Chương 73: R&R2 Ch. 12 — Just a Patrol

Jasmine twisted through the air, her head ringing. That had hurt! It hadn't broken through her armor, and it was unlikely to have actually done anything to her, but it had rung her bell something fierce, and she was not happy about it." Barrage""Are you in a fight too?"

"I mean, he shot me too, but your rings blocked it, and between him hitting you and shooting at me, I figured out where he was." Nicholas said, not sounding to upset about getting shot at. Jasmine was more mad about him getting shot than her getting shot. She was in big armor! He was in sci-fi urban fantasy wizard robes!

"Wait, what do you mean, was? Did you take him out?" Jasmine asked, looking around for the unconscious body of their opponent.

"Teleporter, short range but moving fast, my bolts are chasing him so that's how I'm tracking him at the moment. If I can get eyes on him, I can do a better solution." Nicholas explained shooting through the sky at the sword's top speed. Jasmine shot after him. It was basically a chase scene: the teleporter on the run, Nicholas chasing the teleporter, and Jasmine chasing Nicholas.

She could not wait to give the teleporter an introduction to her hammer, because she was pissed, and it was not going to end well for him. Though she wasn't sure how they were supposed to stop a teleporter, and if he got a weapon bigger than whatever gun had rung her bell, it was going to be a problem for both of them." Mark" Nicholas's command shook the world, a telltale sign he was either angry, or the word was new and he was using power to fill in the gap experience and practice were supposed to be.

A hot pink glowing figure appeared in her vision.

"Retort?"

"That's him. You're faster than me, so go," Nicholas said as he pulled out Book. He wouldn't be able to use any commands himself while the mark was active, so it made sense to pull out the new toy, even if it rankled her sensibilities that they had to use it so soon. Jasmine remembered what Rend had told them. It tasted like bile, but this was the perfect moment.

"Focus on patrol and conserving energy," Jasmine said, kicking up the speed as gravity and momentum warped to her will.

"I can take care of him now." Nicholas wanted to object; she could feel it, and she knew he could tell that she wanted him to object. But he didn't, letting her shoot off into the distance to chase the teleporter. The teleporters' jumps were slowing down, and they weren't going nearly as far. If Nicholas hadn't released an auto-tracking attack and then followed to see him, Jasmine would have never caught him. She caught sight of him for a second before he flickered, reappearing behind another building.

Jasmine was pretty sure that he was a line-of-sight teleporter since his previous position would have let him see that spot. At least she hoped that was the case. Line of sight teleporters were slightly easier to deal with. In the same way that most people would prefer fighting a pyrokinetic instead of an electrokinetic. Not fun, but certainly better than the alternatives. And she had the knowledge and plan to deal with one at least if he was inexperienced.

The moment she could see the man's gun slung over his shoulders glowing the hottest pink she had ever seen before she reached out with her hammer. He fell up into the sky, twisting and spinning around like a top. It wasn't always a perfect method, but if he spun around like a top, he wouldn't know where he was supposed to be going, and if he tried to teleport out… He flickered a few feet away upside down and six feet into the air, crumpling into a pile and started to vomit. That would happen.

Jasmine lifted him up before reaching into her soul forge and pulling out a blindfold she had made on a whim.

"Target," she said, pointing at him. The strip of cloth ripped through the air, wrapping around his face and securing itself tight enough that even Jasmine's physical strength shouldn't be able to break it. Jasmine waited till he was done puking his guts out before lifting him with magic and flying up to find where they're supposed to drop off criminals. That hadn't been something that had come up when looking for date locations. This novel's true home is a different platform.

Support the author by finding it there. But the giant spire in the sky wasn't a hard location to find, so upon finding it Jasmine tore through the sky. She could feel Nicholas doing something with their bond, but she wasn't sure if it was a fight he found boring, or if he was patrolling like normal, or if it was the secret third option. Nicholas performing for children about the wonders of being a superhero.

The idea of Nicholas doing that was so damn laughable that Jasmine almost crashed into a building, which would have been all sorts of embarrassing, thankfully she had only swerved wildly laughing. This tower was really fast about processing new villains, or it was because she was a trained super and they were giving her a faster process.

"Heading back," Jasmine said, launching into the air and flying to where she felt Nicholas.

"It'll be good to have you since I'm fighting right now," Nicholas said dryly.

"What do you mean I didn't sense any commands going on?" Jasmine said, kicking up the speed.

"Book, I didn't know if you were done yet so I couldn't get rid of the mark." Nicholas replied. Right, she had forgotten about that. Hopefully, it wasn't going to be something that came back to bite her." Finisher""Are we really not going to get a chance to patrol together at all?" Jasmine complained.

"I'm heading to where you are, so just patrol that area," Nicholas said, and she could feel the eye roll. Jasmine rolled her eyes at his eye roll. Just because he was entirely correct didn't mean that he needed to rub it in.

"Don't worry, I'm sure there'll be plenty of trouble for both of us," Nicholas said simply. That was the truth; as important as the trains were for infrastructure, they always came with a huge uptick of problems for the city for at least a week with everything going on. Jasmine hoped that neither of them would get roped into one of the various super on super fights. Or, more specifically, hero on hero fights.

Jasmine was good at fighting supers, and she honestly didn't mind it, but when it came to having to fight other heroes, she wanted nothing to do with that. Her mother wanted her to prepare for the tournament in a few years, but Jasmine hoped that could be during some major injury that left her unable to work for a few years. She and Nicholas could rest and not have to worry about all of that. She knew it wouldn't happen like that. Her grandmother was in charge of the tournament. But she could hope.

The odds of another superhero taking issue with them was low, so she hoped that it wasn't going to happen.

"I feel like you've just cursed us," Nicholas said, flying up alongside her having dropped off his criminal.

"I did not."

"So you weren't fervently wishing something you thought about wasn't going to happen?" Nicholas asked. She had done that, but Nicholas didn't know; well, he did since he probably felt the wish. But curses, while real, didn't work like that, and they hadn't fought a curse super or Beyonder.

"I was not doing that; I was thinking about how we should probably look for bigger fish." Jasmine lied." Ping" Jasmine hadn't realized that was also a look for trouble word; she had thought it was just to see if anyone was looking at them. Not that she felt like Nicholas needed that particular word; it wasn't like people tried spying on them that often. Jasmine then remembered their mentor. And she thought Nicholas may have been a little bit slow at making the word he should have gotten onto it sooner.

"Follow me," Nicholas said, tearing off to the north towards Jasmine didn't know what. Something that caught his ping. They came to a battlefield with abilities flying through the sky.

"Big enough for you?" Jasmine laughed as they dove into the fray." Playroom" The command rippled across the battlefield, people all over turning to face them. That suited their needs just fine. The ability to tell friend from foe wasn't something that came naturally for most heroes, but Jasmine just needed to wait." Mark" Book's command intoned across the battlefield, and people were marked in red or blue colors to denote if they were hero or villain.

With the force of a meteor Jasmine slammed into the nearest villain. And because she could, she used her powers to pull three more villains toward her. Nicholas had already made a box to hold them, and he was now focusing on cleaning up the battlefield and reinforcing the nearby buildings, which was basically permission for her to cut loose. Emerald energy rippled across the battlefield as green runes formed along the backs of her enemies.

"Up!" Jasmine cheered, like she was Nicholas' gravity warp word, forcing them all to start falling upwards. It was a horde of people, their rank or lower, so it wasn't like most of them had flight abilities, and the ones that did Jasmine or Nicholas would pick off without issue." Lullaby" Jasmine almost let herself get caught by the song. But she knew what was going on. He was thinking about what Rend had said about them and was trying to figure out his own answer to the situation.

In short order, the two of them had subdued every single one of the villains, and Nicholas had provided some on the spot healing to other heroes.

"Drop off, then fix?" Nicholas suggested as he gestured to the destroyed area. It wasn't what they would be told to do. But it was the heroes they were going to be.

"Yeah, that's the plan." Nicholas nodded before taking off into the air." Up" Nicholas would keep the prison up, and Jasmine was going to have to be the one to move it. Either of them could do that if they really wanted to, but this way they used substantially less power.

"Three jobs in less than an hour, this is going to be rough, isn't it?" Jasmine said blandly. It wasn't like steering a giant stone box full of prisoners actually required that much concentration. She felt the amusement from Nicholas but it was too late to stop him.

"Oh, it's not that bad," Nicholas laughed. She couldn't believe he had said such a curse. The result of the curse didn't take effect until they had finished cleaning up the destroyed block. That was when hell broke loose.