Chương 30: R&R Ch. 30 — Nickel for Giant Robots

Nicholas's voice was killing him as he flew through the sky riding one of Jasmine's swords. Today there were patrolling separately, so he was finally free to use one fully under his own will and it was quite the experience. Honestly, Nicholas wasn't that good, and it was weird having his power drained by something other than his words. Though the sword was just about the easiest thing he had ever used his powers on. The friction runes on the blade to make sure he wouldn't fall off were quite nice as well.

That was about the only good thing going on, since Rend was in charge of sending them off wherever he pleased and their mentor had decided Retort was the hero for all the direct combat issues. And Retribution would handle all the flexible problems. Ones he could have solved without issue.

"Retort great news! There's a stone golem that needs to be crushed. We think it's an earth manipulator taking a statue for a joyride." Rend said as Nicholas grumbled. Jasmine's force hammer would have made short work of it.

"Wouldn't it be better to subdue the super and return the statue?" Nicholas asked curious as he swung around to change directions.

"Yeah, no way easier to pay for a super to make a new one chop chop. I have a bet going on which of you will do better," Rend said before relaying a mission to Jasmine. Nicholas was glad he wasn't dealing with her mission, though Jasmine seemed excited to go fight an army of battle weasels. With the job being to specifically break through the rock, that narrowed down his options considerably.

There was only one half-finished word that he was mostly building out of boredom than any real thought it would be important. It was just embarrassing if he thought about it too long. Atop the flying sword he made a pretty decent figure as he stared down at the statue.

"Any chance you'll let go, otherwise I'm going to have to break your toy," Nicholas said, arms crossed.

"The word sidekick to the sword girl is going to break this? Good luck," the golem rumbled. On the bright side, Nicholas supposed it was good that their names were beginning to get out there.

"If you're that confident, would you let me get the first move?" Nicholas asked, hoping this guy would fall for it. The guffaw is an answer in and of itself, but the earth manipulator gave Nicholas more than that.

"In what world would I do something like that?"

"The world where you're as dumb as your element or you decide to make it easy for me but if neither are the case I guess we need to do this the hard way," Nicholas said, weaving backwards as the golem lumbered for him. He needed to get this guy farther away; his one method to break through it was a little bit difficult to use in such close proximity to residential areas. As he discovered, Nicholas also learned that it was effortless to lead a villain on and make him follow Nicholas.

All it required was to just be a prick and dance just out of range. Nicholas barely even had to say a word, which was good because he was concentrating his power until he couldn't hold it. He was going to do this in a single strike, and half of that was making this effort look effortless.

"You really are pathetic. I mean, I'm not even a flier and you can't catch me," Nicholas taunted, doing a flip on his sword as he flew away cackling. Once they were far enough from any civilian areas, Nicholas stopped trying to fly away.

"You done running?" the golem said, their voice rasping.

"No, we're just in the right area for me to beat you." Nicholas yawned. The fight began in earnest with the golem swinging its mighty fists while propelling chunks of stone to try and crush the young hero. Nicholas wove underneath the attacks, his fist slamming into the side of the golem. His fist, as an almost entirely mundane person, was practically useless; it hurt his hand more than it did anything to the monster."

Impact" An explosion of force followed the fist; the rocks spraying through the air as they shattered.

"Hey look, I broke through it," Nicholas said, waving to the super who had once been in the center of the golem. Now in full view of everyone, with his armor gone.

"So, do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?"

"Easy way," the geokinetic whimpered, his fortifications destroyed.

"Sorry, but you made that decision, remember?" Nicholas said, smiling." Lullaby" The world shook and the would be villain fell asleep, barely being caught by Nicholas before the golem could crash to the ground in a heap. It seemed like he would have to call that word a success, it only actually put weaker enemies to sleep or those that were particularly susceptible to the attack. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

When he had tried it on Jasmine, all it had done was make her a bit lethargic and react slower, which had already been acceptable.

"Done with the golem," Nicholas said, carrying his quarry while he rode the sword back to the town center.

"Hah! I win! I'm already done with the battle weasels!" Jasmine cheered.

"I am in awe of your majesty," Nicholas intoned, not sounding awed in the slightest.

"I am so very whelmed with your response," Jasmine said and Nicholas could imagine her sticking her tongue out at him.

"You two are doing alright; we have another three hours till you're ready to go home," Rend commented.

"No new jobs, so just keep patrolling separately." Nicholas grimaced. Another three hours was going to be awful for his energy, and his throat was killing him. More than that, his mental reserves were running on empty after the party, the poor sleep, and then the training. Once his quarry was dropped off, he was flying through the sky this time sitting atop the sword to conserve what little energy he could.

Standing versus sitting was only a little bit of energy conservation, but a little bit of effort could be the difference, and Nicholas was a fan of taking incremental advantages. Two fights between normal people. One super in the form of the golem. And a bunch of small jobs that mostly involved cleaning up after other superhero fights. Part of the reason he was so set on making sure he wasn't one of those. The cleanup sucked and tons of people were such that they couldn't help with it at all.

Nicholas was great for cleanup, though he had to come up with new words for it most of the time instead of relying on the ones he had. Though he could use playroom to make sure he could fix everything the earth manipulator had broken. At that thought, Nicholas sighed, flying towards the scene of the battle so he could begin cleaning everything up. His fight, his mess, his responsibility. He would take care of it.

Jasmine found it very difficult to entertain children in a hospital. Her swords weren't exactly polite for that company. There was nothing to shoot since her gun was a little too explosive. And well, the hammer was for smashing things. Jasmine promised herself that after this wave was over, she was going to make a hecking magician costume so that she would be able to impress everyone. Because despite her absolute lack of talent for this kind of work, she loved it more than anything else.

This was what she was meant to do as a hero. You could keep everyone safe, and that was potentially the kind of hero one could be, but she wanted to be something else. A hero who could inspire, making people feel safe. One that made them look forward to the next day. And part of that was learning how to impress kids who were having a hard time. Despite her surprise, the gravity build was actually the fan favorite.

Everyone loved the ability to fly, even if all she could do was float people around and spin them in a circle. Though this was more exhausting than actually fighting. She couldn't help them; what was the point in being a superhero if she couldn't help everyone? She could make them smile a little bit today, but they were still sick. She would make her healer armor. And then Retort and Retribution would once a week visit hospitals, healing everything they could.

Even if she had to sacrifice one of her days off for it. And she would bully Nicholas into doing it as well. An hour later her charges were back in their rooms resting from playing as she flew through the sky, hammer first. Right now she wanted a problem she could solve with a strike.

"Retribution, we have a pileup caused by someone turning cars into mechas you think you can manage it?" Rend asked, breaking her out of her thoughts.

"Yeah, I can handle that, flying over."

"Retort, you're done with your patrol so you can head back or go help Retribution."

"What do you want me to do?" Nicholas asked from their personal channel.

"I want to handle this on my own but I won't risk it so come watch over me?" Jasmine asked as she created force scripts that would accelerate her faster and faster.

"On it," Nicholas said. Jasmine spun together another circle of magic, causing her to throw herself even faster. Her favorite setup was definitely the force and gravity hammer. It let her fly. She could protect people, sort of; she could deal with multiple enemies, sort of. And she got to hit things with a massive hammer. It was everything she wanted to be out of a hero, and she was always grateful her mother hadn't been able to convince her to go with a more ladylike gear setup for her favorite armor.

Next rank up, she would see if she could fit in more enchantments for her perception. She was already beginning to push on the most she could handle while flying around. When the five-story mecha came into view, Jasmine's first thought was she was glad that they were in the middle of nowhere; it could topple buildings! Though it probably only got so big because they were far from the main parts of the city. Nobody wanted downtown destroyed, so even when a weak villain popped up, high-ranking heroes dealt with it.

Here it was just Jasmine. Well, Nicholas was probably somewhere nearby, but she didn't see him.

"I would rather not break everyone's cars," Jasmine said, flying around till she found the cockpit of the mech.

"So, would you please stand down?" She couldn't actually tell what rank her opponent was either his veil was good or the armor he was wearing made it so she couldn't tell anything about them specifically. There wasn't any more power flowing through the mech than she had flowing through her weapons and armor, so she didn't think she was being outclassed. Hopefully. This could always be one of those people that were hiding their strength. Jasmine pushed the thought out of her head, tightening her grip.

Rockets flying out of the rocket is a good enough response. Barriers of emerald force block them as Jasmine rocketed forward, an emerald missile that slammed into her enemy hammer first, crashing into an arm and sending the robot stumbling back a step. Jasmine realized she would need to hit harder.

"Come on," she said to herself as her power built. As she dodged, sending blows that could vaporize concrete out when she could without reducing how much power she was building. Not only could the person control the mech, he was reinforcing it something fierce.

"Here in case things go bad," Nicholas said quietly, being the herald for the end. Not that Jasmine needed the help, at least she didn't think she did. But he had spoken the moment her armor reached critical levels of power. Jasmine flew up like a comet before soaring downwards. Her hammer brought back for a powerful blow aimed at the hips and legs of the robot. She didn't want to risk the cockpit after all.

Her hammer slammed down onto the hip of the robot with the force of an angry meteor crushing a huge swath, but that was only part one of her attack. Arcs of green energy pulsed as the attack triggered again, this time with a multiplicative force, blowing the thing apart.

"It doesn't matter how much you build?" Jasmine said, floating over to look at the cockpit hammer slung over one shoulder.

"I'm going to smash it because that's what heroes do."

"I surrender," the pilot said, walking out of their ruined mecha, hands raised in surrender. Jasmine flew her quarry back to the center before she and Nicholas were finally free from duty.

"Does it concern you how little we're seeing the other supers our rank?" Nicholas asked as they began walking back home.

"Not really, normally they play sidekick or work in big teams. Rend just sends us off."

"I can't decide if I'm grateful or pissed." Jasmine couldn't either.