“You bastard!”

Green Box’s hands slumped to his side and his body fell onto the concrete ground. A round sphere dropped down beside it while trailing blood as his head rolled onto the flat surface.

“Oh I do so hate it when blood gets onto my clothes.”

The head had come to a stop at the edge of his right shoe and he kicked it to the female hero kneeling on the floor where it landed on her lap. Sugar had both of her hands covering her eyes as she screamed, tears of pain and agony dropped from her face onto the head of her deceased teammate. Information broker wiped the blood off of his hands and he turned to face her, “I would have let you live you know, if only you weren’t so loud and annoying.” His hand swung through the air as he lashed out at the crying hero.

*Clang*

His eyes widened in surprise as his hand hit a blue force field and a jolt of pain shot up his arm.

He growled, “Rubic, I hadn’t realised you were still conscious.”

The hero he had left for dead on the ground struggled to lift herself up, her hands slipping as she tried to straighten it while surrounded by pools of blood. The villain could see that she still had a gaping wound underneath a shoulder.

‘She must be keeping conscious by sheer willpower.’

Information Broker shook his head, ‘I’m wasting too much time.’

He gave the injured girls a final glare and their eyes widened. He could feel rather than see the blue veins that had begun to pulsate above his skin across his body, “To-da-loo ladies.”

He disappeared and the bloodied girls were replaced by a small, enclosed space. It was musty and filled with books. He looked around and spotted a single computer which lay on top of a table at the end of the room. He ran over to it and knocked over the various files that lay around it. He felt around the inside of his pocket for the USB he had prepared before coming and placed it into the computer.

‘I have five minutes until they notice me, ten tops.’

His eyes guardedly wandered to the entrance and he peeked at the corridor which lay outside the slightly opened door while waiting for the USB to do its work. His organisation had been offered a hefty sum by certain influential individuals to retrieve the personal information of several heroes. The USB had been modified by one of his associates to hack into the hero associations servers once he reached the archive room.

He looked at the USB, even while the computer was off it was supposed to be able to retrieve the necessary information.

*Bleep*

A single sigh of relief escaped his lips and he put the USB back into his pocket as blue veins began to pulsate above his skin.

“See you later suckers.”

A draft entered the archive room as the door to the archive room slammed fully open, “Not quite villain.”

Information Broker could feel the grin on his face being replaced with horror. His skin was being forcefully pressed downwards as though some sort of restriction was enveloping his body. Something was stopping his teleportation.

He looked up and saw several heroes, including Sugar, looking rather pissed as they gathered in the hallway outside the room. He gazed at the hero that has spoken, a man in blue spandex with a large ‘B’ stitched into the middle of the torso.

“You’re the A rank 30 hero, Barrier. Now I see what stopped my teleport.”

According to his information, this particular hero had the power to stop any and all teleports. This would be troublesome since he was one of the only people with a power belonging to the Unknown category in existence.

The villain looked at the blue covered hero and contemplated killing him. The thought was gone a moment later as the other heroes moved to guard him, ‘Guess it’s time to run.’

He lifted his hand and jumped, smashing into the formation of heroes and running past them. Some of them shouted in surprise but the others ran down the hall after him.

He could hear Barrier calling out orders to them from the back of the group.

“Hurry! If he gets out of my blocking range it’s all over!”

~~~~

-Light’s perspective-

‘The training room doors are open, it might be troublesome if someone comes in and they’re caught in the crossfire.’

My gaze drifted across the vast area that was hero association’s training room, one of many located in the complex of buildings. It was your basic setup for a gym with white and red lines on the floor to show where both basketball and badminton could be played by heroes on their time off and it was only slightly more spacious than your usual gym. Its walls were reinforced, ‘good, I don’t think I’ll break anything valuable.’

*Clunk*

It was impossible for me not to hear the sound of the change room door as it opened but didn’t feel like turning around. I refused to really.

I’d faced off against death machines before, killed dozens of them with my bare hands. Cold, merciless and covered in blood, those were the opponents he had faced off against in the war. They didn’t have faces or expressions, the only screams they gave off were the screams of unoiled cogs.

The girl in front of me had all of those things and more. I didn’t want to have to test whether or not she could scream. I didn’t plan to make it last that long.

‘Not to mention that she’s young enough to be my own daughter.’ I flicked the grim thought out of my mind as soon as it appeared with a wave of my hand.

“A-are you good? To, um, start?”

I turned to face the new arrival. A teenage girl was standing in the middle of the training area and looking at him nervously.

Her blonde hair waved across her shoulders and she clenched a hair tie between her teeth and moved her hands back to tie her hair into a ponytail.

‘Pale, white skin and supple red lips, small breasts but it fits her, makes her seem cute even.’ She was pursing her lips at him as though she didn’t know what to do, either that or she was too afraid to antagonise him, ‘You sure know how to pick the femme fatales Lukey.’

“Ready when you are Runaway.”

I put my hands in front of my face, ‘can’t even remember the last time I entered a fighting stance and now I’m doing it for a little girl.’

“G-going e-easy on me r-right?” She was stuttering over almost all of her words, I would have thought it was cute if I couldn’t trust it to not be programmed into her. Clumsy, unassuming and subservient, the kind of girl people would like. The kind people would let down their defences around.

‘Is this how she fooled you Lukey?’ Luke had a soft spot for women so he didn’t tend to see their killer tendencies and I could accept that. It had gotten them into a lot of trouble in the past. But then again, this femme fatale had the power to kill a lot more people than most of the girls her age.

She wasn’t putting her hands up to defend and I realised she was waiting for an answer to her question.

I nodded.

I felt it coming rather than saw it, a subtle shift in her footing, a relaxing of muscles around her shoulders. My danger sense, honed from years of battle, started to go off faster and louder than I had ever experienced.

She disappeared, one moment she was a few metres in front of me and the next she was in the air kicking down onto my head. I spun around to the left and her foot missed my shoulder by a few inches, smashing the floor and tearing a huge hole in it.

Her face passed inches by mine as she fell to the ground and I could see it even through her super speed.

It was an expression that I had seen countless times in the faces of cornered villains that had nowhere to run, an expression of fear and anxiety. The expression of a wounded animal with nowhere left to run.

She was going all out from the beginning.

The room brightened and her eyes widened as my fist suddenly appeared in front of her face, sending her flying into the wall and smashing the layer of metal that was reinforcing it. She fell to the ground wheezing from the surprise attack but relatively unscathed.

‘Then I better not disappoint her.’

The room brightened more, I didn’t have to look at myself to know that I had turned into almost pure light, I had done this so many times that it had become second nature to me.

Before she had time to recover I was already sending my knee into her stomach and smashing her against the wall again. The force was great enough that she bounced off the metal and right back to him, he kicked her into it again and she bounced back, it was an endless cycle.

It felt like hitting a tennis ball against a wall except the ball was a girl and the racket were feet or any other part of my body that I could do damage with.

Out of the dozens or hundreds of death machines I had kicked, this was the only one whose skin felt rubbery against my hands, elastic to a point. It was human skin.

I was hardly denting her, she was flying around the room helpless but any wounds I was making on her were instantly healing.

Each injury was healing slower and slower compared to the last. But it still wasn’t enough.

‘This isn’t working.’

She cried out and I hesitated, was it fear? Or even pain?

I didn’t have the luxury of stopping to find out. As I continued kicking her I gathered energy into my hands and within a few seconds I could see that it had grown into a sizable ball of light, big enough to kill even the toughest of villains.

The wall reverberated as the girl hit it and bounced back to me again. I kicked her into the air and jumped up after her. I would only get one shot at this or Luke might finally get here and see me.

“Sorry Runaway, it looks like I win this one.”

I pushed the ball of light into the middle of her chest, right where her heart would be.

She was looking at me with her big blue eyes. They were widened in surprise, blurry almost.

‘Wait, blurry?’

*Wham*

I didn’t have time to react before something hit me from behind and I slammed into the metal roof. It hurt just as much as it sounded like it did.

My body bounced off the metal and I cursed in mid-air. The girl was trying the same tactic I had used on her and with her incredibly strength and stamina she could keep it up all day.

I turned to face her… and smiled as my body brightened and I was facing her back. She had covered her eyes to avoid being blinded by the light and hadn’t noticed that I’d teleported behind her. Her spine was in my reach, one good hit and it would be over.

My hand brightened further as I gathered energy into, coupled with my light form it would have enough power to be the killing blow…

“So I see you guys started without me.”

The girl stopped rubbing her eyes and her head snapped towards Luke, towards Traitor, and then she turned around to face me with her hands on her hips.

‘Guess that’s my opportunity gone.’

I hadn’t even noticed that enough time had passed for Luke to walk here.

“Hohoho~ I guess it’s time for me to get serious.”

I’m sure my face was looking pretty shocked as I realised that Runaway was laughing at me, mocking me. Where was the scared girl from a few moments ago?

Her hands raised and I tensed. She had started stepping from side to side and her whole body swayed with her, it was as though she were trying to hypnotise me.

Whether it was due to annoyance or anger I made the first move, I teleported in front of her and smashed her face before she could make a move. She didn’t fly in the air or crash onto the ground.

She stood there and took the punch right in her face.

I jumped back and found that my feet were stuck, she had squashed my toes into the floor and both of my wrists were captured by her hands. She smiled menacingly and I saw her face dip down as she smashed her head against my chin.

Her head passed through me and my boy disappeared, an afterimage of where I had been. I grinned as my perfectly fine toes pressed against her back and she went flying into the wall with a crack.

“Sorry girlie, but I’m all light in this form, too fast for you and untouchable.”

I had my bravado on but in truth I knew I couldn’t sustain this form forever. She spun around in mid-air and landed on the ground after rebounding from the wall.

This was something new as well, she had gotten tougher. I would have continued my wall tennis from earlier but she had recovered far too quickly. It was almost impossible to put her reaction in the same dimension as her earlier ones.

I glanced at Luke who was watching the fight from the entrance. Was his presence making her stronger somehow?

She blurred again and I ducked my head to the side so that the punch would slide past me, she was still predictable.

*WHAM*

I went flying as she changed the direction of her punch and hit my head with the middle of her arm. I flipped around in the air and did a backflip, landing on the ground and repositioning myself into a fighting stance.

She was definitely fighting better than earlier.

A weird suspicion was starting to grow in my gut, I gathered my light into my hands again but instead of positioning them into a ball of light I coated my hands in the energy, like gloved wrapping around my arms.

I teleported beside her and before I had even left my position I was sending out an uppercut which immediately hit her as I appeared in front of her.

My fist hadn’t reached her though, where my punch was supposed to hit her chin it had been stopped by her hands which had blocked the attack.

I gazed at her grinning face and I wasn’t sure whether to feel awe or horror at her foresight.

But she had fallen into my trap.

The coating of light wrapped around her hands and spread out across her body. I lifted her into the air and shot her at the roof, the coating still clinging onto her and immediately after I was in the air on top of her, punching her as hard as I could into the ground.

As she shot to the ground I didn’t let up, I fired spears of light into her at point blank range and as we landed I gathered the coating on my hands again, pummelling her face down into the ground. She was completely in my grasp. I placed my knee onto her spine and placed a hand onto her head while gathering my energy into it.

I was behind her, she was helpless, one shot at point blank range and she would die.

The energy around my hand dissipated. I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t even because I would feel the regret of killing her in front of my friend, our friend. It was because I could see the potential in her as a fighter.

As an enemy she could be likened to our worst nightmare… but if she wasn’t lying and she truly wanted to become a hero, I would be doing the world a great disservice by eliminating her now.

I sighed and took my knee off of her spine, letting her breath.

I powered down from my light form and I could feel the energy draining from within me as the toll of using the form was enacted. I wouldn’t have my powers back for a while.

I would think about the consequences of my actions later. There were more important things to do for now.

“I take back what I said before.”

Luke put a hand on my shoulder.

“If that’s what you call playing around then I can definitely see you on the same battlefield as Emperor.

I looked at him in surprise as the realisation hit me, ‘he thought I was just playing around with her.’

He saw my expression and laughed, “Don’t get too cocky though, I mean as maybe like, one of his foot soldiers or even his stable boy.”

I grinned and slapped him on the back.

“I’d be the most powerful stable boy he ever had, probably the only one too since nobodies ridden horses for at least a hundred years.”

Maybe what I’d said wasn’t that funny, but I laughed as I walked past him and into the hallway.

As soon as I was out of his sight I started to run towards Flora’s office. Even if I hadn’t gone in with the intent to kill from the beginning the girl was clearly a possible S class threat and Flora would want to know about it. She was stronger than any death machine he had ever encountered, at least a hundred times stronger.

I clenched my hands. I couldn’t even teleport to the office since I had used all my energy in the fight. It wouldn’t be back for a good twenty minutes.

I stopped running towards the office. There were more important things to check beforehand.

I turned left towards the elevators and pressed the button for the lowest floor.

Underground floor 55

Photon’s lab.

~~~~

Runaway sighed as she struggled to take off her trainer top and looked at it morosely. It had been drenched by sweat she’d shed during the fight. She started to change back into her white shirt and pants.

‘I made a fool of myself out there.’

The severity of what had happened hit her like a truck. She had lost to Light. Worse, she had lost to Light when he was going easy on her. She hadn’t seen him shed a single drop of sweat from the beginning of the fight to the end of it.

‘Think about it, he’s an S rank hero, of course you’d lose to him.”

The Director had read to her every day and all of the files on the S rank members were some of the first she had heard, she had memorised them by heart. There wasn’t a single S rank hero that did have a huge accomplishment to their name. She was sure that if one of them put their mind to it they could take out an evil organisation or villain single-handedly and had exerted less effort than Light had to fight her.

‘So why do I feel so sad?’ Something wet fell down her cheeks and before she realised it, tears were splashing down her face. She lifted the training shirt to cover her face.

She wouldn’t lie. She had thought that she was strong, special, because her organisation had created her to fight evenly with people like Light. She had had her pride, if not as a person then as an experiment designed and created to be strong.

That pride had just been shattered by the experience of getting her ass handed to her by Light.

‘Oh my god, Luke was watching.’ More tears threatened to splash down her face as she finished changing. She moved the training shirt away from her face and blinked as her eyes were suddenly subjected to the light of the room.

“Oh dear, I was hoping you would keep your eyes shut for just a moment longer.” She heard a voice call out from behind her.

She felt a sharp pain shoot across her body from her chest and as she looked down to see what was causing it her body trembled in pain and her legs collapsed.

A single, blood stained, hand entered her vision as she fell, blue veins were running across its surface and they seemed to run parallel alongside the trickles of blood that were swirling down from its tip.

Her knees rubbed against something on the floor. Blood was pooling onto the ground below her and it tainted her pants as she dropped. The voice behind her said something else but she couldn’t hear it, she had become deaf from the blood loss.

‘That’s my blood.’ She realised.

The hand was coming out of her stomach.

“Et tu, E-23?”