Chapter 41: Boss Fight

"You might want to back away for this one, Doctor," Luna said with a smile.

Doctor Finch did as told, stepping away from Cyanide, who was now engulfed in the aura of Death itself, a black gassy substance that cloaked his entire body.

'Toxin Gas.'

With a mere thought, he summoned the gas around his body and sent it forth into the room, shrouding it in blackness immediately. No matter how strong this baby's lightning was, it couldn't strike something that was unstrikable: gas.

As the deadly gas got closer and closer to the baby cart, lightning began striking down from the ceiling and rose up from the ground. Unfortunately for him, it was unable to do anything to the gas-state substance. The most it could do was disperse it a bit, nothing more.

The black shroud crept closer to the baby cart, until it was at last completely engulfed in it. In an instant, all the lightning stopped.

"… D-Did we get him…?" Doctor Finch murmured, peeking from the side of the hole Cyanide had blasted open with his kick.

There was no movement coming from the cart. No sound, either. But… Cyanide narrowed his eyes, and saw something faint behind his black gas, coming from the cart. It was… a yellow, pulsating light. And it was growing bigger, brighter.

Then, his eyes widened.

"Move!"

"Huh- Gah!"

Cyanide kicked Doctor Finch away from the door before diving away to the other end, just as a yellow lightning bolt ripped through the hole they had just been standing in front of. Had Cyanide noticed one moment later, they would've been pulverized to ashes.

"Ow… dammit, I may be a mutant now, but I can still feel pain, y'know! You couldn't have held back with that kick, kid?!" Doctor Finch complained as he slowly got up from the ground, rubbing his own back. "Ow…"

But Cyanide did not have any time to pay attention to him. He looked up, and saw that both the ceiling and floor were beginning to have a faint yellow glow to them.

"Hey, old man! Run, if you don't want to get turned to ashes!"

Saying this, Cyanide immediately took off, running away from the yellow-tainted parts of the ceiling.

"U-Ugh, dammit!" Doctor Finch didn't need to be told twice. He hurried after Cyanide, letting out a "Yow!" as a lightning bolt struck down directly beside him, just barely missing. Despite being an old man in human form, he was still mutant now, so he was able to catch up to Cyanide, who wasn't running at full speed.

"O-Oi, kid! What's the plan here?!" The Doctor yelled in a panic, glancing back at the lightning that was chasing them, striking down from various areas on the ceiling. They could still outrun it so far, but who knows how long they could last?

As Cyanide made a rough left turn and continued running, Luna tried to guess at what he was going to do.

"Looping around won't work, Cyanide! There's still lightning guarding the entrance to that room!"

"… I'm aware," Cyanide replied, as calm as ever. "However… no matter how much electricity it has… that amount is not infinite. All we need to do… is have one person lead this lightning that's chasing us far away enough from the room the baby's in."

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"And? Who's gonna do it?" Doctor Finch asked, panting. Cyanide glanced at him, then smiled.

"Who do you think?"

"W-Wha- kid! You can't expect me to-"

"You're a mutant, aren't you? You have enough energy to last throughout the day, until the Scarlet Hour ends at night."

"Actually, Stage Three Mutants and higher have far greater energy capacity than normal mutants," Luna added helpfully. "They can remain operative, even after the Scarlet Hour is over every night."

"Ugh, curse you both!"

"I'm trusting you, Doctor," Cyanide said, then gave a slight wave. "Good luck."

Saying this, he used [Invisibility], and turned left again as they reached another intersection. Doctor Finch, on the other hand, didn't have the same tools to escape.

"GAHHH! I'LL REMEMBER THIS, KID!"

Yelling in fury and fear at the same time, the old mutant continued running in a straight line as fast as his mutant legs would go, while the lightning continued eagerly chasing after him.

*****

"… Whew."

Cyanide let out a deep breath as the lightning rushed passed him, continuing in the direction Doctor Finch had went.

"Huh… it really worked," Luna said in surprise. Her holographic body wasn't displayed as per Cyanide's instructions he had sent out in his mind moments before.

He had determined that this 'Baby Zeus' was deaf, judging from the events that had occurred. That made sense, considering the whole point of a baby's body was that it hadn't fully developed yet. The mutant tracked enemies with sight, but not his own—with the electricity's. That made no sense realistically speaking, but this entire scenario was anything but realistic.

After figuring this out, though, finding a way to counter it was easy. Cyanide's invisibility was flawless. In fact, he had expected the lightning to still chase after him due to human bodies naturally having a negative charge by standing on the ground, and the electricity should be able to detect that, but he supposed it was being controlled by a baby. As such, such concepts of physics didn't matter here, which made things a lot easier for him.

Cyanide's invisibility was about to wear off, but that was fine. After peeking around the corner, he saw that the hole he had torn open with a kick earlier was unguarded. The electrical field had dimmed away around these parts, meaning that the poor baby had stupidly sent all of its power to chase after Doctor Finch, leaving himself unguarded.

It was a most basic battle tactic, taken directly from the Thirty-Six Stratagems—luring the tiger out of the mountains. But then again, who could blame the poor mutant? He was a mere baby, after all.

But even though that was true, Cyanide had no intention to show any mercy. Drawing his guns, he silently leaped over the water, and made it across to where the room with the baby cart was.

"Hmph… game over, little kid."

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