The tension was palpable. You know the feeling, like a tightly wound spring ready to snap—a sharp, burning anticipation that churns in your gut.
That's how I felt at that moment. It was like gearing up to savor the finest delicacy, only to have it snatched away at the last second. Blue balls, but for a fight.
We were seconds from an all-out brawl. No holding back, no half-measures, just raw, unfiltered chaos.
And then, as if someone pressed pause on the universe, a certain fucker decided to intervene. Not with words, not with reason, but with a goddamned teleportation.
One moment we were on the verge of tearing each other apart, and the next, we were somewhere else entirely.
Where? Hell if I knew. The skyline stretched out before us, towering glass spires reflecting the high afternoon sun. It could've been New York, but it wasn't. It looked like Earth.
My cyborg brain processed the atmosphere, the gravity, the air composition, even the soil beneath my feet. Earth. But not my Earth.
Shadow and I were perched on the rooftop of a building so tall it seemed to scrape the heavens.
Below us sprawled a city alive with movement, its streets teeming with people. Except... something was off.
These people weren't ordinary. Weapons hung at their sides—not guns or knives, but swords, spears, and gauntlets. Some glowed faintly, humming with an energy that prickled at my senses.
Real-time robots strolled alongside them, as common as pigeons in a park. Holographic screens hovered in midair, flickering with news and advertisements.
And then there was the tech. Advanced. Way beyond what Earth should have. Quantum watches. Phones with AI interfaces so sophisticated they might as well have been sentient.
I glanced at Shadow, hoping for answers. He looked back, his face a mask of disbelief, but beneath it, I caught a flicker of recognition.
He knew something. And that was all the confirmation I needed to know that wherever we were, it was no accident.
My instincts kicked in just as his fist came hurtling toward me. I barely managed to cross my arms in time, blocking the blow, but the force of it sent me skidding to the edge of the rooftop.
Below, the city yawned open like a bottomless abyss.
Shadow didn't let up. His next move was a kick aimed squarely at my chest.
I caught his leg mid-swing, but his momentum carried us both over the edge.
The wind screamed in my ears as we plummeted, forty stories down. Gravity pulled us into a deadly spiral, but even in freefall, we fought. Fists collided with bone.
Kicks sent shockwaves through the air. For a fleeting moment, it wasn't about survival. It was about dominance.
Shadow hit the pavement first, the impact splitting the concrete like a shattered mirror. A heartbeat later, I landed on my feet, crouching to absorb the force.
The street erupted into chaos.
Screams. Shouts. The screeching of tires as cars swerved to avoid the crater we'd just created. People scattered, their weapons drawn, eyes wide with a mix of fear and awe.
And they should've been scared. They had no idea what they were dealing with.
Shadow rose slowly, brushing dust from his shoulders like the fall had been an inconvenience. He smirked. That infuriating smirk that always made my blood boil.
"You shouldn't have picked this fight, Lena," he said, his voice dripping with arrogance. "Time bends to me."
With a flick of his wrist, the world slowed to a crawl.
Everything around me shifted into molasses. Cars froze mid-turn. A bird hung motionless in the air. But Shadow moved freely, stepping toward me with predatory ease.
Big mistake.
He underestimated me. Sure, time was his playground, but this was a city. And cities? They were mine. Metal. Electricity. Soundwaves. Every pulse of energy, every signal, every shard of steel—it all answered to me.
I flexed my fingers, and a nearby lamppost groaned as it wrenched free from the ground, slicing through the air like a spear. Time distortion didn't faze it.
The metal resonated with my electromagnetic waves, cutting through Shadow's slow-motion field like it wasn't even there.
"You think slowing time will stop metal?" I taunted, my voice slicing through the stillness. "It's alive to me."
Shadow sidestepped at the last second, flicking his wrist again. Time rewound, and the lamppost snapped back into place as if my attack had never happened.
Clever.
I slammed my foot into the ground, unleashing a shockwave that sent cars flying. Metal signs, shattered phone screens, and shards of steel twisted into a vortex around me.
The air hummed with electromagnetic energy as I floated off the ground, eyes glowing with raw power.
The city center was a battlefield now, abandoned by its citizens. Those who remained watched from a distance, too curious or too foolish to run.
I didn't care.
With a flick of my wrist, I sent a barrage of jagged metal shards hurtling toward Shadow. They vibrated with electromagnetic pulses, disrupting his time field.
He tried to dodge, but the shards sliced through the air faster than he could react. One grazed his cheek, leaving a deep gash.
Blood dripped down his face, and for the first time, his smirk faltered.
"Impressive," he growled, wiping the blood away. "But how will you fight what you can't perceive?"
He twisted his wrist again, freezing me mid-motion. The world fell silent, as if someone had cut the strings of reality.
Shadow approached, ready to deliver the finishing blow.
But he underestimated me. Again.
Electromagnetic waves don't care about time. They pulse. They vibrate. And they bend only to me.
My eyes glowed brighter, and with a crackling surge of energy, I shattered his time field, flinging him backward into a storefront.
Glass rained down as he hit the ground with a satisfying thud.
The city was eerily quiet now, the streets deserted except for the few brave souls watching from the shadows.
Shadow and I weren't even taking this fight seriously, but the destruction we'd caused was a testament to what we were capable of.
And then, everything changed.
Darkness enveloped the city, a suffocating void that swallowed light and sound.
It was too dark I couldn't see Shadow anymore, couldn't even sense him.
My Universal Eyes activated, piercing through the gloom, revealing a figure standing atop the one building left untouched by the chaos.
He wasn't human.
Clad in mist, his alien form radiated an otherworldly power. My systems analyzed him, but the data was incomprehensible. An alien. Here.
"This is getting interesting," he muttered, his voice dripping with disdain. "Let's see how strong you really are."
In an instant, he cloned himself into dozens of copies. One appeared in front of me faster than I could react.
The punch came like a freight train, hitting me square in the chest. My ribs cracked.
Blood sprayed from my mouth as I flew backward, crashing through buildings until I hit the edge of the dark barrier.
Pain exploded through my body. Breathing was a struggle, every gasp a knife to the lungs. My chest felt like it had caved in, and my vision blurred at the edges.
One punch. Just one. And I was already at death's door.
Thirty clones remained.
And the alien hadn't even started.
How the hell was I supposed to survive?