CHAPTER 5

Super-Human

Vyker stood at a dead end alley, looking at a pile of black plastic trash bags. He was trembling with rage to the extent of radiating it like rays of the sun. An old bum laid against the wall, fast asleep, suddenly began to scratch his sweaty cheek as he slept due to the heat. The radiated heat from Vyker was making him uncomfortable. His eyes jolted wide open in shock from sleep state as he felt a strange heat scorching him.

“What was this?” he thought to himself. Though the weather was cold, to the point that people in the streets wore coats, jackets and sweaters to keep themselves warm, yet here he was, sweating as if he was stuffed into an oven! “Am I sick?” he wondered to himself.

“No, no, that couldn’t be” he thought to himself. He was so used to the streets almost all his life, he couldn’t rule that to be the case.

This wasn’t sickness! Something was heating him, slowly heating up like he was a frog in waters that were gradually becoming boiling hot. He thought this to himself. His eyes darted around, scanning his surroundings when they came to an abrupt state of shocked horror. When was this figure there? Standing, looking at a pile of black garbage bags like a certain strange kid he saw the previous day. How long had this figure been there? He thought to himself. Just from looking at him, he had never felt such instinctual fear in his life as he stared at a figure that wasn’t even paying attention to him. And though their eyes did not meet, he felt with every fibre of his being, voices in his head screaming.

“RUN! RUN! RUN AS FAR AWAY AS YOU CAN! DO NOT LOOK INTO HIS EYES! GET AWAY FROM HIM AS FAR AS POSSIBLE!”

“DEATH! DEATH! DEATH! DEATH AND DESTRUCTION!”

He felt like he was staring at death personified although he didn’t know what made him so afraid of the figure standing not too far from him.

“I don’t even know him, yet… yet, why? Why do I feel like running away from him? Something is wrong! Something is definitely wrong with this freak! Whatever he is!” he thought to himself.

The old bum trembled in his lying state, thoughts racing his mind. What to do! What to do?! How do I get out of here without being noticed? If he suddenly got up and ran away, it would be too suspicious and the figure would come after him, thinking that he knows something. Like a prey before a lion, sometimes the best trick was to play dead, act a fool, and pretend to be senile, mental, and insane. After all he was an old street bum, in his ragged state he’d definitely pass for a mentally-challenged person. Yes, this was the classic trick to escape the attention of potential predators. To convince them that he was of no use to them and that they were better off not wasting their time on him, it had worked all his life after all. So he curled himself, while still trembling and got into a comfortable foetus pose and closed his eyes and pretended to snore fast sleep. The heat that was making him uncomfortable intensified and grew closer and closer until he could feel a presence right up close to his foetal position.

“No! This couldn’t be!”

Did the predator come to him? Did he attract the attention of the predator? He thought to himself as he trembled, with his eyes closed, his face sweating. Oh lord! If you are out there, now would be the best time? The bum thought to himself as he pressed the palms of his hands together.

“Cold? Hot? Or Fear? By what manner tremble you?” Vyker spoke in a calm tone. He was met with silence and trembling from the old bum.

“Are you deaf, human?” Vyker asked as his blood red irises began to glow and fixed his gaze on the old bum. The scorching heat the old man felt intensified until he could no longer hold it in pretending to sleep. He threw away his covering blanket and crawled away from Vyker in fear without saying a word.

“Do you not speak?” Vyker asked as his voice began to slightly turn cold and otherworldly, sharp like metal, piercing, croaky and yet high pitched. The old bum felt shivers run down his spine as if someone poured ice cold water down the skeletal tube of his spinal cord, losing strength as he crawled, his hands and knees gave in and he limped to the ground.

He was about to help himself get up when he noticed Vyker who seconds ago was standing quite the distance from him, was now right astride his head , staring down at him with those glowing cold blood red eyes.

“G-Grand pa! W-what s-strange e-eyes you h-have?!” stammered the old bum, pretending to be senile and insane. He had remembered a certain book he had read when he was boy about a girl dressed all up in red.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You old fool! You are a bad pretender! If I was to play along as the big bad wolf I may have answered you, ‘the better to burn you, my dear’” Vyker spoke now in a totally otherworldly voice. His facial expression suddenly went cold, reflecting a murderous rage within him.

“But I’m not here to play games. Tell me…have you seen anyone acting strange around that pile of trash over there?” Vyker asked the old bum as he reached forth with his arm and yanked the man from his neck and forced him into a standing position against the wall.

“I-I d-don’t know anything! I’m just a nobody! Jus leave me alone!” screamed the old bum, tears streamed uncontrollably out of the corner of his eyes as he was being choked, suspended some inches from the ground by Vyker’s left hand.

“You are a bad pretender old man! It’s written all over you! The moment you trembled was the moment what you knew gave you away! No one trembles for nothing! Everyone trembles because they know something, either consciously or instinctively! Cooperate! Answer my question! Tell me what you know and you may yet add days to your already dwindling life!” Vyker hissed coldly as his grip on the old bum’s neck tightened like a noose, choking him.

“PUT THE MAN DOWN OR I’LL SHOOT YOU!” shouted a curvy blonde policewoman with a ponytail hairstyle. The old bum recognized her as the woman from the previous night who had arrested the strange half naked young man. But this time, the old man did not dare to tell her to arrest this man who was choking him, suspending him in mid-air against a wall. Vyker ignored her shouts and still looked at the old bum.

“Aren’t you going to tell me, hmm?” Vyker spoke in an inhuman otherworldly voice that sent shivers down the old man and the police woman aiming at him. The old man held Vyker’s chocking hand with both his hands, trying to keep himself alive as he hanged.

“L-LAST W-WARN-NING! P-P-PUT HIM D-D-DOWN AND S-S-SURRENDER! OR I’LL SH-SH-SHOOT YOU!” bellowed the policewoman in a stammering way as her very voice trembled.

With the last of his energy, the old bum uttered the words to the policewoman.

“W-woman…r-run”

And he passed out, unconscious. Vyker released the bum from his choking grip, dropping him down to the ground with a plop, he then turned to face the policewoman with his glowing red gaze. When their eyes met, the woman’s hands that firmly gripped her magnum desert eagle trembled and her knees grew weak. She knew something was off with this man. Very very off. Was he even human? These thoughts raced in her head as she trembled. She recalled his inhuman voice, and glowing red irises that she could swear that even in pitch black darkness those eyes would still give off their demonic light.

She trembled as she wondered what to do. She could not bring herself to pull the trigger nor flee. She was paralysed in fear, frozen in her aiming stance.

“You said you were going to shoot me if I don’t surrender. I have not yielded, why aren’t you shooting?” Vyker spoke calmly as he spread his hands apart in gesture to let her try and put a bullet in him.

The policewoman knew better, she instinctively knew that her gun would do no good. Her instincts screamed inside that this was no ordinary being, though he looked like a man. She stood there, trembling with her aim at Vyker, in a state of frozen fear, unable to act upon her threat. Vyker slowly strolled to where she stood and put himself in front of her aim, aligning his chest with the barrel of the magnum desert eagle and smiled.

“Shoot..,” Vyker spoke casually but the policewoman trembled, tears slowly welling up in her eyes, unable to pull the trigger. There was a moment of silence between the two until Vyker sighed and spoke.

“It’s a good thing for humans to learn their place. That will allow you to live out your days. You are a lamb, human, a lamb before a hydra. It’s a good thing you did not shoot. Your insolence would have cost you your life. For your restraint, you have earned my mercy.”

The radio call on the side belt of the policewoman rang for a status check call. She couldn’t move from her frozen state of abject fear. Her eyes darted from her radio call to Vyker, who gazed at the radio call and then back at the policewoman.

“You can pick it up,” Vyker spoke calmly.

The policewoman reached for her radio call and picked it up.

“You are late in picking up, what’s wrong?” spoke a male’s voice at the other side of the call.

“N-nothing, sorry, I was j-just, d-distracted,” the policewoman spoke in a voice that could not conceal her frightened state.

“Distracted? By what? Are you okay? You seem a little shaky. Do you need back up?” asked the male’s voice at the other side of the call. The policewoman shifted her gazed from her radio call back to Vyker who couldn’t care less how many people came to the scene, he simply turned and walked back to the unconscious bum lying on the ground and gazed at him, reaching for a pack of cigarette within his faux fur coat’s inner pockets.

“That’s it! I think something is off with where you are, I’m sending a back up unit to investigate. Stay within your coordinates…” spoke the male voice in the radio call.

“N-no, there is no need, e-everything is o-okay,” the policewoman stammered, trying to dissuade the man from sending back up.

“NO! Something is definitely not right! You definitely sound shaken! I can’t risk it, Chloe! Your career has recently started, the TPD can’t afford to lose potentials like yourself! Stay where you are, the back up unit will arrive shortly,”

“Hahaha…it seems they care deeply for you. That’s good in these precarious times,”Vyker spoke calmy as he chuckled. He heard everything.

“Back-up unit. Tell me…do you honestly believe that it would make the difference?” Vyker continued as he gazed at his cigarette that he had pulled from the cigarette pack and it supernaturally lit without a lighter. Vyker shifted his gaze from the policewoman back to where the old bum had laid unconscious only to see the bum wasn’t there. Vyker’s glowing red irises widened with shock. The unconscious old bum had disappeared, there were only ragged make-shift blankets and junk where the old man had laid.

“WHAT!”Vyker thought to himself in shock and disbelief that the old bum had disappeared without him noticing it. The policewoman was also in shock to suddenly notice that the old bum wasn’t there either.

“How the-!”thought the policewoman as he stared at the location where the old bum had laid. She had a great view of both Vyker and the unconscious old bum. When did it happen that the bum suddenly disappeared like that? Was it when she was not paying attention and speaking in her radio call? Vyker wondered the same how it was possible for the old man to slip past his attention without him noticing. He turned around and scanned his surroundings with his eyes until he stared in the policewoman’s direction with eyes of shock and rage.

The policewoman felt a warm presence behind her, she turned her aim and looked behind her only to see a middle-aged man with snow-white glowing curly long hair that went down to the base of his shoulders. A white smoky glowing aura outlined and danced around his entire body. The man was 6ft 1 inch tall, pale yellow Germanic skin, deep glowing blue irises. He was dressed in a white overcoat, a black long-sleeved turtle neck under it, black linen, well-ironed trousers with a pair of black socks inside black leather shiny, pointy shoes. His earthly name was called “Killian”. Although the man looked human, he was far from it. Killian looked like a slim-built man in his early 40s. The policewoman could tell from one glance that this man was no ordinary being either though he looked human. Killian was holding the unconscious bum on his hands. He handed him over to the policewoman.

“He’s in need of medical attention, get away from here as fast as you can,” Killian spoke in an otherworldly tone that felt like a sea of molten lava uttering words with an extremely high bass to the point of it feeling like an inferno.

Killian placed the old bum in the hands of the policewoman and strolled past her and stood, shielding her from Vyker whose face now reddened with rage.

“It has been a while, Beil-veikryth,” Killian casually addressed Vyker.

“YOU!...HAVE NO RIGHT TO SPEAK FORTH THAT NAME! BEIL-KRILEITH!” Vyker raged in a metallic otherworldly voice as he took a step towards Killian, his irises were now glowing red to the point of emitting red light from them, red flaming aura began to leak out of his skin pores, outlining his entire silhouette and attire, the whole atmosphere around him began to heat up into a mirage, distorting, blurring the vision of everything around him yet Killian did not flinch the slightest.

“It’s funny brother, how you forbid me from speaking your name all the while you speak mine,” Killian smiled as his voice returned to normal.

The policewoman supporting the unconscious bum by her back stood there, stunned, glaring at Killian’s back.

“What are you still doing here? The bum needs medical attention,” Killian said to the policewoman without turning around to face her, his attention was fixated on Vyker. The policewoman snapped back to reality and slowly dragged herself and the bum on her back away from the alley, disappearing out of view as she took a corner around the building leaving only Vyker and Killian facing each other. There was a moment of silence between them before Vyker spoke in a human tone.

“Tell me? Was it you who took the ‘capsule?”

“What if It was, what would you do?...” Killian replied in a calm human tone as well. There was a moment of silence between the two before Vyker sighed deeply, the heat around him intensifying.

He suddenly blurred out of view, closed the distance between himself and Killian in a fraction of a second and threw a punch at Killian’s stomach but Killian deflected it with his left hand, misdirecting the fist away from it’s abdominal mark and countered with the white glowing aura that outlined his body as it exploded into a dome shape launching Vyker away from Killian. Vyker adjusted his pose in mid-air after he was launched away, landing on his feet several meters away from Killian.

Vyker raised his right arm and aimed it at Killian’s face, dozens of fiery skulls began to emerge from the ground all around Killian followed by a gigantic one the size of a bus beneath Killian’s feet and opened it’s mouth, attempting to swallow Killian whole in flames but Killian stomped firmly on the concrete ground beneath his heels, sending cracks in the concrete in all directions, white glowing light-shafts emerged from the cracks followed by a sharp sound similar to a pressure cooker and a giant pillar of glowing white flames exploded from the cracks, spiralling upwards several meters into the air, obscuring Killian from view as it engulfed him, completely consuming the fiery skulls into nothingness. When the pillar of white flames cleared, Killian was nowhere to be seen.

Vyker got startled for a brief moment as he wondered where Killian had disappeared off to before sensing a presence behind him. Vyker quickly turned to look when halfway through his turn, he felt a fist exploding unto his right cheek, sending him flying, tumbling several meters away from Killian. Vyker quickly got up, spitting a tooth out of his mouth as he did so.

“HOW DARE YOU?!” Vyker raged in an otherworldly cold metallic voice. His facial expression was saturated with a murderous rage focused on Killian who completely looked calm and composed. Vyker raised his right arm up in the air and snapped his fingers, the air above him began to distort and tear open into a fiery rift from which WRYTH, MELDANA,KYMEI and CHRYDER emerged and landed on their feet behind Vyker. Meldana and Wryth walked to Vyker.

“How is Chryder’s progression?” Vyker asked her.

“He’s not half bad but still has a ways to go,” she replied with a grin.

Killian’s facial expression tensed significantly as he stared at Vyker and his 4 prymers. Chryder’s eyes met Killian’s and he wondered who Killian was. Was Killian on the same level as his master? Was he a prymer or an existence above that. He noticed that Vyker’s attire was slightly dirty and realized that his master may have taken a level of beating from the mysterious person they were about to face.

“Go!” Vyker commanded.

Meldana walked first stylishly and stood in front Vyker obscuring him from view, facing Killian, she raised both her arms and aimed them at Killian, the ground beneath Killian’s feet sunk in, sinking Killian down the ground all up to his head while the ground around him began to collect above his head, burying him, Killian leaped from the sunk ground several meters into the air but was met with Kymei, whose nails had elongated into lion’s claws, she clawed at him multiple times in mid air but her thrashes were all deflected and misdirected by Killian; she finished with a turn-around kick which was also blocked but the force of the kick launched Killian several feet back. As Killian was landing on his feet, he noticed giant fiery skull the size of a bus emerge up from the ground where he was going to land and it exploded into a giant mushroom shaped mixture of fire and cloud before he touched the ground, scorching him, tossing him up in the air. Chryder’s grey irises began to glow with a red corona around them, focusing on the residual flames that had scorched and tossed Killian back into the air. The residual flames rose up above Killian like inverted fiery rain before he had the chance to adjust himself mid-air, collected into giant ball of fire and fell onto him like a meteorite, scorching him and dashing him forcefully to the ground, where he landed with a hard breaking thud. While Killian was still feeling the pain on the ground, Meldana had stretched forth her right hand at him and clenched it into a fist, causing the ground underneath Killian’s back to spike up, piercing his back side and emerging out through his stomach in the front but it wasn’t blood that came out of his body. White light shafts emerged out, followed by white glowing particles bursting forth, swimming in the air where he had been impaled. He was suspended up in the air by Meldana’s spike that had impaled him.

“We’ve got him,” Wryth spoke to Vyker but Vyker did not reply a word as his gaze was focused on Killian who showed no signs of movement.

“If only it were THAT easy,” Vyker spoke back to Wryth as he pointed at Killian’s impaled, suspended motionless body flare up in white glowing flames and burst into tiny white glowing particles which swarmed up into the air and flew away from the scene.

“He escaped?” Chryder asked curiously as he wondered if all such beings were as easy to take care of as Killian was. Were they that frail? Or were his comrades THAT powerful? Or did the foe simply make a strategic retreat?

“Yes, you did well,” Vyker replied with a somewhat satisfied tone.

“But make no mistake, he’s not someone either of you can face alone,” Vyker warned them.

“I have a task for all of you. I want you to track down the identity of the person who acquired his prymic powers in this scene. Here are your leads,” Vyker commanded as he waved his hand forth, 3D hologram-like projections of two people’s heads materialized in mid-air. One was the blonde policewoman who had arrested Galen the previous day and took the bum away from the scene a while ago. The other was the homeless bum.

“You can use any means at your disposal, get me results.”