Chapter 564 (2/2)

Four seconds had passed. Thaddeus couldn’t tear his eyes from the fight below. He felt… something in his chest. Something he hadn’t encountered in a long time. Something that gripped his throat and lungs.

The final two attackers shot their pistols. The average man waved his hand and simply knocked the plasma away. When the man stepped forward, distance meant nothing. He appeared to simply kick, but the last two were slammed backward into the wall of the alley, whimpering.

The bright lights of the plasma left glowing trails of blindness in Thaddeus’ eyes. It surely had looked like the man simply knocked the plasma aside, but that was-

“You…” The man who appeared to have orchestrated the attack said with a gasp. “You… Tatiana, how did you-”

“Hollar, you are a fool,” Tatiana said with a sigh. Then she shrugged. “I no longer require a partner. It is a little late, but I’ve decided to take my considerable business acumen elsewhere. You understand, right? And while I’m in town, I plan to take my portion of our profits. As well as all the girls that I trained.”

“You!” The man was glaring now, and he took a step backward and triggered something in his wristwatch. An exosuit, a powersuit, sprang into being and settled around his frame. It was a huge thing, with heavy armor and plasma cannons around his arms. “I’ll make you pay-”

The average man stepped forward, seemed to consider, then thrust his fingers into the closing space on the exosuit where it hadn’t yet locked into place on his chest. Then the man pulled.

There was a moment where nothing happened. Then Thaddeus heard the keening of agonized metal before the torso portion of the exosuit was simply ripped off the man’s body. This portion contained the energy cell, so the metal on the man’s body was simply dead weight. He trembled and then began to collapse.

“What-”

The average man punched the exosuit wearer, knocking him out. The man slumped to the side, but the metal arms pressed into the ground and kept him standing. The metal glittered from lights down the alley from a nearby street.

11 seconds. Thaddeus was sweating now. He could have perhaps beaten those assailants without armor. That wasn’t so impressive. But could he have deflected plasma? Could he have ripped an exosuit in half with his bare hands? Who was this?

“Hang on, we need to move.” The average man said grimly.

“Gotcha. But I was being serious. We should stop at an atm before we leave.”

“Hmm.”

The average man put his arm around woman’s weight and seemed to shimmer for a moment. The suffocation in Thaddeus’ chest grew more powerful. The air seemed to be thickening, starting with that man. Then he simply jumped.

The concrete couldn’t withstand the force of his ascent and cracked. Still, the man shot upwards, the woman yelping as she was dragged along.

Thaddeus looked up. He couldn't breathe. The strange, impossibly powerful man was going to pass only feet away from the spot where Thaddeus was hiding.

Hiding? Thaddeus stopped at the thought. When did he hide-

But still, as the sonic boom of the man’s passage smashed the air, Thaddeus took a step backward, deeper into the shadows. Whoever this was, there was no need to confront him here. In fact, it was better to remain anonymous. With his identity concealed, Thaddeus could gather information, and later-

The blur of bodies passed Thaddeus’ position. At that moment, Thaddeus looked up.

That strange shimmering had continued until the average man’s body was almost completely hidden from his view. There seemed to be ripples in the air that masked him. But there were two features of the man he could see.

The first was the eyes. They were baleful, and a deep emerald. The seemed to burn in Thaddeus’ vision.

The second feature was a finger. Illuminated only by the ominous light from the man’s eyes, the finger was held aloft and meant for Thaddeus. It was pressed to the man’s lips.

Take this secret to your grave.

Then the man was gone, carrying the woman. Thaddeus felt the impact as the man kicked off the building above, launching himself up and away. Sitting back, Thaddeus began panting. He knew this emotion.

It was suffocating fear.

Four seconds later, the lights flickered back on.