Laurence’s legs swung beneath him as he sat on the wall. He wondered whether Peter would be coming his way or Yun’s. He smiled absentmindedly. Somewhere along the line he had begun picking up friends, followers. He had not intended to meet so many people, but now there were six helping him catch an irritant that had been rubbing against his gang for over a year.
The devourer had eaten away at some of Spring Street’s higher end thugs, simply leaving corpses in most cases. It was unfortunate for Laurence, as he would normally not care much about random killings, but the people he was avenging were all family to him. Spring Street was a family to Laurence. Over the time he had been part of spring street, Laurence had learned that the people who he was with were as close to him as a family. They were comrades in arms, whose lives were of real material importance to Laurence. It was an odd feeling to him, and every time he heard about another one of the Spring Street boys and girls being struck down by Peter, he could feel the rage building inside him. He could feel his very soul split.
He took a deep breath. Even just the thought of it could set him off sometimes. He had not quite reached the point where his switch was flipped, at least not since the time he fought the Arrows, and Roy. All he could really do until Peter entered the net was continue to swing his feet and kick the wall underneath him. He was lucky he was good at waiting for things. He knew that was never Jim’s strong point, so he wondered how his friend would fare in the waiting game that they had to perform.
As he sat there, wondering what he would do with his nemesis when he met him, his Babelian ring lit up. He touched the ring on his index finger with his thumb and immediately he heard Louisa on the other side. “Law, I can see Peter. He’s running on the north side side of the net, in your direction. I’ll get in contact with everyone else so we can begin closing the net around him, but heads up”.
“Thanks”. Laurence let go of his ring and it dimmed. He knew that Louisa was situated on his left side, so he began moving in her direction. He sprung over the roofs of the city, watching the paths below him, searching for a boy with red hair. After around thirty seconds of scanning he saw a hooded individual who fit the right height to be Peter. As the figure dipped down an alley in the direction of the building that held Rose, he leapt into the road to follow him. Darting down the alley, he sprinted after Peter but as the figure reached the end of the alleyway he seemed to split into three figures, each with varying strengths of aura. The auras that all three gave off were flickering between the strength of a Saint and a normal man, but they were not stabilising equally. Laurence had to make a snap decision so he pressed the ring and thought of Jim.
“Jim. Peter seemed to split into three separate figures I can only reasonably follow one, but the other two are going in your direction”. He sprinted after the one to the left and hoped that by the time that he caught up to the first person, they would catch up to the other two. He followed the Peter copy into a crowd and almost lost him, but his hood fell off just as he left the crowd, allowing Laurence to see the flash of red exiting the swarm.
Pushing the bystanders out of the way, Laurence began pumping mana into his legs and quickly began catching up to Peter. He was about a hundred metres from Peter when his ring glowed once more. Touching the ring, he heard Jim’s voice blare into his ears.
“Law, the two people you said were coming to me never showed up. There’s no way they could have disappeared, I have six crews running as my eyes and none of them saw him come my way”.
Laurence swore. “I thought we were going to do this without using any of the gang? He has been going after the family, so we were keeping them out to keep them safe. Do I need to tell you again?”
“It’s fine. The two other Peters have just disappeared. It’s like they never existed in the first place”.
Laurence kept following Peter, step after step, he mirrored him and quickly began catching up. Peter turned a corner, and as Laurence moved round the corner as well he felt something in the air brush past him. There was a screaming sound as an adult skull sped past Laurence's face. He slammed to a standstill the moment his body turned into the new alley proper. There was a change in the airflow and Laurence ducked, letting the skull that had passed by him go over his head. In the middle of the alley stood a thin boy in a dark robe. His red hair was like a fiery streak in the twilight of the city. Floating around the boy was a set of three malevolent looking skulls. They chattered as they span in circles around his body, each one letting off a slightly different sense of danger to Laurence.
“Why are you following me?” Said Peter. The boy's’ voice was truly unsettling. It grated against Laurence’s ears like nails on a chalkboard. He smiled a sickly smile, “And who actually are you?”
Laurence summoned his hammer. “You made two mistakes when you came to Spirit. You should have never touched the men and women of Spring Street, and you should have given up on the girl, Rose. Now it’s time for you to pay the price”.
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