Chương 109: 22 - MAN OF FORTUNE

Mitas Corlander floated above the Looter's Paradise. He wore heavy golden armor over a long olive green military coat. It fluttered in the wind, as did his silver-blonde hair, as he breathed in the air of destruction. A levitation loot held his body still in the air as if his feet were planted firmly on a cloud. Unlike normal men, he didn't need a floor to ground him. He wasn't bound by the same laws as everyone else. Being above it all felt right. It was his mountaintop, and he should be standing there alone.

It bothered him that there might be others in the world who might've been treated as Gods. It was blasphemy, and he was here to smite them. He lifted his hand as a flaming ball of rock formed above him. Then he cast it down, striking the head of the Bestower, the statue at the center of the town, made of white stone in the image of a false God. He listened to the ants scream in terror as the image of their worship was defiled, and it brought him pleasure.

A few of them dressed in shoddy police outfits shot at him with the powers formed by their loot. It all bounced off him as a spec of dust would. His own loot made his skin nearly indestructible. His eyes glowed, taking account of each of them.

"All loot I already have in abundance." He wasn't going to lift a finger against them. They weren't worthy of it. Instead, he sent the Lightning Specter. It was a being of shadow, outlined by violent blue sparks of electricity. With its own arm sharpened like bladed gauntlets, Corlander's attackers were no more. He lowered his body closer to the ground. Three more Gracelandians came at him, yelling about how he desecrated their great statue and how the Bestower wouldn't stand for it.

He searched through his catalog in his mind, eventually deciding that these bugs should be squished. So he closed his fist, activating his gravity loot, forcing their bodies to the ground, squeezing harder and harder as they struggled for breath, and he could hear their ribs breaking from the pressure. But he didn't kill them. Watching them squirm, on the shattered white concrete, he asked them, "Where is the Bestower? If you tell me, you might live."

"Fuck you, man." One of them squeaked out.

"Poor choice of final words," he said. A sword emerged from the ground, immediately piercing the man's chest, causing his cohorts to yell in pain as he himself choked on his own lack of breath.

"What about you?" Corlander asked the next one in his gravelly old voice.

"I'm simply here seeking my missing piece. That doesn't need to involve you further than it already has." The man on the ground seethed, grinding his teeth so hard from the gravitational pull that they were beginning to crack. Corlander couldn't tell if he was being defiant or if he couldn't speak due to a collapsed lung. It didn't really matter. He snapped his fingers, and the man burst into flames. Then Corlander went to stand above the last one, whose head was being pulled to kiss the dirt.

He made sure the man couldn't look at him, but that he could see Corlander's black alligator boots inches from his own nose.

"I'm a man of fortune," he said.

"Do you know what that's like? To be so sure of your place in the world that you would do whatever it takes to get there. It's like your soul burns every moment that you don't have it. It's painful. And the pain doesn't go away until you can sit in that place and you can rule it… Yours won't be quick like the others. It'll be a hundred times worse than the pain in my soul for every second that I do not know WHERE THE BESTOWER LOOT IS!" He suddenly started shouting.

"I don't know where it is!" The man shouted back.

"He doesn't tell anyone. I've never even seen his face. Please just stop. Let me go." The gravity lifted. The man slowly lifted his head up to the blood-red-glowing eyes of Mitas Corlander, who shook his head.

"That's a shame. It appears you're telling the truth." The man then started coughing, his face turning a bright green as he held onto his throat, and then his hands, and then his face. The skin itself was melting off of him, burning by way of some acidic liquid now coursing through his blood. The man started screaming.

"But I'm a man who keeps his promises."

"CORLANDER!" He lifted his head. He didn't recognize the woman's voice, but it was surely one that recognized him. He turned to see a young woman, seething with rage. Short dark hair, slim eyes, in nothing more than gym clothes and a track jacket. She pointed a pistol at him.

"What have you done with Tyene!?" she continued to shout.

"Ahh…" he remembered.

"You're the little runt I hired to guard my stepdaughter. What was your name again?"

"It doesn't matter. Answer the question." He crossed his arms, the gold armor around his forearms clanking together.

"Vienna Misling. That was it. You and that famous one-track mind. How should I know where Tyene is? If I'm not mistaken, she made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with me. That I imagine is why you two spent all this time avoiding me. I've been courteous to that. I don't have the time to deal with a little girl's tantrum."

"Don't lie. It was your henchman who took her." Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Corlander gritted his teeth.

"German Casas is no longer an employee of mine. He decided to steal from me, and thus we have parted ways." he considered a moment, taking note of the fierceness in the girl's eyes and the loot in her neck.

"How about a trade instead? Tell me where I can find the Bestower. You always excelled at your job. I'm sure you cased every inch of this city before you ever let her anywhere inside it. You know where he's hiding. Tell me, and I'll help you find them. I have plenty of loot useful for that kind of thing." Vienna stood still, considering, but her grip on her gun tightened.

"I know better than to make a deal with you." He scoffed.

"You still work for me. You're still protecting her under my orders. Why stop now?"

"Because I serve Tyene. Not you. And I know better than to trust a word out of your mouth. As soon as my back is turned, you're going to try to take the loot thief." He started laughing again, realizing somehow he'd given his game away and he'd been bested.

"Well, you're mistaken about one thing… I don't have to wait until your back is turned." He shot at her with a stream of lightning out of his hands. Reacting, Vienna activated a forcefield milliseconds before it could strike her. From inside the field, she summoned psychic debris from the buildings he'd destroyed, blasting them at him. He stopped them with his own brand of psychic power, holding them still. She charged forward, firing three shots.

"POW! POW! POW!" They only deflected off his hardened skin. She threw away the gun, unequipping and re-equipping her loot. Corlander watched her suddenly speed off at untrackable speeds… untrackable without a reflex loot. He watched her everywhere she moved, even when she jumped above him, hoping to burn him with a hard blast from flame loot.

"Burn!" She yelled, trying to melt his skin where she couldn't pierce it. He used the same debris she threw at him to block the fire and expelled the chunks of debris back at her. She propelled herself off one of the pieces, flipping in the air and re-equipping again. This time to smoke, wafting a thick black cloud around the square where they fought, cutting off Corlander's vision. She had come prepared, each piece of loot in the pockets of the bag around her torso.

She had them separated in the smaller compartments, knowing exactly which pocket each one was in when she needed it, swapping it out with peak efficiency. This was one of the strengths of the Loot Thief at its full potential. But what was the ability to trade out a few at a time when he had it all at the same time? He swept away the smoke with a whirlwind, funneling it into the sky. Vienna appeared underneath him, swiping up with a flaming sword. He met it with his own golden great sword.

The metal clanked, and fire whooshed around them. He summoned a flurry of razor wire that wrapped around her body, threatening to squeeze her bloody. She vanished with a puff of smoke, summoning more to further obstruct his vision. Then a flurry of spontaneous combustions burst into flame right on his body. The first impact actually managed to burn his hand. The second and third he blocked with a forcefield.

"An explosion loot. How brutish?"

"TELL ME WHERE TO FIND THEM!?" Vienna shouted, still sending explosions at him.

"You are hardheaded! Nothing more than an attack dog!" he shouted inside his protective field.

"Perhaps you would've been useful if you weren't so stupid!" The Lightning Specter then appeared behind her, slashing his arm with immense strength. She reacted, blocking it with the flame sword, but the electricity shot through the sword, shocking her entire body. And the beast struck again, not killing her but slashing across her chest, through her jacket, cutting the bag from her body and sending them both flying in different directions.

After landing hard, she picked herself up to a knee, too weak to stand as the electric wraith disappeared in front of her. Corlander approached her. And defiant, she went for his throat. But before she could summon a weapon, an unstoppable force pulled her to the ground, and she felt like her ribs were about to implode. It was the gravity loot.

"That's enough of that," Corlander said, flexing his hand.

"I think I'm getting more used to combat now. I imagine you see the pointlessness of this fight now."

"End it then. Because I won't stop until I find Tyene." Corlander sighed, letting up slightly on the gravity. Only enough so that Vienna could look up at him and see the monstrosity behind him. A meteor half the size of the island, hurling right towards them all. Corlander was wrapped in his forcefield with a quizzical look on his face. He was going to destroy the entire island with everyone on it. Gracelandians, his own men, everyone, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.

Anyone except for Corlander himself… He snapped his fingers, and the meteor exploded from the inside, raining harmless pieces of rock in the ocean around them.

"See," he said.

"What reason would I have to lie to you? People who lie are people with a reason to be afraid. With all this power, what do I have to be afraid of?" he knelt.

"I'll speak to you in your own language… the only way you're going to find Tyene is if you give me what I want. I am a man of my word." He stared, leaving her a moment to think. But that's when he was attacked again. More Gracelandians, realizing their potential savior had been defeated, thought they might surprise him with their pointless attacks. One of them, though, dropped some sort of can, spraying the area with some chemical gas, which blurred his vision for a moment.

But only for a moment, as his wind loot shooed it all away. Then he sent the specter after his attackers. But looking back down, Vienna was gone.

"What are you doing? Put me down." Vienna said. T'balt had her in his arms, dropping her on one of the city's beaches. He did what she asked, laying her gently on the sand. He had his bag in one of his hands, having picked it up once it separated from her, and equipped the speed loot to get her away from Corlander in the commotion.

"You alright?" he asked. Vienna snatched the bag from him, re-equipping to mend the wound in her chest with a healing loot.

"I'm fine." She finally said.

"That Collector's loot really is something. Corlander's way too strong to take on directly. Sorry. But I felt like I had to step in." Vienna stood back up, looking around.

"What are you doing?" T'balt asked.

"I'm going to find Tyene."

"The man was right about one thing… You do have a one-track mind." Vienna scowled at him. He put his hands up in peace.

"Look, I understand wanting to protect someone. But I don't think German would hurt her. But right now, the people here are going to be slaughtered by Corlander if we don't do something. Tyene can't be worth more than the lives of all these people."

"She is," Vienna said sternly.

"She's the only person I've ever had. I won't give her up for anything. Do you understand?" T'balt dropped his hands.

"Well, you haven't tried to kill me yet, so you've at least got some morality in you outside of that. Like I said, I don't think she's in any danger. But these people here don't have anyone protecting them. I don't think their prophet is showing up. We can help them together, and then we can find Tyene together." Vienna stayed quiet for a moment before saying, "There might be a way we can stop him." T'balt took that as the closest thing to a yes he was going to get.

"And what's that?"

"The Bestower. We find the Bestower."

"Wait. You really do know where he is?" She nodded.

"If we can find him, we might be able to stop this." T'balt sighed.

"Then lead the way." He watched her walk away, hearing the sounds of battle and suffering from the city around them. He couldn't help but wonder, "If the Bestower really is here, why hasn't he come to defend his city?"