Chapter 113: The Bigger They Are

There were five ninjas and three barrels on the weapon, which would have to do. Dodging sideways, Sean did his best to line up two of them in what he imagined the blast zone would be at this range, pulled a pin, and doused them both with time-juiced Plug Mud. As soon as the glue hit the first target, Sean pumped a charge of Hard Time into the biggest splotch he could see, concentrated, and willed it to harden faster.

It worked better than he could have hoped. For whatever reason, Hard Time didn’t just get the splotch he was targeting, instead treating the entire projectile as a single object. He watched as the Ninja the majority of the shot had hit went to both dodge and pull more missiles, only to find its movements badly hampered by the fact that a lot of its limbs were suddenly glued to its torso. It wasn’t out of the fight, completely, but he could more or less ignore it for now. The second ninja was still active, but slowed, and Sean hit it with its own blast of glue for good measure. The combination of the two shots left it struggling to maintain balance.

That left one shot to dispose of, and Sean made it count by Hard Time-ing himself, speeding up to medium range on a third enemy, and capping it with a faceful of rapidly hardening glue.

Two ninjas were left healthy, but that seemed suddenly manageable. Sean closed with the first one, doing his best to use it as a human shield against the second, and easily parried a dagger strike from the enemy before burying the Mystereamer behind its clavicle. The second unglued enemy watched as his friend got the effects of full dose of randomly selected lightning energy all at once, glanced at his mostly disabled friends, and ran.

Sean didn’t stop to put the other ninjas out of commission. This seemed like a good time to go. He ran for all he was worth towards the spaceport as buildings gave way to rows of shipping containers and various ships popped into view.

After a few glances around, he saw Itto’s ship, or at least thought he did. It was the only purple craft he could see, but what the large woman had called a “little purple ship” was actually the size of a couple city buses taped together side by side. Frames of reference being what they were, Sean kind of understood. Most of the ships here were much, much larger.

He turned between two rows of shipping containers to line up with it and kept running, but it almost wasn’t a surprise when his way was suddenly blocked again. Turning the corner at the end of the row was the gigantic cop, calm as she could be and looking slightly smug.

“So that’s how they knew?” Sean asked. “The ninjas, I mean.”

“What’s a ninja?”

“Stealthy guys. Good at chasing and jumping.”

“Oh, them. Yeah. Those are Kailen. Hired killers and bounty hunters. Tough guys, actually. I’m surprised you got past them.”

“I have resources,” Sean said, smiling the tiniest amount. “So why do this? I thought Itto had dirt on you, or something.”

“He does, or something like that. But enough money can buy your way out of a lot of trouble, Sean.”

The woman suddenly flexed, growing as she did. She went from much, much bigger than Sean to an impossibly large mount of muscle, growing sharp horns out of her elbows and knees she did. It was never entirely sure, but Sean was willing to bet that he wasn’t dealing with a DEX build here.

“You know,” the woman’s voice boomed unnaturally loud now. “You could just come along nicely.”

“I know I could,” Sean said, digging into his pack for a potion he had really hoped not to take. “I just don’t think I will.”

As Sean downed the drink, the woman roared, reached down, and picked up an empty steel shipping container. It was one of the small ones, but Sean was pretty sure it would be than enough to get him if it hit. He dodged out of the way as she brought it down like a hammer head towards the ground, jumping up and poking her in the wrist with the Mystereamer as he did. She shrieked as a black energy coursed through her arm, dropping the container for a moment as her body struggled to get it under control.

Stupid, Sean thought. I should have coated that with time.

As the woman went for the next hit, Sean managed to land a shot on her thigh, then ran through her legs as she brought the shipping container swinging towards herself. He was ahead of her, if just barely. Just fast enough to keep from getting squashed. But that was before the potion kicked in.

Buff percentage randomly selected at 18%.

Sean had no context for what a sudden 18% increase in stats would feel like, especially since the amulet containing Earth’s potential was juicing that even further. The biggest increase he had ever felt before was 10 points to each stat, when he put on the prism ring for the first time. This was much, much more than that, especially in Sean’s primary classes.

Suddenly, he was faster, stronger, and better at using his hands to wreak havoc on other people. He could feel those, and feel them in a pretty conventional way, as sudden massive increases went. Magic was an even bigger increase, and while he could feel a difference, it was hard to say exactly what was happening there. He dodged easily past one of the big gal’s steel container strikes, then hit her with Hard Time to test it.

Every other person he had ever used to the skill on as a debuff had slowed down, usually just a bit and just for a bit. The woman slowed down, but the effects weren’t really comparable. Whatever the potion had done, it must have tipped him over some kind of power threshold. She was moving so slow for so long that for a moment, Sean felt like she had stopped entirely. It was an insane difference.

He was so surprised to see her just standing there that he wasted almost the entire effect gawking, and only got to a good striking position just before the effect wore off again. From there, he stabbed her a few times, then had to retreat as she put the container on the ground and spun it in a small circle, clearing the area directly around her.

“What the hell was that? A teleport?” the woman said. She looked at the steel shipping container for a moment, then reluctantly dropped it. “You’re a dodgy little bastard, aren’t you? I guess I’ll have to do this with fists, then.”

She threw a couple sample punches Sean’s way as she approached again, and Sean suddenly felt thankful he hadn’t held back on the resources. The shipping container was slow in comparison. As she closed distance, she threw a wicked hook Sean was pretty sure would have killed him outright if it connected, but that another charge of Hard Time turned into an opportunity to stab one of her knees several times.

She made no more noise, but Sean could tell the knee strike had hurt when her body suddenly glowed red, then erupted. The sheer force of the explosion sent Sean flying back, not doing much damage but clearing the area around the woman of the danger he posed to her. He landed on his feet, skidding, and saw she was already charging towards him, only slowed down a bit by the damage to her knee.

That wasn’t a lot of damage, relative to how much she can take. Sean thought. But Hard Time is spammable now. Time to make use of that.

Sean was much stronger stat-wise than he should have been, and he knew that. He had great armor. He had cheat weapons. But up to this point, he had never really felt like it made him overpowered. He had been able to survive, and that was wonderful. Truly wonderful, considering how much he didn’t want to die. But all the variety in his build and all the great things his magic powers could do had always been just enough to get past whatever new enemy was in front of him, and usually no more than that.

This was the day that changed. As Eshla the Giant got within a few feet of him, Sean slowed her and sped himself up, this time not surprised at the massive difference in their speeds as he made an absolute pincushion of her fist. She swung again, but there had been so much time in-between the two hits that Sean was already behind her, hitting her in the back of the same knee he had been hitting before, this time with time energy in the mix.

Some burning effect did a time-accelerated lap through her leg, leaving clear scorch marks around the stab. Eshla mule kicked, trying to catch Sean off guard and using the motion from the kick to turn around. Sean hit her with Hard Time again as she did, moving with the rotation of her body to stay behind her, then jumping up, getting a handful of the back of her shirt, and stabbing her in the small of her back over and over.

The pattern continued. Eshla was now throwing empowered strikes, punches that glowed with energy and went faster or seemed more destructive than the others. But she couldn’t throw many of them, and none of them could connect. Sean had to think that, from her point of view, he must have seemed to be everywhere. He realized he felt a little bad for her, actually.

It took a lot of stabs to take her down. By the time Itto finally rushed around the corner, she was a smoking mass of spent elemental damage, barely keeping on her feet. Itto was carrying a big gun, one that would have looked silly-large even in Sean’s house. In Itto’s, it looked as big a house, and seemed every bit as dangerous as it was aesthetically ill-fitting.

“I’m here! I’ve got her!” Itto said. “Get back!”

Sean jumped back, more than happy to let Itto finish this, and hit the ground several feet away just as Eshla’s eyes went glassy. Without even a groan, she crashed to the ground, breaking the concrete in a few places as she did.

“Holy shit, nevermind. Looks like you got her.” Itto looked at his gun in dissatisfaction. “I feel silly bringing this now.”

That was the moment that the group of ninja-like warriors that Eshla had called the Kailen chose to finally catch up. Sean wheeled around on them, seeing they had finally managed to clear most of the glue and were reaching for their throwing pins in apparent full fighting form.

“Oh, good!” Itto said. “It was a good idea after all.”

A few seconds later, the Kailen were part of a surprisingly large crater in the ground, and Sean and Itto were bolting towards the purple ship before anything else could go wrong.

As they crossed the threshold of the hatch, Sean looked back out for a moment at the planet he had called home for a few months.

“You know, I don’t think I ever actually learned the name of this place. I could probably remember it if I tried, but…”

“Don’t bother. It’s a shithole,” Itto said, pulling the hatch closed. “Nothing exciting ever happens here, besides what you just pulled. I guarantee you once you see more of the actual universe, you won’t miss it.”

Sean believed it.