The assassins didn't waste the ten seconds. They were professionals, trained to adapt to the inexplicable. The collective shock of their leader's silent, violent collapse lasted maybe two seconds before they registered the hostility and scattered.
I heard the subtle snick-snick-snick of batons being drawn and shurikens being primed. They weren't retreating; they were flanking.
"Keep typing, Roquette," I commanded, my voice calm despite the rising threat level. I spun away from the door and moved to the center of the cramped computer room. I couldn't afford to let them breach the room and panic the scientist.
I activated [Dark Vision] again. The five remaining figures were splitting up, attempting a classic pincer movement—two moving down the main hall, two attempting the fire exit, and one scaling the outside wall to try the windows.
I focused my powers. I needed to divide their attention and multiply my presence, turning my single body into a coordinated ambush force.
[Doppelganger]
The energy surged from the Mark of the Outsider and two shimmering, near-perfect copies of myself materialized instantly beside me. Both doubles were silent mirrors of my focused intensity, instantly drawing their own blades.
"You," I instructed the first double, pointing toward the main door. "Take the hall. Engage the two units. Non-lethal takedowns."
"And you," I directed the second double toward the fire exit behind the room. "Take the exit. Engage the other two. Non-lethal takedowns. Do not engage the climbing unit." I knew their programming: fast, efficient, and capable of executing my established paralyzing strikes.
My First Doppelgänger shot out of the computer lab door, moving with my signature blinding speed. It turned the corner and instantly engaged the two assassins advancing down the main corridor. The sounds of impact were muffled—quick thwacks and heavy thuds as the assassins were rendered inert, collapsing to the floor with surgically fractured limbs and concussions.
Simultaneously, my Second Doppelgänger burst through the fire exit. It engaged the two assassins attempting to breach that flank. Their surprised shouts were cut short by the swift, precise strikes of my clone, neutralizing them just as efficiently.
With the hallway secured for the moment, my attention was on the windows. The assassin scaling the wall would be moments away from breaking the glass.
[Blink]
I vanished from the computer lab and reappeared instantly beside the climbing assassin, who was moments from gaining purchase on the window ledge. Before he could turn, I seized his head and smashed it directly into the concrete wall. The sickening impact was definitive—the man went limp, his skull likely fractured beneath the hood. He fell in a dead, heavy slump to the ground far below.
I checked Dr. Roquette in the room with [Dark Vision] from my new position. The amber glow instantly revealed a critical flaw: an Assassin—masked, wearing a kimono, and wielding two Sai—(Cheshire) had bypassed the frontal assault and breached the room.
Without hesitation, I Blinked again.
I reappeared in the computer lab beside Dr. Roquette, materializing directly in the assassin's path. The Kimono assassin's reaction was lightning fast, trained for instant lethal engagement. She pivoted, raising her Sai in a crossed block, anticipating my strike.
I raised my blade and drove it down with the full, augmented power granted by the Outsider Mark. She blocked the blade with the steel tines of her Sai, but she had fundamentally underestimated the augmented strength of my physical body. The kinetic force behind my strike was massive.
Slash!
"AAAAAGGGGHHH!" Her scream ripped through the room as my blade ripped through her guard. The kinetic power shattered her block and sliced deep into the junction of her right arm and hand, impacting the carpal and metacarpal bones and tearing through the flexor tendons with horrific force. The wound was grievous, leaving the edge of her right hand nearly split in two in the middle, hanging uselessly by torn ligaments and skin.
"Stay Down Bitch!" I delivered a gut-wrenching punch directly into her solar plexus. The force compressed her diaphragm and stomach, violently driving the air from her lungs and resulting in probable rib fractures. She flew backward, hitting the wall with a dull impact before collapsing, knocked out cold, unable to breathe.
"Roquette!" I barked, turning to the scientist. "Status!"
She was staring at the unconscious body of the mask kimono, her eyes enormous, her body rigid with shock, but she hadn't stopped typing. "I... I'm uploading the frequency to the local node now! It's almost done!"
Shiing!
The sound was not of a boot or a blade, but a massive, whistling volume of air displaced—the air rippled as a massive, heavy hook suddenly swung from the main doorway, aiming for my head. It was a crude, devastating blow meant to kill me.
I didn't even flinch. I let the hook come within an inch of my face before I darted my left hand out and caught the hook—not the shaft, but the curve of the massive metal weapon itself—stopping its monstrous inertia dead.
Before I could process the wielder, another attack came. Two jets of sticky, orange fluid—webbing from the look of it—shot towards my face from the window outside the room.
I leaned my head sharply, dodging the initial burst of fluid. The orange slime splattered onto the wall beside me, instantly sizzling and smoking as it began to eat into the paint and plaster.
Instantly, I drove my augmented left hand back, pulling the chain connecting the hook. The white-haired man, Hook, was yanked violently forward, stumbling into the doorway.
I didn't waste time with dialogue. My focus was purely on disabling the threat with brutal efficiency. My right hand moved, not with a weapon, but with cold, terrible force. I drove my index and middle fingers forward, using the amplified power of the Mark to punch through the soft tissue with ease.
I simultaneously pierce both the man's left and right orbital cavities, driving the tips deep enough to cause instant, catastrophic bilateral ocular trauma. The tips of my fingers contacted the back of his eye sockets, causing an immediate, agonizing neural overload. A sickening, wet crunch accompanied the act as the globes burst and shattered fragments of the retina and lens were displaced.
Hook did not just scream; he howled, a primal, high-pitched noise of absolute agony and sudden, total darkness. Blood erupted from both eye sockets, spraying across the doorway and coating my hand in warm, thick fluid. He went instantly blind and completely incapacitated by the neurological shock.
Before he could drop, my left hand, still holding the hook, pivoted. My blade swept down in a blur, severing the white-haired man's right arm below the elbow—a clean, surgical strike that sliced through the flesh, ulna, and radius, and the mechanical connections that tethered the hook to his body.
The hook and its heavy chain were now mine. Hook collapsed, screaming, clutching the bloody, raw stump of his arm.
I grabbed the heavy chain and began to spin the hook, building terrifying momentum. I released the chain, hurling the massive, improvised flail out the window at the second assassin—Black Spider.
Black Spider, who had been positioning himself for another attack outside, reacted with blinding speed, performing an athletic dive to dodge the massive, whistling projectile. He fired another string of sticky orange fluid at me as he grab the edge of another window.
I didn't waste energy dodging the webbing. I activated [Blink] again, vanishing instantly from the room and reappearing outside, beyond the window, grabbing the trailing chain of the hook as I materialized.
I used the momentum of the chain, snapping it tight, then Blinked a final time, reappearing directly behind Black Spider.
Without hesitation, I drove the massive, curved steel of the hook deep into his left shoulder joint.
He screamed, a high-pitched cry of raw, surprised pain as the hook anchored itself into his scapula and clavicle, stabbing through his suit and sinking into the muscle tissue.
I didn't pause. I grabbed the chain and immediately wrapped it around his neck, cinching it tight. Black Spider clawed desperately at the steel loop constricting his trachea and carotid arteries.
With a sudden, explosive surge of augmented power, I swung the chain and the immobilized assassin. I smash his body in the outer wall of the school.
KRAKOOM!
The impact was devastating, the sound of the collision mixed with the muffled, violent cracking of Black Spider's ribs and sternum. He went limp, the chain taut around his neck. The impact had guaranteed massive internal trauma—likely multiple fractured ribs, a collapsed lung, and severe internal hemorrhaging—but he was still technically alive.
I yanked the chain loose, letting his unconscious body slump to the ground. I returned to the computer room, dropping the severed mechanical hook onto the desk beside the scientist.
"Roquette," I called out, my voice flat, already wiping the residual blood from my fingers. "Status?"
"Done," she whispered, her voice trembling violently.
"Good now tell me the current location of The Fog" I ordered.
Bang!
A gunshot echoed in the hallway as a high-caliber round tore through the air. My blade was already up, moving instinctively faster than sound, deflecting the bullet with a sharp clink that sent the slug ricocheting harmlessly off the ceiling.
"AAHHHH!" Dr. Roquette screamed in panic, clutching her head with her hands and slumping to the ground beneath the desk.
"I believe this is the first time we've met, Black Ripper," came a cold, measured voice from the doorway. The man who had fired the shot stepped into view—a sharp figure in black and orange tactical gear, his face half-masked, revealing a single, intense eye. It was none other than Deathstroke.
I couldn't help it. I let a blood-curdling grin spread beneath my own mask, a genuine flash of excitement that promised carnage. A worthy and veteran assassin had finally arrived. "Same to you, DickStroke123. Heh heh."
A/N
Power Stone please
Also. If you find some flaws in the chapter, please tell me.