Pueris sighed in exasperation as he lay slumped over a bar counter within a fine establishment.
He had slipped out of the Auction House and had snuck into a closed bar undetected.
He had done his role, but the others seemed to be struggling with theirs.
"Goddamn it..."
Pueris was muttering words under his breath like a madman.
"Reta got caught?"
"The same Reta who went head to head with Justice 7?"
"...Well I suppose they're not exactly the same but... They're close enough in terms of power."
"Who could've even taken current Reta down?"
"Fire Dragon only does high-grade missions, and his location is constantly recorded due to his celebrity status."
"The rest of the top 10 should be doing impartial missions right now..."
"So they couldn't have been in the top 10..."
"Spatial Roach?"
"Did Spatial Roach take out Reta?"
Pueris grunted like a horse.
His frustration was peaking and his face was boiling to the point that he was becoming a human tomato.
Spatial Roach was a secret agent for the Chinese Government, a hero in the shadows who took care of many things behind the scenes.
The last time Pueris saw Spatial Roach, Spatial Roach was missing an arm and he had 3 bullets jammed into his face.
Clearly, Spatial Roach had gotten some better luck now.
Pueris banged his head on the table loudly, but the bar was entirely deserted so he caused no public disturbance.
Thud.
"The current Reta isn't all that experienced... He's probably only had around 11 genuine fights and I think he was getting pretty cocky about his abilities around this time."
Pueris huffed out loudly.
"I don't even know if Reta is dead..."
"He might've just gotten taken away by Spatial Roach, I don't think Spatial Roach likes killing."
"Wait."
Pueris grinned quietly.
"Heroes don't kill. How could I forget? Reta is either in some Chinese jail right now, or being turned into a puppet."
"Well. I don't even know if the Chinese have the puppet deformation technology within their grasp yet. No jail should be able to contain Reta, he can manifest chaos even if you strap all of his limbs with titanium bands."
"If that's the case, Reta can just escape where he is currently trapped at."
"I'll message Rockfish, get more information, and then adapt to the plan."
"God..."
Pueris sighed deeply.
"I shouldn't have assumed that there would be no major issues."
"Veleno and Shrarld are meant to be at this bar, I guess that means that they're in a fight. There's no need for me to worry about that though... No one in this entire country can even pose a threat to the two of them combined."
"Maybe Fire Dragon can pose a substantial threat but that's it. It's not like he'd just so happen to meet up with them. He's a busy man."
Pueris pulled out his recently gifted phone and began scrolling through his messages.
He found the rather obscure Red 0 Group Chat that he had been added to and began tapping away on his gleaming blue phone screen.
{Rockfish, more information on the situation please- Pueris.}
{Still at the bar btw. If you were wondering.}
A notification popped up from the top of Pueris' screen.
"Huh? That's annoying."
Pueris was just about to flick it away when he read the message that it presented to him in horror.
{Hero News.}
{The -S- Rank Hero Fire Dragon from the Chinese Hero Monarchy was recently seen duking it out with an -S- Rank Villain and an accomplice near Suzhou, China. This is already his 23rd villain confrontation of the year, we pray for his imminent victory.}
One -S- Rank Villain.
That would be Veleno.
Pueris was pretty sure they called him something around the likes of Poison Blade on the Villain Rankings.
And the accomplice was Shrarld, someone who had been holding back in recent times in terms of pure destructiveness.
And they were fighting the one man that had the ability to destroy them.
Fire Dragon.
The man with the heart of China.
Pueris immediately began sprinting out, with no remorse for his weak childish body.
But his pitiful youth caught up to him, and he was soon gasping for air.
His lungs screeched as they felt like they were being incinerated.
Pueris ended up dropping to the ground, in the middle of a bustling street of Chinese pedestrians.
No one noticed the boy.
Was it because he was too little?
Was it because he was too insignificant?
Or was it merely because society was the true villain?
Pueris did not know.
With red hushed cheeks, Pueris picked himself up and clung to the side of a heavy brick wall.
An explosion sounded behind Pueris, it must've been at least a few hundred meters away because it was incredibly faint.
Boom...
Pueris turned around, but all that lay before him was the very same brick wall that he had been resting upon.
Pueris knew he would not be able to make it to his old allies.
So he sat down in grief.
"Argh."
Pueris fake chewed, hoping to feel something.
"This is all going wrong..."
"First, Reta gets captured."
"Next, Veleno and Shrarld end up fighting the strongest man in China..."
"And the reason for all this is me."
"I convinced them all to go here, to snatch the Jewel."
Pueris looked down depressingly.
"Sure is gonna take one hell of a convincing session when I have to explain why my future sight ability didn't foresee any of this..."
Buzz.
Buzz.
Pueris checked his phone.
Rockfish had replied to his question thoughtfully.
{We got the Jewel safely and securely. I and Angjayre are currently on an island. We plan to return to the bar in a few hours at a minimum because the strange hero who eliminated Reta could still be in the area. I recommend you escape and head South, away from Suzhou.}
{The signal is really bad here, so I don't even know if these messages will end up reaching you, take care, newbie.}
{-Rockfish.}
Pueris scanned the messages sincerely.
"...I guess that helps clear things up a bit."
"Also where's Delno? Wasn't she supposed to be giving us outside intel?"
"Did Spatial Roach get her as well?"
Pueris furrowed his eyebrows in annoyance.
"I swear... The next time I see that handsome bastard, I'll make sure I keep the future exactly the same."
Pueris had originally been the one to put 3 bullets into Spatial Roach's head.
Unfortunately for Spatial Roach, he couldn't teleport the bullets out of his brain before he died.
He was actually pretty easy to defeat in theory, you just had to keep some solid distance from him.
If Spatial Roach absorbed all your attacks into his portals, you could just send more attacks his way, making portals really exhausted the man.
"Yup. Exactly like the boy on the recordings. Long and glossy white hair, body of a child, and a rather laughable height."
Poor English was spat out from Pueris' left.
And there Pueris found, a man tidying up his appearance softly.
He had spazzy celebrity-like hair.
He had a charming face, the kind an idol might have.
He was clearly a celebrity of sorts. There was even a strange roach tattoo on his left cheek.
He was wearing a glorious black and white suit, but he was rocking it in a messy fashion, with no bonnet or tie.
His partially buttoned white shirt seemed scruffier than his accent.
"You are... A veelane?"
(You are... A villain?)
Pueris smirked sneakily as he thought to himself simultaneously.
'Wow... I didn't even notice him appear. Did he warp into the area and then track me down on foot? I guess I've got quite a noticeable appearance. He doesn't seem to recognize me as Pueris. But rather, as some random kid accomplice.'
'Now... I guess I'll just eliminate him from the picture. The sooner this guy is eliminated, the better. I also need to ask about Reta...'
Pueris cleared his throat darkly.
"Nice to meet you."
"I'm Pueris-."
Spatial Roach muttered something inaudibly under his breath.
"Gateway."
A crackling, whirring sound began formulating from behind Pueris.
Pueris could see the edges of a dark vortex spreading out behind him, it loomed over him like death incarnate.
Pueris could already feel his body getting sucked in by its attraction force.
"Chronos Extinction."
A distorting sound haunted Pueris' ears.
Something in the World momentarily shut down at that moment.
A euphoric dome of energetic sea-blue energy, so densely packed that it was blinding, crashed outwardly wickedly.
It never stopped.
Pueris had no idea how far this outward dome of sea-blue energy expanded to.
All he knew was that once it completely engulfed everything, the world was grey.
And time was stopped.
Pueris' mind was breaking apart.
He had 3 seconds before his mind completely self-destructed.
This was his strongest ability, but it was also his most dangerous ability. If he did not abide by its rules, he would be a shell of a man, a cripple of sorts.
That was the cost of halting time itself.
Pueris rushed over to the man known as Spatial Roach and clamped his hands around Spatial Roach's hips.
The dome of sea-blue energy rushed back, reversing its previous path, and proceeded to re-enter Pueris' body swiftly.
When the world readjusted itself to normality, Pueris had apparated right before Spatial Roach.
Pueris waved his hands around Spatial Roach in a clownish manner and as he did so, Spatial Roach's arms grew thin and wrinkly, his youth dried out until the once handsome celebrity had become an old man, crippled by his coyness.
Pueris dashed to the left rapidly, afraid that the remains of Spatial Roach still had some fight in them.
The dark vortex from earlier swallowed itself gloomily.
Pueris laughed hysterically.
"Yes..."
"I DID IT!"
Pueris was overjoyed.
He had just crippled China's agent of the night, Spatial Roach.
Spatial Roach looked down, to see his arms once packed with adored muscles, now as thin as twigs, and collapsed to the ground as his knees bent at an awkward angle.
He was truly a joke of his former self.
No words emerged from his crispy, ashy mouth.
There was no expression on his face.
He was like a robot.
The only thing that had stayed with him, was the Roach tattoo on his left cheek.
Pueris slowly strolled over to the fallen soul, and he began sending his hand out. To end the old man before him, once and for all.
But just as Pueris' hand made contact with the old man, something not so great occurred.
Bzzt.
The old man's skin deformed horrifically.
The old man's skin wasn't fleshy. Now, it was swampy and purple.
The old man looked like he had been drenched in purple tar from head to toe.
Pueris tried to dash away but it was too late.
He could only curse the trap that he had fallen for in spite.
"A force clone?"
BOOOOOM.
A huge gaping vortex of demonizing purple exploded from the old man's corpse and Pueris was consumed by it instantly.
Pueris was forcefully shoved into the center of the vortex, his view was overtaken by a sea of crackling black as Pueris felt the air get drastically colder.
"Is this how it ends?"
Regret burned Pueris' mind into the depths of hell.
But was it truly over?
Pueris would never know.
Because on the other end of the vortex, Pueris' body dropped down into a dark stony cell.
Pueris' consciousness left his body as his head smacked into the hard stone floor coldly.
Bang.
Blood leaked onto the desolate stone floor.
Reta looked forward emotionlessly. His shaggy red hair didn't hide the irritation lurking within his bloody eyes.
"They got the new guy too?"
Delno had a smug smile plastered to her face, her longing azure hair looked like a haven of sparkling diamonds in the darkness of the cell.
"I still can't believe he got you of all people Reta. Aren't you meant to be the big boss? Fufuuu..."
Reta ignored Delno tiredly.