I'd Like to Change My Reincarnation Subscription, Please

Ch33 - The Hero, Jackknife

As Wraith Hunter continues speaking with the super-villains present, Lucas's attention is still on Mikah. Watching him closely, Lucas is trying to gauge if he heard anything incriminating from his location at the far end of the crosswalk.

Beside him, Jonathan makes a quiet startled noise and jumps slightly, then looks up at Lucas wide-eyed. He goes to reach up and touch his arm, then catches himself just before he does so, instead, he starts tugging on the edge of his shirt to get his attention.

Off to the side, largely ignored, Black Ash Snow is half watching the interaction between Lucas and Jonathan, but it's more out of general disinterest in the conversation that is happening rather than any real focus. While he's curious about what happened and why the truck is clearly aimed at his store, he's far too awkward to interject himself into any conversation to try to steer the topic in a useful direction. Or even get any acknowledgment as to his presence, for that matter.

With the driver still gagged, Wraith Hunter is chatting away with Mind Flare and Josephine. The three of them are in their own world now, paying no mind to the others present.

Deciding it seems that Mikah hasn't heard anything he shouldn't have, Lucas turns his attention down at the insistently tugging Jonathan. As he makes eye contact with the wide-eyed teen, he looks like he's about to quietly speak up about something but instead suddenly gasps deeply, starting to curl his body forward while trembling.

'Wait, did he just have a fuckin' rollback?'

"Oh? What's a rollback?" Hi Mikah. He's not quite leaving the crosswalk yet, but is most of the way towards the group, making direct eye contact with Lucas while asking this with a raised brow. He seems genuinely curious and has a friendly, conversational tone. After a moment more he notices Lucas's physical condition and inhales sharply with sympathy.

Jonathan has mostly stabilized himself and is fully upright again. His hand tightly clenching Lucas's shirt is trembling and he has a distinctly paler than normal complexion, his shirt starting to stick to him from his cold sweat. He jumps when Mikah asks his question with a guilty look on his face. As he looks up at Lucas he opens his mouth and closes it a few times, unable to come up with what to say.

Mind Flare and Black Ash Snow are both visibly startled, quickly looking at Mikah and then following his line of sight onto Lucas, both now noticing Jonathan's state as well.

Wraith Hunter was mid-sentence as Mikah raised the question, and doesn't notice Mind Flare's sudden sharp departure from the conversation.

Lucas notices the fact that Mind Flare and Black Ash Snow have reacted to the word 'rollback' and feels a much more deeply rooted sense of panic than he would have expected. Breaking out in his own cold sweat, as if he wasn't miserable enough as it was, he pales even further than the blood loss from his injury can be entirely blamed for. Letting out a low "Fuck", he focuses all of his attention on Jonathan, wearing a deadly serious expression.

"I need you to kill me, right now. They can't know. I'll be fine, just do it." Giving his command in as firm of a tone as he can muster, Lucas maintains steady eye contact with Jonathan to make it clear just how resolute he is.

An exhibition of confusion and surprise is displayed by Wraith Hunter, Josephine and Mikah. On the other hand, Black Ash Snow narrows his eyes as he starts approaching the duo. The small bird enjoying the swaying motions of his braid whistles out a playful little song, pleased with the swinging.

Mind Flare has a pained expression on his face, clenches his hands into fists, starts turning his gaze towards Jonathan, and then barks out his own command.

"Restrain them, immediately." As he says this with a strained voice between gritted teeth, he takes a deep breath before he starts to concentrate on Jonathan.

[Fuck!]

Mikah jumps up, clearly startled by the sudden slightly mechanical voice he heard from Lucas's mind. His eyes widen as he guesses something akin to the truth thanks to this new information, but he stands back and raises a hand over his mouth, knowing he wouldn't be much help physically, anyway.

"NOW!" Lucas's panic has reached a peak he didn't even know he was capable of.

'Fuck, fuck, fuck. Give me the driver's power as soon as possible, but after my injuries are fatal!'

[One endurance upgrade, coming up!]

As tears stream down his face, Jonathan moves the fastest he has in his life. He rips out his switchblade and gets close in front of Lucas. He vigorously jabs his blade into Lucas's heart repeatedly, faster than the blood can even spurt out onto him.

After landing his twelfth strike, Jonathan's head bursts, painting the area with its contents. His now headless corpse falls forward onto Lucas, driving the blade one last time into his heart.

[All right, you're good to go. Your endurance enhancement will be in effect with this coming rollback.]

Right before he finishes dying, Lucas can feel Wraith Hunter grabbing onto him, pulling his ruined arms behind him in a restraining hold. Just what he needed, even more pain.

Sucking in a sharp agonized breath, Lucas's arms tremble as he experiences the torturous remnants of the increased pain from being manhandled. His aching chest is rather noteworthy as well.

Beside him, Jonathan takes his own deep gasping breath, reaching up and cradling his head.

As the both of them manage a few deep breaths, the raven croaks out a curious sounding squawk as it gives its requisite singular wing flap.

'Phew, oh hey, I figured since I finished successfully it wouldn't get a rollback to here again.'

[Since the course of actions that led to them coming over and making the discovery were tied to the event, I was able to get approval for the rollback to this point instead of a shorter one. With your extra enhancement, this should go much more smoothly for you. Apart from your slip-up, you handled that well.]

'Thanks, I think?'

Lucas begins turning towards Jonathan and belatedly realizes the teen is actually looking down the street at the approaching truck.

"So every time... It's because..." Jonathan mumbles to himself a bit, then looks up and catches Lucas's gaze on him.

"So, you remember?" Lucas tries to keep it vague, even if there is no one to hear them besides the three waiting pedestrians, who aren't paying them any attention.

"Ye... Yes. I um, now I have it too?" Understanding the need to keep it vague, Jonathan gives his confirmation, briefly pointing at his own head.

[While I cannot readily view the designation number of his personal system, yes, he is now connected with... Boss System.]

"Mmm, it's the same. We'll talk more later, go clear out the area for me. I should have a better run this time around. Oh, when I have the asshole secured, keep an eye out for Wraith for me. Don't make it obvious we're expecting him though." Lucas tosses the bag of clothing at Jonathan, getting an enthusiastic nod in response, and walks over to repeat his actions from last time.

Jonathan manages a better performance, having learned from the mistakes he made when approaching the nearby pedestrians previously.

Even though it's the second time around, Lucas still can't resist enjoying playing with the lamp post cudgel. He's not quite as psychotic sounding this time though. His slightly tamed cheers don't catch Mind Flare's attention as quickly as they had last time around, though he and Josephine do come out to see the events, just a few moments later than they had in the last cycle.

(Let's operate under the assumption you don't need a repeat of these events from chapter 31.)

Thanks to his shiny new extra endurance enhancement, Lucas's arms aren't injured from the counter forces of his strike. His lungs still hate the cloud of concrete dust just as much, though.

As he didn't lose any strength from the injury this time around, he maintains a higher level of force with the internal metal pole. The even more thoroughly crushed front of the truck pins the supe driver more diligently, the pole so firmly logged in the engine block so as to almost seem fused with it.

Grinning with satisfaction at these results, Lucas casually works his way over to the driver's side door, waving some of the lingering dust out of his face as he coughs a few more times. Jonathan is already waiting for him near said door with a mischievous smile of his own.

"Hup!" Lucas grabs the handle of the door and yanks it off, unfortunately without the door attached. Looking at the lonely deformed handle in his hand, he can't help laughing, with Jonathan joining in as well.

'Eheh, oops. Wait, am I a bit stronger too?'

[No, but you aren't holding back reflexively in order to avoid reaching the point that you injure yourself anymore. So in a sense, you're able to use more of the strength you hadn't really had access to before.]

'Sweet, I'll take it.'

Losing interest, Lucas blindly tosses the useless handle over his shoulder, nearly hitting poor Josephine with it. Now that his hands are free, Lucas shoves his right hand in the gap left behind from said missing handle. Simultaneously, he also punches his left hand into another point of the door, allowing him to get a firm grip.

With this debut into the field of locksmithing, Lucas yanks the door free and tosses it to the side, almost hitting Mind Flare this time. Stepping up onto the short step of the truck, he reaches in and firmly grasps each of the angrily yelling driver's shoulders and yanks him out of his seat. With how firmly pinned in place as he was, there is a significant amount of tearing damage to his clothing as he is forcibly extracted.

Ignoring the driver's string of colorful profanities, Lucas slams him face-down into the pavement of the road, creating an artistically designed pothole in the process. While he's still a bit dazed, Lucas restrains his arms behind his back, casually holding his wrists together, one-handed.

The driver lifts his head up a bit and spits out some debris from his new home, beginning a new wave of disregarded profanities. Lucas uses his free hand to slam his head back down, grinding it in place a bit. He finally succeeds in breaking his nose. It's a shame his head is shaved bald, Lucas could have had fun yanking his hair and slamming his face back down again.

[Well, at this point I don't think you could do a more satisfactory job under these circumstances. Congratulations on completing your improvised compound GDV task for a reward of 1 GDV, after a plethora of modifiers, thus bringing you to a total of 5.55 GDV. Don't worry, I'm well aware of the fact that you are not interested in the detailed breakdown. Jonathan has also received a notable portion, raising his total up to 1.48 GDV. As I'm sure you guessed, once he passed 1.0 is when Boss System took notice and assigned him his own system.]

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Lucas kills this chapter: 0

Lucas total kills: 6

Lucas deaths this chapter: 1

Lucas total deaths: 10

Lucas current GDV: 5.55 (+1 net change, didn't save the notes of the process I used to end up with 1 GDV after splitting the reward, RIP)

Jonathan kills this chapter: 1

Jonathan total kills: 4

Jonathan deaths this chapter: 2

Jonathan total deaths: 2 (Not including deaths from alternate timelines that he isn't aware of prior to his entry into the system)

Jonathan current GDV: 1.48 (+.71 net change)

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Little character theater:

Jonathan, still processing his introduction with Boss System: Does yours talk this much too?

Lucas, still grinding the driver's face into the pavement: Yeah, I shortened his name and made him use shorter nicknames for things though.

427, unhappily: [Ahem.]

Author, throwing confetti: Welcome to the system Jonathan!

Mr. Quacks, full of pride: Quack!