Chapter 59 If You Want a Fight

Janah’s eyes gleamed as she shifted her gaze from me to the man still trembling by my side. “Bunny,” she said smoothly, “thanks for your tip about Eclipse dropping by. Saved me the trouble of hunting.”

The man blinked in confusion, shaking his head so violently I thought it might snap off. “What are you talking about? I never—”

Janah sighed with theatrical patience, lifting her hand like she was brushing away a nuisance. “Looks like there’s been a mix-up. Doesn’t matter. I don’t need you anymore.”

The air thickened and the pressure slammed Bunny against the wall with enough force to crack bone. Blood splattered, but before he could turn into a grotesque painting, I instinctively threw my arms around him, forcing my power to react. His body turned ghostly under my grip, and the telekinetic force vanished as though it had struck smoke. My chest tightened from the strain, every second of holding him intangible draining me faster than a sprint underwater.

I dragged him with me through the floor, carefully keeping my grip. If I slipped, he would rematerialize inside solid matter and die screaming. We burst upward, phasing through concrete, and I exhaled hard as we emerged in the middle of a busy street. My lungs burned, my limbs trembled. I wasn’t built for carrying others through my intangibility, not without feeling like every muscle was breaking apart.

A horn blared. A car swerved, tires screeching, nearly flattening us. I yanked Bunny aside just in time, earning curses from the furious driver as the vehicle tore past.

I spun on him, my voice sharper than I intended. “Do you know my mom?”

His lips trembled before he managed to whisper, “Yes. She was… my coworker, in a sense.”

Coworker. That word sank like ice in my gut. A dozen questions crashed through me… what did he mean, what kind of work, why had he known her when I hadn’t? But now wasn’t the time to dig at old wounds.

From the alley across the street, Janah stepped out, her smile wider, and hungrier. She tapped her wristwatch and a compact mask shimmered into place, covering her face with smooth, blank anonymity.

I didn’t recognize her mask, and that unsettled me. Capes like her probably didn’t operate out in the open without a reason. Her power, that crushing telekinesis, and tell-tale lack of fame clued me she was probably some kind of operator in Pride’s chain of command.

I forced Bunny to move, dragging him by the arm while angling my face away from the street cameras. If I stayed too long in one spot, the surveillance net would stitch my movements together, and I wasn’t ready for my civilian identity to be exposed soe asily.

Janah raised her hand casually, like flicking a lighter. A car lifted from the curb and came screaming toward us. I pulled Bunny close, made us intangible, and let the vehicle pass through us. The car smashed into another, metal folding, glass shattering, and then it erupted in a blossom of fire. The screams came next from the driver, a man, and his child in the passenger seat. The sight of them burning froze me for a heartbeat, the stench of gasoline filling my lungs even though we’d phased through.

I grimaced, fighting down the bile. They weren’t my targets. I wasn’t supposed to care. I was a killer, not a savior. Cold-blooded… that’s what I kept telling myself. And yet, part of me wanted to rip Janah’s head off right there.

I hooked the grappling line from under my sleeve onto a rooftop ledge. This one wasn’t my usual cheap junk, the fixer had given me a grade above, the hook powered by some tech that allowed it to latch onto matter without needing me to phase it through. I carried Bunny on my other arm, the weight slowing me. The line strained under the pull, creaking ominously.

We shot upward, but halfway across, the grappling hook snapped under the stress.

I didn’t even think. I phased us both just before we hit the building , our bodies slipping ghostlike through the surface. My lungs screamed from overexertion. We tumbled, rolling back into reality inside some kind of office space, the crash scattering papers and upending a desk.

I coughed, blood flecking my lips, but at least we were alive.

I pulled Bunny up to his feet, his weight heavy in my arms though his expression was heavier still. His face was mournful, lined with disbelief as he whispered, “Nicholas, what are you doing? Caping? Villainy, of all things? Your mother—”

“Don’t.” My voice cut sharper than I intended. “I don’t care what my mother thinks.”

The employees scattered in a frenzy, their eyes wide, their voices high-pitched with panic. They had no idea who I was, but they could tell enough: mask, blood, danger. Hopefully the scraps of cloth still clinging to my face and the crimson streaks smudging my skin were enough to keep them from ID’ing me. I couldn’t afford to be recognized.

The thought ended as the glass wall shattered with a sound like thunder, shards exploding inward. My heart skipped a beat when several cars hurtled through the air toward us, flung like toys. I dragged Bunny close and we vanished into the floor, phasing through just as metal crashed above.

We emerged a level down, bursting back into reality. The employees there panicked too, but one man, wide-eyed and trembling, let out a guttural yell. “Aaaagh! I hate my boss!” He charged at me like he wanted to die. “I just want to die!”

I met his suicidal rush with a straight punch across the jaw. His body collapsed instantly, his cry cutting short. “You should attack your boss then,” I muttered, “not me.”

The windows blew apart again, glass raining down as another barrage of cars tore through the air. Explosions followed, the fireball illuminating the entire floor. Civilians screamed, tripping over themselves to escape. The employee I’d floored staggered back up, now running for the fire exit with desperation in his steps. Bunny and I followed, ducking from the flames that ate through office furniture.

We stopped at the corner near a small window, catching our breath. I peered through it. The street outside was chaos with the traffic jammed, horns blaring, and people abandoning their cars in droves. Panic spread faster than the fire.

Bunny spoke again, his voice raw. “How long have you been doing this, Nicholas? Before… before becoming Eclipse. This… this isn’t what your mother wanted for you.”

I didn’t look at him. I didn’t need his judgment right now. “How does she keep finding us?”

He hesitated before answering, “Since she has a telekinetic rating, it’s possible she also has a minor telepathic rating. Enough to track us.”

I exhaled slowly, the sigh heavy in my chest. “So there’s only one way to deal with her.” My throat tightened as the words left me. “Killing her.”

The weight of that thought pressed hard. Janah wasn’t just an obstacle… she was Pride’s ‘technically’ new boss if she was Royal’s second, someone who should be skilled enough to come at me like this so blatantly. But to Bunny, she was also the one actively trying to erase him. If I stayed, if I kept dragging him with me, he would end up dead. She wanted him gone as much as she wanted me gone.

I gritted my teeth. “If you find the conscience in your heart, you will contact me. And when you do, you’ll enlighten me on just what the fuck is going on.”

I reached into his chest pocket, pulling out the sharpie tucked inside. Grabbing his hand, I scribbled a number across his skin in bold strokes. “I have a lot of fucking questions, and I want answers, so you better don’t die out there, you hear me?”

His voice cracked as he asked, “Where are you going?”

I met his gaze, unflinching. “To murder someone.”

Then I phased through the wall. The air ripped past me as I plummeted from the tall building, the fall dizzying but nowhere near as punishing as my leap from the plane. I ghosted through the pavement below, nullifying the force, then phased upward, emerging in the courtyard just under the building.

I pulled the air into my lungs, blood pounding through me as I shouted, “I am here! If you want a fight… then you can have it!”

The air shifted. It was subtle at first, like the pressure before a storm, but I knew she was close. Janah didn’t bother hiding her presence. She wanted me to see her, to understand what kind of monster Pride had placed at its head.

From the far end of the street, the sound of metal shrieking against asphalt rang out. Cars lifted from the clogged traffic as if invisible claws had hooked them. They groaned, wheels spinning helplessly, glass rattling with the terrified screams of passengers still trapped inside. The first one floated upward, then another, then another, until half a dozen vehicles hung above the street like twisted marionettes.

The people inside banged on the windows, pleading, crying, clawing at doors that wouldn’t open. The vehicles rotated lazily, a cruel display of control, the passengers pressed against their windows by the unnatural angles. A man’s scream carried as one car spun upside down, the seatbelts barely holding him. Another car’s windows shattered from the pressure, glass raining down like jagged confetti, and still Janah walked, unhurried, her heels tapping on the asphalt in perfect rhythm.

Every step she took made the vehicles jerk forward, hovering closer, and forming a circle around me.

“Don’t you find it weird,” I began, my voice low, words almost casual as I dusted the blood from my sleeve. “Vanguard usually has a response time of five to fifteen minutes. It’s been double that since I killed Sword Meister.”

Janah laughed, sharp and venomous, the sound carrying like broken glass grinding on steel. “I don’t know if that’s you boasting, or a genuine question.”

I tilted my head, eyes narrowing. “The BunnyBlade who contacted you is an impostor. So what does that say about you being here?”

Her smile didn’t falter, though the air around her began to quiver with the weight of her telekinesis. My pulse quickened, but I kept talking, buying time. “Honestly, in the beginning I didn’t think that man was BunnyBlade. I’ve been in contact with the real one for some time… advice, services, the whole damn package. Then you waltz in, calling my target Bunny like it means something. And him? He claimed to be the same person. I knew then, I was being played.”

Her lip curled. “Enough yapping. More killing.”

I raised my hands slowly. “I surrender.”

The word echoed like a taunt. Janah blinked, just once, confusion flickering across her features. Before she could react, a piercing screech split the sky. A storm of golden feathers rained down, each one glowing, cutting through the invisible strings of her control as they landed on each vehicle. The cars she’d dragged into the air hung suspended, now wrapped in glowing forcefields that denied her hold. Her eyes widened, jaw tightening.

And then he descended.

Iron Bulwark. A walking fortress, his entire frame encased in thick slabs of steel that clanged with every shift. He dropped from the air with the weight of a landslide, the ground trembling under his boots. I didn’t wait.

I phased through the floor, my lungs burning from the strain, and reemerged an arm’s length from Janah. Her telekinesis lashed out instantly, invisible pressure hammering against me. I forced myself intangible to even that force, something so exhausting, so mentally corrosive, I wished for death in that instant. But I pushed on, my hand catching her face. I shoved her down, phasing her head halfway through the ground. The scream caught in her throat as I slammed her skull into stone.

A sudden electric scream tore through my nerves. Thunderbolt. Her manic laughter carried over the crackling storm she conjured, her body outlined in arcs of furious lightning. “I will kill you!” she shrieked.

The bolt connected, searing me from the inside out. My control broke, intangibility shredded away as if ripped from my bones. My body convulsed, air torn from my lungs.

“Let me fucking kill him!” Iron Bulwark roared, his gauntleted fist tightening as he lumbered forward. His voice was full of rage, veins in his neck straining. “He killed Sword Meister!”

Above, Garuda hovered with wings of golden light spread wide, his voice thunderous but commanding. “Let the law deal with him. Thunderbolt, don’t kill him. Just paralyze.”

Thunderbolt’s grin twisted, but she obeyed. The arcs shifted, the lightning reshaping into something colder and tighter. It snapped into me again, locking every muscle. My limbs jerked violently before going rigid.

I collapsed, face-first into the dirt, my body a prison of numb fire. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t fight. Not this time.