I barely even hesitated before I was sprinting toward the door.

While BrainCraft might have joined me under different circumstances since it was apparently another kaiju, he was currently keyed over to the West Coast which would make his assistance incredibly hard to get. He'd have to not only get out there, he'd also have to meet up with Pinky and Duskbreaker before he'd be able to make his way over to the city. Given the urgency of the new mission, it didn't exactly seem like we had the time to wait.

"Where is everyone?" I asked, darting out the door and into the tunnel. I wasn't sure where in the city Freak and Swan had run off to in order to find the newest token, but I had to hope it was closeby. I took only two steps before jumping into the air and bursting out of the tunnel's exit like a missile as I went rocketing straight up.

"Pinky and Dusk were still running in the direction of the newest token, if we call them off now, it'll take about 16 minutes for them to make the- oh fuck me," Jon muttered.

"What is it?" I asked, slowing to a stop once I was high enough I could see most of the city. I was lucky it was a relatively clear day and I was able to make out most of the city… including the solid trails of smoke coming from the north.

"They literally ran smack dab into a group of bugs, they fucking came out of nowhere," Jon grumbled, the clattering of keys rapid over the intercom. "They are going to try and get clear to portal out, but there's no guaranteed ETA."

"Freak and Swan?"

"The Staten Island Zoo… the token appeared right in the middle of it and you are not going to believe this shit, they got ambushed too…"

"Fuck," I muttered, my eyes finally settling on the head of a giant chicken, its head tilted back as a small burst of fire went roaring overhead. Although it was definitely giant compared to its surroundings, I almost felt like calling it a kaiju when we had already seen the Pangolin and Moth-Moth was a bit of a bad comparison. Even with that though, I knew I should have been moving, rushing over there, but I had to at least assess the situation before I put myself in danger. "Is this… are they somehow coordinating with The Colony or is this some massive coincidence? Where's Miss Mist?"

"South Brooklyn. Her POV isn't active but she reported seeing a pack of droids transporting some containers down and into the subway. She might be able to disengage but you know as well as I do that her flight isn't the fastest," Jon said. I could actually hear the panic in his voice as the clattering of keys continued in the background

"Oooo is Loophole all on his own?" Angie asked, almost a bit too happy about it.

"I have a bit over six minutes in my bank… If I push my speed up to two hundred I should be able to get there pretty quickly and it should equalize to my level at least," I said, trying to vocalize things as I ignored Angie. I looked over my shoulder toward the south where I knew Staten Island was. "Or… should I go and help them then drag them all up there so we can take it down as a team…"

"Freak's barreling through them but more droids keep pouring out of nowhere, I think if you go down there, that chicken is going to keep wreaking havoc. I managed to find a live feed and… Loophole there's civilians there. It's not quite moving yet but the debris from the building has collapsed onto more than a few cars. If that thing decides to start taking down buildings..."

I felt my jaw set as my head snapped back to the north, catching just as the chicken's head snapped downward, the fire in its mouth almost immediately vanishing as a giant bolt of electricity roared out of its mouth and out over a few buildings before it smashed into a building, the top floor erupting in an explosion that made a sonic boom go off.

"Oh god-"

Jon never even finished when I rewound things by a minute, catching him right as he was explaining where Freak and Swan were at. For the most part, I had always tried to use my books when I had the time to sit and think about them, but seeing that massive bolt of lightning sent just a bit of a chill down my spine and as I looked through my B.E.L.T. quickly found The Insulator's Handbook. I absorbed it and went rocketing forward as fast as I could as I let the new bits of information briefly flood through my mind.

"Keep coordinating with everyone, get them here as fast as you can, just in case," I told him, angling away from the chicken and toward the building I had seen it strike.

"I'll do what I can… wait why aren't you heading toward the chicken?" he asked, apparently checking my POV as I looked toward the Giant Clockwork Chicken with its head tilted back, charging its attack.

I must have been pushing every bit of 250 miles per hour because I managed to clear the distance in just under a minute, my attention turning toward the chicken just as its head started to tilt down. I was finally close enough to highlight it, the description popping up quickly before I could shove it aside.

"Giant Clockwork Chicken. Level 21 (Elite) Droid Kaiju."

I had no idea if my idea was going to work, especially since the ability that had given me the inspiration for this idea was connected to my Photon Manipulation knowledge opposed to my newly gained Level 6 Electrical Current knowledge. Given the range of things I had already made though, I was not only unsurprised to see the window open in my field of view, time slowing down just as it did any time Angie forced a notification in front of me, but I felt a sudden swelling of confidence that I just might be able to handle this on my own.

"New Achievement! Template! Come on Loophole, do you really think you're the first person to use an idea from one field to create a better idea in another? I mean you're good but you're not that good. You have used an ability from a neighboring field of knowledge to create a new ability! I'm not exactly sure we should be rewarding you for taking a shortcut, but once again, I'm not the one in charge of distributing those. This is a Gold level achievement. Reward: You have received a C:Tier loot box."

"New Ability! Flash Frame Overcharge! Oh you are certainly playing with fire, er… electricity… with an ability like this, but you've been working on your dexterity too so that reaction time of yours might just be enough to do the trick. I'm just impressed that you're brave enough to tinker with your own bodily electrical current. By activating this ability at the exact right moment, you can create a photo-lens barrier between yourself and any form of electrical attack. This barrier will catch the electricity and route it directly into your body, overcharging you and your Stamina pool as it collects and distributes the attack. Converts up to 5000 points of damage into stamina at a rate of 25 points of damage to 1% Stamina stored in a temporary Stamina Bar that exists separately but is scaled based on your permanent Stamina Bar. This bar drains at a rate of 1% stamina per second. Any damage over 5000 points will roll over and hit your health directly, regardless of any attached armor. Damage in excess of 7500 points will immediately stun you for 5 minutes. This ability costs 25% Stamina and has a 30 minute cooldown."

My hands slammed together instinctively as time returned to normal just as the bolt of electricity came roaring my way. From this distance, the bolt looked even larger than when I had watched it rip across the sky, but I clenched my gut, counting just a few seconds in my head before I activated the new ability and pulled my hands apart, spreading a thin film of energy between them. The thick stream of electricity hit the barrier and I had to shut my eyes to the suddenly overwhelming bright light. Even then, I could see tints of red behind my eyelids.

That might have been a mistake, because I could feel as my back smacked into the wall, the apparent momentum of the bolt still somewhat there as I braced myself through the rest of the absorption. It was an odd feeling, the surge of energy that pulsed through my body as my various muscles briefly seized and relaxed with each beat of my heart. Although I was positive Jon was saying something, I could barely hear him as I focused on the new bar that appeared below my Stamina bar.

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It rocketed upward, filling and hitting the 250% capacity in a matter of seconds before I started to take direct damage. Each pulse of energy took out more of my bar and I kept my mind mentally on my Timekeeper's Control. While the ability would stun me if that damage crossed 2500 points, that didn't mean I couldn't rewind things before that happened. If it was that close, I'd turn the clock back once more and try things from another angle. But I didn't exactly have a lot of time to work, nor did I have a lot of other ideas given the size of the attack.

Whether it was my ability or something else, luck was on my side and my health only dropped by 2000 points before the surge finally vanished, things darkening back up as I realized that my eyes were still closed. I had no idea how much time to work with and my eyes snapped open, the chicken looking directly at me with, and I'm not even exaggerating, a look of pure hatred.

"What a fucking catch!" Jon practically shouted, though I found it almost too easy to tune him out. "Pinky and Dusk have managed to break off but they still have the travel time…"

"Not much we can do about it," I said, cracking my neck to the side and letting out a slow breath as I looked toward the giant chicken. "Okay big fella, my turn."

I pushed off the side of the building, slowly ramping up my speed as I materialized an Enhanced Health Injector and jammed it into my side to refill my health bar to max. With a heavily stacked Stamina Bar, I was sure that I would be able to deliver one hell of a blow, but with the enemy being an Elite, I wasn't sure if that alone was going to be enough.

I knew my new bit of Stamina was steadily ticking down, and I didn't want to shed too much of it away but if I was going to take this thing down, I needed to stack as much damage as I possibly could. As I rushed forward, the Giant Clockwork Chicken coming more into view, I began to notice a few details that almost tripped me up. The droid looked… less finished than others I had fought so far, with an entire wing on the right side of its body missing and a large chunk of the normally solid exterior completely missing from the chicken's exposed chest.

Where it should have been, I could see bits of exposed wire, girders, tubes that connected the head down to the rest of the body and, just past it, as if I were looking down toward its stomach, I could see a round looking object glowing in an eerily familiar way.

"Shit, the core," I muttered, becoming just distracted enough that I was briefly hit by a bolt of electricity that jumped off the chicken's body when I got just a bit too close to it. The surge caused me to seize up, my flight deactivating as I started to tumble before I rewound by just a handful of seconds.

"That core just might explode if I take this thing down… I need to get it as far from the city as possible," I said as soon as things resettled.

This time, I yanked myself to the side just in time, my mind racing as I tried to keep track of everything happening around me. My bonus stamina bar was only down by 5%, but that was still a healthy chunk of damage to have lost and I couldn't risk getting struck by a stray bolt just because I wasn't paying attention. As I finished closing the gap, diving down and below the chicken's body just as its head turned to peck at me, an idea sprang to mind.

"New Ability! Area Sense: Electrical Pulse. Okay you're pretty busy right now so let's keep this simple. You've got some new knowledge about electricity, you understand it's always floating around in the air around you. So guess what? When you have Area Sense activated, you can now also detect disturbances in the natural electricity surging around you! I really recommend using it, otherwise you're gonna burn through that backup time in your bank and get crushed by a chicken and that's… well that's just not a good way to go out."

"Yeah, I get that the core is an issue but still… that thing looks like it was deployed early, maybe luck is on our side and it won't explode? Might need to actually start saving your Luck Bomb for shit like this…" Jon said as I dodged past a bolt of electricity that came surging right in front of me.

"Not a risk I'm willing to take, especially without anyone here to back us up," I said, activating Area Sense as I continued to fly. My mind was nearly overwhelmed by the cacophony of information that suddenly assaulted it. With the Giant Clockwork Chicken right next to me, my fists hammering into its underside as quickly as possible to stack the Target debuff from my gloves onto the kaiju, I could not only feel every bit of the chicken's mechanical innards thanks to the Mechanical Specialty passive modification I already had, I could also feel the electricity surging through its body, powering it along.

Had this been the first day I had been Augmented, it might have been enough to render me catatonic, but almost like it was a muscle itself, I had been training my powers, growing them slowly and finding more and more confidence in them. I dodged out of the way of two more bolts that came rushing toward me. My fists never stopped moving, continuously slamming into the metal underbelly as I confirmed that my local area reached just far enough that I could feel the droid's core. I had a plan. It might not have been a good plan… but it was a plan, and I still had about 5 minutes to work with if I was wrong.

I had lost about 20% off of temporary Stamina Bar and I wasn't about to lose any more of it. The moment the Target debuff reached a 200% increase, I made my move. All at once, I dumped every last bit of my mostly full primary and temporary Stamina Bars into my Mass Driver ability as I punched straight up.

Much like with my Gravity Punch the knockback effect didn't even remotely care about just how heavy the chicken should have been, even if Mass Driver's maximum knockback was capped, regardless of the fact that I had been able to pump the ability up over 60 times. My flight was only deactivated for half a second as I materialized one of my Superior Stamina Injectors and used it.

With every bit of speed I could, I chased after the chicken as it jumped 20 feet up into the air. Just as I closed in on the droid, I threw yet another punch, thankful that the Target debuff was still active. As my fist was about to make contact, I used Gravity Punch with 50% of my remaining stamina, watching closely as the bird was sent rocketing up even higher into the air, its body seemingly twitching from the concurrent strikes. Its health bar had been dropped low, but it still wasn't quite at a critical level yet and l had to make sure I took the droid out in a way that I could keep the city safe.

I dropped down toward the ground as quickly as I could, rapidly activating Center of the Universe at its maximum power before I overfilled my Stamina bar with Quantum Overclock. The moment my feet touched the ground, I activated Launchpad and went rocketing up and toward the chicken once more. I wasn't sure how fast time was moving at this point, or if Jon was trying to get my attention, or if Angie was trying to make some sort of a joke.

I had found my rhythm, and in effect, I was completely zoned in on my task at hand. The moment I closed the gap between myself and the chicken, I threw yet another 50% Gravity Punch, the ability refreshed thanks to Quantum Overclock, and the Giant Clockwork Chicken went even higher into the air. The only lucky thing about this entire situation might have been that the Forge that the Giant Clockwork Chicken had come from was right in one of the shorter blocks of the neighborhood, and my continuous knockbacks had managed to get the giant chicken up above their rooftops.

Even then, I had one final Hail Mary to throw and I went for it. I chased the droid down and with one final punch, I activated Bypass, and threw a Mass Driver that once again emptied my Stamina bar. My entire focus on the final attack had been on the powered core sitting in the middle of all of those components, and one of my earliest fights with Freak had proven that Bypass's rules were a bit flexible when it came to what counted as a solid object to pass through.

The chicken was still rising when I heard the rumble coming from it and almost all at once the droid erupted into a rainstorm of metal scrap and pieces that went tumbling down toward the ground below. I was already falling back down, my stamina emptied, when I used Quantum Overclock again, refilling my bar as I immediately zipped up and into the debris field with Orbit Me activated.

"How are the others?" I asked, thankful my heavy breathing didn't extend to the internal chat.

I was mostly out of breath, even if I shouldn't have been, but with some quick movements I managed to catch the majority of the large objects in my gravitational pull, finally coming to my senses as I could hear a roar of cheers coming from the ground below me. I never stopped moving, trying to clear the air as much as possible when I felt a smile finally return to my face, several notifications popping into my interface. I knew I'd need to address them in a moment, but I needed to make sure I didn't need to go rushing to help my friends before I even took a moment to recognize them, especially since I still also needed to investigate the site that the Giant Clockwork Chicken had come from. Thankfully, Jon didn't keep me in suspense.

"Pinky and Dusk are still enroute and are in Dusk's transport region now, but Pinky is pissed she missed out on the fun. As for Swan and Freak, the droids started to retreat the moment you made your big move. I told them you managed to take care of it before they had to make their way over to you and Freak wanted me to say, and I quote…. Fucking show off."

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