How the hell did she know my breathing was beleaguered, and that I didn’t kill any of her friends? In fact, how the hell could she find me in the first place? Thomas thought, doubling over in pain as he attempted to crawl towards the elevator and make a last-ditch escape.

“Trying to crawl away, are you? Maybe I should just kill you now anyways if you aren’t going to accept your fate.” Roxanne pointed her heat gun at Thomas’s head. “I’ll say it was self-defence, that you were about to kill me.”

“I am.”

At that moment, Thomas turned over and sent a ghostly string flying at incredible speeds towards Roxanne’s heat gun, wrapping around it. While he was able to temporarily disable Roxanne’s gun, that wasn’t the main move. Roxanne saw another tiny purple thread extending from Phantom’s arm towards the interior of the elevator and saw it begin to close. Thomas pulled himself into the elevator with the phantom veins he had created, timing the press of his buttons to the moment of his surprise escape, reeling himself in as though if by fishing rod.

Roxanne didn’t have time to fire the killing blow to Phantom Limb’s head, he had already begun flying upwards in the elevator. She could see he was flying upwards, probably heading up to the rooftop in order to make his escape through the hole he left there, and so Roxanne, clenching her fists in frustration, followed suit in the elevator she took to get there. She had reloaded her heat gun fully and prepared to finish the job. She could still see Thomas’s breath flying upwards, and getting off at floor thirty before heading upwards to the pool area. She could see the glowing outline through the floor as she stepped off, perceiving that Phantom had already made his way onto the rooftop, but had stopped moving, most likely about to collapse from his injuries.

Roxanne saw the two unconscious officers, her colleagues, and grabbed a ladder from the nearby storage closet, her rage fixated on Phantom’s Limb breath. She leaned the ladder against the shattered edge of the glass ceiling and prepared to make her way up the non-glass alcove, climbing up with her gun ready, focused on Phantom’s dying breaths. “I fucking got you, Phantom Limb. No more tricks! You’re de—” she shouted but stopped mid-sentence, her jaw dropping as she stood on the non-glass portion of the roof. And felt a bullet of heat and energy rip through the back of her head and travel through her eye. In front of Officer Roxanne Mondatta were a set of phantom lungs, floating off of the ground, contracting and expanding, creating a stream of breath.

“Your ability wasn’t as hard to figure out as you thought. Your stupid fucking monologue was enough to seal the deal.” Thomas said standing behind Roxanne on the alcove as she stumbled to the floor, dropping her heat gun. Roxanne could see that Phantom Limb was sopping wet. He had hidden in the pool to hide his own breathing and baited her. “Which is why I’m going to keep this brief,” Thomas said, a flurry of phantom hands suddenly appearing behind him as he stood hunched over in pain.

“PHANTRANA!” Thomas shouted with animalistic rage as a flurry of flying phantom fists pummeled her into the ground with blinding speed. Phantom wasn’t even close enough for her to use her Civ. All she could do was flop around like a limp jellyfish as Phantom Limb broke every bone in her body with blinding speed. “I’m glad you were able to piss me off as much as you did because, otherwise, I don’t know if I would’ve had the motivation to pummel you into dust.” Phantom Limb said, sprinting towards the unconscious Officer Roxanne and placing his hands into his fist, causing rays of blinding violet light to stream out of Thomas’s right hand as he punched her one final time, sending a shockwave through the air as Roxanne ragdolled off the building, her skin and body splitting apart with the sheer speed at which she travelled through the air.

Thomas looked away from his enemy as she collided with a nearby rock formation, making her explode like an egg hurled against a wall. “God, I hope I didn’t wake anyone up.”

* * *

The man in the apartment building was looking out the window having another cup of tea to calm his nerves. He sipped from his cup as he looked out at the city, scrolling through documentaries and videos, looking for a way to waste the time and not think about himself or what he had done earlier that night.

* * *

Thomas Finn had arrived back at floor fifteen and pointed his heat gun at the waypoint. He saw a man sitting in the window. He recognized him from the photos he had been given, although he looked younger in person. Despite this, Phantom Limb didn’t hesitate and pulled the trigger. The bullet flew through the dark air, illuminating it like a lightning bug, before striking his mark in the temple with a loud—

* * *

“Riiiiinnnggg. Riiiiinnnnggg.” suddenly a phone icon flashed up on the man in the apartment’s Unit screen. It was from a contact marked “Boss,” but he answered it with hesitation despite knowing who was on the other end. “Hello?” he responded, nervously.

“Thomas. How did the job go?” The sound on the other line was a deep female voice, with a powerful timbre to it. It sounded haughty and disinterested, cold and apathetic. It seemed that she was doing something completely different while talking to you but listening to and dissecting every word he said.