Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 147: A Panicked Return

Chapter 147: A Panicked Return

That … that was …

For a brief moment, Isaac froze, shock, fear and rage momentarily blanking out everything else. But only for an increment of time so small no one except him could have even noticed. No, panicking in a situation was merely a sign of a person lacking experience, or simply having a temperament wholly unsuited to stressful situations. Neither of those described him in the slightest.

“Something’s come up, I’m afraid I have to leave. Is your [Portal Mage] available?” he asked, looking at the seneschal as he spoke, the man shown up to watch the training a while ago. Unfortunately, he got a solemn shake of the head in response.

“In that case, I’ll have to head home on foot. I’ll be back eventually, I don’t know when, but I’ll return.”

And with that line, Isaac vanished, Using [Phantom Step] to teleport above the roofs of the buildings in his way, then flung himself homewards using [Wave Charge], [Flight of the Poltergeist] already active to remove both gravity and wind resistance as obstacles.

The [Aura of the Crimson Dawn] flared to life around him, bathing the world a glow the color of freshly spilled blood, conjured obstacles manifesting under his feet and slamming into him to fling himself onwards, growing ever faster. At the same time, an orb of energy wrapped around his head, right hand, and the phone he was holding up to his ear to prevent the roar of the wind from drowning out his voice.

The dial tone sounded out, the beep that signaled that the other phone had been reached but wasn’t being picked grating on his eardrum like a fire alarm, setting him on edge to such a degree that truly shouldn’t have happened from the mere fact that it took one of his assistants more than ten seconds to pick up the phone. Fifteen seconds. Twenty. Thirty. Mailbox. Shit.

Ok, so Andre wasn’t answering his phone. There were be plenty of possible reasons for that, though. Bailey would have said something if someone had died. Right? He would have told Isaac?

Damn. It.

Isaac swore internally, furious with not only the situation, but also himself. There was absolutely nothing he could do to change anything as things stood right now, panicking or even just worrying was a waste of time and mental energy.

Selecting the next number in his contacts with deliberate slowness as he focused on calming back down. And this time around, his call was answered before the second ring.

“Dr. Thoma, something happened, I …”

The simple fact that Li-Mei was addressing him with his title instead of his first name was unusual, given that she’d been calling him Isaac since he’d asked her too on day one. Clearly, she was feeling more than a little rattled.

“I know.” He cut her off “I’m on my way back. I’m west of London at the moment, what’s the closest point to my location you can open a portal to?”

It took a few minutes of furious discussion to properly determine the best point for him to head to, taking into account things such as Isaac’s mobility on land and in the sea, which areas he’d have to slow down in if he passed through them while he didn’t have the mana to sustain flight and so on, then comparing that to the points Li-Mei had memorized as teleportation points.

Unfortunately, those points where scattered all over the place as they’d been gained by one of the people who’d had [Portal] for longer showing her where their teleportation points where through a briefly opened mystical gateway. Coupled with the currently still pretty damn low range of her [Portal], that was a problem.

In the end, there wasn’t really a good option other than Isaac continuing home in a near-straight line, then get picked up at Strasbourg Central Station by Li-Mei and skip the final third of the journey ahead.

As he alternatively flew, ran, and while crossing the English Channel, swam, Isaac continued to make calls, trying to get a better overview of what was happening. Calling his friends in law enforcement didn’t yield anything, sadly. The information he wanted simply hadn’t reached anyone who wasn’t directly dealing with the situation at hand. Nope, utterly useless, the lot of the- … ok, no that wasn’t fair. There was a very good and obvious reason they didn’t know anything.

But between that and the fact that the people directly involved with the situation weren’t in a position to drop everything for a chat with him.

Bailey, meanwhile, was super busy, picking up Isaac’s call, saying “Not dead, just busy, see you soon” and hanging up once again.

Yet even with such a sparse amount of information to go on, a picture began to form, and it wasn’t pretty.

A bunch of people had broken into the building to try and rob their stores of monster materials.

They’d had incredibly strong tasers and used them on a couple of students, one of whom had been Andre and would have died if it hadn’t been for Bailey’s intervention.

… that would have explained why his other assistant hadn’t picked up. But he’d be fine. He’d live.

Bailey had noticed the thieves, chased them out and ended up losing his absolute shit at some point, going all out and utterly obliterating the thieves, killing two in the process.

Given what Isaac knew about the range of the Professor’s [Aura], the layout of the building and the timing of Bailey’s rage, that should have been about the time that he realized a student had nearly died due to a stupid overpowered taser.

But that had been oh so fucking predictable. Non-lethal weapons utterly sucked in the world of the [System]. People’s Levels, Fortitude, resistance [Skills], regenerative capabilities, racial features and a million other things changed how much could knock a person out, so something meant to be used against high Level people like Bailey and would inevitably be extremely dangerous when used on anyone weaker.

Weapons with a toggleable yield were a theoretical option, but not exactly feasible. Creating an enchantment that could reliably detect every factor that went into the amount of power needed would have been hard enough, creating one that could then adjust the yield based on that information and not run a high risk of messing that up and kill someone in the process … nope, not happening anytime soon.

Meanwhile, if the yield had to be toggled by the wielder, then the wielder would not only have to be able to get all the information needed to properly adjust the weapon, but need to be in a position to do said things. Weapons, even non-lethal ones were used in high stress situations where matters of life and death where decided in split-seconds. You didn’t want to be fiddling with your taser when some drunkard was drunkenly lurching towards you with a bottle ready to bring down on your skull.

Yeah, that was probably something he should talk to someone in law enforcement about. Non-lethal takedown [Skills] were essential for law enforcement. “Non-lethal” weapons were a recipe for someone ending up dead, either the suspect got fried by a too strong weapon or the officer got his ass beaten by a suspect who’d simply shrugged off the taser, or whatever else was used.

As Isaac continued to fly, he could feel his rage boil to ever greater heights, burning beneath his skin like a nuclear reactor slowly sliding over into a meltdown.

In a perverse way, the people who’d gotten caught were the lucky ones, he couldn’t touch them. The ones who weren’t locked up were now free in the same sense an outlaw was: they’d ignored the law and were now beyond its protection. Sure, official outlaws didn’t exist anymore, but … same difference. If he could obliterate these people without having suspicion fall on him, he would.

The thing was, he hadn’t felt like this last time. After the Bodensee incident, he’d been angry, but not the white-hot rage that was coursing through his veins right now. War and bloodshed had been a part of his life for far longer than was healthy, and he’d learned to deal with it. These guys had gone after a place he considered his home, though. This was a million times more personal than anything the Systemers had done, and they were going to reap appropriately terrible consequences.

Eventually though, Isaac finally reached the city of Strasbourg, using [Stealth] as he headed towards the central station to avoid causing a scene. After all, even today, a flying human wasn’t a common sight.

He switched over to a more normal set of clothes and then finally let himself grow visible once more.

“I’m here.”

The text he sent Li-Mei was short, but it got the point across. A portal shimmered into existence in the “Long range portal travel” area that had been added since Initialization, revealing a frazzled looking Li-Mei standing in the team’s old meeting room, with Patrick pacing in the background and Raul sitting on the couch, absentmindedly running his hand across his pet Microraptor’s back all the while staring off into empty space.

While Isaac approached the booth, one of the millions that had been set up in airports, major train stations and other transit hubs, Li-Mei told the attendant that he was the person she was here for, and he was subsequently let in.

Waaaaay less hassle than it had been in London, open borders for the win.

As Isaac took his first steps back in Germany, he was greeted with a flood of questions and worried suggestions, to which he responded with his own.

In the end, they corroborated much of what he’d figured out based on the reports he’d gotten enroute, then explained that they weren’t allowed in their building so they’d retreated here at Raul’s suggestion. After all, it still officially belonged to the [System] Sciences Faculty, even if they’d long since stopped using it.

After spending a couple of minutes talking and a further couple of minutes sweeping most of the campus with his [Aura] to check for suspicious characters, Isaac finally made his way over to the team’s regular building.

“I’ve scanned most of the campus, and it doesn’t look like there’re any more issues. Things should be fine now. I’m heading over to our offices to see if I can find out anything more.”

With that final declaration, he headed over to the vast hive of activity the battlefield had become. And yes, “battlefield” was the right term to use. Shattered windows all over the place. Almost a hundred quills covered one of the roads, with a conspicuous spot empty of projectiles being dyed with enough crimson that Isaac was sure that was where one of the attackers had died.

A fine mist of various bodily fluids had covered the front of the building where Bailey had proven just how resilient he was.

And, of course, the corpse flies waving around microphones and cameras.

Now, Isaac didn’t mind reporters exactly, in fact he highly respected those who risked life, limb and reputation to break important news. But that wasn’t what he was seeing here. This was the harassing of everyone for a million different interviews that would inevitably end up as B-roll unless someone had a meltdown or had some other spectacular emotional reaction. Vultures.

What. A. Mess.

“Hey, do you have time to talk to me for a se- … Dr. Thoma, what are your thoughts on the current situation?” the first reporter who noticed him asked, sparking a feeding frenzy.

“No comment.” Isaac announced, raising his voice to make sure no one could pull the “I didn’t hear you” excuse without looking like an idiot.

Then, he just phased and walked straight through the crowd with the same grim expression he’d worn since leaving the old break room.

“Excuse me, there’s a …” one of the police officers trying to keep away the looky-loos tried to stop him, but then she clearly recognized him.

“Please state your name and what legal justification for being here.” She said in a tone that spoke of deep formality as several [Skills] activated.

“I’m Dr. Isaac Thoma, I work there and was contacted by Professor Adam Bailey, who’s in there. I’ve got pre-written and signed consulting contract with the Federal Bureau for the Supernatural, was professionally instructed on how to comport myself in a crime scene and will likely have valuable insights into the matter at hand.” Isaac responded in the same formal tone.

Everything he’d just said was 100% the truth, and with her [Skills], she could tell that he was being truthful.

End result? He was let in but escorted by a couple of police officers in full combat gear, looking like they were about to try and arrest a domestic terrorist.

He lead the three of them all over the place, finding quite a few interesting things, but his main goal was reaching Bailey, who was outside in one of the CSI trucks, talking with a few different police officers.

The moment he could get away with it, he header over there and asked for a little time alone, then raised his privacy barrier, [Perception Block] ensuring that no one could listen in without some damn strong [Skills].

The Professor looked … rough. His shirt was clearly a loaner, the original clearly having been destroyed during the same attack that had forced him to reveal the full extent of his regenerative capabilities. As the police officers left, he seemed to curl in on himself, further retreating into his shelf.

He was also three meters tall, still in one of his combat forms despite the danger having long since passed. It was the one meant to be used without further active shapeshifting, to be held while his mana regenerated. It should have long since come back, yet he hadn’t shifted into something that could fit through normal doors without needing playact as a contortionist.

The worst part, that was how he kept rubbing his hands together, as though he were trying to scrape off something.

Isaac knew what that was like, what he was doing. Even if you’d come away from the fight clean, even if you hadn’t gotten a single drop of your enemy’s blood on you after a battle against another human, one who’d ended up dead … you didn’t feel clean.

It was there, the phantom sensation of their blood on your skin, indelibly staining it, impossible to remove and seemingly spreading. Every stain growing more and more, the lifeblood that no longer ran through their veins dripping down your hands until it felt like you were soon standing in an ocean of the crimson liquid, the extinguished life seemingly drowning out the whole rest of the damn world.

It didn’t matter that it had been them or you, that you’d done everything right, that there was nothing no one who didn’t have their head up their ass and lacked any semblance of common sense could accuse you off, it just plain didn’t matter. Not at first.

It was something police officers, of all people, should have known to talk to Bailey about, but they hadn’t.

Isaac assumed that was because they’d somehow assumed that Bailey knowing how to handle himself in a fight meant he knew how to deal with the aftermath as well. After all, the one and only experience most of them had had with an academic in combat was, well, Isaac himself. And if that was what you based your plan as to how deal a member of Professor Bailey’s team post serious combat … that wasn’t going to end well.

“Hey Adam.” Isaac started the conversation, speaking softly “How are you feeling?”

“Crappy.” Bailey admitted “And stupid.”

He laughed bitterly “The first thing one of those assholes did was try and shoot me with a probably lethal taser. The next one stabbed me in the heart. Two more literally tore me in half. And I won, but I feel guilty. How stupid is that?”

“Very.” Isaac replied, forcing a slight teasing tone into his tone, then shifting into something warmer, more supportive “The same kind of ‘stupid’ that each and every person suffers from. I’ve got two lifetimes’ worth of memories locked away in my head. Two lifetimes of war and bloodshed. I can remember Hildebrand having had this conversation over and over, people who’d be children in the modern day having been forced into war by cruel times. I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but you’ll be alright.”

“I never took you for a liar.” Bailey replied, glaring at the wall. As for what lay behind that wall? The building.

“And I never took you for a pessimist.” Isaac responded, reaching out and taking Bailey’s hands in his own, preventing him from continuing to rub them against each other. The Professor turned and looked at him, their eyes meeting for the first time since he’d entered.

Isaac did not like the look he saw in his friend’s eyes.

“Do you want to leave? Or do you maybe want to break something?” Isaac flashed a reassuring smile “I’m pretty sure I could smooth things out even if this whole trailer got wrecked.”

“Leaving sounds good.” Bailey mumbled, eyes once again fixed on the far wall.

“But first, you’re going to need to shift into something a little smaller, I don’t think we fit through the door together.

“Uh-hu.” Bailey nodded slowly, sounding astounded, as though the thought of transforming into his normal form hadn’t even occurred to him.

As the pair slowly walked out of the trailer, Isaac strengthened the [Perception Block] field while creating a shell around them with the [Aura of the Crimson Dawn] that could barely be defined as “translucent”. They could still see out, but no one was getting a good shot of the two of them.

“Time feels … it can’t have been three hours since everything happened.” Bailey muttered to Isaac, voice so slow that even Isaac could barely hear him despite being right next to him.

“Tachypsychia.” Isaac explained “That’s normal too. I don’t know how it works exactly, but it happens in time of stress.”

Bailey just nodded mutely.

On the other side of the police tape, Li-Mei approached, space subtly shifting to allow her to weave her way through the throngs of reporters. Then someone noticed that and suddenly, she had far more space than she needed, reporters looking at her, startled and a little afraid.

“Heh, serves those jackals right.” Bailey cracked a slight smile “No mystery here, bastards, just some robbers got their clocks cleaned.”

“Remember that.” Isaac said “If you feel like you might have done something wrong, remember that you were the one who saved Andre, who stopped a group of dangerous criminals who were undoubtedly going to hurt more people.”

Of course, as the two of them closed in on the crowds of reporters, they were starting to yell out more and more questions, but they just ignored them. Getting through them would be a problem, though.

Or at least it would have been if it hadn’t been for Li-Mei opening a short-range portal to reveal a small-ish apartment building, with a large man in his thirties standing outside it, clearly waiting for something.

They’d never met before, but the ring on his right ring finger was an exact match for the one Bailey had stopped wearing to work right after the first time he’d fought a monster himself to ensure it didn’t end up broken.

Isaac dismissed the crimson shell on this side of the portal and strode forwards.

“Gabriel Bailey?” he asked, getting a nod in return.

“I’m Isaac Thoma, I work with your husband. I believe you know what happened?”

“Yeah, he called earlier.” Gabriel said, sounding grim.

Isaac pulled out a few business cards out of his pocket and handed them over.

“This kind of thing is rough, on everyone. If you need anything, anything at all, call me. Groceries, someone to talk to who’s experienced things like this, anything.

“If you need to get somewhere, please call Miss Zhou for a [Portal], right now, there are too many vulture reporters out there.

“These are some professional people you can call for him to talk to, if he wants that.”

Then Isaac leaned in and whispered conspiratorially “And if the reporters out here get on your nerves too much, also call me, I’ve got some water balloons with their names on them.”

“It’s much appreciated.” Gabriel said grimly, all the while throwing worried glances past Isaac, looking at Bailey.

“I could do nothing less. And really, please, don’t be shy about asking for help, or making him get help if he needs it. This is going to be tough, to get through, but there are a lot of people ready and willing to help.” Isaac reassured him.

Once he’d made sure Bailey and Gabriel were good, Isaac and Li-Mei headed back to the university.

After being let back into the building once again, Isaac came out with all the stuff needed to run the faculty and set himself up in the old meeting room. Sure, there’d never been a former hierarchy created, but now that push had come to shove, he’d slid into the second-in-command role seamlessly. Also, Bailey had managed to do most of the paperwork before shit had hit the fan.

Also, both Bishop and Chandler often dropped by to help.

All in all, Bailey being gone sucked, but not because he wasn’t there to work, they’d managed to compensate for that. It was just that they were all worried sick about him.

They dropped by the Baileys’ often, and apparently, the professor was bouncing off the walls after a couple of days, raring to go back to work, but the whole affair had still left them shaken.

This … this had hit way too close to home. But slowly, things were getting back to normal, or as normal as they could get.

So, Professor Bailey, still not in top form but able to function at work, returned just in time for the meeting that would determine the future of their faculty. Whether their work would end up shackled by a million different rules, whether or not they would be able to keep staying at the university because there could always be the next person trying to steal the stuff they were known to have …

This was going to be rough.