Threat Level: E

Destructiveness: E

Killability: C

---------------------------

Might: E

Survivability: E

Recovery: D

Mobility: D

Spark: D

----------------------------

Powers: Enhanced Sight and Hearing, Sonic Blasts, Durable Arms, Metabolic Regeneration, Desert Jackal’s Reflexes, Aether Drain, Elastic Tension

Classification: Bruiser/Stalker

Danny didn’t take long to figure out that the woman wasn’t a standard speedster. She flickered at him and stopped a metre away. Then the woman inhaled loudly before swiping at him wildly with both arms. Claws extended from her gloved fingertips, and little sparks danced between them, making a taser-like sound. Her arms blurred as they accelerated. Danny threw up my forearms just in time to catch the blow. Even though the claws ripped through my sleeve, they failed to shred the toughened skin in the area. Sparks arced from the metal, dancing over my skin and robbing it of feeling.

The Assistant had overcommitted to the attack, so Danny tried throwing her off-balance using his body weight. She looked at him wide-eyed and exhaled. Then she breathed in loudly before flickering several steps back. When the woman exhaled again, Danny charged in. It had become evident that she needed to hold her breath when zipping around. She hesitantly looked between the empty corridor behind her and the entangled man on the floor. After taking a moment to find her resolve, the woman inhaled and flickered towards Danny.

Using sonic blasts would give away Danny’s presence and ruin the infiltration. Melee was his only option. Due to the Assistant’s speed, everything came down to timing, so Danny put all his trust in his enhanced senses. I

He inhaled deeply and felt my heart thumping loudly in his chest. Time slowed. His normal eyes still couldn’t follow the woman, but Kabandha’s floating eyeball caught a blur. Danny’s palms picked up the high-frequency vibrations rushing towards him as well. When it felt right, he thrust my left fist forward while simultaneously uncoiling all the muscles in his forearm.

It came as no surprise when the Assistant evaded the attack. Fortunately, dodging forced her to release her breath, and she slowed. As a result, when she stabbed her electrified fingernails at Danny’s stomach, he could follow her movements. A swift swing of his right forearm deflected her attack. The Assistant had gotten too close for him to build momentum adequately. Danny settled for a short open palm thrust to her abdomen while partially uncoiling his forearm muscles. It knocked the woman off her feet and onto her back.

The thought of breaking an opponent’s bones once made Danny squeamish. Now, he focused on the job. So, he dashed in and stomped on her left knee. Speedsters relied heavily on their enhanced movement, and robbing them of the advantage took precedence. The woman opened her mouth to scream, but Danny fell on her and clamped his hand over her mouth. She struggled against him, and he tightened his hold on her. For a moment, it alarmed Danny that the sound of her bones crunching under his boot didn’t bother him, but then a fist struck his jaw at superspeed, knocking him off her and back to reality.

The woman rolled onto her stomach and scrambled towards her Assistant mask, but Danny grabbed her ankle and dragged her back. She let out a little scream as he tugged on her broken leg. The woman swiped at him, and he accepted the blows. The helmet and vest bore the brunt of the attacks. Electricity arced off her taser claws, but Danny’s vest and coat protected me from their stunning effects. He attempted attacking her using the same means, but her outfit appeared as immune to it as his suit. So, he turned to Aether Drain.

“Get off me—”

In an attempt to shut her up, Danny blindly swung at her face. A sickening crunch followed, and then she went quiet. Much to Danny’s surprise, his stomach didn’t churn. He hoped the blow had shattered her low jaw. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Danny’s forearm had struck her nose. The attack had caved her in her face. She was neither moving, groaning, nor breathing. A pool of blood was rapidly growing under her skull too.

For the longest time—thirty seconds, according to the Holoscreen, Danny sat silently watching the corpse. It took a lot of willpower, but it was a part of the job, so he crawled over the body and pressed two fingers to the woman’s neck. As expected, there was no pulse. It alarmed Danny that he wasn’t horrified or sickened.

Why the fuck am I so calm? I just killed a woman.

Danny’s heart leapt into his throat when Kabandha’s tongue stirred in his right arm. The slimy appendage got to work before he could retreat. Danny looked away to ensure the Holoscreen didn’t record the horrid scene. The floating eye picked up a silver glow before he felt a plum-sized sphere slide up the hollow in his forearm. Even though Danny didn’t conform to any religion, he had prayed that Kabandha didn’t feed on humans. Now, he hoped it was because the woman got her powers from rift monsters.

Danny scrambled away from the woman and flagged the location for later. The League would want to remove the body, contact the woman’s family, and sort out any legal or insurance issues that followed.

“Six casualties already?” Druid asked. “We’re supposed to be the good guys.”

“I’m sorry,” Danny whispered.

“Tip from a veteran: if you get swarmed, prioritise your safety,” Fenrir said. “I’m not saying to go on a murder rampage, but if it feels like your life is on the line, don’t hold back.”

Danny disliked Fenrir’s thought process. Perhaps working in lawless lands controlled by warlords and mad scientists had perverted his sense of morality. Danny kept his thoughts to himself.

“Well, there was an armoury here, but it’s all cleaned out now,” Danny said. “This place doesn’t feel like a laboratory. Have you found anything worth noting?”

“The garage is mostly empty,” Druid replied. “I encountered a storeroom of armour and outfits, but that’s it. My eyes on the upper levels are reporting lots of Assistants, Big Screens, and talking.”

“It might be their version of Watchtower.” Fenrir sounded excited for once. “Any signs of a laboratory?”

“No.”

“Keep looking. Avoid detection and disabling targets. They need to think everything is okay up there. We’ll work our way up.”

Danny continued my ascent, combing through each floor. The levels got better maintained as he continued my climb. Before long, he found empty dormitories and storage rooms. The former had perfectly made beds, while the latter were mostly empty. Danny found cases of Assistant masks, armoured lab coats, and an assortment of devices. Even though he was tempted to investigate them, Danny didn’t. The mission parameters stated flagging them and moving on. Genius-made tech often featured biometric alarms. The net gun had worked, but Danny wrote it off as luck and didn’t foresee the same thing working a second time.

Around the tenth floor, Danny started developing doubts regarding Druid’s findings. The building felt more like housing for Power Merchant and Doctor Flux’s henchman than a research facility. It suggested they worked together but a little more. The Assistants he encountered appeared seriously underprepared. Danny suspected that they were off duty. They carried minimal weapons and primarily relied on their subpar powers. He focused on disabling, gagging, and tying them up. There were no more casualties, fortunately. It all took a turn for the worse around the fifteenth floor.

Druid had scaled the building from the outside and was six floors above him. Due to the heavy population on the surveillance levels, his progress was much slower than that of Danny.

Instead of dormitories, Danny now found himself moving through purely storage levels. There wasn’t any lab equipment around but glass vats full of rift monster parts. Only a handful of them was whole. He saw dozens of little soldiers and reverse-centaur torsos. There were a couple of knights as well, but only the heads, spines, and lungs were left of them.

Then just as he detected his remaining eye around the corner, Danny saw two familiar shapes and froze.

“You said we don’t deal with children!” Jose hissed. A rumble reverberated in his throat, making him sound more reptilian than ever before. “You gave me your word.”

“I lied.” Power Merchant shrugged. “We’ll deal with this later, alright. The comms are acting up, and I want to make sure everything—”

“I can’t work for you anymore,” Jose said, cutting off the significantly smaller man. “Everything you’ve said to me so far is a lie. I’m a test subject to you, too. Aren’t I?” He stomped towards the smaller man with his fists clenched, but Power Merchant didn’t budge. “You told me this was reversible, but I’m becoming more of a monster every day.”

“The contract said there could be side effects,” Power Merchant replied, still sounding nonchalant. “You got powers from potent creatures. I can’t help it if their character traits seep into yours.” Jose swung at the Power Merchant but froze a finger from the man’s face. “Go secure the children for transport, Jose. We’re done for now.”

Jose’s shoulders relaxed, and the rage on his scaled face melted away. Only a placid stare remained. He nodded and trudged down the corridor. His tail and giant feet dragged on the tiled floor, scraping them.

The palm mouths heard a silenced firearm go off before Danny’s ears. He ducked, and dove for cover, and a hail of bullets followed him. He wanted to let the others know that he was under fire but felt in no position to alert Druid. His eyeball floated up to the ceiling but failed to find the shooter. It wasn’t until bullets peppered his hiding spot, did Danny spot the perpetrator. He saw a bare male torso and arm holding a semi-automatic weapon. Then the attacker lowered his arm and disappeared once again.

Danny stayed low and tried to quieten his breath. There was an invisible person around. Given the bare torso, perhaps they were the type that could only make their body invisible and not clothing or weapons. It likely meant that they didn’t have a Holoscreen or communicator.

“Shit!” He heard Power Merchant swear as something metal clattered to the ground. A gun fired a moment later and pinged off the floor next to Danny. Unwilling to waste the opportunity, he tried getting up and changing location, but his right leg failed him. Danny’s hand slipped on the ground, too and came away stained red. He was bleeding out of my right thigh, and the puddle was much bigger than expected/.

Danny had read about gunshot victims occasionally, not feeling their wounds. However, the first time Power Merchant shot him, it stung. Now, it hurt as he attempted to put weight on the limb.

There was no telling where the invisible person was. He quickly fished an energy bar out of his pocket, opened his mask and took a bite. The sensation started returning to his leg when the palm mouths detected movement to his left.

Instead of waiting for the man to attack me once again, Danny leapt out of cover and spun to face his opponent. Danny's injured leg still struggled to support his weight, and he staggered to the left. Fortunately, it helped him avoid a burst of three bullets. The shooter’s arm and shoulder remained visible for a split second before disappearing once again. Unwilling to let them get away, Danny uncoiled the muscles in his left calf and launched himself at where they’d been standing. A loud grunt followed as he hit an invisible figure and knocked it to the ground.

The invisibility faded, and a pair of wide, green eyes looked up at me. The tubby man tried lifting his firearm at Danny but pinning the limb down was no trouble at all. It was Power Merchant. The man had somehow changed location instantly and turned invisible. Given the interaction with Jose, the super likely had a collection of dangerous powers. When Kabandha’s tongues went wild in his arm hollows, Danny knew he was right.