The man posing as Davis straightened, rolling his shoulders as he shook off the last glitching remnants of the holographic disguise. The generic corporate shell dissolved completely into the freezing night air, revealing the true infiltrator beneath.
He stood at five-foot-ten, possessing a lean, athletic build that radiated a predatory, dangerous grace. The biting harbor wind whipped through his dark, messy spiked hair. His face was sharp and angular, as if carved from stone, anchored by cold, piercing royal blue eyes. Three distinct beauty marks rested just beneath his right eye, a stark detail against his deeply focused, emotionless expression. Clad in a sleek tactical black turtleneck, dark cargo pants, and heavy combat boots, he looked every bit the lethal operative. Thick bandages tightly wrapped his left arm from the elbow down, hiding whatever lay beneath, though a faint chill seemed to emanate from his clenched fist.
On the nearby beach park, civilians had gathered—Jasmine's evacuation zone. Families, workers, and curious onlookers stood watching the frozen harbor.
A young child pointed excitedly. "Look, Mom, a superhero!"
The mother smiled, holding her daughter close. A small group of young people nearby pulled out phones, recording the distant figure standing on the ice.
A bald, middle-aged man in office clothes shoved forward, his face red with frustration. "That's not a superhero! Those bastards dragged us outta work!" He gestured wildly at the harbor. "Don't they know some of us gotta make a living? I got deadlines! Bills! And these costumed freaks think they can just—"
"Yeah!" another worker shouted. "My boss is gonna dock my pay for this!"
"Fucking NovaBreeds," a third muttered. "Always causing problems for normal people."
The mother turned, her voice firm but polite. "Please mind your language. There are children here."
The bald man's face twisted with rage. He stepped closer, jabbing a finger toward her. "Shut the fuck up, bitch! I don't take orders from you. You think just because you got a kid—"
She cut him off, her voice dropping to ice. "Mr. Wang Wai, is it?" She'd met him before—one of the office workers from her husband's company. "Perhaps your eyesight is failing you. Take a good hard look at who you're speaking to that way."
Recognition dawned. Wang Wai's face went pale. He'd seen her at the office visits—the boss's boss's wife.
"Oh. Oh shit. I—" He stepped back, hands raised. "Alright, alright. Sorry, ma'am. I didn't... my apologies."
He retreated into the crowd, suddenly very interested in his shoes.
Out on the frozen harbor, Lucius felt their eyes on him. Dozens of gazes boring into his back, judging, recording, analyzing. Unease crawled up his spine.
He pulled steam from the harbor water below the ice, using residual heat to create vapor. It rose in thick, swirling columns, spreading rapidly across the frozen surface, forming a dense fog bank that soon covered him completely. The civilians' view disappeared behind the wall of white.
'Damn. I can feel their eyes on me.'
The steam thickened, obscuring everything. Lucius allowed himself a small, dangerous smirk.
'Much better.'
He cracked his knuckles, ice forming around his hands. "Now then. Let's finish this."
Through the steam, Asad charged—a massive silhouette barreling forward with single-minded fury, his drug-fueled bounds cracking the ice with every step.
Lucius simply gestured.
The ice directly beneath Asad's feet melted instantly, the molecules unlocking as solid became liquid in a fraction of a second.
Asad plunged straight through the breach, swallowed by the frigid harbor water below.
The heavy, chemically enhanced giant sank into the murky depths. He thrashed violently, the dark water churning around him. The combat stims kept him impossibly strong, but his body was running at a lethal overdrive. His enhanced muscles and heart demanded massive, continuous amounts of oxygen—oxygen he no longer had.
Lucius walked slowly to the edge of the hole. He looked down at the thrashing, drowning monster beneath the surface.
"Did you really think I'd fight you head-on," Lucius said, his voice quiet, cold, and utterly devoid of mercy, "when I could just drown you instead?"
Lucius turned his back on the churning water, adjusted his collar, and began walking briskly back toward the shore. One problem down. Several more to go.
But Victoria Harbour's murky depths were suffocating, and Asad sank into them with his eyes closed and his massive palms spread wide. The water around him pressurized. He clapped his hands together. The resulting kinetic shockwave erupted outward—a localized pressure wave that rippled through the freezing water like a detonated depth charge.
Above him, a massive slab of surface ice shattered violently. Asad burst upward through the splintered breach, propelled by tremendous force, the frigid water cascading off his hulking, drug-swollen frame.
Walking away from the river's edge, Lucius glanced back over his shoulder. 'Of course it wouldn't be that easy.'
Before the brute could even land, Lucius pivoted, his arms sweeping in smooth, practiced arcs. Harbor water rose instantly, crystallizing mid-air into his signature weapons—double-headed axes connected by heavy ice chains, their edges sharp enough to split molecules. Glowing with cold, lethal energy, Lucius swung. The axes caught Asad mid-flight, the chains wrapping around his massive torso like striking serpents. Planting his boots firmly on the ice, Lucius pulled hard, hijacking the giant's momentum. Asad flew sideways, crashing into the frozen harbor surface with bone-jarring force.
The big man rose, seemingly unscathed.
With a sharp tug, Lucius retracted the chains, the axes spinning perfectly back into his grip. He dashed forward, and Asad charged to meet him, roaring with primal fury. The distance vanished. Asad swung a devastating right hook. Lucius ducked under the blow smoothly, slipping inside the giant's guard while whipping out the chains to bind Asad's extended right hand. Pivoting behind his opponent, Lucius yanked the chains taut, pulling the giant violently off balance.
Releasing the chains and dismissing the axes, Lucius instantly flash-froze ambient moisture in his right hand, forming a comically oversized, brutal baseball bat of solid ice. He swung. The bat connected with Asad's right cheek with a crack that echoed like a gunshot across the frozen harbor. A meager spray of blood painted the ice—a terrifying testament to just how thick his drug-enhanced skin had become.
Asad staggered to one knee, rage igniting his red eyes. Lucius didn't wait, leaping high to deliver a crushing kick to the man's face. But Asad's hand shot out with terrifying speed, seizing Lucius's leg mid-strike. Using the momentum against him, Asad spun and hurled Lucius across the ice.
Before Lucius could recover, Asad closed the distance, grabbed him by the front of his turtleneck, lifted him clean off the ground, and slammed him spine-first into the frozen harbor. The impact knocked the wind from Lucius's lungs before Asad effortlessly hurled him a second time like a discarded ragdoll.
Lucius tumbled, conjured a sudden wall of water to catch his fall, and regained his footing just as the giant charged again. The brute leaped, both fists raised for a hulking overhead smash.
Impact. The ice beneath them cracked in a massive spiderweb pattern.
Lucius barely dodged, finding himself airborne on a chunk of displaced ice debris. Steam exhaled from his mouth as his concentration spiked. Water vapor condensed, shaped, and solidified into a katana of pure ice. He took his stance. Left leg stretched out, body coiled like a spring, Lucius launched forward with explosive speed.
Seeing the strike coming, Asad threw his massive hands up to guard his face and neck. The razor-sharp ice blade bit deep into Asad's thick forearms and palms. Blood sprayed across the ice as the surgical slash sliced cleanly through muscle and tendons.
Momentum carried Lucius into a smooth glide across the ice behind his target. Mid-glide, he shifted the katana's molecular structure—rearranging it back into a massive bat. Asad spun in fury, his bleeding hands rendered sluggish. Lucius ducked low, slid behind him, and jumped into a forward flip, bringing the heavy bat down directly onto Asad's back.
He landed gracefully in a crouch, already moving as Asad retaliated with a wild, blind swing. Lucius shifted his footwork, turning the ice directly beneath Asad's feet back into liquid.
The big man stumbled. Lucius thrust both palms forward, sending a concentrated blast of harbor water shooting upward, launching Asad airborne. While the giant hung suspended, Lucius conjured something new—a massive, jagged-toothed bear trap attached to a heavy chain. He hurled it skyward, the trap clamping shut on Asad mid-flight. Lucius gripped the chain and spun it rapidly, turning the trapped giant into a helpless, rotating wrecking ball. With a resounding boom, Lucius slammed the entire construct into the ice, cracking the frozen surface for meters in every direction.
The big man slumped, heavily dazed and barely conscious. Lucius stepped forward, raising his right hand. Water swirled aggressively around his palm, vaporizing and spinning rapidly into a scintillating, freezing orb. The ambient temperature plummeted. This would end it.
But his eyes caught something resting on the ice. A wallet—it must have fallen from Asad's shredded pants during the brawl. Using his water control, Lucius lifted it delicately to his hand and flipped it open. Inside was a photograph: a younger, cleaner Asad, smiling alongside a woman and two boys. A family photo. Proof of a normal life, once upon a time.
Lucius sighed. He deactivated the swirling orb, letting the water splash harmlessly across the frozen harbor.
"To think... You get to live another day," he said. Opening the wallet fully, he pulled out the cash, pocketed most of it, and left a few bills behind. "But I'm charging you for the ass-whooping." He tossed the wallet back toward the barely moving giant.
Lucius pressed his comms. "Yo, could you guys come pick me up? I'm done here."
"Where you at?" Robert's voice crackled through the earpiece.
"I don't know. Maybe try the big dome of steam on the river," Lucius replied.
Silence. Then: "Smart-ass."
Lucius turned to walk away. But as the icy dust settled behind him, Asad rose groggily. The giant bent over and violently vomited—expelling another plastic-wrapped cocaine brick from his stomach. He caught it in his palm, crushed it, and inhaled the powder deeply through his nose.
His eyes ignited a blinding, burning red. His already massive body swelled further, muscles straining and thick veins bulging against his skin. He let out a thunderous roar, claiming his territory like a feral lion, as his foot crushed the ice beneath him.
Lucius halted, lowering his head as a tired groan escaped his lips. "This damn guy."
Before Lucius could even fully turn, Asad appeared behind him. 'How did something that big move that fast?' A massive right hook barreled toward his torso. Lucius threw up a translucent water shield just in time, but the sheer kinetic impact shattered the barrier and sent him flying backward, tumbling violently across the ice. He felt it instantly—ribs cracking, sharp pain shooting through his side. Asad didn't let up. He closed the gap, grabbed Lucius by the throat, and slammed him into a jagged mound of ice debris before tossing him aside like a broken toy.
Asad stomped the ice, dislodging a boulder-sized chunk, grabbed the frozen mass, and hurled it at Lucius like a softball. Lucius stood calmly, crossing his arms as the projectile hurtled toward him, and at the last possible moment, he gestured. The boulder split cleanly in two, reverting to water as the streams snaked past him on either side.
Behind Lucius, the streams twisted, collided, and transformed into two majestic water dragons that took shape, breathing freezing mist from their serpentine maws. The dragons lunged. Asad simply smashed one dragon's head with his bare fist, exploding the construct into a splash of harmless water, then grabbed the jaws of the second dragon and tore it apart with raw, brute strength.
From above, Lucius dropped like a meteor, his double-headed battle axe ready. Asad barely dodged to the right. Landing hard, Lucius instantly pivoted and swung the axe horizontally. The bladed ice caught Asad's lower left belly—not deep, but enough to draw fresh blood.
Asad countered with a devastating right punch. Lucius ducked, throwing a rushed counter, which Asad evaded by stepping back a few centimeters. Quickly conjuring three floating ice steps to his left, Lucius used them as a platform to launch into a mid-air jump. Asad met him in the air with a brutal uppercut, but mid-flight, Lucius grabbed the incoming fist, using it as a pivot point. He spun on Asad's arm and slammed a frost-covered kick directly into the giant's face.
Asad's free hand slammed into the ice platform, shattering it into a large, broken slope. Lucius landed on top; Asad below. The brute followed up with a devastating inner elbow strike that connected flush. Lucius flew off the slope, landed hard on his ass, and glided backward across the ice.
Asad rushed to attack again. Lucius stood, flash-freezing icy knuckle wraps onto both hands, intercepting the charge with a rapid, blurring combo—jab, cross, hook. When Asad tried to counter, Lucius dodged smoothly, landing multiple precise, heavy hits to the ribs, liver, jaw, and temple before finishing the sequence with a brutal uppercut. Simultaneously, a high-pressure jet of water blasted upward from beneath the ice, amplifying the strike's force and sending Asad flying high into the night air.
Lucius immediately conjured six tall ice spikes, hurling them upward to form a suspended cage that trapped the spinning giant midair. From the dark harbor below, Lucius summoned something massive. Water rose and shaped itself into a highly detailed shark construct. As it rocketed toward the trapped Asad, it froze solid, becoming a lethal battering ram of ice.
The shark rammed Asad repeatedly against several midair ice walls Lucius had conjured, each impact brutal and precise. The shark then turned, diving downward at unprecedented speed and dragging Asad with it. Tracking the descent, Lucius moved into perfect position and conjured a gigantic, comically oversized ice bat that required both hands to hold.
Just as the shark entered striking distance, Lucius swung.
The bat connected with the force of a freight train. The ice shark shattered into thousands of glittering fragments, while Asad bounced and crashed heavily against a solid ice wall Lucius had erected behind himself. The big man finally slumped down, entirely unconscious.
Through the thick mist, the cargo plane finally descended. It was a modified military transport featuring a sleek futuristic design, its downward-facing thrusters rotating smoothly to hold a hover. Robert had rebuilt the aircraft from the ground up, outfitting it with clean lines and adaptive tech. The rear loading bay yawned open. As the plane locked its position, Amber activated her ability. A holographic field shimmered to life across the aircraft's hull, perfectly bending the light around it. To any civilians still watching from the distant beach, the plane simply didn't exist—it just looked like a section of the steam dome popping and dispersing into the night air.
Lucius walked heavily up the ramp and immediately collapsed onto his back on the cold metal floor. "Ah, shit... Think I busted a couple ribs," he groaned. "Let's get out of here before the NCC shows up."
Jasmine and Rose sat quietly on military-style folding chairs lining the plane's sides. Across from them, Sho slumped in another chair, looking completely out of it. His head was tilted back and his eyes were half-closed as he recovered from his own brutal healing session. Up front in the cockpit, Amber and Robert commanded the controls.
"Look who decided to join the land of the living," Sho muttered, his voice raspy. "You look like you fought a mountain and the mountain won. And you know if you bleed on the plane, Rob's gonna make you clean that shit up."
"It's true," Robert called back from the cockpit, not turning around. "That metal is imported. Keep your internal fluids internal, King."
"Shut up," Lucius grunted, pressing a hand against his side. "I didn't see you breaking any speed records down there. How's the migraine?"
"Dying slowly. Kind of like you." Sho let out a weak, barking laugh that quickly turned into a cough.
"What happened to the guys with Snake Eyes? Please tell me you didn't kill him," Lucius asked, turning his head to look at Rose.
Rose's expression remained perfectly flat, her striking red eyes unbothered. "The other courier teleported him away before I could get a clean shot."
"Good. One less problem," Lucius exhaled. He laid his head back against the cold floor deck, staring dramatically up at the ceiling. "I don't think I'm gonna make it, guys... If I die, burn my room to the ground with everything in it."
Jasmine rolled her eyes, though a small smirk tugged at her lips.
Rose stood up, reaching into her pocket, and pulled out a small, glassy golden marble. She tossed it to Lucius. He caught it, looked at the sphere, and recognition immediately dawned on his face.
"On second thought, I'm fine," Lucius said quickly, tossing it back. "No problem here."
Rose caught it effortlessly, her red eyes remaining fixed intensely on him. Outside, the plane's engines roared as it lifted off into the sky. Below them, the remnants of the steam dome finally began to clear, dissipating into nothingness now that Lucius was gone.
"You know you have to take your medicine, King," Jasmine said, crossing her arms with a smirk.
"I'll heal the old-fashioned way," Lucius insisted, eyeing Rose warily. "Actually, you know what—"
Rose stepped closer, towering over where he lay on the deck.
"No, wait—"
She mercilessly crushed the marble directly in her hand. Golden liquid splashed across Lucius's chest, instantly soaking through his clothes and seeping deep into his skin.
"No, no, wait! Waaaaaait—!"
Sho just chuckled weakly in the background.
Lucius screamed.
---
TO BE CONTINUED