Chương 78: R&R2 Ch. 17 — Steady Progress

Jasmine was certain that Nicholas was not on his game; worse than that, the emotional feedback from their bond meant she was far from on top of her game too. There weren't many things that could truly throw her off, but her friends being in pain and afraid definitely did? Which wasn't helping the situation, as her own fear of not being able to protect them rubbed against Nicholas's fear, turning it all into a fear soup.

She thought his plan to go fight was asinine, but it wasn't even the worst plan she had heard of a super use to get over fear of being in the field after a bad mission. But as afraid of Nicholas was of not being able to keep up, she was just as furious about not being able to protect him. Yes, yes, she knew that realistically they both should be able to protect themselves. But even now she thought of their duo as a classic set up of the frontline warrior and the mage. And Nicholas was the mage.

Even when he had fallen unconscious, he had made sure to do everything in his power for her to succeed. She had failed just as much. The scream of pain as her sword sank into the arm of the strongman broke her out of her thoughts. It was fine to just blend Beyonder's but there was a reason she preferred using the flying sword build on monsters. Even if it was the one she thought was the coolest.

Now focused on the fight, Jasmine ripped through the nemesis, making sure not to cut them up too badly; it still hurt to get walloped by a magic sword even if it didn't cut you.

"That wasn't so bad," Jasmine said as Nicholas touched down on the ground near her. Their enemies were in no position to attack, not that they would get through the three floating barriers around him. Jasmine could break one, but it would take her basically everything to break one. Nicholas's defenses were good, and his research with authority had taught him some interesting tricks. Though he had complained loudly that he couldn't apply all of his tricks to the shield because he had to use it early.

"Are we escorting them or waiting for pick up?" Nicholas asked, stretching his wrists.

"Wait for pickup; we don't know if there are more, especially with veils that good it's likely they're part of a gang," Jasmine said, looking around suspiciously. They were about as common as cities, another option. As much as people wanted to pretend everyone had the choice to either just hide with their powers or go to a training program, there were more than a few groups working on the side. Hell, her family even sponsored one so they could have hidden agents to work for them for clandestine operations.

Jasmine was not going to be caught unaware. It took the city nearly an hour to send people, and that whole time Jasmine stood guard as Nicholas entertained the people who came by to watch him fix the battlefield. As much as she wished she could, her powers weren't currently suited to fixing stuff. At least not compared to Nicholas. She also probably shouldn't compare herself to someone who can manipulate reality with a word about how well suited her powers are for something, but he was her only comparison point.

Twister and the others didn't even do construction work in the places they destroyed. Most people just didn't have the powers for it or decided that it wasn't something they had to do.

"Next armor set I'm going to make something that can help with fixing everything," Jasmine said sullenly as Nicholas lifted a house with his powers to the amazement of several children.

"What are you thinking?" Nicholas asked while continuing to talk to the kids. She wasn't jealous of the skill set to carry on two conversations at once, but she wondered how she was supposed to learn it.

"Stone shaping? It won't help with houses as much, but most everything else it'll be solid for." Jasmine said.

"Some of the houses are made of stone too, there's a lot of construction done to be durable for off-hand attacks from lower stage supers," Nicholas pointed out as he returned the house to its proper place and reconnected all the components to make it livable. That was a good point.

"I just feel like I would be copying Playroom," Jasmine admitted, glaring at the speedster who was trying to move.

"Besides my first offensive word being impact to copy your hammer?" Nicholas asked. She could feel his eyebrow raising at her. Once the criminals were picked up and the children dispersed, they were back in the air scouting the city. Even fighting F-Ranks had been higher than she had originally planned on going, but it had been so easy.

"I think it's a setup," Nicholas commented.

"What is?"

"What are the odds a bunch of imps outbreak the same day as a group of F-ranks clearly from a super gang act? Not high, we already know they orchestrate stuff, so what's to say we're not missing something here?" The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Jasmine hated that Nicholas sounded like a conspiracy theorist. Almost as much as she hated the chance he was right.

She wouldn't put it past anyone to engineer events to help supers; it wouldn't do much for the higher end. The conditions needed to help them were so astronomical that something like this was barely a rounding error. But power didn't just come from the people at the top. With all of them more or less in line with one another, the lower ranks were what decided it anytime they went to war with one another. For most Pinnacles. Brynhild worked differently since she was an army. But it was broadly correct.

And it was a commonly understood fact that opening the walls of the city let stuff in, even if they had to do it for the trains to get through. Heroes usually kept it quiet enough because of the influx of new supers from the trains.

"Fuck," Jasmine cursed as she shot up into the air. Even if they could communicate via thought, it wasn't as if Jasmine thought her lines were impossible to break into. The height wouldn't stop anyone truly dedicated, but it would make most people think twice, which was all Jasmine could ask for at the moment.

"You think I'm right?" Nicholas asked, trailing after her.

"It makes sense, doesn't it? It all lines up too perfectly." Jasmine said grumbling externally as she continued the conversation mentally.

"Probably, but that doesn't mean we can fix it."

"Of course we ca—no you're right we can't." Jasmine said, going through the process as she spoke. They could probably be considered some of the strongest E-Ranks end of statement. And Jasmine could always use her grandma's name to throw some extra weight around. But that wouldn't accomplish anything. Until they were B-rank and strong enough to hold on to their own cities, it was going to be a lost cause. And even then they could only handle so much. At B, they'd likely be the weakest city owners.

"Do you think Equilibrium knows?" Nicholas asked as he surveyed the city.

"Their cities are markedly safer than anywhere else in the world, though Star Strike is a close second. Both of their territories have higher populations as well because of it." Jasmine said.

"You ever wonder if they have higher populations because they're trying to win a losing game?" Nicholas asked. Jasmine had never even considered that a question, but she couldn't help herself from spinning it out in her mind. Equilibrium and Star Strike were considered collectively equivalents to the Pinnacles. It's why there were functionally eleven of them. Two teams and nine individuals. Nobody was certain how they had done it either, at least officially.

Almost every pinnacle had defeated teams of S-ranks before, of equal or greater size. So there had to be something more than teamwork going on, but Jasmine wasn't likely to figure out what that was. But what Nicholas was saying made sense. The easiest way to get Karma and Belief was by impacting people. She knew there had to be a way to cheat; her family had flaunted that information just like everyone else. But if the population grew, then people would be able to ascend easier; no easier was the wrong word.

Just because you had the right numbers for it didn't mean that you could actually reach higher. Her mother was the perfect example of that; despite having the Karma and Belief to move to the next rank, she had been stuck for decades. It wouldn't make it easier, but it would streamline the process, they'd find out once they reached D-Rank on how much the higher ranks would need but Jasmine was becoming more convinced that perhaps the world was not as nice as she thought.

"If we have to fight my family, will you stand with me?" Jasmine asked.

"If I want to make the world a better place, I'll stand against everyone I have to," Nicholas confirmed. She didn't think that he had to sound so happy about it.

"We need to find out how their cheating power to get people to skip conditions. I know you can just pass it from one person to the next. It's how… It's one way I know, though apparently there are risks." Jasmine said, pausing halfway through. Her family's secrets were her secrets; those were fine to share. But not anyone else's. Not unless it was important enough that she thought it would make the difference."

Barrage" Jasmine glared at Nicholas even as he held up his hands in surrender, the bolt of energy blowing out the tire of someone who had been trying to win a car chase.

"You think we should get a super car."

"You fly, I fly, we have no need for a super car."

"But what if it turned into a mech?" Jasmine suggested. While they discussed the logistics of what vehicle mech would be good for them to use, they got back to work. They would be in the city for a few days, and they couldn't forget their mission. They had to help as many people as possible. Even if she hated the fact, it was a sick game to most. She tried to console herself that she was just compressing her heroics since she had been on a train for so long, but it wasn't working that well.

By early morning Nicholas and Jasmine were both in well enough form that she wasn't glaring at him every time he used something other than a defensive working and he wasn't freezing every time something surprised him in combat. That was not to say they were at their bests, even if they wouldn't need sleep for another day or two; they weren't used to pushing this hard for so long, and they weren't over what had happened to them in totality.

Just over it enough that they didn't need to worry about every random enemy being enough to throw them off. At seven in the morning, the call came.

"Yeah?" Jasmine asked, putting on the general communicator. It was irritating to keep on while they were working, so she just kept it in a pocket. She would know when someone tried to contact her. And it was standard practice for most hero teams to have their own communication channels. At her side, Nicholas slipped his own in order to listen to the conversation as well.

Nobody knew the identity of the dispatcher in the city, and each of them used so many voice filters they all sounded the same, but Jasmine was pretty sure they were all different. At least probably.

"We have found the center of the demon activity. While it is out of your team's range to be part of the strike force, we figured you two would have vested interest in dealing with this," Dispatch said. Jasmine's world froze as she tried to figure out what she was supposed to say. How was she supposed to respond? Yeah, she wanted to smite all the demons, but that didn't mean she was ready to face them. It was hard when they were at their best, and they were far from it right now.

"We'll do it," Nicholas said before she could figure it out.

"Sending the location now."