Save Scumming

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Three - Disappointing

"Hey," I said as I came into Jane's shop.

It was Friday. The week had passed... both slow and not. I spent an unreasonable amount of time just sleeping. I had planned on studying a bunch, learning more French, picking up more guitar skills, and while that had happened, I... also didn't get a tenth as much done as I may have wanted.

Crazy how life was, sometimes. Crazier to think that I was able to start it all over.

"Hey Beanstalk," Jane said as she leaned onto the counter. "Good day? Cause you look like you were run over."

"Yeah," I said. "I kinda was." Edwin hadn't been kind. I still wasn't sure if I could reasonably expect to be able to fight a Seraph D-ranker in a one on one, but trying to level that playing field was the one thing I hadn't slacked off on.

That meant that I came out of the whole situation beaten black and blue, with bruises in places that I'd never bruised before. It wasn't enjoyable, but... yeah, I was definitely learning.

"We focused on dirty fighting today," I said.

"Oh?" Jane asked, one eyebrow perking right up. "Dirty, huh?"

"Going for the eyes, punches to the groin, choking, biting, you know, dirty." I wiggled my own eyebrows in reply, and Jane snorted.

"All good except maybe the eyes part?"

I scratched the nape of my neck. "Yeah, maybe that's a bit far. Uh... so, this is a little awkward."

"Hmm?"

"I need to head back," I said.

Edwin had a life. Sure, five grand for a week of work kept him around, but he had to return to his normal clients, and I think he had something this weekend. I didn't get the full details, but it sounded like an entirely mundane family thing. Basically, if I wanted to continue training with him, it would have to wait until Monday.

I wasn't willing to wait that long. I was itching to improve and two days of nothing would slow me down a ton.

"Head back where?" Jane asked.

"To last Friday," I replied. "Uh, yeah. I need to keep my home safe. Start figuring out how to take those Seraph guys out. Maybe talk to their leader?"

"Oh," Jane said. She stood up straighter, then frowned. "So this last week..."

"Yeah. It'll be gone," I said. "I'll remember it. Probably for a long, long time." Not all of the bruises I had were earned in the ring.

Jane pressed her lips together, then stared at me for an uncomfortably long time. Still, I let her think. "Okay," she said. "Can you promise me that you'll take care of yourself? Get some stress off your back?"

"Yeah," I said. Why did I feel like crying a little? It was way too late to be this emotional. "I can do that."

"Cool. And next time we meet up and bang, I want to try the thing with the nurse's outfit."

I snorted, then covered my mouth as I laughed. "Alright, we can do that," I said. "The thing with the maid outfit was kind of hot, though."

"Mhm! Plain Jane, unlocking new kinks across the timeline," she said.

I let my smile turn a little softer. "I'll miss ya," I said.

"Sure bet you will. Good luck, yeah? And come back whenever. I've had ideas about your costume and such which... dammit, new me might not remember. That's fucked up."

"Yeah," I said.

I Reloaded.

In a blink I was back a week ago, in my apartment, laying on my bed, absolutely exhausted. It was made so much worse by the suddenness of it. Going from fully awake to dead tired in an instant was rough.

Groaning, I checked my augs, then set an alarm for three hours from that moment, then I laid back and pspsps'd to Mister Couchtop for him to come over.

Three hours passed in a blink, and if it wasn't for the augmentations being very persistent with the noise and flashing lights, I might have been able to sleep through it.

It wasn't a lot of sleep, but I figured some was better than none. Groaning, I slid out of bed, waddled to my fridge, then downed an energy drink with enough caffeine and sugar to make a horse hyperactive. My heart certainly felt the jolt of it.

Right, time to get to work.

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First, I got dressed properly. It was still damned early in the morning, so that was fine. I left my apartment, but only after putting Mister Couchtop in a cage. I brought him upstairs, to where Misses Tone's apartment was. If something happened... well, she might help.

Then back down to the ground floor. I knew which entrance the Seraph guys would take. I wanted to see what I could find out about their path. I had ideas, of course.

Like shutting down the elevator.

That was surprisingly simple. I popped open the panel which wasn't held open by much, stared at the electronics within, then used Shadow Bolt a few times. Enough stuff sparked that I figured that was good.

The damned elevator didn't work half the time anyway, so I figured that might take it out for a while.

With that bit of sabotage done, I used the stairs, climbing all the way up to my floor while taking it all in with new eyes. There were lights in the ceiling that were burnt out, a few spots where the carpet was worn to bare threads, and one spot in the stairs where the railing was held in place by some duct-tape.

Damn, I really lived in a shithole, didn't I? I never really made an effort to notice.

Now... if I was going to make this harder on the Serap guys, how would I go about it?

I started by breaking a few more lights. Shattering them with a quick spell and leaving some corridors entirely black. That would... maybe help?

Honestly, the more I looked at it, the more it felt like an ambush would be best done while they were on their way back. There were two stairs up, on opposite sides of the building. I could probably sabotage the ones they'd use, then use the other set of stairs to lay in ambush.

Man, was I going to Home Alone this whole place? It'd be kind of funny. It might just be too much work, though.

The morning rolled around faster than I expected, and some folks started to leave home for work already. The early birds, the people that worked on the far end of the city, the janitors and store openers and first shift people that had to be at the doors by six.

That's also when Seraph arrived.

I watched them from the second floor. The vans emptying out, then ten Seraph guys running into the building.

I wasn't going to ambush them on this run. Instead I was taking mental notes of the gear they had. Some of the time I spent with Jane had been spent studying the standard gear they used, so I had a good idea of what they all had and what the standard loadout was, but a few had unique pieces.

They were D-rankers, they probably had some leeway when it came to unique one-off gear and custom pieces.

The team walked up the stairs. I listened to them moving by from just behind one of the doors of an apartment that was abandoned on the second floor.

Shit. If a shoutout broke out here, the locals might get involved.

I was liking this less and less.

Once the entire team was up a few floors, I used the same stairs to walk down to the ground level, then I left out the front.

The Seraph vans weren't completely unguarded, but mostly it was just that one, lone C-ranker standing outside, staring into a phone.

He noticed me when I was still a ways away. He didn't even have the decency to look surprised, he just lowered his phone, then tapped an earpiece and muttered something that I didn't pick up.

"Hey, you're--" he started.

"Shut up, Ernest," I snapped before crossing my arms. "Can you explain what's going on here? Why is Seraph breaking into my house at this kind of hour?"

"You're under arrest," he said. "Please come peacefully and--"

"Dude, I just wanna know why you sent ten dudes to break into my house."

Ernest frowned, then raised a hand. "Fine then," he said.

"What?"

I jumped back as a trio of lights, all of them spinning around each other like some sort of rave helix thing, shot out from Ernest's hand and raced towards me.

Just because I jumped didn't mean that I was successful, though. One of them clipped me in the arm and I was sent spinning to the ground.

"Okay, well, fuck you too," I grunted.

***