"Okay..one down," Nathan said before he continued to fire at the cops, incapacitating at least 3 of them by shooting their limbs before they could react. They quickly tried to hide behind the police holding the ballistic shields. While this minimized the casualties, Nathan could still snipe the ones farther behind.
I don't need to kill these guys...just have to make them less annoying for Jack and Charles.
"You fools! You all are sitting ducks!" Malcolm shouted, still engaged in fighting Jack. The officers that were far behind quickly scattered to hide behind their cars, but some had been picked off while changing positions nonetheless.
"You're pretty good at using that sniper, huh Nathan?" Ada stated.
"I took some lessons in the past. Now, the cops won't be as much of a burden to Charles and Jack, and they can hopefully take down the super soldiers. I'll pick off as much as I can in the meantime."
I can't believe I'm helping Jack and Charles...well, it's all because of the developer.
In the meantime, Rachel was observing the fight between Jack and Malcolm. The fight seemed to be leaning slightly in Malcolm's favor as he had Jack on the backpedal.
"It must be hard to fight with broken ribs, huh, murderer," Malcolm asked Jack mockingly.
"Huh, oh yeah, it is unfortunate that my ribs got messed up from your kick earlier. Plus, I don't even have my knife," Jack responded, albeit with an odd smile. "But, I could kill you anytime I want."
"Tsk, all bark and no bite...I'm not like those helpless victims you preyed on!"
"It doesn't look like Charles will get up anytime soon so maybe I can help Malcolm take down the other one...then onto the rest." But no sooner had she decided to help than Charles had confronted her. He tightly gripped her arm.
"Wha--"
"Never look away from a fight!" Charles advised her before lifting her over his head. Like a projectile, he tossed her across the whole yard. With screams on the way, Rachel crashed head-first into a car, causing her to be bounced off it into the air and the vehicle to roll over repeatedly, resulting in yet another car being damaged.
"Tsk, idiot," Malcolm said after seeing her fly by.
"Ouch! Dammit!" Rachel cursed as she stood back up, bleeding from the head. "I'll kill you!"
"How the hell are you still standing? I struck you multiple times on your damn head!"
"HAHA! AS IF I'D GO DOWN THAT EASILY!" Charles retorted. "But you did do some damage to me...so I'll reward you by trying a bit harder." He said before taking a deep breath. Right after inhaling, pulsating veins appeared on his arms, chest, face, and neck.
"Physical Enhancement - Blood Doping!"
"Huh?" Rachel asked before he dashed at her with a large burst of speed, leaving a small hole where he moved off, alarming Rachel. He immediately engaged her in close-quarters combat. His attacks packed a much greater intensity and power than before. It only took a few blocks for Rachel to realize how much pressure he was putting on her.
"Ugh...why's blocking his attacks hurting my arms and legs this much!" Rachel thought, with a look of frustration. On the other hand, Charles seemed to be elated in this battle. Rachel had to constantly move back to even keep standing due to his intensity, but she couldn't keep it up for long, as when she blocked a spin kick with her arm, the force caused her to lose her balance. Not letting that opening go to waste, Charles delivered a straight punch directly to her face, sending her meters away to the ground.
"Nice punch!" Zack said from the hotel.
Charles walked up to Rachel, who was slowly getting back up from the ground. Her nose and mouth were bleeding heavily.
"Ugh...this doesn't even make any sense...you guys lost in the past...you should have been dead too, Charles. How is this happening."
"You weren't bad, but it doesn't seem like this fight will be any more fun. I'm finished here. Charles said before turning towards Malcolm. "I wonder if fighting that guy will be more fun--"
"Shut the hell up!" Rachel shouted, interrupting Charles. "You think this is all a game to you...well, I'm not finished until we rid the world of you criminals!"
Seeing the spark of determination in Rachel's eyes, Charles couldn't help but smile even more. "That look in your eyes! I love it! You might be worth killing after all!" Charles excitedly stated before attacking her again. She was blocking slightly better as she somewhat adapted to Charles' intensity, but that was all she could do, block. There was no room for her to counterattack, and she knew it.
Over to Jack and Malcolm, they were still pretty even. Jack tried to palm strike Malcolm in the stomach, but he avoided and attempted a spin kick to his temple, which Jack evaded by back-dashing away.
Tsk...he's so fast, it's annoying.
He glanced at the police officers. Nathan had got rid of roughly half of them by this point.
"Damnit...aren't you guys supposed to support us."
"Sergeant Malcolm!" A police officer, hiding away from Nathan's line of sight, shouted to Malcolm. They were holding an RPG. "If I take out the sniper in the hotel, we can hopefully return to the original plan...but it would mean destroying the hotel pretty much."
"Oh my," Jack stated.
Malcolm remembered what Rachel said to him about the property destruction being for the greater good. He took a second to contemplate the outcome: either the cop destroys the hotel to get rid of the sniper or continues fighting a losing battle. "...Do what you must," Malcolm stated. Immediately, the officer aimed.
Meanwhile, Nathan was firing at officers at other locations in the yard. He was missing a couple of shots due to the amount of obstruction they were hiding behind. Ada, Olivia, and Zack noticed the RPG.
"Uh, Nathan...you should stop aiming at those cops!" Ada stated with a tone of urgency. "An officer has a rocket launcher, and he's aiming at us!"
"Huh?" Nathan said as he turned the sniper to the location of that specific officer.
"Q...Quickly!" Olivia shouted, albeit stuttering. He fired and incapacitated the cop, but it was too late, for the officer had already fired the RPG. With pure fright on their faces, they could only watch as the explosive projectile hurled towards them, that is until it randomly exploded in the air. The explosion was powerful. The concussive force blew the officers, super soldiers, and the criminals in the yard a few feet back.
"W-What the hell happened?" Nathan asked.
Jack, who was knocked to the ground from the explosion, got up back on his feet. As he got up, Zack called out to him.
"Jack! Catch!" Zack shouted as he threw Jack's coat out of the hotel. Jack smiled as he seemingly disappeared. He appeared beside it in the air, took off the black hoodie, and donned his original coat, doing that all before descending to the ground.
"Was that a defective rocket!? How annoying!" Malcolm frustratingly shouted as he dashed at Jack. Simultaneously, Jack took a knife out of his coat and swung it at rapid speeds. Malcolm managed to avoid the knife swings.
"I was thinking that maybe I should up my speed, you know?" Jack said before attempting to stab Malcolm straight in the face. He, however, grabbed Jack's arm, stopping the attack.
Got him! Malcolm thought before countering with a straight punch with his next arm, but Jack used his free arm to direct Malcolm's fist upwards, missing him completely.
"He reacted to that still!?" Malcolm thought before jumping back.
"Wow, you're so focused on attacking me...shouldn't you worry about yourself, though?"
"What do you--" Before Malcolm finished his question, he looked at himself and noticed multiple cuts on his body.
What! I thought I dodged them all!
"I'm pretty good at hand-to-hand combat, but knife combat is my real forte...plus, I did say that I was gonna up my speed." He said before grinning. "What was that rubbish about you not being one of my preys?"
Malcolm looked at Charles and Jack, who were both smiling, albeit for different reasons. "Their strength. This is not the information we received."