Neckception

Returning to the city was easy with my newly enhanced range to my blink ability. I used wind riding as stepping stones along the way.

WIND RIDING HAS LEVELED UP!

2 MILES PER HOUR!

LEVEL 2

It still wasn't that useful, other than as a way of floating in the air while I used my blink ability; however, given that it doubled each rank, I was going to have to spend time trying to level it up.

Finding Vista and Shadow Stalker in the ruins of the city wasn't going to be easy. My best option would be to make myself visible in the air, and let them alert me.

As it turned out, it wasn't hard to find them. The giants had knocked over houses, trapping people inside, and Shadow Stalker was slipping into houses looking for survivors while Vista used her powers to increase any gaps so that they could escape.

A large crowd had gathered around them, and they had people carrying the wounded away on stretchers. Everyone was silent, staring at them.

They gasped as they saw me floating down to come to rest beside Vista.

"You guys need any help?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said. She was focused on opening a pathway. "The guy in there is too big for Stalker to carry, and nobody here seems to understand us."

I nodded. Peering inside, I saw a badly injured man. He was on his knees, using his body to cover two small children. He looked as though he was on the verge of death.

Stepping into the path Vista had made, I reached down an touched the man. He was a large, well-muscled man; obviously a warrior given the sword on his hip.

I healed him of forty-eight hit points and he still had injuries let over. I wouldn't be able to heal hm again for two minutes.

He blinked at the sudden lessening of pain.

Standing, he stared at me. I knelt, and touched each of the children in turn. They'd been injured despite his protection; without it, they'd have surely died.

"Get out," I said, pointing toward the entrance.

They stared at me, but they obeyed. I followed them, and the moment I was out, the house collapsed behind me.

I jerked as a woman grabbed my arm.

"Healer!" she begged. "My husband was burned."

Before I could say anything, the mob crowded me with cries for help. People had been injured, and they were begging me to save their loved ones.

I blinked to a spot ten feet above them.

"Take me to the largest group of wounded," I said as the crowd fell quiet.

There were arguments in the crowd before a consensus was achieved. The crowd pointed in a direction, and I floated behind them.

There was a large square which looked like it had once been a market. The giants had destroyed several of the buildings, and the center of the square had been made into a triage center for the injured.

There had to be at least two hundred people on the ground, moaning and groaning. Most of them were burned over their entire bodies from the tall giant's steam.

I started at the southern end of the row, and many of them had been burned badly enough that they didn't even feel it when I touched them for healing.

Some screamed when I touched them, only to immediately sigh in relief as all of their injuries were healed.

Some had already died, and there was nothing I could do.

It took me twenty minutes to heal them all, in part because some of them insisted on thanking me profusely.

People were staring at me more and more with what looked like almost religious awe.

My healing ability went up a level, allowing me to heal 56 hit points a level.

There were two hundred more people at the next place; from what I could hear, once people heard what I was doing, they'd started consolidating the injured into a second spot.

These people were less injured than the first. There were a lot of sprains and broken limbs from people who had been hurt while running from the giants.

When people began bringing the ill to me, I had to gently tell them that my power did not work on illnesses, although I was able to give some of them advice about possible ways of dealing with their illnesses based on my first aid skills and my general knowledge.

I heard the sounds of marching feet while the people were gathered around us, reaching and grabbing for me.

The crowd began to disburse at shouted commands from the leader of the group. It looked like they'd send five hundred soldiers, all armed with primitive looking rifles.

"Get ready to get Stalker to a rooftop," I said. "I'm not always the best with diplomacy."

"You three!" the man at the head of the column shouted. "You will come with us."

I stared at the man, trying to get as much information as I could out of him. He was visually tense, with an expression of worry on his face. He had a thick brown moustache covering his upper lip and a thick beard, and his hair was slicked back.

"And what if we don't?" I asked. I put my arm around Vista. "This girl here could kill the lot of you without even trying, and I'm much more dangerous than she is."

Vista couldn't understand what I was saying, but she looked up at me suspiciously.

Pointing at Shadow Stalker, I said, "She's kind of weak, but she's still immune to anything you could try to hit her with."

The commander gestured, and five hundred rifles were pointed in our direction.

As much as I would like to use my shiny metal form, bullets still hurt me. I gestured to Vista, and she and Shadow Stalker disappeared.

The crowd behind me screamed and scattered to the winds.

I waited until they were safe, and then I leaned toward the commander.

"So, are you going to shoot me, or are you a pussy?"

"Fire!" he screamed.

I blinked behind him, and I punched him in the back of the head for 11 points. He looked dazed, and I hit him again, and he went down.

The soldiers were desperately trying to reload their weapons, so I just danced around them, inventorying their guns as quickly as I could. I used my enhanced strength and fighting skills to kick their legs out from under them. I didn't want one of them to be killed by his fellows just for being next to me.

I'd inventoried sixty guns when the soldiers began to fire again. I had to turn silver to protect one soldier, and I was hit four times for 48 hit points.

My physical resistance went up by four points, and it occurred to me that maybe I should let myself get hit more often instead of dodging everything.

I continued to dance, and now the soldiers were loading and firing in waves. It began to rain, and I danced between the raindrops frozen in midair as I inventoried more and more of their weapons.

Despite my best efforts, I was hit four more times while trying to save soldiers from their comrades.

My physical resistance was now up to 48%.

ARMORED SHELL HAS LEVELED UP!

+30% TO PHYSICAL RESISTANCE.

-15% TO DEXTERITY AND REACTION SPEED.

-6 DEXTERITY TOTAL.

LEVEL 2.

I was still fast with armored shell, but it was noticeably harder to dodge bullets, and everything around me seemed to go just a little faster.

Still, I finally collected all of the weapons, and I wasn't bleeding. There was nothing to show that I was injured other than the bullet holes in my clothes.

The commander stared at me.

"I've got your guns," I said, grinning. I grabbed the closest soldier, and inventoried him. "I could do the same to your soldiers."

It was a bluff, of course. I could only inventory two people for three minutes each. However, he didn't know that.

He grimaced.

"Release him at once!" he yelled.

It looked like he was from the old school of law enforcement who believed that screaming at people would force them to comply. It worked with some people, but it escalated things with others.

I tended to be the second sort.

"All right," I said.

I released the first soldier fifty feet in the air. He screamed as he fell, and I caught him telekinetically a moment before he would have fallen face first onto the pavement.

"Where do you want them?" I asked. I lifted him into the air, farther and farther into the sky.

"Do you think he would splat like a bag of blood?" I asked. "Or will he just bounce?"

I had lifted him two hundred feet into the air when the distance between him and the ground suddenly decreased to two feet. I looked over at a rooftop to see Vista gesturing at me angrily.

I reluctantly released him.

"My associate asks for mercy," I said. I released the man to fall to the floor. I then released the other man. They both scrambled to rejoin their comrades.

"But it occurs to me that a man like you doesn't really care about the people under his command. You probably got the job because you're related to someone important."

I could see from the uncomfortable expressions on the faces of his soldiers that I was right.

"So, we need to have a private talk," I said. I blinked beside him and inventoried him. I then blinked away, far enough that Vista couldn't see me.

I blinked my way all the way out into the forest, and then I blinked to the top of one of the tall trees. I released him, and he shrieked as he saw where he was. He lunged for me, and I blinked away before he could reach me.

He almost fell, and I stood easily ten feet above his branch, standing perpendicular to him.

"Why did you attack us?" I asked.

He carefully lowered himself and grabbed for one of the branches.

"I don't talk to monsters," he snarled.

"All right," I said. "Maybe I can find someone more willing to talk to me."

I blinked to a tree twenty feet away, then to another, forty feet away.

"Where am I?" he yelled.

"The forest outside the walls," I said, blinking next to him. He screamed and almost fell off the branch. "I'm sure you'll be able to climb down the tree and walk back to town. Of course, you'll have to be quiet. Those giants are walking around here."

A misshapen head rose up to stare at us, and he screamed and stared to fall.

I blinked behind the monster, and I used Far Strike on the back of its neck. I then blinked next to the man and caught him almost as he reached the ground. He vomited noisily as I reached into the back of the things neck.

Nothing.

I grimaced.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

"Did you know some of these have human pilots?" I said. "Not many; I've only found two so far."

"What?" he stared at me.

"Yeah. I think they're directing the others. I've got one of them in storage. I planned to show them to your leader before the body disintegrated."

"If that's true," he said. "Then you need to show General Zackly."

"So, you won't try to murder me just because I saved your city and healed four hundred people?" I asked.

He'd fit perfectly in with the PRT.

Shaking his head, he said, "This is too important. If you are lying, I'm sure the General will deal with you better than I ever could."

"Well," I said, "Let's go, then, commander."

"I'm just a captain," he muttered. "Kitz Weilman."

"Taylor Hebert," I said. "I don't attack heroes. You'll notice that I made sure not to kill anyone, even when they were shooting at me. If anyone harms either of my two companions, however, I may decide that you aren't heroes at all. I doubt that you'd like the results."

"Save the threats," he said tiredly. "Soon you'll be the general's problem and not mine."

"All right," I said. I held my hand out to him and shortly afterward we were back in the city.

I dropped him off with his troops, and they arranged for us to have an escort.

"What did you do to him?" Vista demanded.

"I found that some of the giants have people in the back of their necks. It seems like they are leading the dumb ones. He thought that was more important than continuing to be a jackhole, and so we're being taken to their leader."

Weilman yelled something about his weapons.

"You'll get them back after I meet the general," I said.

That took three hours as it turned out. That gave them time to put the general in a box too small for anyone else to fit into.

It was a decent precaution. I could inventory bodies in boxes, but I wasn't sure I could do the same with someone who was still alive.

They'd put us in the middle of a square with a dozen cannons pointed in our direction simultaneously. There had to be two hundred troops on the walls all around us, and they were all pointing weapons at us.

I kept my hands on the shoulders of Vista and Sophia. I'd inventory them at the first sign of trouble, and then I'd be gone before the bullets could hit me.

My arcane eye was in the air, making sure that they weren't moving troops behind the walls or preparing some other kind of attack.

The General spoke.

"I have heard unbelievable reports about your…abilities," he said. "But the claim you have made seems even less believable. What proof do you have, that this claim is true?"

"One of my abilities is to send things away and bring them back," I said.

I inventoried Sophia, then brought her back. She shot me a glare, but looked at the guns around us and didn't pull away. While she could undoubtedly phase and avoid being shot, I was her only way home. She didn't even speak the language, despite her last name.

"I found bodies in two of the monsters I killed," I said. "And I chose to store one of them just in case you people didn't know they were leading the monsters."

"Show us," he said.

I nodded, and the body of the female giant appeared before me, her body pulled halfway out. I'd been a little horrified that the girl inside was younger than me, but she'd been involved in a genocide against seemingly innocent people.

Everyone started murmuring.

"You killed a kid?" Sophia asked.

It bothered me that she didn't seem horrified. She seemed impressed.

"I didn't know they were kids," I muttered.

"Both of them?" Vista asked.

"There was one by the gate," I said.

Men swarmed the monster, pulling the bisected body away from the disintegrating remains.

"She's still alive!" one of them said.

I blinked at her, and sure enough, her negative hit points were ticking up by a point every couple of minutes.

It looked like she was already growing toes at the base of her torso. Her bottom half didn't look like it was regenerating. That was too bad; otherwise I'd be able to create an army of them.

Everyone looked shocked and a little revolted.

"Didn't kill anybody after all," I said. "Oh…that probably means the one at the gate isn't dead either."

"I left another one outside the gate. You might send someone to pick him up before he wakes up and gets away."

The general cursed and issued a command to the people beside him. One raced outside the track.

The general stepped out of the box, and he moved to stare at the disintegrating body.

He then looked up at me, and gestured.

The guns pointed at us immediately were dropped. The atmosphere seemed much friendlier.

I was staring at the girl on the ground's neck. If I cut her neck open, would she finally die? Would I find a smaller person inside her neck, and then a smaller person inside that neck?

It would be like neck-ception.

"Welcome," the man said. "You have done us a service that we can never repay. All that we have to offer is yours."

"Will you be able to repair the wall?" I asked.

"The Titans do not move at night," the man said. "We will have people working around the clock. It is my understanding that you have cleared the immediate area."

"I can't be sure of that," I said. "There was another one in the forest."

"We will do what we must. Wil you stay and help defend us?"

I translated for the others.

"I've got curfew," Vista said.

"Some of us still have school," Sophia said.

"I am responsible for these children," I said, "And I must return them to their families. I have business in my home world, but I will return in the future when I have the time."

Before he could say anything, I touched the girls and inventoried both of them. A moment later I was back in Brockton Bay.

It took me no time at all to reach the Rig. I dropped the girls off on the top of the building, and their clothing beside us.

"Do they have recording devices up here?"

Vista nodded.

"You should get these two into quarantine immediately!" I said. "Especially Shadow Stalker here. She's a dirty, dirty girl."

Vista giggled while Sophia glared at me.

I could hear feet racing up the stairs.

"See you gals later!" I said brightly. "I've got people to kill and worlds to save."

I was gone long before the door opened.