T’balt dropped the man he held in his gauntleted hand, having already knocked him unconscious. The others charged. One had a rifle, but with the hypersensitivity loot, T’balt could see them all at the same time. And he would use their disorientation to his advantage. He wanted to make these bastards pay, still having not relieved his anger from the first time Nrv attacked the church.

  What happened in the last iteration wasn’t Nrv. So when he beat the Bear, it didn’t feel like revenge.

  He felt the motion of the rifle being aimed at him. He lifted his gauntlets, sensing where it was going to fire before leaping out of the way and out of the clutches of the charging large man. The rifle shot, shooting the large man in his arm and ricocheting out the window.

  “Watch where you’re shooting!” he yelled.

  The riflewoman aimed again, but T’balt was on her and she was punched hard in the stomach by his gauntlet. The others saw and charged, but T’balt aimed the gun he’d taken from the woman.

  They all leapt out of the way. Except for the armored man knowing the bullets wouldn’t pierce him. He guarded his face and charged like a rampaging rhino. But the hypersensitivity saw weakness. It almost forced T’balt to notice the wobble in his leg due to a cut from the window's glass. T’balt leapt over him using his back as a launch pad. Then fire filled the room.

  The others summoned a strong gust of wind to halt his momentum, but T’balt could see even that. Somehow, with the hypersensitivity, he’d known that they had a wind loot user. The other was a healer.

  It looked like an actual squad. Much better than the unorganized chaos that was the Bear’s bandits.

  The wind blew the fire back at him, and T’balt ducked behind the counter. He shot the gun at the roof as covering fire to make everyone duck behind something.

  Then the room went quiet, everyone playing stealth games as T’balt had the gun. They tiptoed around the room trying to find a vantage point to get to him or their teammates between the aisles. But they couldn’t see him any longer, and he had gone quiet, too. However, T’balt could definitely see them.

  One of them yelled when the gauntlets caught them across the face, and the others jumped. The big man ran to see what had happened, but all he saw was his fallen comrade.

  But the healer had tried to escape the building, leaving the others to fend for themselves as he escaped with his life. But T’balt had seen that too. He was already outside, and he erupted his flame before the man who had already seen his death coming. T’balt gave him one good punch as he was cowering and knocked him unconscious. That left one.

  The big man found him outside and had chucked an entire aisle shelf at him through the window. It was like a train coming at him. And T’balt launched flames at it, hoping to burn it before it reached him, but it wasn’t that flammable, forcing him to break it apart with a punch of his gauntlets.

  The man sprinted towards him, and T’balt met him head-on, armor clashing against his gauntlets, but the man had a strength loot. He picked T’balt up by his arms and flung him. T’balt crashed and rolled into the ground, recovering and rolling to his feet.

  He thought this guy could be a problem. “If only I had the psychic loot or anything better than what I have now.” It was going to be tough to penetrate that armor.

  But then the man yelled out. “Come Oooonnnn!” And he threw his mask off, getting down into a wrestler's stance.

  T’balt could’ve laughed, dropping his guard and rubbing his head. “Cannon… Why are you working with Nrv?”

  At first, the big tanned man looked confused, but then he seemed to remember his celebrity. “Oh, of course, you recognize me. Didn’t realize you were throwing down with one of your heroes, eh?” he called. “Wait! Where are you going?”

  T’balt waved his hand in the air, pretty much finished with this whole iteration, walking in the opposite direction. “I’m not fighting you.”

  “You can’t just start a fight and walk away. What kind of man does that?”

  T’balt turned around. “Do you really wanna fight me that badly?” Seeing his eyes flash red with the hypersensitivity made Cannon think twice. He looked back at his fallen copatrons.

  “Perhaps I’d rather not be on your bad side.” He turned and bowed his head. “Thank you for sparing me.”

  “You know, for a guy preaching on TV about the value of never giving up, you sure gave up easily.”

  The man looked embarrassed, shaking his hands in front of him. “Don’t get me wrong. Perseverance is a good quality to have, but not when it gets you killed,” he said with a forced smile.

  T’balt thought of something then. “I made sure not to kill anyone. So once you wake the healer up, they should all be fine.”

  “Right… thanks.”

  “But listen. You tell Nrv if he ever goes anywhere near that church, it won’t end well for him,” he said, infused with darkness.

  “Oh, so that’s it.” Cannon sat on the ground. He looked strange, wearing all the shrouded thug gear that Nrv operated in. A heavy coat, and some make-shift armor attached to it. Not real armor, but shoulder pads and pieces of scrap spray-painted neon green. “Yeah, I never felt right about attacking a church. I understand now why you were upset.”

  T'balt lost the steam in his intimidation tactic. “Uhh.. thanks for being so understanding.”

  “No problem. You’re a fan of mine, right?” He struck a sitting pose.

  T’balt rubbed his head, wanting to keep things simple. “Sure.” And pretended to clap at Cannon’s showboating.

  “Well, you know my name then… what's yours?”

  “T’balt Ferrier.” He was wondering how many more times he was going to have to introduce himself to people he already knew.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “A nice, strong name. T’balt!” he yelled. “Listen. I won’t deny, you got talent. Strength. A real man’s man. You should join up with us.”

  “Join up with Nrv. Sounds like a bad plan.”

  “Right. You’re with the church then. Forgot.”

  “No.. not exactly,” T’balt remembered how easily he was thrown out to his backside.

  “Then why not? A good stable is the only good way to survive a rocky tide. If you join up, I’ll vouch for ya, and once you do, Cannon has your back 100% guaranteed. Or your money back.”

  “What money?”

  “You’ll fit right in. They love strength and good loot. And once I tell the boys I found a fan, they’ll eat you right up. What do ya say?”

  T’balt sighed. This iteration was a bust anyway. Maybe joining wasn’t a bad idea. At the very least, he could find out more about Nrv and the group to discover why he was there one iteration and not the next. At the very least, he might find out where they’re hiding and if Monan was behind all their attacks.

  “Fine then,” he answered, but he didn’t sound too excited. Cannon still reacted as if it were suddenly T’balt’s birthday.

  “Perfect! We’ll get you geared up and sorted out right away!” T’balt faked a smile.

  It wasn’t long before he gathered up his fallen allies and had them healed. They were all pissed to say the least that their attacker was standing casually next to them, about to join their side. T’balt didn’t apologize, but after a while, Cannon smoothed things over, and they reluctantly accepted T’balt’s company.

  “You’ll have to get approval from Vik,” Cannon said. “He’ll measure you up and decide if you’re a good fit. But don’t worry. As long as you can carry your weight, he won’t bat an eye.”

  Vik obviously Vikram. The Bear. That wasn’t a face T’balt wanted to see. But he supposed he was going into the den of the enemy, who didn’t know they were enemies. His situation was about to become very uncomfortable.

  Their path led them into the downtown area of the city in the wind tunnels of the skyscrapers. There, they could see the bandits as lookouts on the rooftops. They weren’t hard to notice due to that distinct highlighter paint on their outfits.

  “So how come you ended up joining this group, Cannon?” T’balt asked.

  “Well, me and my boys were looking for anywhere to go. We actually tried the church, but they turned us away because we had those powers. But it wasn’t our fault. How could we survive without them?”

  It made sense. With Arthur Kilgrove over everyone, looters might as well have been demons themselves. So it sounded like Cannon going to the church was a common event. He mentally noted it.

  “You called them humanists?”

  “They call themselves that. Pure human. That’s what they think they are. But how could they be, turning away a group of hungry travelers?”

  T’balt shrugged.

  “Still… doesn’t mean they deserve to get attacked.”

  It was refreshing for T’balt to see that Cannon was still the same guy in the next iteration. At least he still had a moral code.

  They arrived at a five-star hotel in the middle of downtown. It towered above all the other buildings and was covered in graffiti, paint, and posters. They could hear music thumping from the inside. And the whole place seemed to glow in the dark.

  Nrv guards were heading out the front, armed with various weapons and armored loot. When T’balt walked by they activated their scowls at the new guy.

  The place was ransacked on the inside, couches torn, floors burned, and just like the outside, graffiti everywhere. People with the word Nrv spraypainted on them were lining every corner. They were like a rowdy bunch of kids ranging from teenagers to adults, but no one seemed to be over the age of 40. Not that he could always tell. Many of them wore those strange masks.

  But the hotel itself looked to be quite the experience. The lobby was huge, with a big dining area and one of those glass elevators that let you see everything as you’re going up and down. One room had a whole arcade in it. He could hear the generator motors that kept it running. In the back was a large batting cage with automatic pitchers. T’balt would occasionally hear the thud from a bat connecting with a pitch.

  A good idea to take over a hotel. There was an endless supply of beds, sheets, and space to have a colony. Kitchens, cleaning supplies, and most tools that one could need. A paradise of sorts.

  Cannon beckoned him to one of the bottom floors, where T’balt prepared to have a civil conversation with Vikram—something he’d never thought he’d ever have to do.

  But the elevator door opened, and T’balt looked upon the Bear. He was wearing his shirtless vest, showing off his chest and spiky dyed hair. His bear mask was sitting on the desk in front of him.

  He was watching something on a laptop, but shut it as soon as the others entered.

  “Hey Vik!”

  The Bear shuddered when he realized it was Cannon calling him. T’balt shuddered inwardly as well, remembering Cannon calling Vik a candied ass and chucking a microphone at him in the last iteration.

  “What is it now?” Vikram said.

  “I got a new guy.” Cannon sounded proud of himself, presenting T‘balt like some trophy.

  “Another one, hmm. You know we don’t just take anybody, right, muscle head.”

  “Nah. He’s got what it takes. Trust me. I fought him myself.”

  “And how’d that go?”

  “Well… uhh..”

  “I won,” T’balt answered. “Against all of them.” He was feeling cocky in front of the Bear, remembering how easy it was to defeat him before.

  “Well… technically…” Cannon was raising his hand like he had a different telling of events.

  Vikram must’ve noticed T’balt’s immediate hatred of him. And they exchanged scowls. “You got a problem with something, pal?”

  T’balt tilted his head, almost wanting to knock the guy's block off just for standing too close to him. He didn’t know why he couldn’t contain himself, but everything about the guy made him want to seethe.

  “But really, his skills in a fight are unmatched.” Cannon interrupted. “A really strong fighter,” he sold.

  “Really. Then let me see what kind of loot he's holdin.” Vik tried to inch around T’balt to see his neck. T’balt got the urge to hide it, covering it with his hand.

  What if he saw the Redeemer loot and knew what it was? He could report it back to Monan. Or what if he asked about it? T’balt would have to lie to protect himself. If they found out what he could do, either it would turn into another church of the Redeemer, or they would try to kill him to take it. But when he put his hand back there, he realized the ouroboros was covered by Chosa’s choker. He paused.

  “What's the matter? Show me your loot,” the Bear spat.

  “My loot is none of your business,” T’balt said.

  “What was that, punk?”

  “Oh, it's no worry.” Cannon tried to answer for him. “It's uhh.. fire loot and those armored glove things and… I think that was it.”

  “No way he beat all you guys with just some fire and gauntlets. Let me see your neck,” Vikram demanded.

  “No,” T’balt answered.

  “Look. This is the only time I’m going to ask nicely. We could just take it from you.”

  “A punk like you wouldn’t even have the gall to try.”

  Vikram bit his lip. “Listen, you…”

  “I’m not scared of you. You couldn’t even take on a child.”

  This seemed to piss the Bear off completely. By the look on him, he had gone off the deep end on the inside. If it wasn’t for Cannon standing between them, he might’ve attacked on sight.

  “Ok,” he said. “I’ll let the kid join. But only if he can survive the loot killer pit.”

  “The loot killer pit?” T’balt asked.

  “Loot for loot. Life for life. One way or another, someone’s gonna take that loot you’re hiding or die trying.”

  T’balt raised his head, exposing his throat. “Then let them die trying.”