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ROB'ed for pleasure in Worm by BatRou-Dawg

Misc » Book X-overs Rated: M, English, Drama & Humor, Words: 267k+, Favs: 112, Follows: 129, Published: Jan 26, 2023 Updated: Feb 8, 2023

30Chapter 9

Benji

"Kiddo is just me or the pantry isn't as stocked as I remember?" Danny asked me while I was preparing breakfast, the usual hash, sausages, eggs and toast for him, a sandwich for me, breakfast isn't breakfast for me if isn't contained in a bread. "I remember the water and toilet paper pile to be larger."

It was true after all, I had stolen away a couple of packs to my hideout before I went and bought more for it, then there was also the canned and dry foods as well. "I am drinking more of the bottled water as I take some with me when I go run or when I am training." I answered with a stretching of the truth, as I did use some of the water to train in my hideout. "As for the toilet paper I moved it around a bit and resupplied the bathroom and the roll in my room for blowing my nose, we haven't bought more of it in a while."

"Might be that." Danny agreed, he wasn't keeping track of the stash, that was what I did before awakening and still do with a little less fervor. "And given the season you are dipping into the canned meat stores."

"We are running out of game after all and stretching the stuff that we get from the grocery doesn't hurt, then there is rotating the canned stuff." I commented, canned meats were handy, cheap and tasty, spam was quite similar to the presunto/apresuntado/ham that I remember growing up with, the Vienna sausages were still kind of bland, but the pickled cocktail sausages were nice and tangy, great for salad heavy sandwiches. "Might make a casserole or something with some of the canned corn beef."

"Sounds good." Danny replied. "Are you still serious on buying a new house?"

"Yes." I answered. "I like this house and everything, but renovating it wouldn't do much for it, especially given how close of gang turfs we are, the area won't increase in value or improve for a long while, and we could renovate it slowly while living somewhere else." 'Not that I believe that we will.' I kept for myself that part, then on loud added. "It might turn into a nice project for you to work on the weekends with the guys from the union."

"That bit doesn't sound that bad." Danny commented. "Throw in some beers and something to munch on and I am sure that most guys would jump on the project, but that only if we supply the needed materials."

"Maybe we can work something out." I replied flipping the hash browns with a shrug. "Giving the moving idea some thought?"

"Yeah, I mean I can see what you are going at with it." Danny answered seriously. "While this area wasn't the best when your mother and I moved, it was still nice, we saw it turning from a regular working class neighborhood into what it became today, and the depressing feel of the area settled, and I will admit that isn't the nicest area to bring in people to visit who aren't in the same situation as we are, I get it that you want to turn a new leaf with this and transferring to Arcadia."

"True, but I believe that will help the both of us." I agreed, plating the bacon and sausages on Danny's plate. "Don't they say that the clothes make the man? Similar thing, and I think that mom would kick our asses if we didn't do anything with that money beside letting it sit in the bank, I just didn't suggest moving out of town because it would be harder and riskier."

"That would be." He agreed with a nod. "At least here I have a job, which I wouldn't have if we moved out, I will sound out some acquaintances of mine that work with real state, see if we can check some places soon."

"That would be great." I ginned inwardly, 'Progress! Finally!' "The moving process will be a pain, but would be worth it."

"Moving is indeed hard." He chuckled. "Might take a few weeks before that though."

Scene break

With a school free day, Danny working as usual, not feeling like messing with Amy and not really up to meeting with Lisa and doing my usual distractions while interacting with them, I decided to meet with the middleman in Somer's Rock, Brockton Bay's main meeting ground for independent capes, rogues, villains and the occasional official hero needing info or unofficial items.

Quinn Cale was kind enough –since I was paying him to- to explain to me the unwritten rules, mostly was stuff that I could work with and was already following it to a level, he also explained why the PRT was so quick to prosecute me.

I wasn't playing 'The Game', the superpowered cops and robbers game, it wasn't just the status quo that I broke alongside the delicate balance of powers of town, I was working to reset the corrupted machine that was Brockton Bay, to really make a difference and tilt the scales back to the side of order and public safety, and not just spouting lines for PR.

I was new, I was dangerous, I was a unknown element, the established organizations hated me for what I was doing, I wasn't playing along, I wasn't staying to fight their power hitters in flashy battles, I was operating on guerrilla warfare tactics, doing to them what the Vietcongs did to the Americans in the Vietnam, and as happened back then, I was damaging the morale of the troops.

Fortunately Somer's Rock is neutral ground, the entire area around it was considered neutral territory, fighting there was forbidden, not that would stop me if things for heated, but the established capes, now they play by the rules, they will respect the neutrality of the area, and thanks to that so would I.

Of course not being stupid or suicidal, I was going there in my combat gear, my tenchi style sword was still out of order, the guts were easy enough to repair, the hilt wasn't, 'At least I saved it from short circuiting into a explosive destruction.' That shrapnel managed to cross the 'right' conductors and wires to start a bad feedback loop, thanks to force precognition and quick reflexes I destroyed the damaged area, which wasn't composed of anything really irreplaceable.

The bar/pub was the kind of establishment that I wouldn't frequent, dingy, dirty looking and seedy, but it was the place to go. Given the time of the day and current climate there wasn't many clients there, the staff was easily noticeable, one was a sullen looking twenty something girl with brown hair and a slightly wrinkled server's uniform, who glanced at me as I came in, but made no attempt to welcome me.

Then there were two identical twins behind the bar in the far corner, her older brothers, busying themselves with washing glasses and studiously ignoring me and the other clients. One of them was wearing a dress shirt and apron, looking the part of a bartender, while the other had a black t-shirt under a Hawaiian shirt. Besides the contrast in fashion, they were identical in height, haircut, features and expression.

My 'date' was there, a tall middle aged black man wearing a not too fancy three piece suit complete with a matching fedora hat, he kind of looked like the stereotypical friendly black old man from movies, yet unremarkable, behind him two bodyguards, one was a tall and buff Mexican man with a nasty scar on the left side of his face, running from his temple down to his neck, the other is a tall but slim white man, short nearly military style cut hair, both wearing suits with hidden firearms.

The middleman waves me as I approach. "The notorious and infamous Captain Ninja." He said in a level and unthreatening tone. "For a new cape you make large waves, not many live long doing what you did without the backup of a organization."

"Life will tell if I am better than the most." I replied levelly. "Can we make business Freeman?" That was his street name, no one cared or publicized if they knew his real name, it was how the game works, no one wants to poison the spring, Freeman is the best source for virtually anything in the black market, as long it wasn't highly dangerous and restricted tinker tech.

"Yes we can." The black man responded casually. "Please have a seat, give me your wishlist and I will see if I can arrange the items."

"I am reaching into one of my chest rig pockets." I announce before doing so. "Just so there aren't misunderstandings, it is my list."

Freeman nods at my words and his bodyguards show no real response, but I could hear their acknowledgement, and inner muttering on how rare it was for new capes to be that sensitive, I free the folded legal pad page from one of my pockets and slide to the older man, who reaches for it when it crossed half the wall.

He takes a couple of minutes reading it, and I use that time to read the man's mind, learning his answers before he voices them, I smile under my mask as over eighty percent of my list is easy to get, the remainder twenty percent will take days to arrange, and of those three percent was considered hard to get.

"I have much of these in stock, it is common enough, a smaller part will take a few days to deliver, and some will require more time and effort, of course also money." Freeman finally said. "Is this everything?"

"Do you have a catalog?" I enquire, from what I read from him, he has far more goods than those that I listed. "I listed only what I considered a good starting purchase."

"I do have one." Freeman responded. "I offer it for my established clients, if this deal goes well you will have a copy of the most recent one. Now let's talk about prices."

And this is where my telepathy will get its money worth, finding how low of a price the man is will to go before calling off each sale, while still having a lot of money on the locker not saved for my real state projects, I wasn't going to burn everything on this.

Scene break

The van that came with the first load of goods was a bit of a problem, it was old and illegal, it worked well, but it wasn't worth the trouble of having it, still it was a nice transport, Freeman was surprised with the swiftness that I returned the van for reuse in later deals, my order wasn't above my teleportation limit and even if it was I could do more than one trip.

The new parts and materials sped up my building progress, my gauntlet was finished in record time, the initial test was successful and the shield should be good for nearly everything, it was small and I would need to actively block with it, but was good for turtling up, the concussion blaster works, in both bolt mode and short beam, the laser/saber feature also worked, the specialized cut amethyst gave it a final length of ten meters and a needle thin side profile with a two inches wide profile from above.

Armoring the thing up used the last pieces of the alloy that I had made, if I wanted a matching one for my right hand I would need to manufacture more of it, but for now I focus on the positron computer, Freeman unknowingly gave me the key to success there, a mini generator, mini when compared to regular ones, it was the size of a dog house.

But the generator was built of modern non tinker materials, the tech was simple enough to be common, it was a military generator supposed to be used only by the government, but anyone could buy one if they knew the right people, it converts matter into energy, it lost a lot in the conversion, but still produces enough power to keep a city block with power for one week per ten kilos of material used.

The design was familiar enough for me to figure out the cause of the power loss, it was actually simple, the main issue is the density of the material to be converted, the modern day materials can't handle high density metal/mineral conversions, using organic material, mostly trash would give a boost in performance, as it was easier to convert, most people thought the opposite, that denser the better because it required fewer refillings, it was true if the system was perfect, with minor alterations to the system, I got the generator putting out ten times the power with half of the required weight, and seeing the generator and the parts used for it, I could produce them myself, it had the needed link from primitive tech and the advanced tech that I was lacking on that arm of the tech tree, especially now that I have the connections to get the better stuff to work with.

At the moment the generator is powering my tools and the hideout, I removed the connection to the city's grid, I would need to refuel the generator whithin the week, but for now it is charging up all the power cells that I made, which I couldn't do in bulk before. Humming contently I work on the computer, the 'Laws' were built in place.

Unlike in Star Wars universe, in Perry Rhodan, the robots have the rules and laws that they can't break built into them physically and not part of their programming, so even a full formatting and memory removal wouldn't make the robots attack their creators, same with the computers and AIs -no Skynet from me mister-, things that I haven't read much in Perry Rhodan, though they did exist, but were kept mostly as minor things in the books.

Scene break

A instrumental music piece breaks my concentration from assembling the finished bits of the computer, looking around I find my ninja phone ringing and I remember who had that music as ringtone, gripping and yanking the phone from my computer desk with my telekinesis I grab it before it hits me. "Yes?" I ask wondering what Amy wants from me.

"Busy?" Amy asked not answering my own question, she was sounding tired.

"A bit, why?" I responded. "I am not actively fighting, but working on some important side projects, is anything wrong?"

"The ABB is going nuts right now." Amy answered. "Several attacks on known gang hangouts from the rival gangs and organizations, and not by real gang members, the PRT had a field hospital set where I removed these implanted bombs from civilians that you sent their way yesterday, I had barely watched the transport ship lift off with the ordinance when the ship carrying it vanished, exploded and worse."

"But I killed Bakuda." I protested. "I tore her feet off and crushed her with her tricked out jeep yesterday, sure she wasn't dead when I tossed the entire thing at the bay, but she was broken and bleeding, she shouldn't have survived it."

"Apparently she did ninja boy." Amy barked wryly. "I admit that it sounded pretty damn final, but somehow it wasn't and she either implanted bombs in more victims, or she is sending out ones that weren't in the camp, or I will concede that maybe Lung or Oni lee are behind the attacks, one way or another, the violence of yesterday isn't over."

"I don't want to say this healing girl." I dryly said. "But what you want from me?"

I could hear Amy sighing wearily. "I know that is stupid to ask for you to solve this mess." She told me in a lighter tone. "But can you do something about it? You seem unnaturally capable of locating the gangs, use the assassination side of your chosen role."

It is my turn to sigh, the problem is that whatever place Lung was hiding out blocked my telepathy, same with Bakuda –if the bitch is still alive-, anti-psy tech wasn't a unknown for me, I had seen it before, but I gave next to no hint about it, sure it could be a coincidence that I couldn't use my telepathy to locate their minds, still I couldn't find them.

Looking down at my computer I could tell that it would take a few more days of work before it was finished. "I will scout a bit." I finally told her. "I won't make promises, between the undersiders and I the ABB lost most of their loyalists and core non-cape members, the conscripts likely don't know where the leadership is, I don't perform miracles."

"Thank you." Amy said honestly. "At least you will try, the PRT won't actively do much more than just do some patrols to show the flag for the public, and that just on the best areas of town."

'And that means that someone have to keep their noses into the grindestone and do the real work.' I sigh wearily, it wasn't the kind of thing that I wanted to do, but when I picked the Punisher route I knew that there would be times like this. "Now have you rested yet?"

"I got some naps and breaks whenever I could." She replied. "It isn't the same as a full night of sleep, but I have long learned to sleep whenever I can in this kind of situation, food wise I am making do with breakfast wraps, nutrient shakes and fruit heavy granola bars, and large amounts of sports drinks, I believe that you won't be much better than I am right now given the current pace."

"At least my breakfast was hearty" I sighed. "And my morning was productive in other ways. See if you can get some more rest if you can."

"No promises here." Amy responded wryly. "Given the current rate of attacks and how the wounded are being shipped to my location I won't get much rest, I am stretching a toilet break right now to call you, I have many more injured people to heal."

"Then I will lighten your load." I said firmly, she can't heal death after all. "Are the bombs easy to be removed?"

"Not without careful surgery, and I don't think that your sword will do the trick." Amy countered. "It might make them detonate, Bakuda's bombs do more than explode, unusual effects do happen, remember the transport with them was torn apart by a multitude of things."