Right as I was going to warn the guards about the danger that was surrounding us, they learned about it on their own the hard way. The sedan that had been trailing us contacted the back of our vehicle, and the auras of the men inside showed them to be leaping into action. And by action, I mean they were leaping into the backseats for some reason.

From where I was sitting by the driver's cage at the front, I was safe from what came next, but the same was not true for everyone. The guard furthest back looked on in shock as the grey sedan accelerated into the armored van. It phased harmlessly into our compartment, moving through the metal as if it weren't there at all. Glass and steel overlapped with one another in an incorporeal movement, until all the sudden, they weren't incorporeal anymore and the effect had cancelled.

The matter of the grey sedan reasserted itself and solidified in-place, fusing with the man's legs as it did so. He cried out in pain, and I watched on with horror as he tore his own stumps away from the bloody wreck.

"It's Passthrough!" the second guard yelled, raising up his gun and waiting for the next move.

Seeing the impossible mashup of cars invading the space around me, I tried to get a grasp on what had happened as my mind still struggled to catch up and formulate a response. The laws of physics were increasingly absent in my life these days, but there was nevertheless a logic to each power.

There had to be a strategy we could employ here.

This guy could choose which objects were phantoms, but if that had been the full extent of his power, the whole car would have fallen into the Earth. No, he could not only make objects incorporeal, but he could also choose what became immaterial in relation to other objects.

A power like that had countless usages. Far too many for me to imagine responses to all of them.

All I could do was watch as the injured guard crawled back to join us by the cage where it was safe. He pulled a tab on his suit's armor around the thigh, and an automatic tourniquet squeezed into place. He was stoic, making sure to maneuver himself in between myself and the doors to keep me protected. Despite the gruesome dismemberment he'd just suffered, it seemed that his focus was totally unwavering.

For my part, I readied up a small amount of negative energy to blast the enemy with and tried not to feel useless. "They're doing... something," I said, almost unable to get the words out through my increasing panic.

Though I'd willingly strutted into a bloodbath not three days prior, that hardly meant my nerves were suddenly made of steel. I muddled through that nightmare, just like I would force myself to muddle through this one. Then, just as now, my courage was just enough to keep me held together and no more.

The next item to ghost its way into the cabin of our van was much smaller than the last, yet no less deadly. A small green grenade resolidified halfway into the room with its tab pulled. It landed in the uninjured soldier's lap, and everyone's attention snapped with cold fear to the explosive.

Since the back doors had welded themselves shut and the driver's cage would take too long to open, the time remaining on the bomb simply ticked away with no hope of disposing it. Death inched closer.

We all shared a look of understanding, then. As unexperienced as I was, I knew what had to happen next for at least two of us to survive.

The injured soldier made the decision before his buddy could. I was too afraid to even consider it.

He cried out, "They don't get any more wins today!"

He grabbed the explosive and threw himself forward on top of it.

"Henry, no!" His friend tried to stop him, but the bang sounded off in the tight space around us and cut off all words.

He just… saved us.

For the second time this week, I found myself deafened and shellshocked. I couldn't think straight or use my power. The only thing on my mind was the inevitable next grenade that was bound to come through the wall and land in our midst. If they had more of them, which they surely did, then it was a winning strategy to keep on playing. There was no reason they wouldn't throw grenades in here until they were one-hundred-percent certain we were dead.

The remaining guard had a similar realization, but he was not so easily paralyzed with shock as I was. He dug into his belt and withdrew a large pen-like device which he held up to the side of the van. I heard him yell something which I couldn't make out, only for the tip of the pen to begin burning with a blinding light.

Don't look, I realized, was probably the good advice he'd been giving.

Both deafened and partially blind now, I simply covered my head with my hands and braced as the next grenade showed up on cue. It clunked down to the floor while the guard continued cutting without hesitation. His eyes raced back and forth between his work, which was almost finished, and the device that counted down silently at the floor.

We only had a handful of seconds to live.

The circle of steel he was cutting out fell away just in time, and he reached down with superhuman speed to throw the weapon away. Even still, I felt the detonation slam against the outside of the vehicle, as there hadn't been a single moment to spare.

My brains sloshed around inside my skull with the force of so many explosions ricocheting in confined space. I have to do what I can, I thought, trying to shake off the impacts. I have to figure out a way to use my power to help.

It was difficult, but the glimpses that I caught of the villains told me they were unfazed by this trick of his. We had figured out a way around the grenades, yes, but that was only plan 'A' in a series of options. That was what their confidence told me.

The villains were preparing for a full-on boarding party using Passthrough's power, I saw. The first man up to bat had his hands placed in such a way that a melee weapon was likely being held in them. There was almost a phantom outline that resembled a chainsaw, I thought. Perhaps it was information-bleed from his mind. Perhaps he was projecting his intentions. I did all that I could to gather information before the attack came, either way.

If he got past us now, it was going to get very messy very fast.

"Adrian! Adrian!" I heard the guard's voice growing clearer. When he knew he had my attention, he told me, "Now is a good time to use your power if you can!"

I wanted to tell him that I was trying my best, but the words just wouldn't come out. There weren't many options for me in this situation. Any physical object would dampen my psychic energy to the point of uselessness. I couldn't project through reinforced steel; not unless I used every last ounce of power I had, and then I'd be no use at all.

Information gathering would have to suffice as the extent of my usefulness.

"Chainsaw, incoming!" I said, giving him a heads up.

A berserker scream could be heard breaking out around us. Using my warning to prepare though, the guard was faster on the draw than the madman it originated from.

Half-naked and covered in warpaint, he tossed himself into our van with no hesitation. He kept himself balled up as he jumped, trying his hardest to avoid accidentally fusing with the car before finally landing on his feet and directing his momentum into a powerful swinging attack. Although he brought the chainsaw forward at lightning speed, he didn't get a chance to do any damage. The guard had already popped off three rounds of his own, causing the berserker's torso to liquify into a fine mist.

Fucking hell. I have to get out of here!

My eyes latched onto the lock which kept the cage separating us and the driver sealed. The keys were on the half-exploded corpse of the other guard, now double-drenched in blood and guts.

If I can get into the forward cabin, I can make the driver pull over. We can get out of this kill-box and fight them on the road's shoulder, I thought. Anything to put distance between me and the smell of ruptured bowels now filling the cabin.

"We need to stop!" I spoke.

The soldier barked back, "No! Passthrough is twice as deadly on solid ground!" One cutting look from his eyes, and I knew that he saw my panic. The shame I felt put some sense back into me.

Shit. Okay.

Lacking any plan or the experience to build one with, I instead tried to roll with the current track we were stuck on. If we had to defend this position and kill anyone who came through, then we had to do it efficiently... There were only two auras left in the sedan, meaning one of them was going to be our supervillain while the other was obviously just a mook. After all, there was no way I was worth sending two supers after. That much I knew.

God, please don't let me jinx it.

My suspicion seemed true as yet another berserker lunged into the cabin. His eyes were huge and wild, hyped up on some cocktail of drugs and adrenaline. This one moved faster than the last, and he for some reason was surrounded by a large net. As in a literal fishing net.

The purpose soon became evident to me as the fishing net stopped him from falling through the floor; his own body remaining solid in relation to it, as it became solid in relation to the floor. Yet, the man himself was still incorporeal, causing the bullets that were fired at him to pass harmlessly into the floor as he took his time untangling.

This Passthrough's power... is amazing.

My awe was sincere, but quickly overpowered by my fear. The berserker waited until the gunfire had stopped, only to lunge forward and drive his fingers right into the guard's sides. They were tipped with metal claws and propelled by an unnaturally great strength. Not something that mere steroids or stimulants could create.

The Potion Seller must have given him that ability, I knew. Though I wasn't well-versed, I was not so ignorant of my hometown's local villains that this fact escaped me. More than one super had thrown their weight into this attack after all, which followed the trend of my luck.

I tried to blast the berserker with a hit of pure agony, but it rolled off him like nothing. Like he hadn't even felt it. I gave it more juice the second time and still nothing happened. It was obvious that my power was useless on him in this wild, drugged up state. Psychic energy could not overcome pure physiological momentum.

It was all up to my protector now.

The unpowered hero-guard reached down and gripped both of the berserker's wrists tightly. Even with the madman's fingers stabbed knuckle-deep into his sides, he pried them away with just a small groan of pain. Once the wrists were locked in place out in front of the guard's face, I thought I sensed some satisfaction in his posture as he started to squeeze them.

Slowly but surely, muscle and bone snapped until suddenly the guard's fingers crushed the limbs to nothing but splinters and blood. The hands fell limp, attached only by stringers of sinew. At last, the berserker passed out at the mere sight of them.

All that was left was the supervillain himself. His aura was a cool blue as he waited to be sure that his comrades were dead before wading in to finish the job. For now, he just sat waiting in the backseat of his sedan, happy to be pulled along for the ride.

We were given a moment to breathe then, but grim anticipation was heavy on the air.

My guard loaded up another magazine in his rifle and sighed. "I sure am glad for once my wife took the kids and got the fuck out of this city.”

“Yeah…” I said. We're all wishing we'd gotten out a little bit sooner right now.