Help from Genus didn't take long to arrive. Before long, the ground beside me and the still-unconscious Bat began to stir — and a couple of giant moles crawled out of it. The same kind we had previously used to relocate the underground laboratory; now, the two tamed monsters busied themselves transporting the worn-out fighters.
Before long, we were both on the base's grounds. There, Genus — grumbling about how I distracted him with my nonsense — had prepared two baths with a special restorative compound in advance. Submerging myself in it, I immediately felt my body's regeneration accelerating. Minor wounds and scrapes were closing, bruises and massive welts from the bat strikes were fading, internal damage and the general "beaten-up" feeling were receding far faster than any hospital could have managed. Having a tame practicing genius in biology and genetics really does have its conveniences, one has to admit...
Having recovered somewhat, I supplemented the healing bath with the recovery technique I had learned from Fubuki, and before long managed to get to my feet. My recent sparring partner was recovering considerably more slowly — he had far more injuries and possessed no psychic techniques. And since there was no threat to his life, I decided using mine on him would be excessive.
According to Genus, since the guy had survived taking that much damage, he would fully recover in under a couple of hours on his own — and besides, I had already taken up too much of the scientist's time, seeing as he was right now on the verge of achieving results from a mission I had assigned him earlier. So when I left the room with the baths and made my way to what we might call the lounge, only my biggest headache was waiting for me there — also known as Mosquito Girl, also known as Mari...
"What?" — running into a look that was strange even by her standards, I raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Master! You're killing me!" — groaning with unusual pathos, the monster girl literally slid off the sofa. "Coming here looking like that, dripping hot blood... mmmmmm, what an incredible sight! Even now you still smell of it... mmmmmm... I can't take it... I simply cannot take it!"
Watching Mari writhing on the floor like a snake with both hands in the area of her groin, I could only sigh with resignation. Judging by her current outfit — an apron over her bare body, the fabric barely covering her chest — she had once again prepared for my arrival, but had most likely not expected to be so undone by the sight of blood... well then, the main question: what exactly do I have to lose? So what if she's a monster... at least she's a cute one...
Mentally shrugging, I cast aside all my reservations and giving in to my desires, crossed the room in two steps to grab the girl rolling on the floor by the waist and pull her to her feet. Mosquito Girl gasped, her "buzzing" cut off, and her body tensed with a shiver.
"M-master?... ahhhhhhh!" — a thin squeak sounded simultaneously with my palm coming down on her uncovered backside.
The sharp slap echoed around the room, mingling with Mari's loud moan. Her knees buckled slightly, and a tremor ran through her entire body. Glancing downward, I could see that the monster girl was tightly clenched, wet and ready for me. Her natural moisture was already trailing down her thighs. The scent of arousal literally filled the air around us — sweet and sharp, a fragrance that made my member pulse.
"Ahhhhh, Master!" — turning to me a face filled with something close to ecstasy, the girl began breathing in short gasps. "You're finally..."
"Call me 'you' one more time and I stop." — I warned her playfully, then shook my head with resignation. "And in the end... I am responsible for what I created..."
Without another word, I began exploring her pliant body, literally glowing with anticipation. There would be time for words later. Right now, action was needed...
My sweet recovery sleep was interrupted by Mari's quiet voice:
"Master... Master, are you asleep?... Garou?..."
"Hm?" — reluctantly lifting my eyelids, I turned my gaze to the girl.
"Master, your guest seems to want to destroy the laboratory." — she explained as if it were nothing. "May I activate the automated defense system?"
"Absolutely not." — snapping awake instantly, I got out of bed, straightened my clothes, and made my way toward where my recent sparring partner was supposed to be recovering. "Wait here — I might not be back until evening."
"I'll be waiting!" — making a cute face, Mosquito Girl blew a kiss at my back.
About ten seconds later I was at the right spot. Bat — having apparently climbed out of the bath — was in one piece aside from his clothes being shredded, already on his feet and sizing up the nearest closed door with his weapon. Hearing my footsteps, he spun around.
"What the hell, Garou! What is this place, where are we?"
"Basically my second home." — shrugging, I approached the door which opened immediately. "If you're already recovered, let's go — I'll walk you to the exit... if you hurry you'll easily reach the nearest city before dark."
"Dark?!" — the guy's face dropped instantly. "What time even is it?"
"Seven forty-three." — I pointed at the nearest digital clock face.
"Hell!" — having delivered this concise summary of the situation, Bat immediately shot toward the open door. "I promised to pick up my little sister after her concert so she wouldn't have to take a taxi alone. Why'd you drag me out to the middle of nowhere?"
"Because you passed out and nearly died." — rapidly moving through the long corridors and opening doors that led toward the exit, guiding my guest along, I explained.
"I wouldn't have died!"
"Sure..."
"And now I promised to get her an autograph from Handsome Kamen too! Two strikes!"
"Sounds like a problem." — not swearing around a guy like this was simply impossible, so I decided not to fall behind. "The evening's not over yet, let's go get it."
"What? You actually know where he is right now?" — slowing down slightly, the guy looked at me questioningly.
"If he's not on another show named after himself, he's in his office." — I shrugged with a smile. "We can call the Association, say we have business with him. They'll definitely know where he is..."
"Didn't think of that." — nodding, Bat bit his lip. "Hey, that pretty-boy idol won't just tell us to get lost, will he?"
"If he does and refuses the autograph, we'll rough him up." — I gave a brief smirk. "Why not, right?"
"Now you're talking!" — for the first time since we had met, the permanently displeased expression left the guy's face. Giving a crooked grin, he jerked his head. "Let's move?"
"Yeah."
Very soon, I finally led my guest off the underground laboratory's grounds, and within a minute we were running toward the nearest city. To keep Bat from trailing behind me at a tortoise's pace, I had to rough him up a little along the way — conveniently boosting his strength. A useful and simultaneously inconvenient ability of his. As for everything else and our barbaric raid on the office of the Association's biggest celebrity... I had a feeling this was the beginning of a great friendship...
From the next day my life fell back into its familiar rhythm for a while. Training, hero work, and meetings with what were now officially two girlfriends consumed all my time. Since the Monster Association could reveal itself at any moment — with no way of predicting exactly when — I preferred not to think about the problem and simply wait. Either way, it was better to leave the first move to the monsters: that way the Hero Association and the heroes themselves would immediately grasp the threat hanging over the entire world and take countermeasures. Otherwise, trying to independently track down a previously unknown organization would only alert it that its existence was no longer a secret. And then absolutely anything could happen — starting with the simple possibility that instead of a small reconnaissance raid, as in the canon, the monsters might decide to strike all of humanity's cities at full force, leading to far greater casualties. In short, leaving things as they were struck me as considerably more reasonable...
The chance to test how correct my thinking was came just two weeks after Boros's attack. On the day of the largest martial arts tournament — the one Suiko had gone to compete in — an alarm sounded in City C, whose streets I happened to be walking at that very moment.
"ATTENTION! ATTENTION! A MONSTER HAS BEEN DETECTED IN THE CITY. THREAT LEVEL — DEMON! ALL CIVILIANS ARE ADVISED TO TAKE SHELTER OR REMAIN INDOORS!"
A moment later, my hero phone rang. And when I answered, an unusually frightened operator's voice greeted me.
"We're receiving multiple signals of monster appearances in many cities simultaneously... the situation is still being assessed, but at minimum seven... no, already nine mysterious entities are present in City C... transmitting their coordinates to you now, please hurry, with every passing second our situation..."
Naturally, not waiting for this panicked speech to finish, I was already sprinting through the city streets. Among the coordinates transmitted to me by the Association, the stadium hosting the martial arts tournament was not included — which meant the Dragon-level creature from the canon hadn't appeared there yet. Frankly, I remembered very little about it. Some martial arts master who had turned into a monster, or something along those lines. Supposed to appear during the tournament and try to force participants to become monsters. Apparently powerful, but how powerful was an open question.
In any case, I had some time. And not wasting it, while also warming up for a considerably more serious battle, I cleared the points marked on my map. There was no point assessing the level of the monsters I encountered — all of them crumbled from a single strike. And even those that didn't die immediately were left in such a sorry state that even civilians could have finished them off, to say nothing of lower-ranked heroes who were flooding the streets en masse following the general alert.
Arriving at the last coordinates on the list, I found six creatures gathered nearby. Unusual to say the least, but there was no time to think it through properly. Right now, the Hero Association had finally come to its senses and was starting to broadcast monster location data to all heroes simultaneously. And judging by what I was seeing, something in the order of two hundred mysterious entities — ranging in threat level from Tiger to Dragon — had attacked all of humanity's cities. Needless to say, humanity had never encountered anything of this scale before. Previously, the officially established record was something around twenty monsters per day... now there were two hundred, and not over a day but over ten minutes... oh, there was going to be a lot of work ahead...
Inevitably mulling this over, I dispatched three enemies in three strikes, then immediately charged toward a new batch of creatures. This particular group, which had caught my eye, was clearly special. First, they were obviously looking for someone. Could it be someone influential, to take hostage? Second, the aura of every one of them marked them as Demon-level monsters.
An upright-walking rhinoceros in a wrestler's costume. A gigantic jellyfish with eyes. And a strangely-shaped bird resembling a rooster...
The bird apparently even managed to say something to me. But I had long since stopped listening to monsters' pompous speeches unless absolutely necessary. So I immediately reduced all three to something faintly resembling a living creature, and realizing no new coordinates of monsters in the city had come through yet, made haste toward the stadium. At best, if that Dragon-level creature from the canon did show up, I would need to deal with it. At minimum, if things took a different course, I needed to get Suiko out of there. Given the number of enemies, her help would be invaluable. And her idiot brother too — she had mentioned that hearing about her participation, he had decided to show up as well. On top of that...
The bright light that hit me from behind cut the thought short. Having already covered nearly half the distance to the stadium, I spun sharply and saw that at the spot where I had recently defeated the last three monsters, a blinding energy dome had briefly risen. Then, simultaneously with the dome going dark, something fast shot upward out of it.
Wait a moment...
Involuntarily frowning, I tried to reconstruct in my mind the appearance of those three creatures I had killed, attempting to work out which of them could have been responsible for what was happening. And memory, helpfully if belatedly, gave me the answer.
That strange rooster... of course — Phoenix! In the canon there had been a monster that initially appeared as a complete extra with utterly unimpressive combat power. But through repeated rebirths, thanks to the abilities of his costume, he had managed to stand shoulder to shoulder with genuinely powerful beings... what a pain — why hadn't I recognized him sooner? Now this...
I was still finishing that last thought when I raised my face and looked directly at the figure diving toward me. When the monster landed right in front of me, it was already unrecognizable. No longer a bird, but a fully human-looking figure — simply clad in gleaming bird armor. Slightly over two meters tall. Possessing two pairs of eyes — two from the costume and two human ones — four wings on back and arms, and an additional eye on the chest, held in place by bird-claw fittings like a gemstone in a ring...
"Indeed, I have grown so much stronger!" — addressing either me or himself, the monster smiled with his human face. "This feeling of omnipotence! Everything within my field of vision shines so brightly! Hero! I must thank you — thanks to you, I, Phoenix Man, have been reborn! It seems that at this very moment, I have become the strongest of all living things! Once I simply couldn't remove the costume and became a monster. And now, the greatest phoenix man will stand at the pinnacle of all living organ—"
"You really do love to talk." — shaking my head with a quiet sigh and watching the creature lavish praise upon itself, I wound up and drove my fist into its wide-open bird beak — causing Phoenix Man not only to finally shut up but to go flying down the street for a great many meters. "I've already got way too much on my plate today, so could you die faster... and for good this time!"
Preparing to receive Phoenix Man — already recovered from the blow and hurtling back toward me — I extended my left hand forward and simultaneously pulled my right back, concentrating to apply a Whirlwind technique with it. If I wasn't mistaken, this monster's power resided in the costume itself — with it on, he was literally immortal. Which meant all I needed to do was undress him... well, he's not exactly a cute girl...