Bad Beat - Chapter 42 - Tension (Patreon)

Gabriel stared at the superhero, taking in the smiling face and the eyes that promised pain if he failed to comply.

There was no chance of running.

He may have upgraded his body, but there was no way he would survive if this woman decided he needed to die.

Glancing around, he saw that a crowd had already begun to gather at a distance. People were pointing excitedly at Bombshell while filming the two of them with their phones.

Gabriel just knew that within minutes, his face would be all over the internet, with legions of superhero fans researching him and digging through his history, trying to figure out what he was doing with Bombshell. Naturally, there would also be plenty of people convinced they were secretly dating, eagerly spreading rumors.

If he was really unlucky, he might even end up as a segment on one of those gossipy entertainment channels.

As he stood there in silence, Bombshell merely smirked. One arm crossed beneath her chest, conveniently pushing up her already substantial breasts, while the fingers of her other hand tapped lightly against her cheek.

What’s wrong?” she asked with a smirk. “Cat got your tongue?”

The words were playful, seemingly intended to put him at ease, but Gabriel could see the truth in her eyes. She was exactly like a cat, toying with prey and thoroughly entertained by his confusion and fear. It felt like only a matter of time before she started batting him around for her own amusement.

He had a distinct feeling he wouldn’t enjoy that.

Gabriel swallowed. “Y-yeah, I h-have time.” He gave a nervous shake of his head. “I mean, I have work, but I suppose–”

His rambling was cut short by Bombshell.

“Don’t worry. I’ll write you a tardy note,” she quipped.

Then she reached out, grabbed him by the shoulders, and launched into the air.

Gabriel heard someone scream.

A moment later, he realized it was him.

Before he could get a hold of himself or even attempt to react, the flight was already over, and his feet were once again planted firmly on solid ground.

He staggered as Bombshell released him and stepped away.

Gasping for air, he bent forward and planted his hands on his knees. “Wh-what the hell? Why did you?” Still struggling to breathe, he looked up and glared at the smirking superhero. She was already sitting on the edge of the rooftop as though nothing unusual had happened.

Gabriel could see a cluster of surrounding buildings, but thanks to the rooftop structures around them,

“Who the fuck does that?” he shouted. “We could have talked in a café or an alley!”

“Oh, don’t be such a pussy,” she said with a smile. “It was just a short flight. Nothing to worry about.”

“Easy for you to say. You can fly,” Gabriel shot back as he slowly regained control of his wildly pounding heart.

“I wouldn’t have dropped you...” she replied, her smile never wavering.

Gabriel wasn’t reassured as her eyes told a very different story. He had a feeling that the moment she got bored, irritated, or decided he had said the wrong thing, she would happily punt him toward the ocean just to see what happened.

Taking a deep breath, he straightened and looked around.

“Anyway, why did you want to talk to me?” he asked, unable to suppress his curiosity.

Bombshell once again crossed her arms beneath her bust, drawing attention to it with practiced ease. Her eyes immediately caught his as his gaze dipped for a split second.

“Oh, nothing special...” she began. “I was in the neighborhood, and you looked interesting.”

Gabriel stared back at her flatly. “Really? That’s the best you could come up with?”

He knew being sassy toward a woman who could turn him into a red smear on the pavement was probably a terrible idea, but he couldn’t help himself. If he wasn’t distracting himself by worrying about that, he would be worrying about things that were far more important.

Better to focus on the small stuff.

Thankfully, Bombshell didn’t seem offended. She merely chuckled. “Alright… you got me.”

Gabriel walked over to an old plastic chair sitting beside a faded wooden table covered in layers of graffiti and sat down. The chair creaked ominously beneath him, but, for the moment, held together.

“Then why?” he asked, looking up at the woman.

At the same time, his fingers instinctively slipped into the front pocket of his hoodie and wrapped around his deck. It was probably a pointless gesture, but if there was even the slightest chance of surviving whatever this conversation turned into, he wanted every advantage he could get.

She looked him over and shrugged.

“You live around here and walk these streets pretty regularly,” she explained. “I wanted to see if you knew anything.”

Which proved that if Helix wanted somebody found, they could find them with embarrassing ease.

Her eyes glinted with cunning. “A lot of people underestimate the folks on the street, but I know you little people see things.”

Gabriel listened curiously. “And you want to ask questions, I presume?”

Bombshell nodded. “Correct. And you’re going to answer them.”

It was a statement that told him everything he needed to know.

If he even considered refusing, there would be consequences.

Not seeing any realistic avenue of escape, Gabriel reluctantly nodded.

“Still think grabbing me like that was a bit much,” he grumbled as he shifted around, trying to find a comfortable position on the plastic chair.

Bombshell shrugged again. “Probably. But I didn’t feel like doing that...”

Gabriel gave her a look but remained silent.

“Good boy,” she said with a smile. Then she leaned forward, once again making sure her cleavage was impossible to miss.

“Now, Mr. Potty, let’s talk.”

“It’s Porter.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do.”

She narrowed her eyes at him but ignored the correction. “Have you heard about what happened recently?”

“The hotel bomb threat?” he asked, his fingers nervously brushing against the cards in his pocket. He still had a car card in there, so theoretically he could throw it at her if things somehow came down to that.

It would probably accomplish nothing, but it was comforting to have a plan, however terrible.

“Yes. Somebody interrupted an event at the Thousand Flowers Hotel,” she replied, still leaning forward, her eyes never leaving him. “As a local who spends a lot of time on the streets, I assumed you might have heard or seen something.”

“What exactly are you looking for?” he asked instead of answering. He tensed as he noticed Bombshell’s expression twitch, but he pressed on. “Are you asking whether I heard rumors, or whether I saw Enchanter strolling down the street carrying a giant bomb?”

Her eye twitched again. “The first.”

Gabriel took a deep breath and shrugged. “Not much. You have to understand, around here, hear no evil and see no evil is what keeps people alive.”

“I’m a superhero, Mr. Potty,” she replied. “I’ll protect you.”

He gave her a look that made his opinion of that promise abundantly clear. Not that he had many options besides continuing.

“Recently, there’ve been rumors about fights between the Jackals and some other gang,” he began, drawing on his enhanced memory to sort through the mountain of gossip sites, forums, and local chatter he had consumed. “People have heard gunshots and other noises at night, but I’ve never actually seen anything myself.”

Bombshell frowned.

“Sorry, I can’t help you much,” he continued. “I try to keep my head down.”

She studied him for several long moments before letting out a sigh. Then she hung her head in apparent defeat, causing her blonde hair to spill forward and hide her eyes. Gabriel eyed the woman; every muscle in his body remained taut, ready to react the instant she made any aggressive move.

However, in the end, she merely let out a defeated sigh.

“Fucking hell… another useless one…”

Gabriel had a feeling he wasn’t supposed to hear that, but thanks to his enhanced body, the muttered words reached him clearly.

Keeping his expression neutral, he tightened his grip on the deck in his pocket.

Another sigh escaped her, and Bombshell looked up.

For a brief moment, Gabriel caught a glimpse of naked desire for destruction in her eyes. It vanished almost immediately, replaced by a quiet, dismissive contempt.

She looked at him, and he could already tell she had completely lost interest.

Abruptly, she stood, stepped forward, grabbed him by the collar, and hauled him to his feet. With her clenched fist inches from his face, Gabriel could feel the air around it vibrating. The sensation traveled through his bones and set his teeth on edge.

Adrenaline flooded his system once again.

Slowly, carefully, he withdrew his hands from his pockets while keeping one card hidden from view. She would probably assume it was an ordinary deck of playing cards, but she was still a superhero. Seeing anything even slightly unusual could set her off.

She leaned closer until her face was only inches from his. “This conversation never happened,” she whispered.

Gabriel slowly raised his hands, holding a single card in his palm. He lifted them to eye level, his palm faced toward him, and put on the most sincere expression he could manage.

At the same time, he focused on the card and silently willed it to absorb whatever energy was radiating from Bombshell’s fist.

“As long as I get a signed picture,” he said with a smirk he absolutely wasn’t feeling.

His heart was beating in his chest, threatening to break through his ribs as he was worrying about Bombshell suddenly realizing what he was doing and lashing out.

She eyed him for a moment, then smirked back. “Deal.”

Then there was more screaming before he found himself breathing hard, hands on his knees in an alleyway. A signed picture of Bombshell lay on the ground in front of him, the real superhero already gone without a goodbye.

Still calming his racing heart, he reached down and picked it up.

On it, Bombshell was throwing a kiss, with a clearly machine-written signature. Turning it over, the back was blank.

Shrugging, he put it into his backpack, where he used the cover it provided to absorb the picture with a card. Better safe than sorry. Then he put on his headphones and headed back to the main street while checking his phone to figure out where he was.

The map app was already open, with the shortest route selected.

At the top were a few lines of text.

[Shortest route found.]

[Time taken: 0.0000001 second.]

[Also, this unit recorded the conversation.]

[Tehe~~]

“Good job,” he murmured, and continued toward work.

Gabriel returned home later that day, tired and irritable.

The people in the district had been especially annoying, and naturally most of it had fallen on the poor guy trying to keep the shelves stocked while also cleaning up after everyone else’s careless mistakes.

The moment he stepped through the door, he dropped his bag and headed straight for the shower.

Half an hour later, refreshed but still exhausted, he ate a bowl of extremely tasty rice. The warmth of it did more to restore him than the shower had, and soon after he collapsed onto the couch and pulled out his deck.

Back in the bathroom, he had transferred all the clothes he wore that day into a card. He wanted to see if Bombshell had left behind something.

1 x Pile of Dirty Clothes (Dirty)

He stared at the white-bordered card depicting a cartoon pile of clothes with little smell lines rising from it and scoffed.

“No need to rub it in...” he murmured before pulling out another card, the one containing the picture.

Another white border with a generic Polaroid-style image on its face.

1 x Mass-Produced Signature Picture (Bombshell)

“Well, so far so good...” he said, summoning the pile of clothes beside him and placing the signed picture on the table.

Finally, he pulled out the last card.

He hadn’t dared to look at it at any point during the day, worried that Bombshell or Helix might still be watching. But now it was time…

Carefully turning it over, he let out a restrained whistle at what he saw: an orange border. The face of the card was filled with luminous white waves crashing violently against one another.

1 x Tectonic Energy

A slow grin spread across his face.

He held the card between two fingers and leaned back into the couch, already turning over possibilities in his mind, trying to figure out how to make the most of it.

“Oh, the possibilities…” he muttered.