undead sorcerer to ever exist and I want my world to be one where only monsters live with other monsters and humans become the fodder. I thought I could ignore you humans, tried to shelter myself in my church until all of you perished, but I lost it all not too long ago...and it was you human's fault." His hand glistened and tingled with the reeking aura of death. "Barid-"

His incantation was interrupted by the slime expanding, stretching until it was the size of a mammoth standing on its rear legs; it raised itself over Niaz. Niaz didn't stop his process of casting a spell.

"Baridagon!"

He conjured a ball of bright red that launched straight into the sky looming over the four creatures. The ball started gyrating like a spinning ball going faster and faster until flames burst around it, and a multitude of burning fire stones came straight towards the four passerby's.

That spell was a direct hit, but it only burned the frontal body of the slime. The slime retaliated letting itself fall and squashing Niaz Ooal Gown.

In the eldlich's perspective it felt like his cheek was punched and frozen, rewinded and played again trying just to see the viscid blue body of the slime. His horrific experience didn't end with him just being squashed, embedded in the hard dirt to eventually reconnect and pull his body back together.

The bubbling in the gelatinous body showed it wanted to dissolve him.

Niaz roared with vexation, he wriggled his left arm to cast a spell, even emanated a ghostly purple barrier shielding around his body—soon his body disintegrated.

The action of it left the male human quiet while the direwolf and pixie-dragon cheered for the slimes devouring. It shrunk back to its little smaller orotund form and jovially sprung back to its trio of friends. It leaped higher being caught by the warm hands of its "master".

He petted the slime gently as if it was a cat. "That's a good slime, Sui. Someone is getting an extra bowl of Jellyfish drake tonight."

The direwolf and pixie-dragon looked at the glittering in love pet and owner with unamusement. The direwolf eventually coughed.

"Remind me again which descendant of the wind god Kuhtune promised to protect you in exchange for three succulent meals a day?"

And the pixie-dragon looked at him with the same grubbiness.

He sighed, "Okay, all three of you can have extra drake tonight—sometimes I think I spoiled you."

O(I)O(I)

In City X a phone call rang on a cellphone. A thug looking man with a black shirt and black pompadour answered.

"Hello."

He was met with an unfeeling, robotic voice. "This is the police. Your sister is in urgent care. Please send five thousand Yen so we can use life saving equipment."

He was peeved so much he wanted to whack something with his metal bat.

"That can't be my sister—I killed her."

He expected them to croak when he said that, but they kept trying just as robotic as before.

"It's your sister here, Metal Bat. Please send-"

He didn't want to keep talking to the scammer; maybe if he was with his sister he could put her on the phone to see how they would respond hearing the urgent care patient good enough to speak.

He made a phone call to a person who would be averse to helping, but help all the same, Tatsumaki.

Before he could call her the City X train whooshed by, the glint of armed robbers in the windows. He took a deep breath and fell off the bridge feet first. He missed the train by the length of his pompadour.

Meanwhile, passengers of the train were shuddering and holding each other tightly whether they knew each other or not while a man wearing a white mask hand drawn with blue cartoonish eyes, green eyebrows, two maroon tallies agaped from another to resemble a nose and a red squiggly mouth with jagged grey teeth was skipping gaily between the scared passengers' seats.

His gun perforated two holes in the stewardess killing her, leaving a pool of blood trickling under everyone's seats. The exits were guarded by two more armed criminals in masks. One had a comedic mask with puttered red lips, one small green eye and a larger eye with a yellow circle and a green T slanted on the right side. The other had a scary blue wolf looking mask with a mustache.

In one seat a little girl was tearing up with her mother like a scared bunny nestling up to its mother. Her fears escalated to height of Elder Centipede when the man with jagged teeth approached her.

"I'm afraid were going to have to cull a few more people—starting with the youngest and most innocent."

He yanked on her arm prying her away from her mother's protective embrace.

The little girl struggled to break free but his left arm was wrapped tightly around her neck. He was smart enough not to open fire in a moving train, but he flailed his gun around with cocking sound ringing in the passengers adjacent to him ears.

"Can I have everyone's attention?" He said as if he was the owner of a fancy steak restaurant. "I just want to ask you one question: how much is this little girl's life worth—would you say one hundred dollars a minute? Of course you can say no, but can you live with the repercussions of doing nothing? Fifty-seven. Fifty-six. Fif-"

One of the passengers raised a five dollar bill to the ceiling.

"Please just take this bill and stop this madness."

"Uh, no. That's five down only ninety-five more to go. Thirty-four. Thirty-"

Before this bedlam could escalate into a bloodbath, the guard in the back was battered by a downward swing of a heavy object.

The one who bashed him was none other than Metal Bat. Knowing he was a rigid S-Class hero the gun man frantically ran to the door; the little girl still gripped in his arms.

Metal Bat took one step before hearing a cocking sound echo in the room. The third gunner in their trio of terrible harlequin stepped forward ready to fire in a tight space full of seated people. Metal Bat charged in headlong triggering the fight-or-flight response of the gunman firing enough bullets in a volley of gunfire.

Metal Bat needed help from his surroundings to survive this machine-fire, his instincts helping him slug a chair of a out of shape father figure launching in the direction of the gunfire before it crashed into the gunner.

He crashed on the ground, the chair toppling him where he laid trapped on the ground. Metal Bat expected him to lift that chair out of the way so he could hit him while it impaired his vision of what stood behind it—taking inspiration to how samurai's would hide behind a mountain than show up where the sun raised blinding their unfortunate foes—and it ended with him getting off easy.

He didn't have time to think on the failures of this man, he had a little girl to save.

O(I)O(I)

A little backstory of the gunman with the little girl: whenever he was upset about something, mostly ten years ago when his grandmother nattered "I don't know" constantly, he'd kick a tree.

He kicked the wall as a way to take out his anger. The little girl shuddered but still mustered her hope whispering a silent prayer that she and her mother would make it out of this safely. After she said her words, she pleaded one more time.

"Please don't hurt me. Even if you are a monster of a human you must still have feelings. Just take me back to my mommy...MOMMY!"

She screamed desperately the name of the woman who loved her her entire life, and she was squeezed on the neck for it.

"Next time it will be my gun-"

A loud metallic clank reverberated through the room. It happened so fast it startled the man—almost made the girl's heart jump out of her chest from all the stress she was under.

Very soon a multitude of jabs flurried through the door coming from the outside. It looked like the door was impenetrable, he couldn't knock it over. This realization brought a fleeting smile on the gunner's face. What was a victory smile quickly dissipated when a spinning bat crashed through the window and caromed its way to the door.

The doorknob was hit with enough force on the handle to push the door open.

The door slightly ajar for anyone on the other side to get in. Bullets were discharged from the gun from the gunner forgetting how dangerous it was for a gun to be fired on a moving train—any one of them could kill an innocent train passenger.

The gun stopped—not a sound or footstep came to be during his rampage. He tossed his gun roiling hot steam from the nuzzle, backed away from the door, his arms still having a tight grip on the little girl making her feel symptoms of dyspnea.

Suddenly, a strong pointed thing plowed right through the door and in no time after that leaped in the air; a long instrument came downwards and smashed the gunner in his mask—a simultaneous burst of lightning crackling and flashing when it did.

Metal Bat was too distracted whacking the gunner to notice the lightning. He soon glanced ahead of the mess of a human being to see the streaming tears and quivering arms and legs of the girl dragged into this insanity.

Metal Bat kicked the gunner out of his path—be right back for him after the comforting—opened the door to the next cargo cart. In the bath of light from a mid-afternoon day, her mother ran frantically with her arms opened wide in the room, frantically looking around until she spotted her fragile, teary child. She came close to her, hugged her while she was in shock, still quivering and crying sorrowfully.

"I thought I was gonna die!" She bawled like a good actor, only her shed tears were real.

Metal Bat felt sorry for her but knew he couldn't stay to comfort her any longer...

The lightning struck again and this time he had a good look at it's color: pink.