The man walked towards the building, getting closer with each step. His heart rate slowly increased as the wooden house appeared to get bigger.


He arrived at the wooden house. The darkness shrouded the environment, everything covered in a mysterious aura.

The man walked up the small wooden staircase as the moon's light shined down on the road he had previously taken to get to said wooden house. The staircase creaked as he walked up the first two steps of the small and creaky wooden staircase.

He walked by the window, which was covered in pieces off wood nailed down by someone. As he approached the door, he took two gloves off of his hands and threw them onto the wooden boards beneath him.

The man opened the wooden door, entering the room slowly and closing the door behind him.


"You've arrived. I thought you would be back soon, my instinct doesn't fail me" said a mysterious voice.

"Unironically, you were right. I am back... but you might have misunderstood why. I'm not here to play around."

"I see, you're here to satisfy your thirst. Well, let's just get down to business shall we."

"I'm not here for your business. I come to rid the earth of you. And that is what I will have achieved when I leave."

"... you have 3 seconds."




Silence.

Suddenly, the voice's owner emerges from the shadows, launching himself forward towards the other man.

The plunge is quickly blocked by him, and they see face to face. Grabbing the other's hands, they become locked in combat. Their guards remain high as they tussle with all of their force. Grunting, the man moves his hand around, quickly shooting his opponent who emerged from the dark.

Pushed back, the voice's owner utilizes the force to his advantage by grabbing a small gun from the floor, and holding his adversary at gunpoint.

"I'm not gonna fight fair" the man with the gun said, focusing on the person in front of him.

Chuckling, the adversary replied "I thought you could take me on".



Wasting no time, the man fired the gun rapidly, twice in a row to take down his adversary. However, as quick as the bullets had flown out of the gun, they were rejected by the sound waves emitted from the adversary's hands, flying into unknown directions.

Using his time swiftly, the voice's owner quickly moved out of the way, to avoid the sound waves that had previously deflected his bullets of death.

Slightly scratched by the waves, the man stood his ground once more, but upon quick inspection he noticed his adversary had quickly moved to a new position.

Startled by the noise, the voice's holder quickly blocked the sudden kick he received from his swift opponent, missing the opportunity to grab his leg.

However, despite his attempt, it seemed that his opponent's attack was a disguise for his true attempt at hurting him, as the voice's owner was blasted by a sudden sound wave, knocking him backwards.

Seeing that he was outmatched by astuteness, the man swiftly stood up and opened the window, dodging sound waves from his adversary before jumping out of the house.


With a grunt, the man followed his hurt opponent, out the window, sprinting quickly behind him down the dirt path he had previously walked on.

Passing by the dark city, with no people to be seen, the man followed his opponent through an alleyway, shooting sound waves as quickly as possible to no avail. However, he knew that soon his opponent was to come down, as he was headed for a dead end. It seemed that studying the town was a great advantage, and that would lead him to his victory.

After a last turn, no footsteps other than his own were heard and he stopped to find no trace of his opponent.


Gasping silently for breath, he looked around himself to find nothing. No trace, no evidence, no remainders of him even existing.

There were only two possibilities.


He had escaped beforehand and used a fake to replace him. If this was the case, the fake would have to be nearby. Capturing this fake could potentially lead him to his opponent.

Or, another possibility was that his adversary had entered one of the doors in the alleyway. Whichever it was, he had to act quick, as there was no way his adversary could have vanished into thin air.

The darkness enveloping him once more, with a sense of inescapable hopelessness trying to take hold of him, he traced his steps and opened each. And every. Single. Door.



Until, time passed and it became clear that he had no more room. Only the last alleyway remained to be checked, but he simply could not do it, as the sun's rise indicated the appearance of people.

He had to leave, and so, he did.




Brian was ready. He put his arms where he thought they needed to be.

"Move them down a bit", said William, pointing at Brian's hands. Brian moved his hands down a little.

"Like that?" he asked, trying to not move his arms.

"I guess that works too" replied William, standing a couple feet in front of Brian.

He continued, "Ok, let's start!"

And with that, William got his hands in position. Brian jittered, unsure where to move. He knew that this was simply a training round to get him used to close combat, but he also knew that William had him severely outmatched. William, although not having the most intellect, definitely had the fighting know-how that would quickly give him the upper hand against a normal civilian, such as Brian.



Nevertheless, Brian still promised himself to try his best.


William, on the other hand, also promised to give his best.


With that, William slowly made his way towards Brian. The rules were that you cant use your powers, and if you leave the white circle you lose.

Brian took notice that William was moving forward, slowly and calmly approaching him.

What he did not know, was how to respond to this situation.

He had no chance of running around William, despite the circle being around 8 ft all around, William would probably end up cornering his trajectory anyhow.


William expected Brian to try to escape, maybe run around him or dodge near him, but instead, all he saw was an unsure Brian as he slowly got closer, keeping his arms near his face tot protect himself.

William didn't want to go too hard on Brian, but how else would he learn to defend himself against an opponent? Speaking of which, he wanted to have a rematch with that criminal that escaped last time.

He wasn't gonna let go of that anytime soon.


Brian decided to stand his ground. But as William got closer, he got more and more jittery and started to question his choice.


He had promised to give it his all, so if William is coming towards him, should he try to attack? Maybe defending was the better option, considering how tough of an opponent William is, it would be hard to attack him. He could try to wear him out, but Brian isn't very fast and one hit would mean he would be down.


However, as soon as Brian decided on what to do, he was surprised by a slightly held back punch to the face by William.

Without even having time to react, Brian fell to the floor, landing near the edge of the circle.


"What happened?" asked William, maintaining his guard up after having delivered a blow to Brian's defenseless face.

Hurt, Brian stood up, despite knowing he wouldn't last very long.

"Nothin" he replied, cleaning his shirt off the dust.

William nodded in response, before quickly punching Brian on the opposite side of the face. This time however, Brian made an attempt to dodge the blow, ducking underneath William's swift swing.


However, now that he successfully dodged the blow, he had to figure out what to do next. Knowing he had no time to waste, he attempted to swing a blow to William's stomach, in an uppercut fashion.

William quickly reacted to this, swiftly moving backwards effectively dodging the blow.

Brian fixed his posture and moved his hands into position.

"Getting the hang of it?" asked William, still standing with his hands in place.

"I think so!" replied Brian enthusiastically, "But I want to stop now" he finished.

William lowered his arms, "Sure" he replied. Brian sighed in relief, and sat down on the hard concrete floor.


"Did you learn?" William asked, walking towards him.

"A little bit" he answered nonchalantly. "But now I wanna train my powers" he continued enthusiastically.

"Knock yourself out" William said, sitting down besides Brian.


After a quick sip of water, Brian began to practice his abilities.



Roman was in his office. Unlike most times, he wasn't busy doing anything at all. During these short intermissions, he liked to either watch TV or listen to some music. But, as everyone else was currently busy, he didn't find himself in the mood to do any of those. All he had to do was to sit there and wait. Wait for what you may ask?

A sudden knock was heard on the door, before; as always, being opened.

"The chief has something for ya."

Exactly that, was what he was expecting.


Roman quickly stood up, and went towards his boss' office. He entered the cold aired room and sat down on the comfy chair.

"There was a disturbance reported around the country area, probably some level green stuff. Go check it out so you don't waste your time sitting."

Roman nodded and stood up. 'Level green isn't the most intriguing case, but at least it's something' he thought as he entered his car and drove through the city.




The disturbance was reported around some empty fields, where only a couple old country houses remain. As expected, the only thing filed were some sounds similar to gunshots, and perhaps some faint footsteps as well. Didn't sound like the most intriguing case, yet again, you never know what it could turn out to be.


He stopped his car on a dirt path, near where the disturbances where reported. There were many hills blocking the view, and first he needed to find a location where the reported disturbance could have taken place.


He took some of his instruments, such as his binoculars, and his examination tools; and began walking up the small hill.

Once reaching the top, he took out his binoculars, and after looking around for a couple moments, he spotted a house that might have been involved. Checking the location of the report, he concluded that the house is likely to be a good piece of evidence in finding out what happened.

After a good 15 minutes of walking, and bits of water drinking in between, he made it to the wooden house.

He walked up to it, went up the small staircase and entered. Inside were a couple of broken planks, items and small pieces of dried blood.

Something had happened here for sure.

Roman went towards the small pieces of dry blood first. He recollected some to bring it to the police station. There, he could scan it and potentially find the identity of the criminal involved.

He then went on to examine the room more carefully. Some wooden planks were broken, and some objects were also shattered. The objects wouldn't matter but the wooden planks varied.

Some planks had been shot through by a bullet, that was clear by the rupture of the wood and the small, sharp cut hole in the plank.

However, the other planks were different, yet at the same time familiar. They were shattered, yes, but in an usual way. In fact, it was similar to the way the glass shattered at the mall where the criminal had been.

Yet, these were not exactly the same, as the rupture seemed to be sharper, running deeper through the object, a more powerful counterpart, so to speak.

It was odd yes, however the evidence was there. This had very clearly been the work of the criminal, and some other entity. There were no police reports of any incident near the fields, and the report by which he was sent here was by a civilian.

He was not quite sure where this led him, but he knew it was good grounds for more investigation. So without hesitation, he went on to call the station, and informed them that he required further investigation, as the report was linked to the criminal's case.

With that, he went back to his car, with his collected evidence, and left the fields.

As nighttime fell, William and Brian were still practicing. Brian had learnt to shoot small, shards of ice, yet he was still learning to properly aim these.

William had also made progress, as he managed to break a 3ft wide block of concrete with two punches, which beat his previous record of four.

However, that was then, now it was time for them to head home. They were both satisfied with their results, William was happy to be making progress, and Brian wanted to tell Terrence about this. Speaking of Terrence, he hadn't been doing a lot lately, had he?



Roman reached his house. He had been worried about what he found, as he could not interpret any information. Any other officer would have justified this by saying that it was simply because of the lack of information, and perhaps that was true; but Roman was not another officer. Roman couldn't be satisfied until he interpreted the facts and data to come to a possible conclusion, which had to be likely, of course.



So, as he sat on his comfy bed, he started theorizing about what could have happened. As he remembered more of the information, he pieced together a possibility.

Perhaps the criminal, was after someone. This would explain why the house was tornup, it was simply a confrontation between two people. But this did nothing inhis favor in terms of the mall scene. Why had he gone there? Were the mall andthe person he was after linked somehow? And where is the criminal now? These burningquestions had no clear answer, it was simply too hard to piece together. Yet.

With no way out, all he could do was go to sleep. Unsatisfied, he turned offthe light, and closed his eyes.

Tomorrow would be another day.