Of Heroes and Villains

The Chapter You Can Pass Through

It didn't take long for the man to grab a hold of Jordan's hair, after which he roughly pulled her back.

As soon as he heard her scream, Don turned around without thinking, and aimed a kick at the man's stomach.

His foot was caught effortlessly, after which the man looked down.

"Uh, why're you both naked?"

Proving herself to be quite the opportunist, Jordan took advantage of his confusion and smashed her elbow into his face, which forced him to let them go.

In that very brief moment, while the man was clutching his nose, Jordan fell through the floor, then materialized, letting it bounce her up through the ceiling, repeating the process to climb through the levels of the ERF. She ran off as fast as possible.

'He can cancel out the vapors of other espers. Fuck me. We can't fight that.'

She felt bad about leaving Don behind, but there was no point in sticking around. They'd only both get captured if she did that.

'Gotta find the captain. Gotta find the captain. He can help.'

A researcher - the boy who had shown them to their rooms - saw her as she went up one of the floors, so she sank right back down through it and landed on top of him. After sticking around long enough to make sure he wasn't conscious, Jordan started running through the walls.

'Where would they be? Fuck. I know he mentioned something. Fuck you, vodka. What did they say again!?'

She stopped at one of the levels, then started cautiously peaking through the walls of every room she came across.

'We can't do this without the boss. What the fuck am I supposed to do? I only pass through things; I can't fight!'

Empty room after empty room, after empty room.

A few more researches saw her, and she made sure to knock them all out.

'Should I just scream? The boss will hear that, right?'

After thinking about it for a moment longer.

'Fuck no! These walls are a nightmare! I should check on Don.'

Activating her vapor, Jordan fell straight through to the basement, the floor of which expelled her right back up into it.

Don and the Destroyed idiot were in front of her. Don was on the ground, getting the shit kicked out of him. Naked, alone and helpless.

The sight sent Jordan to a bad place in her life - a place she never wanted to go again - a place she never would go again.

She ran at the man attacking her teammate, then slammed her fist directly into the back of his head. It didn't knock him out, but it hurt enough to confuse him, after which she sank right back into the ground.

'If I'm right about this, he can only cancel out my vapor if he's looking at me.'

She let the ground push her up towards Don, through whom she passed as she jumped into the air, then delivered a kick to the Destroyer's back, correctly predicting that he had turned around after the first kick. This time, he staggered forward, and many thoughts ran through Jordan's head.

'Gotta save Don. Gotta save Don. Gotta save Don.'

Running almost entirely on instinct, she took a hold of her friend's arm, and they both went underground. Whenever she user her vapor, it got harder to see and hear, and now those side-effects were doubled. Don opened his mouth and said something, but she couldn't hear a thing.

Finally, she shot them both upward, and they flew through the basement ceiling before their opponent could do anything about it. For the first time in a long time, Jordan felt alive. Power filled her body, and made her feel like a wild cat during the hunt.

Then she realized Don wasn't with her anymore, destroying her hopes of escape.

'Fuck me! He knows I'm gonna return now! That only worked because I snuck up on him! What do I do!? Think, Jordan! Think!'

She poked her head out of the wall to see what was happening.

The man had Don by the hair, and was punching him in the face relentlessly. His nose was already broken, and he was struggling less and less with each passing second.

"Got you!" the Destroyer roarer as he looked up, and Jordan was forcibly pulled out of the ceiling.

Letting her instincts do the thinking, she threw her fist down, surprising the man with a gravity-enhanced punch to the lips.

He closed his eye as he winced, and she pass right through him, grabbing his legs as she did. The Destroyer sank into the ground with her, but she couldn't maintain it for long enough to get him under fully, and he was free from the waist-up.

Still, he couldn't see her while she was under, meaning he couldn't cancel out her vapor without her going back up.

That was exactly what she did. Jordan let the ground push her straight into Don, who was now behind the man, who himself was incapable of turning around. She took a hold of her injured friend's hand again, and didn't let go this time. She took him through ceiling after ceiling. then got an idea.

She dragged Down off into one of the corridors, then gently sat him down against a wall. She went into the nearest room and grabbed a pair of purely white clothes which probably wouldn't fit them.

Sure enough, they were too large for them, but they weren't really choosers in the situation.

"T-Thanks," the young man managed to mutter, looking like an injured puppy. He actually managed to muster a smile as he looked up at her. "You came back."

'Wow, I guess I did.'

"'Course I came back, kiddo, but fuck, is your nose messed up. You might not be as pretty anymore."

'Yeah, that's it. Keep his mind off it.'

Don laughed pathetically. "I can put it back into place with time. D'you find the boss?"

"Nah, place is too big for me to manage that. I don't have enhanced senses like he does."

They heard commotion coming from the corridor that led to their own.

"I figured I'd give him a whiff of that epic nosebleed you've got going on."

A researched was sent flying in the other corridor, and they didn't get to see where he landed.

Sean strolled up to them, not a scratch on him. His eyes were narrowed and full of danger as he cut his own wrist open, then held it up to Don's mouth with surprising gentleness.

Jordan felt her knees go weak, and allowed herself to fall on her ass.

"Man, so we have news for you."