[New Title: Syndicate Slayer]

Alex stared at the oncoming horde of gang members with terrible haircuts. How to do this. He had to kill them so they didn't go after Gertie. So telekinetic body probably wasn't the best choice. Too likely to just knock them out and then they'd be defenseless, and he couldn't kill a defenseless person.

He would try the spike method, mixed with a wave of fear. Alex activated wave of fear first. It didn't work as well as he'd hoped.

Out of the thirty something guys rushing at him, only two turned tail and ran. This time Alex felt more of the subtlety of how it worked.

He could create a circle of fear around him that would attach to anyone who wandered into it or started inside it when it was activated.

That would create a connection that reduced the amount of psychic energy he could put out at one time. His bandwidth, so to speak.

When two connections were formed, his bandwidth was used up and he couldn't create any new connections without breaking the current ones. So it wasn't so much a wave of fear as it was a splash of fear.

Alex remembered he still had his forcefield up. That was probably using up half his bandwidth by itself. If he dropped it, he could probably create four connections instead of just two.

Four still wouldn't be nearly enough to hold back over thirty dudes, even if he cycled the fear effect. Meaning, creating four connections, waiting for the guys to get twenty or so feet away, then breaking connections to form new connections with men who were closer to him to try to slowly push them all back.

He wouldn't be able to cycle the skill fast enough for it to do any good. Eventually, they would get close enough to grab him and then it would be over.

His original plan was to make all of the men run away with fear and shoot them in the back with spikes as they ran away, but that wouldn't work with the limited bandwidth of the skill.

They were getting pretty close at this point. He had to find a way to create some distance. Wait, he knew what he could do.

Alex activated telekinetic body, deactivated his force field, and powered up his telekinetic body as much as he could. Then he took off running.

[New emergent class feature: Full Power]

[Full Power: The ability to pour all your psionic energy into one skill, maximizing its potential]

Huh. Thinking back, Alex realized he had never actually gone all out with one skill. He either used just enough power to achieve his goals or he went all out on two skills, cutting the power of those two skills in half.

And emergent class feature? From just messing around with how he used his skills? That must've meant there were hidden class features he could unlock through experimentation. Nice! He was liking this system Ludos gave him more and more.

Ok, that should be good enough. Alex looked back and he was 300 feet away from the group of gangsters. They were still chasing after him, but he had put a lot of distance between them.

Alex deactivated his telekinetic body and started making telekinetic spikes. He was able to create four spikes this time since he wasn't concentrating on another skill.

[Emergent class feature upgrade: Quad Targeting]

[Quad Targeting: Ability to create four instances of a skill and choose up to four targets]

Alex shot the spikes out towards the men running at him, but they stopped at around 200 feet. He couldn't push them out any farther than that. He pulled them back to 100 feet, buried them in the sand, and waited.

When they were about 120 feet out, Alex launched the spikes out of the sand and through the group of men. He didn't target anyone in particular. The spikes hit several points of resistance that he had to push them through until they got to the other side. Several of the men fell.

Then he shot them back through from the other direction. Several more men fell this time. At this point, the group was about half the size it was before.

Alex shot the spikes through again and again until no one was left standing. Surprised it was that easy, Alex walked through the sea of corpses, checking to make sure they were all dead. Luckily enough, they were.

He even found the guy who he talked to at the door among them.

"And that's for my mother. Is what I would say if I was a cool action hero, but it doesn't feel quite right," Alex said. "I need to work on my catchphrasing."

[Achievement Unlocked: Make the Purple Platypus an extinct species]

[New Title: Syndicate Slayer]

[Effect: Deal 50% more damage to members of evil factions]

Nice! I love a game with titles and achievements, Alex thought. That would help a lot with dealing with the alien invasion down the line. If only he got some sort of cool trophy that represented the achievement.

[New trinket attained: The Purple Platypus]

A small bobble head trophy of a purple platypus appeared in his mind space. It stood on a circular platform with the words "Purple Platypus" etched into the side of the wooden platform.

The purple platypus was holding a little knife, and it had some minor blood splatter on its bill. He turned it over, and the door password was written on the bottom.

He could even bobble the head. It was so cute, Alex played with it longer than he would care to admit, until he finally closed the screen that contained it in his mind.

Alex walked back to the warehouse. Before collecting the backpack filled with trinkets, he walked through the now empty warehouse, back to where the platypuses were playing cards.

He looked around and eventually found the two things he was looking for. A duffle bag and money. He opened up the duffle bag to find bags of some sort of purple drugs in it.

He dumped it out onto a table and started collecting the coins on the tables into the bag. He ended up with a 10-pound bag of coins. He slung it over one shoulder and went to collect the trinket bag.

He took off the duffle bag strap and put the trinket bag on his back, then slung the duffle bag strap back over his shoulder. Alex walked the streets of the abandoned industrial district alone and undisturbed.

When he finally arrived at the door to his host's house, he knocked on the door. For some reason, he didn't have the key on him. Alex felt nervous. He was about to meet his sister for the first time.