Chapter 3: Metal Armed Vigilante
After the bell that signified that the school day was over, the students began walking out of the class with thoughts of either hanging out, partying, or just going home to vegetate and maybe work after school.
Some students do work after a day at school, right?
Jon walked out the front doors of the school and across the street, straight to the warehouse from which he first woke up on.
He kept looking over his shoulder, making sure that he wasn’t being followed, I must be paranoid. He thought as he walked to the warehouse door.
Once he got the door open with ease, he walked into a dusty room filled with shelves and large amounts of broken machinery.
A perfect base of operations in case his actuators get damaged.
He took off his trench coat and put it on a hanging rack next to him and let his actuators move him to an office which had a set of stairs.
He could’ve used them, but they were so rusty, they were nothing but dust as soon as he tried to go up once.
Never again.
He was moving through the air at a sedate pace as he went to the height where the more trusty platform that lead to the door was, and he lowered himself down to the metal grating.
His actuators looked around the warehouse in case they missed any details or that they might spot someone due to the height to which he was at gives him an advantage to see throughout the entire warehouse interior.
Once he made sure that no one was in the warehouse with him, he opened the office door and went inside, shutting it behind him.
He sighed and rolled his shoulders in relief, glad that the stiffness of being in a school full of students was gone.
Don’t get him wrong, he loved teaching people new things, but he just can’t stand the stupidity that some students have.
Was I like that a few years ago? He thought in consideration as he sat down on a brown leather sofa with scratches and a couple of discolored patches here and there, evidence of his sewing job after he first found it in an alley outside the building.
The actuators sprawled themselves around him in a sort of relaxed manner.
One of them was laying down across his lap, him running his hand over its sinuous body, making it hum in a sort of purr.
The other three were sprawled over the top of the couch and one on the ground.
It amusedly reminded him faintly of having four affectionate cats.
Then the one on the ground moved through the air and shrieked at something, alerting him and the others that there was an intruder in the room.
The actuator that shrieked shot towards and grabbed the person that was huddling in a dark corner.
The intruder, a girl, shrieked in surprise and fear at being grabbed by the metal arm and was being dragged towards Jon as he sat there with a eyebrow raised and was a stern look on his face.
Once the girl was in the light, he recognised her.
It was Sonata Dusk. The absent student.
Jon stared at the bruised and cut girl that was shivering through torn clothes, fortunately decent.
He then asked, his stern face that he had up and ready to demand what the previously unknown person was doing in the warehouse at this time, softened into concern that rarely was shown for anyone, “ Ms. Dusk? What happened to you? You look like you’ve been through the grinder in the past day.”
She didn’t answer, only shuddered suddenly and rolled her eyes up to the back of her head. Her body fell forward and went limp in his arms, unconscious.
Jon pressed to fingers against the girl’s wrist, and when he felt a strong pulse, he relaxed into relief.
He lifted the girl bridal style and took her to an adjacent room with a twin bed that was there for years. He made sure that there were no rats or bed bugs infesting the room and building first before he… moved in.
Jon set Sonata down on the recently washed mattress and tucked her in with a quilt he bought earlier today. He watched the young girl sleep, and was reminded of the bruises and cuts that was on her body.
His fists began clenching with boiling fury at someone harming another, and the actuators were shrieking quietly as they could so that they wouldn’t wake the girl at the acknowledgement of the girl’s injuries.
He wanted to hurt something, no, someONE.
Nobody gets away from hurting another person, not on his watch.
After making sure that Sonata was comfortable and asleep till midnight at least, he climbed to the roof using the window and his actuators’ help to scale the building with ease.
He was pissed, and he started scaling the gaps between buildings as he zoomed with the help of the actuators keeping him off the ground.
Suddenly, a scream shouted a couple of blocks away, if it wasn’t due to the actuators enhanced senses, he would’ve never even heard it.
Jon stopped away looked down into an alley, watching a couple of people fighting over a bag and another who was holding the other person, with a knife to her throat.
How he could tell was the figure, it was really obvious.
Then his blue eyes widened, he recognised her.
It was his boss, Principal Celestia!
Oh, now those punks are going down! He exclaimed in his mind, his vision seeing red at the sight of one of the people that helped him get settled into the teacher’s environment about to get hurt.
He shot out his top right actuator at the person holding the knife against Celestia’s throat, grabbing his arm and jerked it away from the woman’s trachea, before any of them knew what was happening.
Then he shot out his top left actuator at the man with a swing to the chest, making him fly to the other wall of the alley and hit it hard against his head, knocking him out.
The other punk dropped the large handbag and made a run for it. Leaving his friend behind.
Big mistake...
Celestia watched as a metal arm swung down from the roof above her and grabbed the man that was trying to mug her by the neck and lifted him up and over the edge of the rooftop.
The punk tried to free himself from whatever grabbed him from behind, but it was all of naught.
All he last saw was the shine of sunglasses and blue eyes glowing with fury.
Celestia looked down at the knocked out man in the alley. Then to the roof where whatever the metal arm grabbed the other punk was.
Upon seeing a silhouette of a man, she squinted to try and see whoever helped her.
But all she got was that the man was wearing a long trench coat and had four metal arms sticking out of his back, when he turned, not enough time to get a good look at his face.
Then the man disappeared, a small noise of metal clanking signifying his departure.
Celestia still looked for the man, but after a few moments of waiting, she sighed and picked up her purse from the ground.
She walked out of the alley that she was trying to go through so she could take a shortcut home, the she went the long way around, making a mental note to never trust an alley at night time again.
She wasn’t aware of the man watching from a tall building, and the metal arms with red eyes following her movements till she came to her house and went inside.
Jon nodded as he heard the telltale sound of a lock engaging, then looked down at the knocked punk that was being held by the bottom right actuator, grinning evilly at the thought of at least getting some revenge and maybe clean up the streets a little.
A vigilante is starting to sound great as a night time hobby. He thought as he tied up the two muggers with chicken wire and left them at the doorstep of a nearby police station and went back home.
After he made a call to the Dazzling sisters telling them he has Sonata at his place. Which made them slightly panic when they heard that he found bruises and cuts on their youngest sibling.
Adagio and Aria drove to where he was, Sonata in his arms and helped get her to the car and rode along with them to their apartment.
He made made a note to ask why Adagio was lying to him earlier, but he needed to help Sonata get at least a little better however he can.
His actuators were hidden underneath his coat that he donned again when he came back to the warehouse from his night time activity later that night.
He wasn’t worried about Sonata seeing the actuators, but she might tell her sisters. If she doesn’t, then that’s fortunate and luck smiling down on him, since they were Sirens from another world entirely, they’re bound to at least be told of what she saw and ask they kept it secret, since they have so many.
Maybe he was too positive on the situation.
Still, he was lucky that Celestia didn’t know that it was him who saved her in that alley.
After making sure Sonata was in the apartment and with her older sisters, who were disinfecting the cuts and bandaging her from a couple of broken ribs that they noticed, he made his way back to the warehouse to get some sleep.
He has a job to go to tomorrow...