Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Nine - Explosions

  I shut my new laptop with a click and jumped to my feet. Right, I was here to spy on the gala, not just do some shopping.

  That could wait for... well, probably earlier than now, I guess? Whatever.

  I shook myself awake and focused on the gala.

  The Seraph building was sporting a huge hole. One of the massive windows at the front framing the entranceway, had been blown apart. Glass was still in the process of shattering. But window panes that big couldn't be normal glass. That stuff had to be some sort of reinforced stuff, right?

  People were running around by the entrance, guests running around the outside of the building away from the front while more were milling around just inside. Security was out, pressing people back in and trying to bring order to things, but they were very obviously distracted.

  Probably by the six vans parked out front.

  The Weiss had come in numbers. More than I expected to see. Six beaten up old vans, one parked right in the nearest intersection, the other at the far intersection. They had unloaded a few guys each, with what looked like assault rifles and bandana masks all in white.

  The middle four vans unloaded even more gangsters. Some of them had white Ws spray-painted on their sides, and judging by the way they were dressed, there was no mistaking who this was.

  I squinted, wishing I had that 12x zoom eyeware installed already, because from where I was, it was difficult to make out any good details.

  The gangsters ran up towards the entrance, and when one of the guards opened fire, they replied with a hail of gunfire. Their aim was... more enthusiastic than anything. They were spraying while running, some of them holding their rifles out at arm's length before they dove behind cover.

  I blinked as I saw one guy trying to reload what looked very much like an RPG from behind one of the vans.

  Where in the fuck did they get that? Who was going around selling idiot gangsters rocket launchers?

  The guy finished reloading, came around the van, and fired. The rocket shot across the little garden space before the Seraph building, leaving a trail of smoke in its wake. I ducked down a little, expecting a huge explosion.

  I was honestly a little disappointed when it blew up a solid ten feet from the hole they'd already blasted in the front.

  There was a large ball of roiling water floating in the air where the rocket should have passed. It hovered there for a moment, then fell apart, splashing down at the front of the HQ.

  Five people stepped out of the Seraph building.

  It was impossible to confirm it from so far away, but I definitely had a strong suspicion that all five were rankers, and not little E and D rankers either. Even from across the street, they looked like people carved out of marble. The four men were handsome enough, some tall and wide, a couple more wiry and lithe. The woman in the group was supermodel hot in a deep red dress that had a long slit along one side showing off some well-muscled leg.

  Seraph's rankers? They would be here. The gala was meant to show off the company, so it would only make sense for them to have their best here.

  If I recalled correctly, Seraph had a decent number of C-rankers, and a few Bs as well.

  Then the Weiss crew stepped out with their own rankers.

  Seven guys. Six of them looked like... just guys from where I was. Maybe they were handsome or something with their neon hair and ripped out leathers, but I couldn't quite tell. The guy in the middle though? Definitely a C-ranker. He was a head taller than all the rest, and a fair bit wider, too.

  The dude wasn't wearing a shirt, revealing a lot of tats. I couldn't make out of what from so far away, but the dude was covered in them. Very Yakuza-chic.

  There was no way that I'd be able to hear what anyone was saying. Not through a window and a hundred-plus yards, but I could tell that both sides were chatting.

  Then the big guy gestured forwards and seemed to yell something and all hell broke loose.

  It was common knowledge that no matter what, the humble gun was still a threat. Like, yeah, no shit. I took out high D-rank monsters with guns, and I was pretty confident that except for the rare exception, guns would take out just about anything in a portal.

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  It went double for humans.

  People died when you punched them full of holes. And while I was still only just discovering how much faster and tougher being a D-ranker made me, I wouldn't casually allow someone to shoot me and expect to come out of it just fine on the other end.

  The big Weiss guy ran forwards while all of his pals rose up from cover and opened up. That was some two dozen morons with poor aim, but all of them had automatic weapons and it looked like they had the time to reload.

  The C-rankers from Seraph reacted differently. Some stood their ground, one dove for cover, and the rest crouched down and used magic. The fancy stonework before them rose up in a half-wall and a massive barrier of water appeared before the group, bullets splashing into the water, deforming it with huge splashes.

  Then the Weiss guy made a huge sweeping gesture and the wind picked up as a massive, localized wave. Dust and loose leaves and trash were picked up off the ground and flung at the rankers.

  The watery shield was ripped apart.

  Behind it, the Seraph rankers were preparing spells.

  I winced as several things happened all at once. Multiple explosions, beams of light and some fire raced around and blew Weiss gangsters back. Some of them looked like they'd cooked in the explosions and I was pretty sure I saw someone's arm go flying.

  The water reformed into a bigger ball, then it burst into two dozen twenty-feet long spears of ice that criss-crossed over where the Weiss C-ranker was.

  He dodged them all. The D-rankers following behind him weren't so lucky.

  They flung their own spells forwards. Bursts of fire, some splashes of water, one guy was flinging what might have been Shadow Bolts or some derivative forward.

  The Seraph rankers were taking it more seriously, though. One of them stepped up, and I suspected that it was one of their B-rankers because all of the water in the air started to move around whip-quick. It wasn't so much the control that hinted at B-rank, but the quantity. Balls of water the size of heads swarmed around, three dozen of them, and they'd deform into long ice-y spears that jabbed into the Weiss below, then reform into balls of water in a blink.

  The Weiss' leader crashed into the water user and there was a massive bursting explosion of wind that made the glass I was behind shudder. Some of the patrons screamed.

  I just watched, but honestly, I couldn't make out too much of what I was seeing. I could tell that things weren't going well for the gangsters. Those that stood and fired at the Seraph rankers were put down with impunity.

  That Seraph woman was flicking fireballs around, one every half second. They curved and spun through the air, then exploded on impact with enough force to send people flying. The fire seemed... sticky. Some of those gangsters weren't going to enjoy the next couple of years, not with the way they were dropping and rolling, clothes burning.

  I wasn't sure what happened, but between one moment and the next, the wind died down, and Seraph came out ahead.

  Two of the vans squealed as they shot off. A few fireballs chased them and nailed one in the rear, lighting it on fire even as it drove off, but other than that, the fight was over.

  The Seraph people hadn't come out unscathed. It looked like at least two of them had been shot. They were bleeding pretty badly, but they were alive, and it looked like some of the other rankers coming out of the building had some access to Nature magic.

  The Weiss crew? Of the three dozen that had shown up, half were on the ground, not moving. The rest looked injured in one way or another, and a few odd ones out were entirely fine, though they were quick to surrender when security showed up.

  No sign of Fran.

  So, she was fine, then.

  I watched for another hour, but it was mostly the police showing up and people gesturing at their shot-up limos. Then the media showed up and I figured there was nothing left to gain.

  I Reloaded after checking in on Fran, just to be sure.

  What the hell had all of that been?

  ***