Now that the men had arrived, Scott was forced to concede that he had no actual game plan for this scenario. His general thought process had been that he would scare the men into fleeing and then possibly catch glimpses of their fall back location in their thoughts. The truth was, however, that they would try again if they were not stopped.

Killing them would be simple enough, but that would also no stop other men like these from making attempts on the occupants of the house. If anything, it would escalate the situation.

The only way, in his mind at least, to keep the people in the house safe would be to create a greater threat. His shadow form was out. Now, the world had been reset. Though he was seen both as a shadow and as a man back then, there should be no memory of it for those who had seen him change shape. This meant that he had a chance to do things a little differently than before.

He paid a small pittance to bring a cloth bag from the dream world then quickly ripped it open and tied it around his face in such a way that it covered everything but his eyes. True, a red eyed man would be a dead giveaway in the future but that could be solved by wearing sunglasses during the day. His eyes usually only glowed when he was emotional anyway.

World’s shittiest superhero costume in place, Scott decided that it was time to get started. They sat a good distance from the house but had not made a move, their hesitancy granted him all the time that he’d needed in order to get into place. From what he gathered through their thoughts they were waiting for something to be coordinated, an alibi.

Scott’s baleful red eyes stared at the van through a neighboring shrubbery, some sort of large Azalea. “No officer. I couldn’t have been the one who kidnapped those women and sold them for parts on the Dark Web. I was doing something else at the time.”

Noxious, disgusting spirits, Scott could not help himself. What he originally intended was to stop them and to track the men to their lair. There was now no need. He had crept close enough that he could invade their minds directly. He knew where several of their little meth labs were, and who ran the show.

The last tidbit of knowledge that he gained made his nose itch. It explained a lot about how things were in this town. It also made things more difficult for him, given who he would need to take down quietly.

Direct conflict no longer needed to get what he wanted; Scott decided to end it all in one fell swoop. Before the men got their confirmation, he began and finished speaking and incantation.

Scott rushed out of their blindside toward their van, and before they even knew he was there he cried out, “Dark Judgment!”

As it had done several times before, the world exploded with light and color. A hole formed in the asphalt even as hellish flames surrounded the vehicles.

Surprised screams ripped out of the van, but they were nothing compared to the shrieks of terror that occurred a moment later when serpentine chains rose up to pierce through the van and into the souls of the occupants inside.

Scott watched calmly as the men struggled for their very existence as free souls. He saw their corruption clearly. Rape. Murder. Human trafficking. Each of the men in that van were professional criminals and had long since given up on the concept of human morality.

However, despite their wickedness only three were dragged down into the darkness. The other two clung to life, desperate and terrified.

It was then that Scott reward them by rushing the van with lethal intent. They would not go to the abyss, but they could still go to hell for all that he cared. Scott ripped the driver door open then snatched the driver out and threw him onto the road below. He stomped on the man’s skull then hopped inside the vehicle. A man in the back looked up weakly, just in time to see bright red eyes followed by a punch to the head that shattered his skull like a ripe melon.

He quickly paid for another bag to be brought from the dream looted then looted the bodies and the van. Even though the neighborhood lights were coming on in rapid succession, he chose to be thorough. Every dollar. Every bit of bling. All the firearms were taken. He even got their shoes, clothes, and cellphones. Finally, the van itself became his property after he dumped the bodies out. People had seen what had happened there, though the sight of five naked men lying dead on the street was probably not to their liking. There was no way they could recognize him at a distance with his mask, but that was no reason to run off into the night. Driving was better.

Scott rushed down the street like a bat out of hell, eager to get his well-gotten gains back to his lair. Sure, it would have been stealthier for him to have just done the looting later. However, he had a point to make. The people who sent those men would soon discover their deaths and find that there was someone else involved.

Was there a leak in their organization? Who talked? Who was trying to move in on their turf? Perhaps they would still send men after the family of that witness, but the guy on trial was only a lower middle ranked flunky in their organization if his purloined thoughts were true. The man knew enough to be dangerous to their organization, but not enough to be worth overlooking the possibility of new competition.

At this point, it would be less problematic for them to simply silence their man in prison that it would be to try to silence the witness. Rather, that was Scott’s hope. The other reason for leaving those men like that was so that their boss would know it immediately. Scott absolutely wanted that bastard to know it, after everything he learned prior to the roll back.

The police took quite some time to arrive on the scene due to the concerns of monsters that roamed the night. Stretched thin due to constant calls of such nature, the trail was cold and there was little chance for them to catch the one who performed such a dark deed. Mention of fire and serpentine chains in the air caused the local police to write the whole thing off as a monster attack. Though, they were at a loss as to why the monster threw their naked bodies out into the street and hauled ass with their van.