Flesh and Bone

Chapter 18: Whisper Softly, We Don't Want To Wake Them Up Just Yet

The final blast sent the stone-skinned Joker flying right across the parking lot, thankfully missing all the cars in his wake before rolling down a small embankment hill. Blyke had another one ready to go if the punk tried his luck, but thankfully he stayed down in the grass. Last mask off, he tried to put a name to the face as the dark gun-gray texture retreated from the unconscious Joker's skin.

Gavin! That's his name.

Although he and these clowns never ran in the same circles regularly, they came to Arlo frequently enough for favors and things like that when he was King. From what he remembered, this Gavin kid was supposed to be the best mid-tier out of all the classes; liked running homework rackets on the smartest kids who didn't have any protectors, and stole petty change left and right.

Scumbag piece of shit. It took Blyke everything he had to not land a kick for good measure while Gavin was down. Swallowing his temper back, he felt well enough knowing that their little sting operation was a success. Using his phone he quickly took pictures of all four Jokers he'd beaten, placing their masks right next to where they lay so that there would be no doubt who they were and what'd they done. Sending them over to Remi with their names, he received a tiny thumbs-up emoji from her real quick.

'Good work!' She said. Although Remi wasn't the one out here beating them up, she'd still be pretty busy on her end entering their pictures and names into their little shared spreadsheet. The document was a work-in-progress, but it had names, pictures, and most importantly what they knew about their frequent foes and whoever they think who would cross the Safe House's path. It didn't have a real title in the Boogle Docs folder, but Remi enthusiastically referred to it as their 'Big Bad Book of Big Bad Morons' in conversation.

It was a cheesy little nickname. Even if he declined to use it himself, Blyke couldn't help himself but to smile at her jolly attitude. Her bubbliness was as infectious as it'd ever been, and that sort of stuff from her got him through the day.

A quick text back. 'Thanks. Gonna bring them in brb'. He was going to drag them off to the nurse's office so they'd get their injuries checked out, and then he'd go get Keene to properly cite these guys. Although it wouldn't be much in the way of punishment— just a slap on the wrist, even if they were running around harassing everyone— they'd still get a little just desserts.

Getting them all lined up next to each other wasn't difficult. The hard part was going to try and get them there without losing one of them. Looking down at all four of them, he realized that he had no real way to bring them all in besides doing it one at a time. The Jokers were all down for the count right now, but who knows if any one of them had a healing passive of some kind and then they'd wander off.

Times like this, Blyke wished that he had some sort of strength augmentation like Isen did. Although it didn't get much practice with his best friend, it still would've come in handy at times like this.

An emotional pang fell across Blyke's mind; he missed his best friend. Not simply for this, though, but just in general. It really has been quite a while, hasn't it?

Ignore it. You can text him later. Keep thinking.

So if Isen was probably off doing who-knows-what with Cecile right now, and Remi was back at the club room, then he had to think of another way.

Another name or two popped into his head as he thought about this operation as a whole. It wasn't just him and Remi acting alone, after all. They'd managed to convince two low tiers to help them out by setting the whole thing up, acting like they were just unwitting bait. It took a lot of guts, considering how little it paid to be associated with the Safe House right now.