Chapter 24

Two equal holes suddenly burst through the back wall behind the couple, one hit the shield emitter, cause it to fling high into the air, the shield flickered and came down.

However, the second shot found an unintended target.

The wife must’ve figured out what was going on and moved to push her husband out of the way, however she took the bullet that was meant for him.

Hanabi felt her vision go blue again as the world slowed down, she moved with inhuman speed, hopping over the opening in the shield, and darting towards the husband. Pushing past the wife she grabbed hand, pried the detonator from his hand and slammed against him.

When normal time resumed, the detonate was in her hand. The wife was facedown in a pool of her own blood, and the husband was staring in shock as he lifted his head off the ground.

“N-Norris?” He said, the incident still not clear to him. He crawled towards her but Hanabi stepped on his back, pulled his arms behind his back, and bound his wrists together.

“Good shot girls! One target down, and the other secured. How’s the shield emitter?”

“Damaged.”

“Good, go retrieve it, we’ll return it to the Forge once we get back. Oh hey, the fog’s dissipating!”

A chaotic cacophony of voices filled her head as the other girls were checking in with each other. Everyone was fine. Damaged, but fine. Hanabi breathed a sigh of relief.

Although, there was one last loose end to deal with. She turned to the remaining terrorist, watching with detachment as the tears streamed down his face. She still needed to deal with him.

Hanabi picked up the device and scanned it, a phrase appeared across her vision:

“Repair possible… proceed?”

“How… how did you… there was no way this should’ve happened!”

She didn’t know what that meant, but she allowed it. Suddenly, that same substance that appeared when Sofia shot her started flowing into the machine. It sparked and lit up.

Irene’s voice came from the drone. “Under normal circumstances, you’re right. Their power warped and distorted the region with the fog, sectioning off spaces and swapping them around. A normal round would never have reached her, hell no one should’ve been able to find her. Except me. I figured out the pattern, and so it was a simple matter of just placing my comrades in the right spot and firing where I told them to.”

Hanabi felt conflicted since it almost seemed like Irene was rubbing it in their faces. “Sorry, but as soon as her pattern was decoded…” she didn’t finish the sentence, just looked down at the woman’s corpse.

Hanabi aimed her gun at the back of his head, “call off your monsters, you can do that, can’t you? You said before that they were coming here, so that tells me you can control them. If you’re the spawner then you can get them to stand down. Do that, and I won’t kill you, we’ll just take you into custody.”

“Where I’ll spend the rest of my life with Soluna’s torture machines?” He spat at her feet. “I’d rather die than give in to Soluna! I won’t rest until I’ve had my revenge! I am a member of the Oath of Nemesis, we won’t die until our enemies have breathed their last breath! So if you’re gonna kill me, don’t dangle hope in my face, just put a bullet in me already!” He was practically shouting incoherently.

Hanabi hesitated, she didn’t want to kill him. Not yet at least. Maybe someone else could talk some sense into him or something.

“That can be arranged.” A mysterious voice sounded behind them. The back wall suddenly collapsed and there floated Apex in all his power.

He stepped onto the floor, and walked over to the man, who glared at Apex with a hateful look.

“Hm… this is the Super I heard about, eh?” He surveyed the scene, figuring out what happened most likely. “Not very impressive, if you ask me. And I suppose that detonator there was gonna… what… blow up the house, to prevent capture? How’d that work out for you.”

He unexpectedly laughed. “Sorry, but you’re mistaken, Consortium puppet. That device in your hand, that certainly is a detonate but…” He clicked his teeth and then the former wife’s body started to glow, “I didn’t say I only had one.”

Hanabi barely had time to react before a bright flash of light overtook her vision.