Copycat Crime (2)
Though the terrorists far outnumbered me, the situation favored the one who had already seized the rear and struck first. I held the initiative, and with it, the upper hand.
A few of them recovered their wits faster than the rest, but those with the quickest reflexes were the first to take a bullet and leave this world for good. The rest, watching several of their comrades drop, lost their will to fight and raised their hands in surrender.
"W-wait! Don't kill us! We're your followers—"
"My followers, huh? Then why did your eyes go that wide the second I showed up? You didn't look half that shocked when you faced Valkyrie."
"Th-that's because we were happy to see—"
"Spare me the transparent crap. Who put you up to this little stunt just to screw me over? Another villain? Or the government?"
"!!!"
They neither confirmed nor denied it—just shook their heads with desperate vigor.
"If you don't feel like talking, I'll just keep killing you until the urge kicks in."
"Hah. I've put up with enough of your cocky little act. This should be about far enough."
At that moment, someone among the terrorists dropped the act and rose to his feet.
Bang!
I fired the instant he moved, but—
"Ow, that stings!"
He didn't die. The shot left nothing but a shallow scratch on his forehead.
An ability user...!
At this range, surviving a bullet to the head meant only one thing: an ability user whose body was far tougher than a normal human's. They must have planted him among the terrorists as insurance for the worst-case scenario.
He had kept his identity hidden even while fighting Valkyrie, which was why I hadn't noticed him until now. The man yanked a random hostage out of the crowd and dragged her forward by the arm.
"Hiiiieek...! P-please, spare me! Please...!"
Ignoring the woman's frantic pleas, he hurled her straight at me.
"Aaaagh!"
Her body blocked my vision for a split second—
KWA-BOOM—!
And right behind her, a deafening explosion tore through the air. Caught in the blast that shook the entire shopping complex, I scrambled up the stairs to the second floor and secured a clear line of sight.
Looking down, I saw the poor civilian woman he had thrown—her back charred black, killed instantly by the direct hit.
"You son of a bitch...!"
"So you really are an ability user, huh? Too bad your power's useless in a fight!"
He knows what my ability is...?
It could have been a bluff, but the fact that he already knew my power offered almost no combat value made a pure bluff unlikely.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Hmm? Did I forget to introduce myself? Ever heard of Plode the Bomber?"
"A guy like you cosplaying as one of my followers? Yeah, that pretty much confirms someone put you up to this."
"Who knows? You're going to die here anyway, so no need to get curious about the details!"
With his true colors fully on display, Plode snatched whatever was closest from the cosmetics shop and flung it at me. The flying makeup turned into an explosive mid-air and detonated with a roar.
The ability wasn't all that rare; I recognized it on sight. The power to turn any object into a bomb. Unlike my ability to turn walls into doors, or my clone technique, his power was a direct combat asset—which meant his personal fighting strength far outstripped mine.
I cast one bitter glance at the dead civilian, then shouted loud enough for my voice to carry outside the building.
"Valkyrie! The people!"
With that deranged bomber still free, there was no telling when or how the remaining hostages might end up like that woman. Valkyrie had been holding back for fear of harming the hostages or collapsing the building—but once an innocent civilian had already died, she couldn't afford to hesitate any longer. The moment she heard me, she rocketed forward like a thunderbolt.
"Everyone, duck and cover your heads! Hyaaah!"
"Wha—?! If you get any closer, I'll kill them all—!"
While the terrorists' attention was fixed on me behind them, Valkyrie had already closed into striking range. They tried to threaten her with the hostages a second too late; her fist was faster.
THWACK—!
"Guh-heuk!"
She had carefully held back enough force to keep ordinary humans from dying, but even so the raw power was monstrous. The terrorist holding a hostage was launched more than ten meters backward by a single straight punch and slammed into the far interior wall of the shop.
"Everyone, run! I'll hold them off—go, now!"
"Th-thank you...!"
While Valkyrie pinned the terrorists down, the hostages scrambled for the exits. The remaining men opened fire, but she caught every round with her body and wings.
Even then, Plode kept snatching objects and hurling them at me, detonating each one on impact.
"You show up all full of swagger and all you do is run, Kid G! Is opening doors and bolting the only trick you've got?!"
"They're not on the same side...? What the hell are these guys..."
"Valkyrie, stop zoning out and give me a hand over here!"
"Huh?!"
Suddenly and unwillingly allied, Valkyrie blinked in confusion for a second, then decided Plode needed to be neutralized first and sprang into action.
"I can't handle two of you at once—especially not you, Valkyrie! Get lost!"
Plode grabbed shopping baskets and nearby cosmetics and flung them wildly, setting off a chain of blasts to keep her at bay. Meanwhile I opened the floor beneath me, sank into the earth, then opened the ground under Plode's feet and reached up to drag him under.
"Not a chance!"
It was a decently timed ambush, but Plode clearly knew something about my ability. He leapt clear, rendering my attempt to yank his legs into the hole completely useless.
However—
"Valkyrie, now!"
"Hyaaaaaah!"
The instant he jumped left him briefly open, and Valkyrie did not miss it. She rocketed in like lightning.
"You son of a—!"
KRA-BOOOOOOM—!!!
Because he was an ability user himself, Valkyrie held nothing back. She poured every ounce of strength into a diving punch that drove Plode several meters deep into the ground. After confirming he was unconscious and crumpled at the bottom of the crater, she looked over at me as I groaned from the residual heat and asked, still standing over the hole,
"What the hell. These guys weren't yours?"
"Ugh... damn, that's hot. I don't know these pieces of trash. I've always worked alone—what followers am I supposed to have?"
"...Even so, they're still copycats who got inspired by the crap you've pulled, right?"
"Maybe. If the reason really is that simple, I'd almost be relieved."
"...?"
"If they were genuine followers, they should have screamed for joy the second I showed up. Instead they panicked and went for their guns. Do real followers usually do that?"
"How should I know? Maybe they wanted to kill you and take your name for themselves."
"From where I'm standing, someone hired these guys to drag my reputation through the mud. This Plode was the insurance policy in case things went sideways. Didn't work, though."
"That's just you making excuses! So only they are in the wrong and you're completely clean, is that it?!"
"On this particular matter, yes."
"You shameless—"
I raised a hand and cut her off.
"By the way, I secured the hostages' safety in my own way and even helped you out. How come I haven't heard a single word of thanks?"
"What? Why would I ever thank a villain like you?"
"Haaah... What a rotten age we live in, when a shameless, ungrateful person like this gets to call herself a hero. If I hadn't ambushed them from behind, who knows how many more hostages would have died. That poor woman is a tragedy, of course."
"Wh-what...?! You bastard—how dare a villain lecture me on—"
"So you got no help from me at all, then?"
"I... I mean, I did get some, but..."
"Then say thank you. Now."
"Th... thank... you. Happy?"
Cornered by her own logic, Valkyrie ended up thanking a villain out loud with her own mouth.
"Good, good. When someone helps you, expressing gratitude is simple manners. Just in case you didn't know."
"You little—I'm going to—"
"Torture that Plode guy or do whatever you have to and find out who put him up to this. It'll be obvious soon enough that it wasn't me. Anyway, I'm out."
"What? Hey, where do you think you're going?! Helping me is one thing—you're still a villain, and I'm taking you in right here!"
"What kind of villain just stands there and lets himself get arrested? I'm a busy man."
I pressed my hand to the shop wall behind me, opened it, and bolted straight outside. By the time Valkyrie burst out after me, I had already teleported to my clone's position and vanished.
She had let Kid G slip away again, but the original objective—suppressing the terrorists who had been rampaging through the Myeongdong shopping complex—was complete. Because of that, Valkyrie was nowhere near as furious as before.
If anything, a small part of her even felt relieved. If Kid G had truly been the mastermind behind this entire mess, she would have been bitterly disappointed. Judging by everything he had done, though, he really did seem unrelated to the incident; these people had simply stolen his name for themselves.
The thought lasted only a moment before Valkyrie startled and shook her head hard.
What kind of idiotic thought is that? These scum and that bastard are both the same social evils—villains. Relief? There's nothing to be relieved about... Get a grip and just haul these guys in already.
She flew down into the crater, dragged the impaled Plode out, and bound him together with the other unconscious terrorists. The dead ones she gathered separately and laid out in a row.
"Urgh... damn it..."
Wrists bound tight so he couldn't try anything, Plode finally came to and groaned. The full-power straight punch from Valkyrie had shattered his bones so thoroughly that even left alone he wasn't going to be doing much of anything.
"Shut up and stay put. We're taking you to Union HQ and figuring out exactly why you pulled this stunt, one by one—"
Shuuuuung—
In that instant, a high-speed tearing of air came screaming down from the sky.
KWAANG—!
By the time Valkyrie looked up at the sound, whatever had been flying had already slammed brutally into the ground. Even with her powerful body she staggered hard from the shockwave and the cloud of dirt that erupted. When the dust cleared, a man in an armored suit stood there in a perfect superhero landing pose.
The moment she recognized him, Valkyrie's eyes flew wide.
"S-Skull Crusher, sir?"
At the appearance of the A-class hero Skull Crusher, Valkyrie went rigid with tension and unconsciously snapped to attention. Then her gaze dropped to his feet...
"Kyaaaaah! Skull Crusher, sir! Y-your feet—!"
Under them lay the terrorists who had been bound only moments earlier—now reduced to nothing but pulp, their forms completely erased. Only the thick smear of blood beneath Skull Crusher's boots proved that anything had ever been there at all.
"You did well responding so swiftly to an emergency, Valkyrie. From this point on, we will handle the investigation and cleanup of this site. You may return."