Two men stepped in front of the door.

It took them fifteen minutes to secure this very moment. The knockout guards, the capture hostages and the excitement of their men. All for this very moment.

Marley stood in front of the door to the control room. Behind that door laid the Stabilization Core and its control chamber.

…

The twelves terrorist hold the conscious hostage in the VIP room. The hostages cowered in terror amidst the jovial extremists. A young boy couldn't control himself any longer and cry.

“Shut the kid up!” One of the terrorists shouted.

The mother quickly covered her son's mouth.

“How long do we have to be here?” Said one of the men in annoyance, counting the money he looted from one of the passengers. “Dammit, I am not getting paid enough for this?”

“Stop!” The elderly passenger tried to wrestle his money back. “You don’t understand. That loan was for…”

“Shut up!” Another terrorist came over to kick the man in the head. “You act like you honestly earn this. Don’t make me laugh. You probably extorted someone for quick cash or sold those rip-off product as that rich bastard does. This money should go to the folk who worked for it.”

A few more kicks followed. The man silently cried, watching the dream he waited for fifty years about to disappear into a pocket of a terrorist. He was only one meeting away when this tragedy happened. How could it have ended like this? His only wish was to fulfill the dream of a young boy who once promised his mother to open a cafe and shared her hospitality food with everyone.

The man gritted his teeth. How can this cruelty be freedom and justice?

“Yeah, guys come on let give the cheater what he deserves,” Another terrorist joined in and punted the man in the stomach, forcing him to cough up blood.

Seeing the man failed to fight back, the other terrorists followed the example and started savagely beating up the man.

The other passenger looked away powerless to stop it. The boy stifled his cries in fear.

Even during the merciless beating, the old man still looked at his lifework being taken away. He wanted to pray, but he knew it was useless. No selfish God would answer the prayer of the man who had nothing to offer.

Then again the gods were not the agent of good.

…

Marley opened the door.

He didn’t meet the Stabilization Core. No. What he received could only be called a punishment from heaven.

The glass case that housed the Magical Crystal was gone.

Marley stared. His brain blinked rapidly trying to come up with an explanation. At that moment his head was utterly devoid of reasons.

Beside him, the mass of muscle called Bruno spoke the question he was asking and failing to answer.

“Where the hell is it?”

Marley couldn’t answer that question. Is this a trap? Did Aurorin's spy discovered this plan and removed the core beforehand. No, that was not possible, if that happened they would already be dead. Forget getting to the train. They wouldn’t even leave the station alive.

Then what was happening?

The answer crawled out of the shadow.

Marley and Brune readied their weapon, but the moment the creature entered the light, they almost dropped their equipment.

She was an elf and an incredibly beautiful one to boot. She had charcoal-black hair, dainty pointed ears and a pair of beautiful sky-blue eyes welling with tears.

Aside from her elven trait and the Octopus wrapping around her legs, the girl could easily pass as a regular harmless teenager.

The elf noticed them, her eyes swelled with gratitude and she wails.

“Thank god,” She cried, leaping at Marley’s leg and hugging on for dear life. “Help me, please! The conductor said he's going to sell me to a rich man for money! He also threatened to eat my pet!”

Bruno looked at the octopus, then the elf, then back at the octopus.

“An octopus,” Bruno said. “When did an elf pick an octopus as their pet? Where is the owl? The Tiger? What about the eagle?”

“Help!” The elf cried, squeezing out more tears and grabbed Marley’s leg, effectively immobilizing it and continued crying with all her might. “The big scary man will eat me. Help me, mister.”

She inched away from Bruno like he's a plague and hid behind Marley's leg much to the giant man chagrin.

That was the moment chaos ensued.

...

Hyperchannel had two VIP suits that were taken hostages by the Liberator.

Now one door leading to one of them slid open.

“What the hell,” several terrorists gasped in shock.

Spells and weapons flew into readiness. Sadly, that preparation was as useful as blocking explosive with tissue paper. Not a single one of them had an idea about the bizarreness that was about to slam down on them with a force of a falling bathtub.

A honey badger wearing a ‘Make Fantasy Great Again’ cap was looking right at them with murder in her eyes.

“Who are you? Identify yourself!?” One of the terrorist leaders shouted.

But the badger already disappeared.

A paw, packing a surprising amount of force, connect with one of the Liberator's cheek. The kick knocked out two of his teeth and propelled him toward another end of the carriage. He somersaulted twice, face-planting the ground two times before slamming into another end of the carriage. The incredibly unluck terrorist twitched twice and fell to the ground like a defeated cockroach.

The assault continued before anyone could register what hit them.

A spear’s shaft a man never saw coming smashed his nose. Simultaneously, another man was slashed by a speared head he registered but couldn’t react in time. With three members going down in an instant, the other Liberator’s member began to mobilize their counters.

One woman lunged at Scathach with a sword.

The badger nimbly leaped out of the way and threw one spear toward the man who was reaching for the screaming hostage. She landed on the arm that attacked her. Without a pause Scathach climbed up the said limb to punt its owner in the face.

Two more threat disappeared in a flash.

Scathach somersaulted across the air in a brown blurred, landing on another terrorist face and slamming him down to the floor.

Her furious attacks continued without a pause.

She spin-kicked one more terrorist to submission before bullet jumping to take out more victims.

One man screamed in panic, firing a series of binding, ropes to stop the tiny war machine. Scathach easily weaved through the spell and takeout his shin and finished with an uppercut.

“No,” no one Liberator, looked at how his friend dropped to the ground. “G-Get away from me!”

He dropped his weapon and ran.

The man didn’t go far.

The honey badger scampered along the wall, pulled out her spear from a victim shivering in shock and threw it at a fleeing man.

The spear skewer into the man's knee forcing him down with a painful howl.

Scathach heard the clattering of a sword.

“Wait!” Said the final Liberator’s member, holding her hand high. “I surrender! Don’t hurt me.”

Scathach produced a rope and grinned sadistically.

Result: 9 Liberator's member down, 1 Surrender, Time took: 3 seconds.

…

“Hey, everyone tonight dinner is on me.” One terrorist threw the money into the air and let it flew.

The old man eyes were empty. The future he dreamt of mercilessly crushed before it had even begun. Fairness in this world was dead without a doubt.

The boy stifled his tears and tugged into his mother's chest. He couldn't bear to see this. The world was cruel, a place where dogs ate dogs, but he didn't want that. The childlike mind wanted to believe that this wouldn't be his future.

At that moment he just wanted the bad men to go away.

No god will answer there prayer. Fortunately for them, it wasn't a god that was there.

The entrance began when an elbow shattered the window glass, and a black object was thrown into the train before anyone could react. In one brief moment all people, both hostages, and terrorists froze.

The block object, the smoke bomb, exploded.

“What the hell is happening?”

“I can’t see—,“ One of the terrorists tripped and slammed into the floor nose first.

“This is an attack,” A bold voice said. “Gather up and disperse the smo—.”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

A gunshot resounded, and the order was cut off.

Utter panic resumed.

“Contact Commander Marley!” One of the men tried to take the lead.

Bang!

The bullet shattered another window and hit the shouting man’s kneecap. The man fell in a bloody scream. The message was clear: take the lead at your peril.

Bang! Bang!

Two shot resounded. The first bullet shattered a communicator. The second shot embedded itself into the holder solar plexus with enough force to send him crashing into the wall.

The Liberator shivered. They couldn't see anything, but they felt it. The unseen terror. Fear of the unknown gripped their heart like death's skeletal hand. None of them dared to utter another word to displeased this mysterious enemy.

In the middle of darkness, the boy trembled. Tears welled in his eyes, but deep down, he knew he would remember this moment for the rest of his life.

The old man knew it too, and he watched. Instinctively, he knew where the guardian angel would arrive.

Clash!

Another window broke apart right next to one horrified terrorist. A pair of boot slammed into his face, sending him crashing into the wall. The man wasn't out yet, hence a foot was sent to smash his face into dreamland.

As the sunlight to filter in and the smoke to escape through the shattered window, the Liberator finally saw their enemy. Many of them would look back to this cruel moment and re-think their life choice. Most of them would wake up with a nightmare for the year to come.

From the floor, the old man looked at his savior. That very sight brought tears into his eyes. He was going to be okay. Meanwhile, the boy looked at the figure in black with wonder. He had seen soldier, but none of them looked quite like this one. What the man wore resembled a festival costume more than the armor and uniform of a soldier.

But somehow, looking at that provoke a kind of wonder the boy never experience. Most would call this an eighth-grade syndrome.

Frame by the sunlight and black smoke was a man wrapped in black combat gear and a voluminous black cloak. He was wearing a white and fedora which conceal his face. The masked man was kneeling on the body of the terrorist he had handily defeated, as if he was praying to a celestial goddess of war. The ominous red-visor scanned the Liberator without uttering any words. The hero rose up to meet the gang, his Magic surged, sending everyone hair standing from animal instinct.

"So cool," the boy said wide eyes.

...

Every fight was like a puzzle.

That was Rem's tenet believe. A problem would always a question. How to beat an overconfident badger in a game of monopoly? How to disable interdimensional parasite? The question change but the game remain the same.

The current problem was simple but incredibly troublesome.

How could he eliminate eight well-armed and possibly well-train personal in a cramped space of the train carriage without harming the hostages?

Answer: surprise, theatrics, and raw terror.

That was the plan Rem formulated.

Speed was the key. That was why Rem supercharged his body with magic and strode toward his enemies at superhuman speed, smashing the toppled terrorist for good measure as he entered the fray.

“Oh sh-“

Crack!

One down.

"So awesome," the boy said watching his hero turned into the blurred that ran over one of the bad men, leaving a trail of smoke where he moved.

The boy and his mother saw the man in black rushing to meet one of the villains and lifted him in a choke-hold. The bad man knifed fell the floor, too slow to connect to the hero.

The Liberator crawled at Rem's arms, terrified by the blank white mask. But Rem had a plan for him. Attacks were coming, and he needs a meatshield.

“Fire everything!” Yelled a panic man. “Fires everything!”

“Get away from me.” A man launches a fireball at the cloaked figure. "Called chief Marley! Or we are doom!"

The old man saw six bullets clattered on the floor like the death god’s decree. His savior was using his tormentor body to absorb the barrages of attack. It was merciless. The terrorist got reduce into a bag of crying, burnt bruise in a minute. Then the man in black disappeared with his captive. The old man heard a grunt then a terrorist fell next to him like a broken doll.

The mother of the boys was seriously concerned. Her son was glued to the fight and cheering like crazy? Would he copy this in the future? She needs to tell him it was not right to attack someone on their throat and headbutt them to submission.

Then she remembers what she went through and started cheering. Those bastard deserve everything they were getting.

A door slid opened, and the blonde goddess sneaked into the room and started fixing the problem. She sighed in relief the terrorist was too busily trying to survive than gunning for the hostage. This made her job a lot simpler.

Meanwhile, Rem threw the body of the meatshield at the terrorist with superstrength and tossed in the smoke bomb for good measure. He whipped out his Silver Silhouette and reloaded it with his magically augmented speed. With a gun on his left and throwing knives in his right, he let it loose.

Two bullets punched through the man. Those throwing knives met its mark on a Liberator's face, causing her to clawed in pain. Being a kind and generous soul, Rem delivered the an uppercut to end the woman’s suffering. Following that he landed a punch in the jaw and a bullet at kneecap to end another man criminal career.

The last man standing stumbled out of the smoke with his Senpai body smashing the wall behind him.

The only thing he could do is forked out the money.

"Here! Take this," he trembled. "You want it right? Take it and forgiv--ack!"

Rem took the stacks of credit after booting the man's mouth so hard he lost half his teeth.

He tossed the note behind him.

"You are missing this."

"Thanks," said the goddess, gathering the notes on the floor and putting them back in a bag. Next to her sat an old man who was visibly healing from his wound.

The young goddess handed the bag with all the money back to the old man.

"Here grandpa," said an innocent voice. "It yours isn't it? I am not sure, but I think I got all of it."

The goddess stood up, and together with the man in black, she started leaving.

"Mister," the boy ran toward Rem excitedly before his mother can stop him.

Rem looked at the grinning boy.

"Thank you for everything! Please told me how do I become strong like you?"

In a rare moment, a drop a feeling bleed from that fossilize heart.

"Be kind," Rem tousled the boy's head caringly and said in a garbled voice. "Be a good boy and never give up. Most of all do the right thing, not the easy thing."

The old man watches both of them leave, and that was when he decided the name of his new café.

“The Unsung Hero,” the old man whispered, already coming up with a logo.

Result: 12 men downed, no survivor. 7 ended up with PTSD. One quit Liberator afterward to become a cameraman. Time is taken 2 minutes.