Tracy chased the sound of the invisible foe all the way to the second floor of the building. Even though it was early afternoon, when the sun was the hottest, the shady inside of the building made the place a giant, natural fridge. The difference in temperature created a constant breeze that filled the space between the concrete pillars, making it ridiculously hard to pick out noise of the enemy.
"Not in a mood to play hide and seek right now…" Tracy murmured to herself as she kept looking, holding the ammunition of her air cannon in her right hand: a fist-sized rock.
A series of hurried footsteps came from behind. It was Edwin running up the cracked stairs. His eyes weren't the usual black color – a sign that he had already examined the internal structure of the building via his ability.
"The second nearest pillar, three o'clock!" he shouted while running towards the target.
"There you are!" She hurled the rock towards the location indicated. As soon as it left her hand, the loud explosion of air accelerated the rock into a deadly shell.
The powerful shock sent Tracy stumbling a bit, while the projectile smashed itself into a cloud of dust on the side of the pillar. Amidst the cloud of debris, a dark shadow jumped out and disappeared behind other pillars. The sheer speed at which it hopped away amazed Edwin.
"He's moving impossibly quick," concluded Edwin, "like a ninja…On your right!"
"Aaah!"
The sudden roar came unperceivably quick. Before Edwin could blink, a hit landed solidly on Tracy as she flew across the air, past Edwin, and hit a wall in a loud thump, letting out a small gasp, before collapsing on the ground.
"Tracy!" yelled Edwin.
"Your partner likely won't get up," came a merciless voice from the figure in front of Edwin, "you are all that's left."
In front of Edwin was a lean figure: beneath the lengthy blonde hair was a teen, at least half a head taller than Edwin; the white shirt - on top of a black one - and the loose pants still wafted slightly in the wind that resulted from his powerful blow.
"What do you know about that device you detonated?" demanded the blonde boy, "tell me who built it!"
"I know as little as you dp," answered Edwin, calmly, "and I have no idea who built it."
"Bollocks!" shouted the boy, now walking toward Edwin in wide and threatening steps, "quit lying, you goddamn esper!"
"As if you aren't one!"
Edwin responded and instinctively covered his face with his arms, which was a brilliant decision since it successfully blocked a punch that normally would have taken three times longer to go from throwing it to landing on the target. He was knocked back by a meter or two, but managed to remain standing.
"You pulled back on that one," said Edwin.
"So, you can remain conscious enough to speak!"
The next few strikes came even faster. The teen swinged his limbs at inhumane speeds. Even though Edwin, whose gradually tapping into hyperspace, could perceive the attacks and deflect them, him pulling his fists back and punching almost instantly still felt quite counterintuitive – it was as if the boy's body had no inertia.
At last Edwin came to understand the fight pattern. Taking the chance, he swiftly moved behind the opponent. Suddenly, Edwin found himself looking at not the back of the boy's head, but the furious eyes of his opponent – he had twisted around in an instant. After a forceful blow, Edwin found himself tumbling after taking a hit on the nose.
"How the heck did you do it?!" cussed Edwin, a rush of confusion mixed with frustration rushed to his head, with warm blood flowing out of his nose.
Just when he thought things couldn't get worse, the boy took out a shiny piece from his pocket – a metal nut.
"Though this doesn't look much," explained he in a low and emotionless tone, then threw "I can make getting hit by it a billion times worse."
He picked up the metal nut with his thumb and index finger. Then, a strange aura emanated from the tiny metal piece. It was then dropped to the floor. Instead of it quickly dropping to the ground and make a light thump, as what Edwin expected intuitively, it started moving visibly slower than usual, but then accelerated much faster than any metal nut of similar size. When it hit the ground, a deafening bang came out of it, with a gaping hole that went through the ground appearing beneath the boy's hand. Such a show of power made Edwin realize the gravity of the situation.
"Hold on!" Edwin shouted angrily, raising his hand, "we are not your enemy!"
"Shut up!" The boy interrupted him with a powerful yell, which resonated in the empty building, "it's all you…you espers! You pour your hatred towards others to this world, but what about us?! What about those ones who don't want to hate others!"
"What do you mean…"
"People hate you alright, and you can be angry, but you idiots take revenge in the worst ways possible, then end up drawing more hate!" continued the boy, walking closer towards Edwin, "have you ever considered people like me – espers who merely want to live without any of this anger?! Because of you, I have already lost everything!"
There seemed to be a drop of tear squeezed out of the boy's eye.
"Exactly…" murmured Edwin, his emotions stirred wildly by those words, "that is exactly what I've been through…"
He stood up and faced the angry boy head on.
"I never wanted any of this power…" said Edwin, "it brought me nothing but despair…I'm not one of those bastards that made my life this miserable. I am not your enemy."
The blonde boy's hand – which held the metal nut – shook a bit. His looked towards his feet as his aggression seemed to have dissipated. Edwin took this chance to approach him slowly.
Suddenly, the teen lifted his head up.
"This is a final warning," he threatened, voice filled with nothing but the dreadful desire to kill, "who is your boss?"
"Do you not listen to anyone?" said Edwin angrily, "I am not a foe!"
The boy said nothing else and dashed for a final blow
In an instant, time seemed to suddenly hit the brakes. Starting from where Edwin was standing, space began swirling in abstract manners. Meanwhile, the teen's left foot was just stepping on the ground, ready to thrust his entire body forward for what could be a deadly hit to the head. When he felt that his fist should have buried itself into the opponent's face, Edwin was gone from where he was, leaving the attacker baffled and almost losing his balance swinging his fist.
"Over here, moron."
Before the boy could turn around, a crack came from beneath his feet as the entire floor seemed to shake violently for half a second. Then, a series of perfectly straight cuts rapidly grew around him, putting him in the middle of an abstract polygon outlined by cracks, which soon tumbled to the lower floor, along with the boy standing on it. A loud boom came from beneath the floor Edwin was on, kicking up a grey cloud. With his eyes glowing blue, he overlooked the aftermath.
A trembling and bloodstained hand reached out of the dust cloud, followed by the boy, with a red band of blood stain stretching across his face beneath the blonde strips of hair.
"Is this the best gimmick you got?" he growled heavily while pointing up at Edwin.
"Nah, he can literally rip your heart out."
The baffled boy turned around, trying to locate the source of the voice. Before he could do so, however, he was already crashing into the concrete wall behind him, then dropping to the corner of the wall. Pain rushed through him, suppressing even his burning desire to get up and take revenge. All that he did was looking up from where he sat, and let out a weak and confused whisper.
"How in the world…"
"Props to you, that blow hurt," said Tracy casually, dusting her shoulder and brushing her hair, "if it wasn't for my cushion of dense air, my ribs would've been in powders."
With a thump, Edwin jumped from the upper floor.
"We have the same problems," said Tracy, "we figured that whoever you are looking for might want to destroy the entire city with that device. We could really use more help, by the way."
The blonde teen looked at her, and dropped his head down. His arms collapsed around him as indication that he had given up the fight.
"I guess we really could use a friendly talk," he said.
◆ ◆ ◆
"Seriously? Intermolecular force manipulation? Hyperspace-access? Antimatter bomb? Those are the most badass things I've ever heard!"
Edwin and Tracy stared with disbelief at the blonde teen sitting across them in the restaurant as he exclaimed childishly while munching furiously on his burger. Interestingly, the wounds from the fight seemed to give this teen nothing but a few bandages and quite an appetite. This sudden shift in mood – from fury and sorrow to excitement and joy – seemed like something straight out of a badly written fiction.
"Please pinch me as hard as you can, Ed," whispered Tracy, her eyes still fixed on the teen, "is this really the psychopath that wanted to slaughter us just twenty minutes ago?"
"He is," said Edwin, refusing to pinch her, "and don't call me Ed."
"Hey, hey, don't stop there, please tell me more," said the blonde teen, looking at Tracy, his eyes glistening with curiosity.
"Um, right…so my buddy here used his ability to examine that device and found it to be a container of antimatter. Its power was proven earlier today. So, he was likely right."
The teen then quickly turned to Edwin, the latter looking away uncomfortably.
"Can you really see inside of people using your see-through-vision? That means you can peer behind people's clothes too, right? What a gift…"
Tracy tried her best to suppress her laugh, but still let out a chuckle from her puffed face cheeks. Edwin covered his face in his palms and growled in frustration.
"Please be quiet. And quit calling it 'see-through vision'."
"How would you explain you cutting through concrete? That was beyond my imagination!" he going. Though reluctant to answer, Edwin eventually gave in after being bombarded with the word "please".
"Me looking at our world is like you looking at a painting: the painting, having only two dimensions, has no thickness, which is something you have in the third dimension. Thus, anything one dimension lower are incredibly brittle to someone in hyperspace."
"Awesome!" cried Emilio, satisfied of the elaboration.
He then sat back and sank deep into the sofa, taking his time to contemplate the amazing knowledge presented to him.
"Anyways, I haven't introduced myself yet." He quickly sat up as the thought came across his mind, "Emilio Gallilei." He stretched out his right hand, then realized the existence of two human beings and stretched out the other one as well. "Nice to meet you folks. Just call me Emi."
"You actually seem like a great sport," exclaimed Tracy, firmly shaking the hand offered to her, "Tracy Waals."
She then turned around to look at Edwin, who was still hesitating whether to take Emilio's hand. Tracy gave her a firm kick under the table.
"Edwin Li," said Edwin as he reluctantly grabbed Emilio's other hand.
"Great, now we are officially a team," said Emilio with great enthusiasm, "let's get working, folks. We have a city to save."
"Calm down for a sec," said Edwin, signaling Emilio to remain seated while he watched for the puzzled sights of other guests, "tell us what got you into these matters."
"Oh, right. My bad," said Emilio, sitting back on the sofa.
"In case you couldn't tell, my ability…" said Emilio while leaning forward again, lowering his voice in an attempt to make the reveal dramatic, "…is inertia manipulation."
"So that explains everything," said Tracy, snapping her finger, "you could throw metal nuts as they were, then dramatically increase their inertia upon release?"
"Correct! I can thus turn it as dangerous as a flying truck," replied Emilio.
"No wonder he could effortlessly swing his body around at such unrealistic speeds," thought Edwin to himself.
"Would you tell us your background now?" asked Edwin, finally seeping the orange juice that was served half an hour ago.
"Well, that is where the story takes a dark turn," said Emilio, his voice suddenly drained of the uplifting energy.
"Remember that esper attack on the Energy Institute Laboratory a few days ago, in which all the lab technicians got blasted into burnt piles of carbon?" He looked down at his feet, both of his hands clinched into fists.
"Well…my dad was one of them."