Revelation deeply unsettled Horace. How could he, the human leopard, not be the strongest, but rather one of the weakest?
« Wait, that's impossible! You… » Trying to raise his voice, he awkwardly shifted his left hand, which instantly amplified his agony. He remained silent for a moment, grit his teeth to master the spike of pain, and pushed through: « You're the fastest, meaning you can handle any enemy in a split second. ».
Mathias sketched a faint smile, raising a hand to cut him off:
« When you say that, what are you basing it on? ».
« Well, your speed, what else? » Horace replied, glancing down at his plastered arm.
« No, you've got it all wrong, my little Horace. Let me break it down for you », Mathias said, settling more comfortably into his chair. « First off, the strongest among all of us is Thorson—or Odin, if you prefer. At his peak, he can lift three commercial ferries, which equates to 60,000 tons, and he isn't even a Sigma. If he were, he could carry six times that weight, which would equal 360,000 tons. That is monstrous. For those of us who consumed Nova, our physical capacities are multiplied by six. So my raw strength caps out at 300 kilos—it's utterly ridiculous compared to him. I also have another issue: when I hit a certain speed, let's say 210 km/h, my vision starts to blur. It's not like in cartoons where people reach the speed of light and see crystal clear. In real life, it's a blur. I have to lock in a mental image of my trajectory beforehand, and then I strike. But there's one last problem. ».
« Which is? » Horace asked, hanging on his every word.
Mathias continued:
« My body is built for running and withstanding G-force. But if, in the middle of a mission, I take a bad step, or I halt the wrong way and break my foot… I'm dead. My perfect equivalent is the cheetah: if it breaks a leg in the savanna, it's finished. A sprinter with a broken foot is a dead sprinter. Every single one of my strikes has to be surgically precise. If I miscalculate a hit at that velocity, I'm cooked. Speed makes me incredibly fragile. ».
Everything finally clicked in Horace's mind. In reality, the more Mathias accelerated, the more his vulnerability skyrocketed. The tiniest pebble on the ground could sign his death warrant.
« Has that ever actually happened to you? » Horace inquired.
« Yeah. One day, we were mid-mission, negotiating a turn at maximum velocity. I slipped on a tiny puddle of water. My foot folded like a piece of paper, making a grim sound I'll never forget. If the others hadn't stepped in to cover me… I'd probably be underground today. ».
A heavy silence settled between them. Mathias went quiet, his gaze fixed on the horizon, as if he had briefly lost himself in the darkness of his own memories. He took a deep breath, exhaled loudly, and resumed in a lighter tone:
« Well, if you want the exact power ranking list, Méta has it. All I remember is that Thorson is first, which makes sense given that he's the son of a god. ».
Horace snapped his head toward him, completely shocked:
« What? He's the son of a god? ».
« No, don't worry. "Thorson" literally means "son of Thor," and Thor is a mythological god. Every time he did something that proved how massive he was, we would all yell at the same time: "Daddy's boy!" Ah, man, it was hilarious. ».
Horace went back to staring ahead, murmuring pensively:
« Right, I bet. ».
Mathias observed him in silence for a moment. He noticed that for someone who had just had his arm shattered, Horace was acting a bit too calm for his liking. He stood up, scanned the immediate perimeter, and spotted a dry wooden branch lying on the ground. He picked it up, hefted it with a strange smile, and suddenly brought it down with a violent crack right across the casualty's broken left arm.
« AAAAH MY ARM! » Horace shrieked, tumbling out of the wheelchair onto the dirt, completely incapacitated by the agony. « AAAH WHY DID YOU DO THAT?! ».
Mathias pointed the tip of the stick at him, barking:
« Oh, shut up! You were being way too chill for a guy who just got his arm broken, so I reset the pain threshold. ».
Horace, curling into a ball while cradling his fractured limb, gasped out in a fading voice:
« You can't… reset… pain. ».
Mathias casually tossed the stick onto his lap, retorting:
« In your world maybe not, but in mine, yes. ».
Lying flat on the dirt, Horace seriously began to wonder if his arm wouldn't have been safer with Adriana after all. Slipping out of the house to escape the girl now felt like a terrible tactical mistake.
FEW HOURS LATER… DEEPER WITHIN THE CITY OF ALTÉRION
Time: 5:57 PM
Zone: Port Tuvoce
Several vessels were moored along the docks of the harbor. The rhythmic motion of the waves rocked them gently, as if they were nothing more than common pieces of driftwood floating near the bank.
Concealed behind massive industrial containers, six individuals stood motionless, intently scoping out a small fishing boat anchored nearby. Five of them wore identical black puffer jackets. The last one, who towered over them all by a full head, sported a long gray overcoat. They were the elite members of the DHA: Ghost, Méta, Vega, Lame, Odin, and Dark Wolf.
Logan "Méta" was scouting the surroundings, alert to the slightest twitch as if waiting for a specific target. Simon "Vega" quietly approached from behind and tapped his shoulder:
« Hey Logan, you see anything? ».
Logan let out a sigh of pure frustration. He spun around abruptly, pointing a finger directly at his face:
« I am telling you for the 58th time: I see nobody! So please, stop asking me every 52 seconds. ».
Simon looked genuinely flustered by the reaction. From his perspective, his intent was entirely harmless:
« But how am I supposed to know if he's arriving if you won't let me ask? ».
« Uh, how about you do what everyone else does: wait until I tell you », Logan snapped back before turning his back on him again.
« Oh, alright », Simon muttered, backing away a few steps.
But barely had he taken two strides before he returned to the charge, leaning right into Logan's ear:
« So now, boss, is he here? ».
Logan clenched his fists, lowering his head as he fought the urge to drive his knuckles into his face:
« If you keep this up, I'm going to hit you so hard you'll travel back in time to the year 12. ».
« What? Like, the year 1912? ».
Logan violently grabbed him by the collar, roaring in his face:
« No, you absolute moron, 2012! ».
A short distance away, Thorson was hammering out one-handed pushups, visibly ready to scrap at the first signal. Near him, Assad "Lame," bundled up in his coat, was deftly juggling five combat knives while humming under his breath:
« [I unleash the wild ones, they race to their ride, you vanished from sight, they don't know who you are, those are real brothers, they can't miss you, they can't run, those are real blades.] ».
To their left stood Rayan and Ivan. Rayan held a coin between his fingers, examining it from every angle. Ivan, leaning against a structure with his arms crossed, watched with a jaded eye as Logan and Simon continued to bicker. Rayan looked up at him, then asked:
« How do they manage to do that? ».
Ivan shifted his attention to his comrade:
« Do what? ».
Rayan straightened up, sliding his coin deep into his pocket:
« How do they manage to be so happy? We've seen and killed people. There were bad ones, and there were those we loved. We get hunted day and night by the Armored forces, we abandoned our families, and we risk dying every single day. Seriously, right now, we could get busted by the elites and face the death penalty. Yet, look at them, bickering like nothing matters. How do they do it? ».
Ivan cast another glance toward the duo, then answered in a calm, steady voice:
« If you look closely, unlike you, the others paid a much heavier psychological price. ».
« What do you mean, heavier? » Rayan asked, intrigued.
Ivan lowered his eyes to the bracelet wrapping his wrist. The engraved inscription read: "Don't die." He began to explain:
« You see, you and I, we lost the people who were our great moral pillars long before they did. Back then, we only had ourselves for support, and God for comfort. To avoid reliving those things, we avoid getting attached to others out of fear of losing them—but we end up doing it anyway. When you cry, we cry in the dark. We don't want to show our weaknesses to the rest. Meanwhile, they lost multiple people in whom they had placed all their trust and all their love. They never hide their feelings. They provoke each other, they laugh, they fight, while you and I were busy wondering how to even cry anymore. ».
He locked his gaze into Rayan's before adding:
« We isolate ourselves to protect who we are, and they console each other at every moment. They push each other's buttons to forget the bodies they've dropped and the families they've left weeping. Bottom line, if they can do that, it's because they're human… » Then, in a darker, more pensive tone, he dropped: « And we are the damned. ».
That sentence left Rayan deep in thought for a long moment. He lowered his head, watching Simon and Logan who—after practically throwing blows not even a minute ago—were already throwing a secret handshake followed by a quick bro-hug before breaking apart.
Ivan spoke again: « I know what's making you ask these questions. It's because of Dansha, isn't it? ».
Ghost, crouching down to bring himself to eye level, answered:
« Yeah, that's right. ».
Ivan gently tapped his shoulder:
« Don't sweat it. We'll talk about it back at HQ after we return. ».
Vrrr! Vrrr! Vrrr!
Ivan's cell phone suddenly vibred in his pocket. He pulled it out swiftly. The screen displayed the contact name: "La Fouine." He answered without delay:
« Talk to me, La Fouine, what's the status? ».
La Fouine replied from the other end of the line with his characteristic Russian accent:
« [Solid, boss. Heads up: Douglas just arrived with three faces I don't recognize. He entered through Ralak's gate.] ».
Ivan remained perfectly unphased. Not a single emotion breached his features, as if the news had zero tactical bearing on him:
« Copy that. Alert all trusted assets, keep an eye on him. We're moving in right now. ».
La Fouine: « [Understood, on it immediately.] ».
Doot!
He cut the transmission.
The entire squad instantly spun toward Ivan, eyes locked onto him. The leader immediately took the first step toward the exit, ordering:
« On me. He's already inside. ».
Without a word of protest, the group fell into formation behind him. Thorson snapped up from his pushups, dusted the dirt off his palms, and marched. Assad tossed his five knives in a sharp motion toward the sky, threw open the flaps of his jacket, and as the blades fell back down, they slotted perfectly into their hidden sheaths inside. He promptly zipped up his coat.
« I hope there's going to be action », he remarked, falling into step.