See a big baddie

You continue your route, taking the time to note down anything that seems out of place, as well as brief descriptions of everyone you see, not moving so fast that you're effectively invisible, but still moving quickly enough that it's very obvious you're powered. “Deterrence…” you think to yourself, “...all the steps make sense, but the final result feels off.”

Your patrol takes you past a jewelry store, and when you see the “man” that has demonic black wings and claws casually scraping everything in a broken display case into a bag, you start to smile and head in, but your instructor stops you, “If you want to survive this one, either run or let me take over.”

You pause as you push your speed up to your comfortable cap, “You know this thing then?”

“I recognize the summon, yes,” he takes a breath, sounds like through gritted teeth, “before I became what you see today, I had an apprentice… who I dismissed because he had the wrong flavor of interest in the dark arts.”

“Wrong flavor?” You interrupt.

“Yes. He saw them as things to admire and replicate, not something to learn from but despise; took me a painfully long time to see it.” The dragon takes a breath, and continues, “He made off with several of my notebooks and used what he learned to make his own flavor of immortality… a poor copy of mine. But because he doesn't care to revive or talk to his host, he spent that space instead on supporting a summon - that demon. Nasty piece of work. Strong, tough, flies, sharp claws, and (of particular relevance to you) will copy the best spell of anyone engaging. In your case, your speed.”

“So if I throw a rock at him…” you cringe.

“He'll speed up to match it, possibly catch it, then turn around and rip you to shreds,” the dragon pauses, “If you're lucky.”

You consider that while the daemon is effectively paused, “But if I don't engage, he's just as slow as everyone else?”

“Yes. My ex-apprentice doesn't really understand how to manipulate time… or at least, didn't, and now he's stuck with what he picked…” the ring considers, “...but his creation can copy your biggest power, your only power… which means what I've trained you on will be quite useless.”

“So it's run, surrender to you for a bit, or do something stupid and die” you consider.

“Oh, you won't stay dead…” your benefactor considers, “...well, unless he rips your arm off before he kills you. I'm immortal. As long as we're connected like this, you have a share in my immortality. You'd have a new body in about thirteen minutes.”

“Umm…is that number…” you begin. How do you ask that without sounding….

“It's seven hundred seventy-seven seconds, which is three seconds shy of thirteen minutes,” the teacher steps in, obviously prepared for the question. “It requires a divine connection to work, and the timing has to reflect that, but I am most certainly NOT using the lower planes. I just say thirteen minutes because of rounding.”

You consider that, “How smart is the beast?”

“Doesn't matter, the bastard can see through its eyes, hear through its ears, and issue orders it can follow,” your instructor answers.

“Does your old apprentice speed up with the summon?” You chuckle.

That gives your instructor pause, “No, and without active direction the creature is dumber than the dumbest of drunk dogs.” The ring takes a breath, “Still: Keep in mind the beast has strength and toughness fit to go toe to toe with Ultrama'am.”

You consider that, a stupid plan starting to form, thinking about the city map, and considering that the industrial district isn't far, “and power is power. He'd have to fund the speed, and he has limits just like everyone else, right?”

“This is true, but my ex-apprentice is rather old,” the dragon begins, “and there's no limit to how strong a soul can get.”

“But that takes exercise,” you smile, “do you really think the guy who was willing to steal as a shortcut to power will have kept up regular exercise after he had it?”

“I always did have to force him…” your body guest considers.

You crack a smile as you finish formulating your plan, “Well then….”