Erika emerged from the shower in a cloud of steam. As she ran a towel over her still-damp hair, she looked at the television and quirked an eyebrow. “What are you playing?”

Giết Năng glanced over his shoulder at her. “Mecho Corez 12.” His eyes lingered on the way her baggy T-shirt clung to her slim frame before he turned back, cursing violently. “Muller, you bastard.” As he insulted Ed’s mother in a mix of Vietnamese and French, Erika rolled her eyes at the back of his head. Who was he trying to fool?

Ed gave him the finger, cackling. “You take your eyes off the prize, you deserve whatever’s coming to you,” he hissed, mashing the buttons on his controller frantically.

“Don’t you think you’re both a little too old to be playing video games?”

“Hey, when in Japan, play as the Japanese do,” Ed retorted, groaning as Giết Năng threw his character through a building. “Remember Brazil? Fuck, they haven’t even made it to the four-digits yet. Their polygons aren’t even six-sided.”

“You’re speaking in a language that I have no interest in learning,” Erika began, but was cut off by the sound of the door opening. Giết Năng paused the game and shot to his feet, Ed following suit a mere second later. Sam and Maddie stood in the doorway.

“Playtime’s over. We’re taking the Sahugins down tonight,” Sam said. He pointed at Giết Năng, who brightened visibly. “Tether, you’re with me. Nox, Mercury, you’re with Maddox.” As the Vietnamese man followed him into the other room, Maddie crossed the floor to the television and unplugged it as Ed collapsed onto the crouch, clutching at his chest dramatically.

Maddie looked at him grouchily. “What?”

“Dude, that was four hours of progress.”

“See if I care.” Maddie cracked her knuckles, setting a projector down on the table, and called up a 3D map of Kyoto. The three of them leaned in. “Desolator and Tether will be taking the southwest. We’re going north.” She outlined a part of town flanking the Katsura River and pinched her nose. “Taizo’s nephew has indicated interest in tagging along. We’ll pick him up before our last major objective for the night, so he doesn’t get in the way.”

“Babysitting?” Ed wisecracked, a shit-eating grin spreading across his face. “Didn’t know you had it in you, Mad –”

Maddie walloped him over the head. “I’m already babysitting you,” she grumbled, returning her gaze to the hologram as Ed rubbed his forehead gingerly. Erika rolled her eyes as he glanced at her for support. <You deserved that,> she mouthed.

------------------------------

Inigo Myoga was waiting for them by the roadside, his quirk perched on his shoulder. There was another boy with him, and Maddie – no, she was Maddox, just as Erika was Nox – coasted to a halt, rolling down the window. “We weren’t told you’d be bringing a friend,” she growled. 

Myoga grinned, his high-wattage smile blinding in the gloom, and Nox squinted against the imaginary glare. Yup, that was definitely him: hero material through and through. A conflicted hero, too, judging from what Maddox had been able to find out from his uncle. “– Jun – uh, Marrow won’t tell anyone. I promise. If he does, I’ll – I’ll take the blame for it.”

“You don’t need to, Ryu-kishi,” his friend muttered. “I’m not a snitch.”

“No, you can keep calling me Inigo. They know who I am.”

Maddox surveyed the two of them for a long moment. Then, she glanced at Nox, and then at Mercury, in the backseat. Both of them shrugged, and Maddox turned back, sighing. “Fine. If you die, you die. On your head be it. Sit down, shut up, and pay attention.” The green dragon on Myoga’s shoulder twitched as they entered the car.

It was a five-minute drive to the last Sahugin stronghold on their list, but Mercury’s stoic façade cracked after less than thirty seconds. Even Nox had to admit that Myoga’s irrepressible enthusiasm was hard to withstand, but after he found out that the two boys were into Mecho Corez as well, the floodgates were well and truly open. When they hit a red light, she glanced to her right and saw Maddox kneading her temples. The two of them shared an eye-roll.

------------------------------

“Okay,” Maddox ordered, turning around in her seat. “Myoga, Marrow, with me. We’ll take the left.” Saying that sentence seemed to take a lot out of her, and she pinched the bridge of her nose as the words came out, visibly repressing a sigh. “Nox, Mercury, you go right. We’ll meet in the middle.”

The street on which they stood wasn’t a traditional stronghold, not by any sense of the term, but at a whisper, dozens of yakuza were liable to come boiling out of the woodwork, wielding sawed-off shotguns and cleavers as they rushed at whoever had been foolish enough to provoke them. Of course, Nox didn’t consider herself foolish. The only foolishness on display tonight would be on their side of the matter. Those who didn’t flee… well.

There was a man approaching them, collar upturned, tattoos visible, eyes wide and suspicious. Maddox got out and shot him in the head. Myoga inhaled sharply from where he was seated behind her, and Nox slid out of the car in one smooth motion, her fog rolling out in thick, choking waves, spreading outwards with incredible speed as the world opened up in her head. Reflexively, she extended her sight to Mercury, Maddox and the two teenagers as they got out of the car on Maddox’s side, Mercury falling into step beside her. Moving on autopilot, they chambered their cartridges.

As Nox’s fog settled over him, Mercury took a long, calming breath, body shifting into that twilight state that he privately referred to as his better self. When he exhaled, he reholstered his handgun and began to twirl his staff in his hand. Lightweight but sturdy, it had been designed by a brilliant fellow who'd been nominated for a Nobel. It had cost a pretty penny, but it was a masterpiece, and he could afford it, anyway. As he spun his staff one-handed, it began to resemble a blur more than anything remotely solid, and between one breath and the next, he was running, arms pumping, legs flickering, heart pumping as adrenaline coursed through his veins. 

The dim streetlights flickered over his skin as he burst out into the gloom, a light prickle, not bright enough to truly force him to a halt. He caught a dozen Sahugins in one magnificent, extended swing, his momentum reducing their heads to an undifferentiated mass of wet matter and bone. They’d been on their way out, having heard the commotion, and their heads had lined up just right. It was too good an opportunity not to take.

Their bodies crumpled to a ground as Mercury came to a stop, panting but exhilarated, twirling his staff in one hand in an attempt to conserve its momentum. In front of him, the entire street was swathed in a dense, thick fog courtesy of Nox; and he knew that, somewhere, hidden in its depths, she was hard at work killing.

There were shouts as more men emerged from the dilapidated shophouses. Mercury’s eyes flicked from side to side, hidden behind his goggles. His other hand rose on instinct, popping off a few shots as he dove through a wall and into the shophouses. A cornucopia of criminality rose to meet him: brothels; gambling dens; rows and rows of guns lined up, waiting to be sold. He even happened on a cluster of illegal Chinese immigrants, huddled behind a false wall. Mercury worked his way through them all, reducing every threatening-looking individual he saw to pulp, and lunged out into the street, back into the fray, his staff a blur of silver, the blood and guts having already slid off like water.

He ran circles around them, shattering ribs and pulping livers where he couldn’t get a proper headshot, and in the space between one breath and the next, it was mostly over. There were a few men still standing, though. There was a man who appeared to have some sort of nausea-inducing aura, and another whose skin seemed to have been transmuted into a reddish material. There was another man, a blue-eyed yakuza, who had managed to avoid his staff by dint of his enhanced reflexes; he’d be the first to go. The rest had made a run for it. Mercury’s mind churned as he thought through his options. Barely a minute had elapsed, but they’d be starting to adjust, getting over their shock. He didn’t have much time left.

Another breath, and he was back amidst the shophouses, battering down the door holding the Chinese immigrants and urging them out into the street. In broken Chinese: “Go on, don’t worry. I’m a hero. Don’t worry. You’re not under arrest. I’m with an agency that can get you proper work. Go on.” His cool, calm tone overpowered their incoherent babbling as he shoved them towards the door, and in the split second before they emerged, he catapulted to the other end, exiting just in time to see the Chinamen get shot full of holes. His distraction had succeeded.

The blue-eyed man had just begun to turn before Mercury got to him; his reflexes were fast, but not fast enough. His staff chewed up the back of his head in an instant, bullets peppering the brick behind him as he flickered to the other side of the road and tackled the nausea-inducing yakuza into a shophouse. They phased through the outside wall, and as his stomach rebelled, Mercury shoved him into a wall and phased backwards. The man screamed in agony as his internal organs blended into the concrete. Mercury put him out of his misery.

The sole remaining gangster spun around as Mercury emerged from the shophouse behind him, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He’d clearly not been expecting him to come from behind. His reddish-brown skin shone in the glare of the streetlights. Copper? Yes, copper. He’d turned himself to copper.

“Surrender,” Mercury said softly.

The gangster surrendered.

------------------------------

“That’s a powerful quirk you’ve got there,” Mercury commented.

Myoga nodded, exhaling a cloud of smoke. His hands were surprisingly steady, given the situation. The green dragon on his shoulder squinted warily at him. “His name’s Gigan.”

“Gigan, huh?” Mercury reached for the dragon, but it shied away. “Cool name.”

A van trundled past as Mercury hopped back onto the kerb. Pale, prettied-up faces stared out from within; new whores to replace the old ones. The corpses had all been cleaned up, and the brothels and gambling dens were being refitted. Soon – within the week – they’d be back in business. Taizo’s men had begun to arrive while he and Nox had been mopping up the last of the resistance, and they’d gotten to work almost immediately. They worked fast, these gangsters. Japanese efficiency.

“They killed my friend,” Myoga said, suddenly, his confession bubbling out without warning. “He was a dear friend. To me.”

Mutely, Marrow patted him on the back. He, too, was smoking. Mercury, for his part, didn’t smoke. To run, he needed a good pair of lungs. Instead, he nodded, commiserating. “I’m sorry for your loss.” A pause. “You did good, though. Much less blood on your side of the street than on ours.”

"No, no, no, I like it," Maddox rumbled, ambling over. "Good cop, bad cop. Contrast your relative mercy with our relative savagery." She tilted her head at Mercury, who bowed theatrically. "The Sahugins will not forget this. When you’re in power –"

“I’m not going to be in power,” Myoga said.

“Whatever you say, man. Whatever you say.”

Maddox’s phone buzzed and she dipped into the car, where Nox was sitting, drumming her fingers against the dashboard impatiently. What she heard must have lit a fire under her ass, because she beckoned them inside. Myoga and his friend extinguished their cigarettes as Mercury ducked into the vehicle, and soon they were off, winding through the crowded Kyoto streets as they rushed south. “Desolator and Tether found where the Sahugin boss was holed up,” Nox said, tossing the words over her shoulder as she fiddled with the GPS. “We’re going to intercept them.”

They ran three red lights on their way to the rendezvous. Tether caught them at the entrance. “Over there!” he shouted, pointing, and Mercury shot out onto the street, but they’d already sped off. He came to a stop, breathing hard as he squinted into the distance. The apertures of his goggles contracted with a soft whir as he turned to look at Maddox, and then Desolator, who’d just emerged from the building. "Should I pursue?"

Maddox looked at Desolator. Desolator looked at him. "Go."

Music to his ears. Mercury began to twirl his staff again, building up momentum until it was sending up sparks every time it graced the road. This, to him, was all that mattered. Not sex, not food, not comfort – but the chase. The twitching, electric semi-certainty that he would catch his prey – but that it wasn’t a done deal until they were properly dead. He inhaled, exhaled, and was off. Between one moment and the next, he’d disappeared, a small cloud of dust where he'd once been standing, and Inigo stared after him in awe as he faded rapidly into the distance, chasing after the dwindling headlights –

"Hey!" Maddox shouted, wrenching the teenager from his reverie. "Get in the car!"

------------------------------

There were four men in the vehicle as it careened through the streets of Kyoto, leaving a rash of furious motorists in their wake. The man in the back, whose name was Satoshi, had a pair of supernaturally sharp eyes, and on his boss’s urging, he turned to stare through the rear windshield at the man who was chasing them. He did not like what he saw.

Mercury moved with the lean, sinewy grace of a top-flight athlete, a thing designed to be at speed. Every joint, every muscle, every tendon seemed to mesh precisely and for just one purpose: to propel him forwards, fast, without fail. Satoshi zoomed in on his bared, clenching teeth, the rhythmic flaring of his nostrils, the wild fixity in his eyes, and felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He was in the presence of a predator.

"Well?" the boss shouted.

Satoshi shook his head. "Drive faster!" he roared.

The man in the driver's seat, whose name was Koji, made a loud, inarticulate noise and slammed his foot down once again, grinding the accelerator pedal into the floor of the vehicle. They were already rocketing along at 200km/h, and this was a vehicle that had gone through a dozen illegal workshops on its way into the boss's hands. Behind them, Mercury dodged motorcycles and phased through sedans, the scissoring of his arms and legs sublimely coordinated, no part of him moving a millimetre further than it needed to, inexorably shaving the distance between him and them with every step he took. When Satoshi glanced behind again, he saw Mercury dragging his staff across the asphalt, the friction sending a spray of sparks into the air. He could almost smell his breath.

“Come on, come on, come on…”

Koji, like his (late) brother, had enhanced reflexes. His blue eyes glittered as he drifted over another busy intersection, pedestrians leaping backwards to avoid the vehicle as they sped northwards. Osaka was no longer friendly, and so their only option was to head north, into Shiga, fleeing along the banks of Lake Biwa. Fumbling with the wheel, he flipped a switch and exclaimed as the vehicle’s headlights burst into brilliant life, forcing Mercury to skid to the side in order to avoid the harsh glare. Momentarily thrown off-balance, they managed to widen the distance for a few moments, but he adjusted quickly.

Satoshi’s boss thumped him on the back. “Shoot at him, you idiot,” he screamed, gesturing at the light machine gun in his lap, and Satoshi obeyed. The roof retracted at the push of a button, and he stood up, gelled hair in disarray from the strong wind, and squeezed the trigger, sending a spray of bullets in Mercury’s general direction. Through his modified sunglasses, he watched in disbelief as the bullets passed straight through their pursuer, and then realized – of course! – that he could just phase through them. He was panic-addled. They were all panic-addled.

Withdrawing into the vehicle, he pulled the roof back into place. “We need something that can give off a lot of light,” he shouted, glancing from one face to the next. He knew his boss’s quirk, and he knew Koji’s quirk, and he knew Wataru’s quirk – but it was too late.

Mercury’s staff cleaved clean through the vehicle, pulping the boss’s head and passing straight through the seat to obliterate Koji’s skull at the same time. With his foot still on the gas pedal, the car careened forwards, punched through the railings, and plunged into the Kamo River. The man who had put them there skidded to a stop, steel-toed boots half-molten from the heat, and dived in without hesitation. Out came Koji and the boss, their headless corpses waterlogged and half-bloated already. Out came Satoshi and Wataru; they’d both lost consciousness upon hitting the water. It took a while for the others to arrive.

When they did, Desolator surveyed the carnage and clapped Mercury on the back.

------------------------------

Erika exhaled, kneading her temples.

Maddie looked at her. “Tired?” They were standing in Inigo Myoga’s grubby, ill-used kitchen. The fridge was full of junk food, and the cupboards weren’t much better. Outside, Myoga and his friend were busy beating the crap out of Ed and Giết Năng in Mecho Corez 12. They were being very loud. Sam, of course, had chosen to head back to their hideout immediately after.

Erika shook her head. “No, not tired. Just… coming down from the high.”

Maddie nodded sympathetically. “You never really get used to it.”

Erika leaned against the counter and tipped her head back, eyes closed. “I think I’m going to go for a walk.”

“Alright. Let me know if anything happens.”

“I will.” Erika paused. “Don’t tell Sam.”

Maddie smiled. “I won’t. I would if it was Edmund, but I think you can take care of yourself.”

“Thanks, Maddie.”

She exited the apartment and took the stairs down. The sun had just begun to rise, and there weren’t a lot of people up and about, especially not in this part of town. Just to be safe, though, she’d donned a face-mask and stuffed her distinctive locks into a beanie. Then, she walked until she was sure that Maddie could no longer see her from Myoga’s floor. 

Erika reached into her pocket and removed a tiny, button-shaped beetle. It was so black that it seemed to drink the light in, and as she stared down at it, a tiny yellow arrow appeared on its back. Forwards. After a few minutes of this, the arrow changed directions. She turned left, then right, then left again, and so on and so forth, until she was in an alley. And in that alley, there was a man. Tall, hair neatly combed, eyes alight with a malevolent golden glow… Erika ran, then, the beetle fluttering away as she rushed forwards, and leapt into his arms.

When they were done, she pulled back and looked into his eyes. “Fancy seeing you here,” she gasped, breathless.

Nightmare smiled down at her. “Fancy seeing you here,” he echoed.