[A/N]: As we very well know, this story's gonna get more and more direct with heavier topics soon. We're still transitioning to it so stuff's still light, but expect anything and everything and brace yourselves.
Also I ended up sleeping in... the storm made my bedroom really cold and comfy
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Oracle must have seen what was happening to the man that Lucian presumed to be Richard Orwell. Though not quite a scream, she did raise her voice as she said, "Revenant, you need to get out of there. Flee now and regroup."
Lucian ignored her. He had already prepared for a quick and decisive battle. Though fighting someone jumped up on Venom wasn't something he was excited about, Orwell was no Bane. He would be cautious still, but he was already resolved to fight—both because of the women still in the basement, and the threat that Orwell posed to the neighborhood.
Drawing one of his handguns, Lucian emptied its magazine into the biggest target in the room. Every wound he made was laughably shallow, and deformed bullets were pushed out of them in moments. The injuries sealed up at a visible rate from there—though they left only scabs and didn't seem to heal the damage all the way. Thankfully, Orwell seemed to still be recovering from the whiplash of his own transformation.
"Revenant," Oracle called out once again from Lucian's helmet, "I'm telling you to run. This isn't a threat you can deal with right now—especially not alone."
Lucian ignored the stern words and brought Full Cowling to its limits. He kicked the fallen dinner table as a preemptive strike that would double as a distraction. While it did hit Orwell, causing him to stumble as it broke on impact... Alec jumped out of the way and ran for the front door. He should have expected that, and yet he didn't.
"Oh, no you don't!" He exclaimed, and summoned the Blink Blade into his hand with a flash of light.
Gripping it by the blade, he launched it in a furious retort at Alec's audacious attempt to escape. What with his prone stance, it sailed low through the air and struck Alec's left calf with a wet tearing noise. The force alone tripped him up, making him fall onto his back and stunned at the sudden injury.
[ Combat EXP: 10. ]
[ Next level: 535. ]
That was when [Danger Sense] forced Lucian to roll away, avoiding a stomp from Orwell that caved in the floor where he once was. Chunks of tile flew every which way, and Oracle spoke more warnings and pleas all the while. Lucian kept ignoring her even as an overinflated mass of flesh and bone loomed over him. Tattered clothing weakly clung to Orwell's hulking frame, torn so badly that they might as well have just fallen off completely.
Spinning quickly on his upper back, Lucian countered with an upward kick that connected with Orwell's jaw. There was a loud snap as his foe stumbled backward, and by the time he returned to his feet, Alec was already gone. Tires screeched on the road as a vehicle tore off into the night, visible through the curtained windows.
'Sandra must've helped Alec into that car! Shit.'
Lucian couldn't afford to worry about it, though, and he was glad that Oracle seemed to have given up on convincing him to leave.
Now that he was upright, it was easier to get out of the way as Orwell swung for him in a simultaneous slap-and-grab. In petty retaliation, he grabbed Orwell's arm in turn as it sailed over him. Hefting it onto his shoulder, he pulled down as fast as he could. Venom's enhancements failed to hold up in the face of One for All's power, and the elbow bent the wrong way with a dull snap.
He didn't stop there. While his foe was still stunned from what he'd done, he crouched to lower his center of gravity. With a mighty heave, he sent Orwell flying overhead and slammed him into the floor, making it even more of a mess than it already was.
That wasn't enough to win the fight, though. Much too fast for someone whose body was so overgrown, Orwell reached out with his good arm and tried to grab Lucian again. He succeeded, and his massive, sinewy hand clamped down with enough force to bruise skin and make bones creak under flesh.
Lucian grunted in pain. With a flex of his will, the Blink Blade flashed back into his hands. He jammed it into Orwell's wrist and twisted, right between where the radius and ulna met. It became Orwell's turn to vocalize his pain, and Lucian dashed away the moment the grip around his leg loosened.
With a calming breath, he took a stance that kept his blade pointed forward. Across from him, Orwell rose again with a series of wet snaps and crunches as his broken arm jerkily returned to normal. The blood vessels around the injury glowed a brighter green than the rest of them around his body. The puncture wound in his other arm had mended as well, scabbing over like the bullet wounds he'd taken before.
'That's... inconsistent,' Lucian observed. 'I should steal some Venom if he has any more so I can study it.'
He braced himself for what he intended to be the final exchange. The swordsmanship he spent two years learning in the Academy should be enough. Though he couldn't call himself a master swordsman, his instructors applauded him for his innate aptitude. Coupled with his improved physique and enhanced mind—not to mention One for All—he should be able to put a decisive end to this battle without too much risk to himself.
Orwell charged, a barreling mass of swollen flesh and glowing green veins. Lucian met him even as one of his legs creaked with pain, surging forward as dark shape wreathed in purple lightning. The tiled floor splintered into jagged fragments under their feet.
Lucian ducked low and slid on the still-intact sections of the floor as Orwell dove for him. As they passed one another, Lucian turned and swung his sword in a wide arc. Orwell's bulging calves were cut open, the flesh cleanly severed. Blood sprayed from the wound along with streams of glowing Venom. The muscle bubbled and writhed soon after the wound formed, already working to at least seal itself shut.
When both Lucian and Orwell lost momentum, the latter was forced to his knees by the damage to his legs. He was only able to avoid total immobility because of the sheer power contained in his upper body.
Wasting no time, Lucian threw his sword. It jammed deep into Orwell's shoulder, drawing a pained, distorted wail as it pierced right up to the crossguard. Lucian closed the distance and leapt onto Orwell's enormous back to deliver a snappy and most forceful punch to the nape of his neck.
When that would have reduced a normal person's vertebrae to a pile of mush and bone dust, it only knocked Orwell out.
[ Combat EXP: 25. ]
[ Next level: 510. ]
Panting, Lucian summoned the Blink Blade out from Orwell's flesh and leaned down to get to looting. In a conspicuous pouch on Orwell's belt were two injectors. Green light filtered out from the gaps in the metal casing where the vials within were visible.
"Jackpot," he whispered. "Oracle. Any idea what this junk is?"
She hesitated, but replied anyway. "That looks like Venom... it's basically a super steroid if you haven't heard of it before. Bring it all to the clock tower so I can study it. This variant seems... stronger than what I'm familiar with."
Orwell's body had sealed its wounds with thick scabs at this point as Lucian stood vigilant over him. His body steamed while shrinking, and blood dripped from his nose, leaving narrow trails that ended in tiny pools on the floor.
"I wanna keep one of 'em," said Lucian. "It'd be good in an emergency."
"No," Oracle replied. "You completely disregarded my instructions just now and didn't even respond. If I can't trust you with that, I can't compromise on this. If you want leeway to do what you want, then you'll have to earn the trust for it. Right now, you're in the negatives."
Lucian hummed, tying up Orwell's limbs now that he had returned to normal size. "Fine," he said eventually. "Back to the job though," he continued. "Now that all hostiles have been dealt with, I'll go check the basement."
"... please do," Oracle replied. "Don't touch the captives directly, though. I've already called ambulances for them, so we shouldn't risk anything unpredictable involving you like what happened with Miss Watson. Just make sure they're safe and sound while you're down there."
With a nod, Lucian stepped around Orwell's bulky, unconscious body, favoring his right leg as he made his way into the dark basement. Luckily, there was a light switch at the bottom of the stairs. Turning it on revealed to him a sight that formed a blanket of prickling heat on the nape of his neck, as well as his upper back.
There were four dirty mattresses on the basement's rough concrete floor. Three of them had been arranged side by side, and the only one separated from the rest seemed to have been "quarantined" in the far corner.
On each of the thin mattresses laid a woman, and all of them were in a state of total undress. There were signs of fading bruises on the three that were laid side by side. Their eyes were completely vacant much like Tamara Watson's, all half-closed as if drugged to sleep. The only movements made by their bodies were what was necessary to breathe.
The lone woman laying on the mattress in the corner, though... she was moving. Not pained, not scared... not anything,. She just twitched and convulsed on occasion, and random vocalizations left her slack lips. The bruises were much fresher on her body as well, and the most recent of them came in the shape of a hand on her neck.
Lucian gritted his teeth, his mind conjuring up images without his input—thoughts of what Alec's victims might have suffered from their protracted stay under his "care."
While his emotions rose, something within him stirred. Something deep inside that was foreign and at the same time, familiar. Something alive.
Ignoring the odd sensations for now, he whirled around and cursed under his breath—there was nothing with which to cover the women's bodies. Jumping quickly back up to the kitchen, he tore the curtains from their racks above the windows. They were opaque cloth, thankfully, as opposed to the potential translucent or lace variant that some homes used. For that, he supposed, he should be grateful for Alec's sensibilities when it came to subtlety.
By the time Lucian was done preserving any semblance of dignity for Alec's victims, sirens came bellowing up on the street, both that of police cars and ambulances. With Oracle's approval, he shot across the house and fled through one of the back windows.
Hiding in the shadows of a nearby house, he stayed only as long as he needed to make sure that the arrests and rescues were handled properly.
[ Rescue EXP: 50. ]
[ Next level: 460. ]
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[A/N]: Took me a while to get this right. Should be good now. Chext napter should come next week on the usual time, plus the cover art. Coming up with a cohesive design is so hard, bruh.
Maybe I should change the direction of my art style... clearly, trying to commit too much to realistic fidelity isn't doing my any favors.