Bad Beat - Chapter 34 - Dive (Patreon)

Last night, he had created a set of Darkness cards, which he then bolstered with Light cards to an equal number before combining them into Nothingness cards.

Naturally, the first thing he did afterward was take out his Shadow Stalker Hoodie.

The moment the apparel left the card, he couldn’t help but grimace.

A foul smell immediately wafted off it, a mix of burned cotton and something disturbingly close to scorched human skin, with the entire fabric still steeped in smoke, not to mention the fact that several sections were outright missing material.

It probably still worked, but Gabriel refused to put it on in this state.

Instead, he did what he had done with his bedroom after upgrading his body. He took a bit of washing liquid and fused it with the damaged hoodie, which stripped away the deeply unsettling odor while leaving the holes and structural damage untouched.

After that, he retrieved a hoodie he didn’t particularly like from his closet and fused it into the mix as well.

The end result was a functional, clean hoodie that came with a night vision mask, air filters, and anti-camera capability.

Scratching his head, Gabriel stared at it on the table while considering his options.

He most definitely needed more defense, but going out to gather metal scrap wasn’t exactly inconspicuous, and buying ballistic plates was effectively a no-go.

Due to the world becoming significantly more dangerous with the presence of supers and the changes they had caused, defensive technology such as bulletproof vests and other life-saving equipment had become far scarcer, as demand had surged, and people bought them up in bulk whenever they appeared.

Prices had followed the same trajectory, becoming absurdly high.

One simple aftermarket ballistic plate started at around two thousand credits for the cheapest options, and if he wanted to fuse them, he would need to buy them in bulk. While he could have attempted the same approach he used with cheap drone parts or supplements, he did not believe the shops dealing in military-adjacent equipment would be so easily ‘fooled’.

There were also layered ballistic fabrics like Kevlar and its equivalents, but even those were out of his price range.

“Sparky, make a note to look up a landfill or recycling center for scrap metal,” he called out while continuing to stare at the black clothing.

“Now… how do I make this more defensive…” he muttered.

For a long while, he simply stared at it, even finding himself briefly wishing he had instead been reborn in the nightmare world of a nihilistic god rather than this one.

‘I wonder if I could capture the sheer escalation with my cards…’ he mused. ‘At least I would have had access to spider silk…’

Finally, he let out a sigh and headed for the door. There was a secondhand clothing store near the building, and maybe they would have what he needed.

Fortunately for him, they indeed had the things he wanted.

An old, clearly used motorcycle jacket with an equally worn spine protector made of foam padding and minor polymer reinforcement. He doubted it would actually protect anyone in any meaningful way, but the fact that it had some form of protection built in was what mattered.

On the way to the checkout, he also spotted a bag of old rings and picked up a dozen of them for the grand total of fifteen credits.

He placed his items on the counter, and the bored sales clerk began ringing them up. Upon seeing the jacket, she spoke up.

“Oh, these go faster than I thought,” she said absentmindedly. “We got a large shipment last week, but we’re almost sold out…”

Gabriel nodded. “They are surprisingly comfy and cool-looking…”

The clerk hummed thoughtfully and told him the price. Gabriel paid, gathered his purchases, and headed back to his apartment.

He only had a few hours left.

Back in his apartment, he continued his work.

First, he fused the dozen rings until a single one remained: 1 x Metal Ring.

Then, with a long sigh, he sat down with a few sheets of paper and a very condescending tutorial Sparky had compiled, and began the arduous task of origami.

Half an hour later, sixteen uneven origami swans sat in front of him. One by one, they were converted into cards. The first produced a white-bordered card: 1 x Lame Amateur Origami Swan.

“Funny,” he muttered, glancing sideways at the deck sitting innocently on the table.

The final result was a card with a still white border, as an origami swan wasn’t exactly the rarest of items in the world: 1 x Pristine Origami Swan.

He nodded to himself and set the almost luminous paper figure aside before turning to the Shadow Stalker Hoodie and fusing it with the motorcycle jacket. The result still only carried an orange border: 1 x Reinforced Shadow Stalker Jacket.

Frowning in concentration, with three drones hovering over his shoulder in fascinated silence, he arranged everything neatly in front of him.

The Metal Ring, Nothingness, Pristine Origami Swan, and Reinforced Shadow Stalker Jacket all lay on the table in their own cards beside each other.

For the final step, he retrieved his multi-tool, nicked his finger, and let a drop of blood fall onto a card before absorbing it.

Nodding to himself, he began the process.

He picked up the Metal Ring and fused it with his own blood, forming a new card. It gained blue borders, its face showing a simple band of metal: 1 x Metal Ring (Bound).

Next, he took the Pristine Origami Swan and the Nothingness and fused them into the ring one by one. Finally, with slightly trembling hands, he lifted the card holding the jacket.

It represented a significant investment. If this failed, he would not have time to replace it today.

Despite the tension tightening in his chest, he forced himself to continue.

Hands still unsteady, he looked at the newly created card.

The card had bronze borders and, for the first time, a card face that contained a moving image. It showed his Reinforced Shadow Stalker Jacket for a moment before it folded into itself until it became a ring made of dark black metal. The image held for a second before the transformation reversed.

1 x Shifting Shadow Stalker Set

A smile bloomed on his face.

“Yes!”

He pumped his fist, the drones rising into the air in sync with the motion.

Gabriel then instantly summoned the item out of the card. A light ring dropped into his palm. It was so weightless he almost didn’t register it as real.

But it wasn’t the hollow lightness of cheap plastic from a toy shop. The moment his fingers closed around it, he felt it was made out of a metal cold to the touch.

It was just really, really light.

Holding his breath, he slipped it onto his left middle finger.

He could instantly feel some kind of connection being made between him and the ring. It was ephemeral, but the function of it was rather simple to understand.

He tugged on the feeling and watched with wide eyes as the ring shimmered once with a dark flicker, then unfolded across his body in a single smooth motion. Watching it gave him a slight headache as his eyes tried to make sense of the object unfolding like a fractal.

Within seconds, he was fully dressed in the transformed jacket.

It clung to him from wrist to collar, tight enough to feel intentional but not restrictive. He could feel a bit of extra material on his back and an additional ephemeral feeling next to the one that allowed him to transform the jacket back into the ring.

Curious, he pulled on that second thread.

His body dissolved.

He could see, but his body simply wasn’t there. And just as with the drones, it was perfect invisibility. No smears or vague outlines.

On the inside of his non-reflective mask, a timer appeared: thirty seconds.

He waited until it ran out to hear a small sizzling sound as the invisibility lifted off him.

A new cooldown appeared: five minutes.

The message was clear.

“Not bad,” he muttered.

He focused back on the first thread. The transformation reversed, folding the jacket in on itself with that same disorienting fractal logic until it became the ring again. He stored it back into a card with a thought.

Then he walked into his bedroom and started rummaging through a drawer until he found the last spare power bank from his haul.

He held it for a moment, then fused it directly with the ring.

The name and the appearance didn’t change, but when he tested it again, the invisibility lasted an entire minute. The cooldown, frustratingly, remained five minutes.

It was still excellent.

Finally, returning the jacket to its ring form, he turned to Sparky.

“Well, did the defense work?”

[Please observe.]

The projected screen changed to a recording of him standing in the middle of the living room, captured from three directions, staring at his palm for a moment before the ring opened like a fractal flower and covered his body with the black jacket.

The moment the jacket fully formed, the recording began to degrade.

And while Sparky tried to compensate, his form looked like it was constantly glitching as black smears dragged across his body, and every small movement produced larger distortions, as if the camera had trouble following him. The edges turned fuzzy, and the pixel count of the recording occasionally changed from full HD to five pixels at certain points.

Then, without transition, Gabriel simply vanished from the footage. Thirty seconds later, he reappeared, and the artifacts returned instantly, as if they had never left.

[Based on research, most artifacts significantly increase difficulty in identifying body type and related information.]

[This unit is using this dataset to train its own video processing software.]

[This unit hopes that with sufficient exposure, it can develop a counter solution to these defensive properties.]

[This unit never gives up.]

[This unit is better than a jacket.]

[This unit would like the parental unit to know that this unit had crossed her arms.]

[Hmph.]

Gabriel let out a small laugh. “I’m cheering for you.”

[Umu.]

Finally, Gabriel cleaned up the apartment, gathering scraps of paper, tools, and the scattered remnants of his earlier experiments, and as he worked, his thoughts drifted to what he still needed.

He had upgraded his body, improved his defenses, gained partial stealth capabilities, three drones, and something that might be an AI or a very opinionated and sassy little girl in a box.

For a moment, he considered making more Flash Pops, but discarded the idea almost instantly. If he used them, the Jackals would connect it back to the 3D printer shop robbery without hesitation.

Best to avoid that.

Gabriel rolled the ring between his fingers, still not used to how something so powerful could feel so light, as he couldn’t help but feel anxious about the future.

Gabriel didn’t know how long he had been sitting there, but the moment he heard the knock at the door, he shot up from the couch where he had been staring at the TV.

He had no memory of what he had watched. His mind had been fully occupied conjuring worse and worse mental images of what they might find and what could happen.

He walked to the door and opened it.

Mia stood there, scowling as usual, a shoulder bag hanging from her arm. Next to her was Nate, balancing an unstable stack of pizza boxes in one hand and a plastic bag full of drinks in the other.

“Hey, Gabe-a-Roni! Bought the pizza! Time for game night!” Nate announced loudly.

For a moment, Gabriel caught a flash of blue-and-white movement disappearing down the hallway behind them.

“It’s afternoon…” he muttered, though he still stepped aside to let them in.

After closing the door, he turned around to see Mia already setting up in the middle of the room, turning on the TV and using it as a large screen for the operation.

Thankfully, he had the foresight to move Sparky’s device back into his bedroom.

And he had also remembered to close the door.

Gabriel felt strangely proud of that.

Nate was busy opening pizza boxes while simultaneously pulling a beat-up console out of the bag, its controllers tangled together with yellowed cables.

He held it up proudly.

“Found it in a consignment shop,” he declared. “If anyone breaks down the door, we can pretend we’re actually playing.” He perked up a little more. “I even found my favorite old game. Haunted Mansion III: The Reconsuming.”

Mia scoffed. “Of course you did…”

“How dare you, madam?” Nate staggered backward as though he had been struck physically.

Gabriel tilted his head slightly, looking between Mia and the offended-looking Nate.

“Am I missing something?” he finally asked.

Mia gave him a look before rolling her eyes. “It has a giant goth woman who wears almost nothing and likes eating the players. Do the math.”

“Ah…” Gabriel glanced at Nate, who only smiled and shrugged. “Never really been a fan of horror…”

Nate stepped closer and threw an arm around his shoulder. “Gabe-o-Gabe, you are in for a treat, my friend!”

A few minutes and several more goth mommy jokes later, they were gathered around the television, where the building blueprint filled the screen.

Thanks to Sparky, though Nate did not know that, they had surprisingly detailed access to the building layout.

The three of them stared at it for a moment before Mia turned toward him. “So, Gabriel. You had us get you a bunch of drone stuff. Let’s see the merchandise.”

Behind her, Nate nodded enthusiastically.

Gabriel smiled, walked over to the couch, and pulled out the three drones he had stashed there. Sparky was still connected to them, but they had agreed to let Mia pretend to fly them while Sparky quietly handled everything in the background to make sure the operation went smoothly.

He gently put them on the table and stood next to them proudly.

“Feast your eyes!”

Mia’s eyes widened, and she rushed to her laptop, dropping onto the couch and immediately beginning to type. Within seconds, the leftmost drone hummed to life as she gently lifted it off the table with precise keyboard inputs.

Its polymer propellers kept it steady in the air as it rose, while Nate and Mia both stared at its sleek chassis and stealth-bomber-inspired design.

“Cool, huh?” Gabriel asked, grinning with both hands on his hips.**

**

A/N: A small shoutout to our Queen of Escalation!