Chapter 205 - Hands, Fingers… Thighs, And Bones?

Miss Masher takes a few cautious steps back, grabbing an upended table that was resting against the short under-window wall nearby. She glances at Lucas, and upon seeing him coughing as he sits up with no visible injuries, she no longer spares him any further attention.

With a firm grip on the table, she runs at the erratically flailing over-medicated man, shouting in order to pull his attention away from Lucas.

The befuddled bully had managed to turn around to face Lucas, but he staggered a few times before ultimately falling to his knees, as his balance from the injured leg was thrown off more than he can currently mentally account for, even though he’s largely unaffected by the pain of it.

With Miss Masher’s rapid approach, he lurches to the side to change his orientation, facing her head-on and yelling right back at her. He does a wide wind-up to swing his right fist at her, but she ducks and does a sweeping horizontal strike against his center mass using the top surface of the metal table she’s wielding.

There’s a satisfying thump as the table bends around the druggy with the force of the strike, shoving him a small distance in Lucas’s direction and causing him to tip over, as his balance was already fairly unstable to begin with.

Immediately annoyed by his new rigid attire, he punches away the table that is contorted around him, finally splitting it apart after all the stress it just experienced. It doesn’t take him long to get himself mostly upright, and he glares at Miss Masher while screaming some inarticulate nonsense at her, which is most likely not based on any real language.

“Yeah yeah, rawreaoublurg to you too, heheh. The fuck is this dude’s problem, anyway?” Miss Masher continues chuckling after asking this, cracking her knuckles as she slowly walks towards him once more.

Her apparent amusement seems to anger him further, as he sputters out some more high-volume gibberish as he tries to stand back up. However, he fails and falls back down to his knees again.

‘Oh, right, she has no idea what’s even goin’ on. She just came in an’ immediately went to throw hands, heh.’

[Fair warning; Jonathan is probably still being cautious. Without 011, he wouldn’t have any reasonable excuse as to how he knows the aggressor won’t just charge after him again if he makes his current location known. Do try to not blatantly mess up acting out giving him the heads up…]

‘Hey! Do ya really have so little faith in me!? Wait, no, don’t answer that, I don’t wanna hear it.’

[...So you DO already know the answer.]

‘Shut up! Jerk!’

[...]

By now, Lucas has fully pulled himself back up into a standing position, mindfully dusting himself off before re-engaging in combat with his now partially handicapped opponent.

“Hey, yeah, what IS this dude’s deal? Oh, Jon, ya can come out now, he ain’t runnin’ nowhere anytime soon.” After Lucas shouts this out, Jonathan sighs softly before going to stand back up.

Miss Chievous assumes it’s because he’s potentially safe now, but really it’s because Jonathan was worried about how they’d segue into an explanation for everything that’s going on.

When Jonathan moves his hands to help support himself while prepping to stand up, he hisses and yanks his left hand back, looking at it.

There’s a shallow cut at the base of his palm, with a sliver of glass stuck in it, and a tiny slice along the outer edge of his pinky. Grumbling a bit, he carefully removes the glass shard whilst standing up.

Once he’s fully upright, he looks through the nearest forcefully opened window, smiling subtly when he sees the overdosed offender’s injury that is preventing him from standing up properly.

After Jonathan is done briefly enjoying the sight, he shakes his pants legs a few times, causing a shower of shards of glass and various other miscellaneous small debris to rain down from his actions.

Opening his mouth to answer Lucas, he freezes and looks down roughly where he estimates Miss Chievous is sitting, as she’s still quietly remaining invisible. Suspiciously so.

He also belatedly remembers she doesn’t have enhanced clothing on, unlike him.

While clenching his uninjured right hand into a fist, he decides to first go through with his prepared informative performance before attempting to check on her well-being.

“I’m, um, n-not completely sure. He smashed his, um, w-way out of the bathroom, and was already acting like, um, that. I th-think it’s some crazy kind of drug..? It p-probably made him stronger, too?” Shortly after he began speaking, the deranged druggie snaps his attention in Jonathan’s direction, screeching and attempting to rise in an attempt to take a faltering step towards him, but gives up and switches to crawling instead after his repeated failures.

No matter how threateningly powerful he is, the fact he’s crawling on his hands and knees drastically reduces his ominous aura, making Lucas and Miss Masher both break out laughing.

This manages to piss him off all over again, so he sharply turns to glare at Miss Masher and then Lucas, finally deciding that Lucas is the best target to vent his frustrations on. At least he actually managed to land a hit on him, even if it wasn’t very effective.

Jonathan covers his mouth with his right hand, stifling laughter at the scene before turning his attention back over to the vague vicinity of where he believes Miss Chievous is invisibly located.

“Hey… A-are you okay..?” Jonathan lowered his voice before asking, crouching down a bit and facing Miss Chievous’s last known location.

“Ah, yeah, I’ll be fine.” Her voice sounds like it came from the same exact spot Jonathan left her, but for some reason, she’s still maintaining her power.

“Um, that d-doesn’t… A-are you sure?” Jonathan’s voice softens a bit further with concern, his eyebrows knitting closer to each other.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Uhh, are you okay with the sight of blood? I swear, it looks worse than it is.” When Miss Chievous quietly asks this, Jonathan sucks in a sharp breath.

“Y-yeah… Do… Do you need help? Shit! W-was it from me p-pulling you!? I’m so sorry!” After Jonathan finishes saying this in a wide-eyed panic, she chuckles softly.

“Nah, it’s okay. I uh, was just a little reckless. It only got a little worse when you helped move me, but you really don’t need to feel bad. It’s way better than what would have happened if you didn’t. Seriously, there’s no need to freak out, okay?” As Miss Chievous continues speaking softly without revealing herself, Jonathan’s concerned expression suddenly falls from his face.

“...You’re exaggerating things just to m-mess with me, a-aren’t you?” Jonathan asks after a short delay with a deadpan expression and she laughs, finally dropping her invisibility.

While she is in more or less fine shape, there are a few rips on the outer edge of her pants along her left thigh, the gaps in the cloth exposing some lightly bleeding shallow wounds. There are a few shards of glass and small bits of various detritus stuck to the site of the wounds, some of which are most likely the offenders that broke the skin in the first place.

Miss Chievous sticks her tongue out at Jonathan while she makes a goofy face, then she turns her attention downward as she begins gently removing the gravelly contents of her wounds.

Jonathan winces while looking at her incurred injuries. At first, he subconsciously crouches down and almost reaches over to help clear out the foreign matter stuck in it, but then reconsiders this act thanks to where the wounds are located.

“...Er, w-with how filthy the sidewalk is, that’s nearly g-guaranteed to get infected. Um, I… I think I know somewhere n-nearby that should have s-supplies… How bad does it hurt, d-do you need any, um, p-pain killers?” While Jonathan is fussing over Miss Chievous, she has a growing smile, but he’s too distressed to notice.

“It just stings a little, no need. But… Yeah, something to clean it would be nice.” Barely half a moment after she finished saying this, Jonathan darts off.

After quietly saying, “aww,” Miss Chievous chuckles lightly, still grinning.

-----

Lucas’s total kills: 7

Lucas’s total deaths: 11

Lucas’s total assists: 1

Lucas’s current GDV: 17.43 [Recalculating...]

Lucas’s fame level: 6.0* (Local fame is completely maxed, he’s creeping up on minor celebrity status even on a global scale. Thanks, internet.)

Lucas's hero suspicion level: 2.0*

Jonathan’s total kills: 7

Jonathan’s total deaths: 4

Jonathan’s current GDV: 6.10 [Recalculating...]

Jonathan's fame level: 4.0* (Local fame is near-max, but everyone thinks of him via his affiliation with Lucas, and not often just for him, alone.)

Jonathan's hero suspicion level: 2.5*

Willy's fame level: 5.0* (+.25 Another round of the latest memes featuring him and Mr. Quacks has bloomed.)

Mr. Quacks’s fame level: 5.5* (+.25 Another round of the latest memes featuring him and Willy has bloomed.)

Supervillain social circle size: 15

-----

Little character theater:

Jonathan is standing in front of a register in a bodega, staring at the service bot staffing it. The confused bot takes a moment to process the sudden appearance of a customer, as well as his simultaneously materializing chosen purchases, part of which is a small bottle of anti-inflammatory pills and topical antibacterial gel that are normally in an enclosure not accessible by patrons, requiring a key that the bot has hanging by its side. It even double-checks that the key is still there, which it is, it’s just swaying a bit for some reason.

After the bot finishes scanning and bagging everything, as soon as Jonathan finishes scanning his ID to finalize the payment he vanishes, taking the bag of goods with him.

A moment later, the receipt suddenly vanishes too. The poor bot has no idea how to handle these events.

Willy’s softly woke up again, now doing some big stretchums while yawning.

Lucas, hands on his hips, glaring at the author: I’m supposed to be in the middle of a fight! Stop acting like I’m not even the main character!

427 is busy stifling his laughter over Lucas’s pride being wounded in a new and unconventional way.

Author, grinning evilly: I’ll do what I want! If this was a shonen anime, Jon would be the protag, anyway!

Mr. Quacks, temporarily visiting an AU where manga featuring Jonathan as the main character exists and buying the complete series: Quack!