Chapter 21 Morning Showdown ( Part 1 )
Aiko helped Carol navigate the monster infested morning of Rein City and soon the two were able to get to the apartment where Carol had left the nanny and her child unharmed.
“ Aiko insists that we hurry. Bossman needs Aiko’s help if he is to win ,” the blue apparition nagged Carol to run faster up the stairs. With how slow Carol was compared to her , Aiko felt like turning back and just swallowing her whole. She was keeping her from Jack at the worst possible time.
Even though her muscles were military trained , Carol was still struggling to keep up with Aiko. The girl ate through the stairs like they were a downward slope , flying by them almost two at a go.
“ Two more floors , then take the door on your immediate right ,” Carol told her, seeing no prospect of ever catching up.
“ Aiko sees it , lets go ,” the girl was already done with the stairs .
She snapped when she found the house locked from the inside.
“ The nanny that is inside , Aiko does not have the whole day to waste on you. Open this door and stop playing games with Aiko !”
Prudence held on tightly to Carol’s child , huddled behind the sofa unsure of whether or not to open the door.
“ Aiko is losing her patience for the nanny that is inside!” she meant every word , a painful fact that Prudence was just about to learn shortly.
Prudence still hesitated , recalling that the rescuers had already announced their leaving. If she opened the door and it turned out to be one of those monsters baiting her , then she’d be dead on the spot.
“ Prudence , it's me. Open the door , we need to leave right now ,” Carol finally arrived, thoroughly out of breath. She was just in time to keep Aiko from starting to kick away at the door.
Hearing the sound of her employer , Prudence quickly put down the little boy and rushed to unbolt the door. When it finally opened , Carol flew past her running to her child.
Aiko , in a massive fit of rage , gave Prudence a resounding slap.
“ When Aiko tells the nanny to open the door , the nanny doesn't sit around making a fool of Aiko. Quickly soldier , Aiko does not want to remind you that we cannot stay here longer ,”
Carol did not argue , and wasn’t even going to bicker with Aiko for assaulting her nanny. There wasn’t time for any of that.
Prudence , stunned from getting slapped by a translucent bluish translucent butler , spaced out for a moment. Unfortunately for her , Aiko was already good with leaving her behind since she hadn’t been part of Jack’s orders.
“ Come with us Prudence , quickly ,” Carol shook her shoulder violently to bring her back.
Going down the stairs was a lot easier , though Aiko still managed to remain ahead of everyone by a big margin.
By the time they were getting to the ground floor , the floods from the bursted banks of the Rein River were already starting to sweep through the place , floating light stationery and appliances under the furniture.
“ Soldier , we cannot go back to Bossman with the son and the nanny with us. Do you have another plan ,” Aiko asked Carol once they were out on the street.
They were lucky that the floods were still docile , nothing close to being able to sweep an adult off their feet. But this was only for the time being.
As if on queue , a motorcade of military jeeps and tanks started arriving on scene as a few soldiers jumped out and saluted their lieutenant.
“ We could not leave you behind Ma’am , so we went and got reinforcements ,” one of them explained.
“ How did you know to find me here ?” Carol was surprised at the unexpected fortunes.
“ We figured the only reason you’d want to stay back was to rescue your family ma’am,” another soldier stepped forward. She was already in civilian attire but Carol was able to recognize her.
“ And what about your families? Who’s gonna take care of them now that you’re all out here ?”
“ We were also able to rescue them before coming here , Ma’am ,”
“ Did HQ authorise this mission ?” Carol pushed on as Prudence and the child were led into one of the armoured vehicles.
“ No ma’am . But with all due respect lieutenant , we weren’t gonna leave you behind. Every soldier here has availed themselves because we are loyal to you ma’am , and we wanted to keep you safe ,”
Seeing that her job was now done , Aiko wanted to go back to Jack , “ The soldier can now go to a safe place. Aiko needs to go help the Bossman .”
A sudden building explosion in the background sent shock waves throughout the ground , the first of many to come.
Jack and Caesar's fight had led them to a six storey parking lot building, with the floor they were on being the one reserved for the high end luxury cars. The floor had everything from lamborghinis , panganis and even one bugatti chiron at the corner.
Ludicrous Caesar had already deployed his floating prisms , and they were now tearing away at the outer walls of the building with their never ending barrage of high powered bullets. The aim was to weaken the structure's foundation and give Jack uneven footing. Just plain overkill.
Slowly, the building started tilting to the left , and some of the cars started drifting sideways , skidding through the smooth reflective floor.
Jack had to move to the side to avoid getting hit by a 1.4 tonne Porsche 911 as it came rolling past. As the other cars gathered pace , Caesar began actively pushing them towards Jack , his strength proving far greater than Jack had expected.
Eventually one of the cars got to Jack and literally speared him through one of the windows, taking him to a reckless freefall down the highrise.
Caesar followed closely after , grabbing hold of one of his many flying prisms to avoid the free fall.
Jack saw his idea and copied it , measuring his timing till he got hold of the prism that that had flown closest to him to continue firing bullets.
“ You prove yourself resourceful !” Caesar congratulated his ingenuity.
This compliment was however short lived when the prism that Jack was holding retaliated , running his hand with torrents of bullets till blood started flowing.
If he didn’t have his enhanced durability , this fight with Caesar would have probably ended the moment it started. Fighting the man was like manoeuvring a boxing ring surrounded by rapid fire machine guns from every corner.
Jack had also been pushing the Flowing Paradise talent to its maximum to further mitigate the damage but the injuries were still coming in plenty. Plainly , he was just too low level to help himself out much.
Pretty soon , he’d have to start using Rejuvenation , especially on the hand that was holding onto the prism. This was something he had wanted to withhold till his Perception had given him something good on Caesar.
The parking lot building came tumbling down , bringing other adjacent buildings down with it like a domino and at the same time destroying billions of dollars worth of cars .
As this happened , the two heavy hitters came crashing through the windows of the headquarters of one of the largest open world game developer companies in the entire nation.
Jack could barely see anything as momentum pushed his body straight through countless servers till he was stopped by the wall at the opposite end. His left hand was already torn beyond recognition so he had no choice but to use Rejuvenation on it.
He was surprised , however , when he still retained the sixth rejuvenation bar that should have been used up. Apparently , levelling up not only increased the number of rejuvenation bars that he had , but also their overall individual effectiveness.
This was a relief , since he could at least start launching the offensive without the fear of damage that had been mentally holding him back.
Caesar landed on the floor above , where a group of cosplayers had taken refuge behind an upturned desk waiting for the government to come rescue them.
It was over for them when Caesar's prisms flew over , perforating their bodies like high pressure blood bags.
The prisms then split their forces in half , one group going outside the building to start tearing down its foundations like before, while the other group handled the interior.
It didn’t take long for the storm of bullets to bring the ceiling down on Jack below , and with it Caesar , busting with energy and smiling like the fight was just starting.
Jack brought the action to him , having seen that they were almost equal in hand to hand combat before. Almost.
Caesar exchanged a few blows with him before he dodged and left Jack stumbling forward. By the time he got back on his footing , over a dozen of the prisms had formed a perfect circle around him , just waiting for Caesar's command.
“ Flowing Paradise ,” Jack re-engaged the talent to remedy its falling output as the spray of bullets came pouring at him like rain. Gradually , the barrage got through his skin and blood started coming out nearly every inch of his body.