Three loud shots echoed through the air as the robber discharged his firearm. Edward didn't bother moving and instead tanked the bullets— curious as to how they would injure him. As the bullets left the gun and hit Edward's chest, he felt what could be described as three sharp taps against his chest. The pain he felt from taking bullets without any protection was only a little more painful than a finger flick against his skin.
The man shot two more bullets after realizing Edward didn't go down. Edward let himself be shot once again and watched the man's expression turn from full panic to overwhelming dread.
"What are you?" The man croaked as tears began to form in his eyes. Edward took a step forward and smiled. This single step allowed him to cut the distance between himself and the robber fast enough to make it seem like he had teleported. Then, Edward slapped the man's arm and watched as the man's arm shattered from the attack.
The gun dropped to the ground and bounced for a moment before Edward crushed it into scrap metal with his boot. The man screamed in pain and dropped to the ground as he clutched what remained of his hand. Edward looked away from the man before turning to the van.
A thin teenager— barely a few years into puberty— immediately shivered and hid away from Edward. However, as the kid was sitting in the driver's seat with a seatbelt over his shoulders, he didn't do a very good job of it.
Edward slowly walked to the van. Then, when he arrived at the driver's door, he heard the lock engage. Edward laughed, then put his hand over the base of the door's window. His fingers pierced the glass with ease before gripping onto the door itself. Then, with all of his strength, he pulled the door away from the van.
He struggled with it for a moment, courtesy of his measly thirteen Power, but eventually managed to rip the door from the van's side. The teenager, who hadn't thought it would be smart to get out of the seat, stared at Edward with a fearful gaze.
"Pl-"
"Why are you not in bed?" Edward asked the child, "You're too young to be pretending to be a gangster!"
"Uh-"
"Get out," Edward ordered. He grasped the buckle and tore it apart. Then, with only a little bit of force— so he didn't hurt the kid— he pulled the boy away from the van. Then, once he was far away enough, he set the boy back onto the road, "Go to bed. Go to school. Don't get involved with crime again or I'll treat you how I treated your friends, got it?"
"Y-Yes!" The kid shouted. Then, without needing to be told so, he turned around and ran away as fast as he could. Edward looked back to the van and smiled. He walked to the side and threw open the sliding door. From there, he stepped into the van and began rummaging through every compartment he could find.
Five minutes later, Edward exited the vehicle with a few wads of cash he didn't have before. The last few nights must have been very profitable for the robbers to have this much money. In total, Edward counted three grand.
"This was all probably stolen from other people, but it's not like I can go looking for them," Edward smiled. He looked at the robber who shot him and snarled, "I'm taking these! It's my compensation for interrupting my night!"
Then, as if nothing interesting had happened at all, Edward continued on his way until he arrived at the convenience store.
—
"Ma'am, I found one," a man spoke as he turned away from his monitor. His eyes searched through the room until they met with Mrs. Snow. The CEO of Desert Industries sat in a large office chair while two dozen employees searched through multiple hundred CCTV recordings. As soon as Mrs. Snow heard the man address her, she immediately stood up and walked to his desk.
"Already?" Mrs. Snow asked. The man nodded with a grave expression on his face. As she neared his desk, he turned back to the monitor and opened four web tabs.
"When you told me to search for unexplainable occurrences, I thought you were bored. But, when I realized how ineffective searching through individual CCTV cameras were, I had an idea," the man said. He clicked on one tab— pulling to the front— and revealed a police incident report, "So, I searched through anything the police deemed as usual and came across this. Last night, three men tried to rob somebody but were met with an unusual level of resistance."
He clicked on another tab, displaying the mug shots of three adults. Mrs. Snow didn't recognize any of them but quickly noticed how none of them had any facial injuries— yet appeared traumatized.
"They were arrested when somebody in the neighborhood reported gunshots. These men were declared responsible for the incident and taken into questioning, but the police couldn't find any evidence of gunshot wounds. The only blood on the scene came from one man who broke his arm. When the men were asked about this, they rambled on about some indestructible man. They claim to have shot him five times, yet the bullet never pierced his skin."
"So you'd trust the word of three criminals?" Mrs. Snow asked. The man quickly shook his head, a nervous expression on his face.
"No, not immediately. I looked further into the case to see if they were telling the truth and— well— I found this," The man clicked on the last tab, revealing two images. One image was of a battered van. Laying on the ground was the front driver's side door. The door itself had an imprint near the glass that was perfectly shaped like somebody's four fingers. Mrs. Snow was easily able to understand that it had been grabbed and ripped away from the van— with only one hand. The other image showed a forensics report of five bullet remains. Each of them had been squashed like a pancake. The gun responsible for firing these bullets was set to its side— though it had been destroyed and reshaped to fit the indent of a man's shoe.
Mrs. Snow straightened her posture as she gazed upon the images. An expression of mild curiosity was mixed with intense anxiety as she turned to the man at the desk.
"Do you know who's responsible?" Mrs. Snow asked. Her voice was cold and distant— but also tense and slow.
"I figured it out before the police did, yeah. Once I accomplished such a feat, I hacked their system and got rid of any relevant traffic information surrounding the incident at the time. They won't be able to find him," The man nodded.
The man clicked on the final tab— one hiding in the back— and revealed two pictures of the same man. In one picture the man leaned against an office building's front door while holding an ice cream cone in his hand. His hair was brown and his eyes were blue. The other picture was vastly different, yet Mrs. Snow knew it was still him. The picture was of a young man with raven black hair. His eyes were as dark as the night sky and his eyebrows were thick and strong. A large scar covered much of his lower lip and extended to the corner of his mouth. He was a very attractive man- at least compared to the first picture- but his gaze was the type that sent dangerous shivers down Mrs. Snow's back.
"Good. Find him— I want to talk to this man."