I skipped backwards, looking over at the token and then up to Swansong as I materialized a Superior Stamina Injector and jammed it into my side.

  “Well go ahead and grab it, we don’t necessarily want to attract more attention,” I said and she gave me a nod, though she looked just a bit confused all the same.

  “Shit Loopie, if you’re gonna replenish your resources then I sure as hell will too,” Freakenstein said, giving me a wide smile. The metallic mask he wore over his eyes was the only bit of metal still attached to his body. The rest of his outfit, a torn jean vest, a pair of cutoff jean shorts, and what looked like ballet slippers that had been hidden by the various pieces of metal now clearly visible after I had blown away his shielding.

  I wasn't sure if I expected him to pull out an injector of his own or what but I didn't have to wait long to find out. He went rushing in a full on sprint off to the side and toward the far end of the field. I was just about to wonder if he was trying to run away when he crashed into the chain link fence that stretched across the outfield. As he hit the fence, the metal immediately started to contract against his body and his shield bar reappeared over his health bar. The single panel he had crashed into restored just a small percentage of his shield but he didn’t stop with just that, turning on his heel and pushing off hard.

  He went crashing through the sections, one after another, layer after layer of chain link fence merging and melding over his skin until he had fully refilled his shield bar. While I was now sure I knew how to get rid of the shield if I had to, I also didn’t necessarily want to have to.

  Freakenstein wanted to fight and it seemed at least somewhat just out of a desire for a good battle instead of some sort of malicious attempt for pure destruction. There was a part of me that could respect that and if it put us on good terms, that was all the better. But I also didn’t want to make the fight harder for myself than I had to and having to break through his shielding a second time was sure to do just that. I rewound time once again, counting my eighth rewind in the five minute period. Knowing just how the Temporal Sickness took effect, I was going to have to make sure I didn’t overdo it, especially for a fight that I was hoping wouldn’t get too serious.

  This time, as Freakenstein started to rush for the fence, I moved with him. With my flight, I knew I could easily head him off and I ramped up my speed as fast as I could to make sure that that wasn’t just my own ego getting ahead of me. I took the most direct path that I could, speeding forward and throwing a 25% Gravity Punch for his midsection. He didn’t dodge, nor did he even really look all that surprised as he took the strike and got sent tumbling over himself.

  As he fell, turning himself into an almost graceful looking cartwheel using the momentum of my strike’s throw, his hand brushed along the grass of the field and, to my surprise, his skin started to shift in hue toward a greenish brown. He landed, keeping his hand firmly pressed down against the ground as he shot me a devilish grin that left me slightly unsettled, especially as I took in the fact that my strike did far less damage to his health bar than I was expecting it to.

  “Gotcha,” he said before the ground underneath me lurched, opening just enough that I sank all the way down to my knees in a single fluid motion. The ground closed, constricting quickly and completely around my feet. They almost immediately felt numb from the pressure and I struggled against the bonds, even trying to fly upward to escape their grasp to no avail. Surprisingly, even though I was being held in place, I was also given a very small scale shield.

  I didn’t have enough time to wonder just why this had happened before the truck of a man came barreling toward me. The strike to my chest came with every bit of force I was imagining it would and I actually felt the air get knocked out of me. My feet were torn from their earthly prisons and I was tossed backwards as my newly gained shield bar vanished in an instant along with just a bit over 10% of my health bar as I landed on my backside, skidding across the outfield before coming to a stop nearly fifteen feet away from him. I wasn't sure if he had intended to knock me back the exact same distance that I had hit him, but it was impressive all the same given I had been launched from a captured position.

  “Well shit, you can hit pretty hard yourself,” I said with a groan.

  “Thanks,” He said, his smile widening. Freakenstein wasn’t trying to press his advantage, instead leaning back down as he pressed a hand against the ground. The greenish brown hue to his skin shifted and shuddered before the dirt around his planted hand started to jump up toward his body. It layered up and over his skin in a craggly mess as his shield slowly trickled upward, far slower than it had when he had crashed through the fence before I had rewound.

  “It’s not just metal that he can absorb?!” Jon said, his voice rising with excitement. “What is that power?”

  “Asking the wrong guy,” I thought, debating my options as Freakenstein straightened back up. I climbed back to my own feet, dusting myself off as he gave me the time to do so. His shield bar had stopped moving up just under half way full, though he looked closer to a walking pile of rocks with his head sticking out rather than his normal metallic patchwork quilt.

  “Ready for round two?” Freakenstein said, a smile still plastered on his face.

  “And here I thought we weren’t done with round one,” I said and he let out a bark of a laugh.

  “Oh, I like you,” he said before pulling an arm back and punching forward. He hadn't moved an inch and we were still at least fifteen feet apart, so the move would have seemed completely out of nowhere… if I didn’t already know he had super powers that I was still actively trying to figure out.

  His shield bar dropped by a small portion just as a fist shaped rock was launched from his hand, the rest of the rocks on his body adjusting and moving to fill in the gaps left behind by the strike. I barely had time to see this, slightly awestruck by the movement, before the cluster of rocks struck me in nearly the exact same spot that he had already hit me once taking out another good portion of my health bar and knocking me back another few feet as the air was knocked from my lungs yet again, leaving me staggering. He was just about to charge toward me when I reacted, activating Timekeeper's Control once again.

  I only backed up just a few seconds, this time launching myself up and into the air just before the rocky fist could hit me. I didn't hold myself still, keeping my eyes on him as he punched forward again, another fist shaped cluster launching from his body on a direct course for me. I dodged around it and went barreling toward him, readying a punch of my own. With Paradox Chain on cooldown, I wouldn’t be able to use the same method to blow my way through his defenses, but an idea did come to mind as I thought back to my fight on Liberty Island with the Clockwork Morays.

  My fist struck against Freakenstein’s rocky chest and a triumphant smile spread further over his face as the rocks reacted to my strike, immediately starting to move up to close around my hand in an effort to trap me once more.

  “Gotcha aga-” he started to say before I quickly activated Bypass and added in a 35% Gravity Punch.

  I wasn’t entirely sure if it was going to work since Bypass was technically supposed to only be able to jump past single, connected surfaces and the rocks, at least along his arms, were starting to become somewhat scattered across his skin even after just the first two punches he had thrown at me. But his chest was still solidly covered, appearing much like the grassless ground, and it was a gamble I was willing to make.

  Luckily for me, the bet paid off and he went hurtling backwards from my strike. I had no idea if it actually hurt him given the last few attempts I had made hadn’t exactly done more than just toss him around, but from the look of shock on his face and the loud “OOF” that escaped his lips, I had to assume it had done something.

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  Freakenstein tumbled and unlike when he had turned my knockback to his advantage, this time he was the one who was laid out flat on his back as he slid across the grassy field. It took him a full ten seconds before he stirred.

  “How the fuck?” He groaned, pushing himself back up as the rocks started to fall off of his skin. The shield bar dropped with his section that collapsed off of his body and he seemed genuinely dazed as he looked over toward me. “You skipped my shield.”

  “Your shield’s a pain in the ass,” I replied and started to walk over toward him. He shook his head as the last bit of rocks fell off of his body, the rest of his shield trickling down with each lost layer as it revealed his health bar had sunk all the way down to 50%.

  He wasn’t in a hurry to jump back up and I wasn’t about to keep going at him when he hadn’t done so to me in the same situation. Instead, I held out a hand that he quickly grabbed. He had some actual heft to him, even with my increased strength but with some effort and him of course doing most of the work, I pulled him up to his feet.

  “We still going?” I asked and he let out another laugh as he brushed the last remnants of the dirt from his body.

  “Nah, I don’t think I wanna risk killin’ yah by bringing out my bigger attacks… at least not here where that could happen,” he said and before I could ask what he meant, a Friend Request popped up in my vision. I didn’t question it as I hit accept.

  “You’re… kinda weird…”

  “Pot calling the kettle black, Loophole.”

  “Not now, Angie.”

  “How bout next time we do it in the Fight Club and we can both go all out, Loopie. Then we got the protections of the club to save yah when I bring yah down to zero,” Freakenstein offered, holding out a hand toward me. I tentatively took it and he pumped it twice before letting go.

  “Are… are you sure you’re a Miscreant?” I asked, slightly taken aback. Maybe I had simply jumped to conclusions based on his name and the fact that he was, well, relatively destructive in all of the footage I had seen of him, but he was quickly reminding me more of Silver Wrangler rather than someone like Barracuda.

  “Public perception’s a bitch Loopie, but I’m pretty good at rollin’ with the punches. Buncha folks saw me crushing a group of mafia wannabes during the first phase and according to Herb, my P.A.I., since they thought I was robbing the bank, I got labeled as a Miscreant… which… okay to be fair I might have lifted a couple grand… but it was dirty money anyway,” he said by way of explanation, though it really didn’t answer anything. My face must have given my confusion away and he let out a laugh. “Maybe I’ll tell yah about the rest of it some time. You wanted to talk right? That was the whole reason you didn’t just scoop up the token and go runnin’ away like the weird shadow dude did to me yesterday, right?”

  “Shadow dude? Oh, you mean Duskbreaker?” I asked and he quickly nodded.

  “Yeah, was running to grab the 2PM token over in Washington Heights when he yanked it away with one of those weird shadow tendril things he does, dude didn’t even wanna fight me for it, then I’m running to look for the 4PM token that had spawned and I see you go flying off from Yankee Stadium, which, damn I wouldn’t have minded wrecking that place after the season they had last year,” Freakenstein said, genuinely sounding pretty disappointed. Swansong floated down toward us once it became obvious we were no longer going to fight and he nodded up toward her. “So what, you and your girlfriend figured out the token pattern too then?”

  “Pattern?” I asked curiously, accidentally cutting Swansong off before she could respond and Freakenstein raised an obvious eyebrow behind his metallic mask.

  “Heh, so yah just got lucky then. Well I sure as shit ain’t gonna spill the beans if you haven’t figured it out yet Loopie,” Freakenstein said and cracked his neck to the side as he started to wander over toward the chain link fence. I followed behind, not even moving to stop him from doing what I was already sure he was going to do.

  “Huh? Is there a pattern that we've missed already? I mean... it's been one day... is that even long enough for a pattern to form?” I asked internally.

  “No idea, I’d have to know where all of the tokens spawned to even start to make a guess… But given he knew where to come for this morning's token... well I’m more interested in how he figured it out? Am I the only one who was expecting this guy to just be a giant meathead bruiser?”

  “Public perception’s a bitch I guess,” I replied and I could see Swansong suppress a laugh. She seemed a bit flushed, which didn’t make a lot of sense since she had just been watching the fight, but maybe she had just been nervous about the outcome.

  Freakenstein grabbed the chain link fence with both hands, ripping it up and out of the ground as he yanked it toward him. The chain link obeyed his pull and instead of having to go crashing through each section, the metal seemed to naturally go pulling toward him as he stood there, letting it spool around him like he was retracting a hose.

  “Much better, dirt crumbles away way too damn fast,” he grunted as the metal finished melding around his skin and refilled his shield bar to full. He turned back toward us, looking over at Swansong as his eyes blurred out briefly before he turned his attention full back to me. “So whatcha wanna chat about Loopie, I might not got anywhere to be till the next token spawns but I still got stuff to get done.”

  “I uh… I mean honestly I was just trying to figure out what side you were on with all the madness going on… I’ve met most of the other Augments here in the city but you never really joined the fray during the siege… at least not over in Manhattan. Wasn't sure if you were just trying to stay out of everything or if you were just as much against this Tyrant asshole as us.

  “Oh trust me Loopie, if I can get my hands on that fucker he's gonna regret it. There's a lot more to the city than Manhattan, I was clearing out the droids stupid enough to go near my home turf… though I’d kill to figure out where the hell they’ve been spawning from,” he said, turning his head until another loud crack came from his neck. “Any chance you guys found a map or some shit when you crushed that egg? That was like one-a the bases from the first phase right?”

  “Yeah, it was Platinum leveled too. I’m not sure how many of them are at that tier, but there’s 9 more of them in the city total that we need to find and crush… well actually... there's eight that we don't know the locations of, we know where one other one is so far, we just haven't tried to tackle it yet,” I said and Freakenstein practically lit up with excitement.

  “Oh really?” He said, smacking his hands and rubbing them together. “So when you guys gonna be going to wreck the one you know about then? Cause I’ve seen more than enough of these droid fuckers for a lifetime and am damn sure ready to drive them out of the city.”

  “We hadn't quite picked a time since we want to make sure we got a good team for it. Tyrant hasn’t exactly been slacking and I have to imagine each one we attack is only going to get harder if he keeps adapting his droids. I think we can manage it if I messaged Duskbreaker and you were gonna join in to break the place though.”

  “Heh, I think you and I are gonna be fast friends Loopie,” Freakenstein said, patting me on the shoulder as he started to walk back toward the mainstreet. “Shoot me a message when you guys are ready, or hell, if you find any of the other ones… Otherwise, I sure hope yah figure out the pattern, this was fun and we can fight over the next token when it spawns. I ain’t just gonna give it away for free next time. Catch yah two later.”

  Before I could stop him, he crouched down and, with a large cloud of dirt getting spit up around him, launched himself up and away from the park. He went hurtling back down the same road he had come charging up, a loud whoop of excitement escaping the large man as he landed and went barreling away.

  Swansong floated the rest of the way down to the ground, setting herself down next to me as we stared off after the man, sharing similar looks of slight confusion.

  “That was… interesting,” she said, breaking the silence after it lingered for just a bit too long. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “I’ll take a guy who just wants to spar over one who wants to kill me for no reason any day of the week,” I said, reaching up to feel the spot he had struck me earlier that I hadn’t rewound. “Even if that sparring means I might have one hell of a bruise.”

  “That did look like it hurt a little bit,” she said and I nodded. “Also… Loopie? That’s an… interesting choice for a nickname.”

  “Poophole was right there too. Seriously, why haven't any of the others tried to call you that yet?!” Angie chirped up and I rolled my eyes, purposefully ignoring her.

  “Yeah, just a bit, I was kinda caught off guard by his whole demeanor and really didn’t think to question it…” I explained before I slowly started to lift off and into the air. I looked back down toward Swansong once I was a few feet up. “Now, I think we’ve got some time and that fight got me really hungry. Want to grab some breakfast and bring it back to base? I gotta think there’s at least one diner still making some breakfast sandwiches with all this shit going on.”

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  100th chapter of Augment's Code! I am trying to decide if I want to do something special for it but I'd love to hear from all of you. What's been your favorite moment in the series so far? Favorite character? Hell, what's been your favorite fight? Let me know in the comments below!

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