"The cops aren't even doing anything. What do you think?" asked Kínitos.
They stood over a hundred feet away, perched on the crumbling lip of a rooftop, eating the sandwiches they'd brought. The sun still stretched high in the sky, beating down so fiercely it felt like it was raining visible, shimmering rays rather than light.
"It's the usual. No real way to explain this to people," said Violet, closing her eyes. Her nose immediately picked up the acrid stench of burnt wood, pulverized carpet, and melted flesh—though you didn't even need super-senses to catch the last one. Bodies were still being pulled from the wreckage down below. The cops wrote it off as a shooting gone wrong, promising the culprits would be found. It didn't sound remotely believable. Violet's nostrils flared again. The overwhelming rot was pierced by something sharper: the metallic tang of rusted iron, laced with a faint, sweet, and utterly wrong scent—cinnamon.
"I smell something," she said, snapping her eyes open. She scanned the swarming chaos of the crowd. "There—those three. Next to that old couple."
Three figures stood still amidst the commotion, draped in heavy cloaks from head to toe, utterly out of place. Kínitos enchanted his eyes, sharpening his vision until he could make out their distinct silhouettes. One of them slowly turned its head, tilting it exactly toward their rooftop. It licked its lips, revealing a stark flash of sickly, unnatural red eyes. They locked stares.
"They see us," said Violet.
"Let's pay them a visit, then," Kínitos replied, a dangerous grin tugging at his lips.
One of the cloaked figures raised a hand toward their building, palm open. He clenched his fist into a tight ball—the universal gesture of an explosion—and mouthed a single word: "Boom." Violet's hyper-aware senses caught it instantly: a violent shift in the air, a rapid, mechanical flutter. A grotesque, mangled bird—like a Crocker ripped straight out of a nightmare—cut through the sky toward them with terrifying speed.
She lunged for Kínitos, but he flipped them both, covering her body with his as he went completely rigid, bracing himself to absorb the brunt of the shockwave.
BOOM. The explosion reverberated across the city, ringing in the citizens' ears like a thunderclap. Panicked screams erupted below as people scattered indoors. A smaller, secondary blast shook the rooftop tiles beneath them. Violet scooped Kínitos up in a princess carry, his eyes tightly squeezed shut, his stomach churning. She bounded from roof to roof, leaping from ledge to fire escape to lamp post, while the cloaked figures below began retreating into the maze of alleyways.
"I feel so nauseous," Kínitos groaned, bouncing wildly in her tightening grip. His head spun in a daze.
"You're going to be okay. We're about to land—hold tight," Violet commanded, her bicep flexing.
They dropped directly in front of the three. Kínitos slid off her arms, and they both drew their guns. Before they could fire, the trio instantly scattered like roaches. Kínitos chased one; Violet took off after another.
"Shit—we can't get all three!" Kínitos yelled, lunging forward. He grabbed the third figure's hood and yanked it back. Gorgeous, emerald-green eyes stared back at him, framed by a gentle, porcelain-pale face that looked back at him in pure shock. He hesitated for a split second. Is she a normal person?
The girl tore herself from his grasp and bolted with a burst of unnatural speed. Kínitos gave chase, but she vanished into the thick foot traffic before he could catch her, leaving him standing in a dead-end alley, winded.
Turning back toward the Stack, he noticed that most of the police had already vacated the area. In his path stood two new figures: one wrapped entirely in filthy, blood-stained rags that moved like they were alive, and the other clad in heavy, polished armor from head to toe.
"He looks like one of them," muttered the man in rags. The armored man nodded in agreement.
"Hey, you bitch! You're one of the people who kidnapped Boss Marco!" the Rag Man snarled.
Kínitos' mind raced: A mummy... is this one of Two Fangs' new creatures? Wait—he said 'Boss Marco.' So... these are goons working for Marco's dad.
"Hey, I'm fucking talking to you!" the Rag Man snapped. "Jake, he's not listening. Is he deaf or stupid?"
Jake, the armored man, shrugged casually. "Maybe he is. You shouldn't be mean to disabled folks, Bree."
"What the hell are you on about?" asked a thoroughly confused Kínitos.
Before he could get another sentence out, Jake raised his forearm, revealing a small gun barrel built into his gauntlet. SMACK. Violet appeared out of nowhere, her boot smashing directly into Jake's face, launching him across the street into a parked car with a shriek of mangled metal. She spun on her heel and delivered a brutal roundhouse kick straight through Bree.
But her leg passed through him as if he were made of smoke—there was nothing solid there. The rags scattered in the wind, swirling up before reforming into a humanoid shape on top of a nearby roof.
"I've got the robot!" Violet called out.
"I guess I've got the rags," Kínitos muttered, a look of distaste crossing his face.
"Big mistake, little lady! Big mistake!" Jake roared, ripping a car door clean off its hinges and hurling it at her like a massive frisbee. Violet slid underneath it with effortless agility, then drove her fist upward, launching Jake's chin into the air. Jets of fire erupted from the soles of his boots, propelling him back into the sky. He hurtled down at her like a meteor, grabbing her face and slamming her violently into the concrete wall of the Stack building.
"Violet!!" Kínitos screamed in fury.
"Pay attention," Bree hissed coldly. His rags swirled around him like a living sandstorm, before shooting out toward Kínitos, the tattered ends turning razor-sharp and metallic.
Kínitos backflipped, narrowly dodging the slicing barrage. He pulled his sidearm and fired off a rapid volley. Bree raised his bandages into a dense, woven shield, absorbing the bullets like they were rain. Kínitos lunged forward, grabbed the man by his swirling fabric, and hurled him violently into the side of the building with a sickening, resounding crunch.