GRUDGE BURST - Urban Fantasy Multi Protag Downward Spiral

3 AM. Outside a four star hotel, the night is warm and humid. The street lights blare an orange tinge. Scant amount of people are still roaming around the core of the city, while most are asleep.

Opposite to the four star hotel, another hotel stands. Within a damp bedroom, Solomon peers through the window, tightly gripping the railroad spike in one hand. His hands tremble.

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"Jules!" shouts Vincent, before getting shoulder charged straight into the wall by Chad. As Jules gets dragged face-first across the hallway by his assailant, Chad uses his forearm to pin Vincent's neck to the wall. Chad then hammers Vincent's stomach with non-stop gut punches. For a couple of minutes straight, the other denizens of the hotel hear the agent's grunts of "OUGH" "OOF" and "GUUHH"s. Chad then thinks to himself: "(I've been wailing on him for a bit now...Most people would be dead, and even other sorcerers would get knocked out by now. But this guy's just eating all my punches. No way this guy's ability is to soak up damage...)"

Briefly, Chad stops and glares at Vincent while asking a question: "Don't tell me you just trained for defense."

Vincent responds by spitting on Chad's face. Chad grimaces. The pounding continues, this time with louder, audible crunches each time a fist lands on Vincent's ribs. The flesh swells for a split second before getting flattened back down. The vibration of the punches ripple across the point of impact before welling all over the rest of Vincent's body, slowly yet surely frying Vincent's sense of touch. From sting, to ache, and eventually, a pain so great it enflames to numbness.

Even after Jinsei's telepathic ability to make them temporarily forget, some tenants wake up from their momentary paralysis and storm over to the room. They then notice the cold breeze coming from the hallway's broken window, a thrashed open door, and Chad pummeling Vincent in a messy room. Chad hears the footsteps.

The sorcerer looks back while keeping his pin on Vincent's neck. Through his triangular shades, Chad's eyes pierce the other tenants. Chad quietly yet clearly states "If you know what's good for you, you will walk away." Despite the anger of the tenants being very apparent, the same sentiment alarms all across their bodies on a biological, predator-to-prey level. No matter their attempts to scream and punch and kick and yell, their muscles freeze and quietly walk back to their rooms, awaiting for the ruckus to end.

Taking the opportunity to fight back against the distracted Chad, Vincent quickly knees Chad's groin.

Chad slowly turns his head back towards Vincent. Chad is not pleased.

Vincent immediately puts his thumb right under Chad's nose. For a split second, a spark lights up. Letting go of the agent, Chad stumbles back, holding his nose. He smells carbonated, burnt hair.

Vincent dusts himself before raising his arms in a combat stance. "Really?" Starts the agent, with blood trailing down his lips. "That hurt, but a knee to the balls didn't?"

Chad, covering his nose, responds: "You don't exactly train nose hairs, you know."

"Tch." Vincent tilts his head and smirks, wiping the blood off his mouth. "Whatever the case, there's one reason I'll win and one reason alone." He flicks his right hand open, as if sparking an imaginary lighter; a small flame flickers up with the point of his thumb. "Magic."

Chad's eyes narrow, twitching. The swirls in the air contort to an even greater degree.

The air then freezes, before he lets out a sigh. "No need to flex... just gotta get this over with..."

"No need to flex? Do you know who you're talking to?" Snarkily responds Vincent.

"I wasn't talking to you."

Chad clenches his fists, cocks one arm and sends out a haymaker, intending to thrash Vincent's head into a red mist.

Vincent ducks and shoots a quick hook towards Chad's liver, before sending a right uppercut directly to the chin. Vincent's fist stops in its tracks right as it hits Chad's chin.

Chad's eyes pierce through his sunglasses, looking down at Vincent. "Not bad," commends the sorcerer.

Vincent, already backed into a corner tries to circle around the sorcerer, before being denied with Chad's threatening reach.

As Vincent panics, Chad ponders in his head. "(Those punches weren't half bad. I still feel his prowess in ki, even it didn't affect me that much. Nevertheless, I'm toying with my food, and that's no good. Time to finish this.)"

"(God damn,)" thinks Vincent to himself. "(All I can really do is use this rinky-dinky fire spell that acts as a lighter. I have to find a way that-)"

In a blur, Chad grabs Vincent's face and shoves it straight through the insulation, towards the brick wall. Vincent's vision skews, as he sees the blurred image of Chad pummeling him with punches and kicks, driving him further into the wall. With intense concentration, Vincent focuses on Chad's limbs, one by one, as they trail towards Vincent's body.

Chad feels it; every strike he throws suddenly feels as if the limb is underwater. The weight of the punch or kick is being slowed down just as he's about to throw it. Chad pauses.

He points at Vincent; "You're using telekinesis to slow down my strikes right as I throw them."

Vincent wheezes, silently panicking as he thinks up a new plan. Blood dribbles down his brow, lips, and all over his now popped hematomas. Chad continues.

"Clever. However-"

Drastic times call for drastic measures. Chad, in his stance, puts his back foot even farther. From a fighting stance to a runner's stance.

"I'm going to finish you-"

Vincent pieces together what's about to happen. "Oh no," says the agent. Vincent immediately protects the back of his head with his hands, enforcing a majority of his ki to protect the nape and hands.

"Now."

"Wait wait wait waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaITWAITWAITWAITWAITWAITWAITWAITWAITWA-"

Chad fully sprints forward, catching Vincent's neck with his arm, crashing through the brick wall, RKO-ing the agent. Plummeting towards the ground, Vincent screams while Chad holds his serious expression. "ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZ-ACK" yells Vincent, before getting his neck tightened by Chad's bicep.

Panicking, Vincent rummages through the inside of his vest. He feels the metallic outline of a flashbang; no good. He feels the leather taped grip of a baseball bat; not now. He feels a cold, steel button; this'll do for now. He whips out a grip with a button on the top of it, and presses it with his thumb. Instantly, Vincent is gone and is replaced with something else.

Feeling the texture go from "annoying jackass" to "something rough" Chad slowly looks over to what is now in his arms.

A limp ragdoll flails in the air, getting choked by Chad's muscles.

"Tch." An annoyed grunt escapes Chad's lips.

Seeing as how there is less than .8 seconds until Chad and the ragdoll meet the ground, Chad let's go of the ragdoll and spreads his body out like a star. Timing it correctly, Chad braces for impact and for a split second, maximizes his ki output. The sorcerer crashes onto a Black Honda Civic, flattening the entire car while making a Chad shaped indent on its roof. The car alarm wails. Chad's back stings but thankfully, minimized the damage as much as possible. Chad stares into the stars, contemplating about the situation. Meanwhile, 10 feet away, on the road, the doll switches back to Vincent, who's on all fours panting and sweating, trying to breathe in as much as possible before getting up.

Chad looks over at the agent. "Shit."

Vincent looks over at the sorcerer. "Shit."

"Oh my god!" yells a passerby. Both the agent and the sorcerer look towards the pedestrian. A twenty year old man standing there, frozen, stammering. "A-A-Are you okay?"

Both Chad and Vincent think up the same thing: "this is bad." Witnesses were bad enough inside the hotel, but outside is an entirely new level of unwanted attention for the both of them.

Chad then props up an answer within three seconds. He gets up from the car and jumps onto the road, showing the stranger he's fine. "We're shooting a movie."

"Oooh. Okay." The stranger silently pauses before continuing. "...Can I be in it?"

"No," respond both Chad and Vincent. Chad then turns back to Vincent.

THWACK

Chad is greeted by the full swing of a cold, ki-infused steel baseball bat cracking him in the face. The sorcerer stumbles backwards holding his face. He looks down at his hand; he cups a puddle of blood. His nose doesn't stop gushing. His upper lip feels numb. A tooth comes out.

"Yeah see? That's how I feel," shouts Vincent. "Doesn't feel so good right? Like- who does that? No seriously, what made you think 'oh yeah we're like 40 something stories high, let me toss him out the building!' Fuck you dude."

Chad grimaces. The car alarm is still going off. He notices the lights of the hotel windows turn on. This isn't good. "(I have to finish this quickly.)"

Chad coldly walks over to Vincent. Vincent hits Chad over and over again, but without a complete wind up, they do little more than cause small bruises against Chad's flesh.

"Wait wait wait," stammers Vincent. "We can work-"

Chad immediately lowers down and uses both of his hands to latch onto Vincent's right shin, firmly grasping onto it like a baseball bat. He then harshly yanks it back and spins, making Vincent fall, before being held in mid-air. Chad then spins and spins and spins, rotating even harder, faster. Like in the Olympic hammer throw, Chad leans back and spins for momentum, before looking up at his target: the night sky. "There."

"SERIOUSLY WHAT'S YOUR PROBLE-"

Revving up as fast as he can, Chad looks over at the sky. HEAVE. HO.

"WAIT NONONO-" Letting go, Vincent's limp body launches out of Chad's grip, flailing in the air as his body becomes harder to see, before making a sparkle and ding in the sky.

Chad brushes off his hands. "That takes care of that." He then turns to the car and punches a hole past the engine where the honking noise was coming from, silencing the car. That's two down. He then turns to the stranger still looking at awe. "Then there's three."

The stranger still stands there, admiring the muscle bound sorcerer 10 feet away from him. "You guys have very convincing visual effects."

"Yeah." Chad walks over to the stranger, readying to clap the man's skull into paste before-

RING RING RING RING

Chad looks at his pocket, confused. RING RING RING RING

It's his phone. "(This guy can wait...)" thinks Chad to himself, still standing in front of the stranger. He whips the phone out; it's Jinsei.

"BRRR. BRRR. BRRR- Jinsei? I'm uh... a little busy here."

"Whatever you do," hisses Jinsei, "do not kill the agent. We need them."

Chad audibly sucks in some air. He silently facepalms before mouthing the word "fuuuuuuck."

"What is it?"

"No it's um. Umm... Nah, don't worry, I got this. By the way are you good? You don't sound-"

"MY FUCKING LUNGS ARE COLLAPSED" yells Jinsei, peaking the phone's microphone; Chad is taken aback by the phone's loud messy quality. "Detain the agent but don't kill him. I just let one get away and I'm going to get him now. Make sure they don't find Solomon. We'll figure out where to meet up later. Don't fuck up."

*CLICK*

Chad looks at his phone confused.

"...Well that was a little rude..." The sorcerer then looks over towards the vague direction of where he just threw the agent. He then looks back at the stranger. Then back towards the night sky. He then sighs. "But then I'd have to clean that up too..." He turns back towards the stranger and says "you didn't see me." He lowers himself in a sprinter's position, and within three seconds, bursts forward in a blur, vanishing in the night, swerving from one road to the next, passing through alleys, jumping from wall to wall, escaping the city towards the highway, and from highway, straight towards the fields that spanned for miles on end.

The stranger stands there and says to himself, looking for movie cameras: "...wait was I supposed to say a line?"

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Flying up above, Jinsei [scans] the city, looking for his target.

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Walking underneath scaffolding, Jules hides in the shade out of precaution. Even if one of them just got crushed by a bus, who knows if another sorcerer were to pop out of nowhere. He takes his phone out and calls Vincent.

RING RING RING RING. RING RING RING RING.

No response.

"Shit." Whispers Jules under his breath. He then calls a different number instead.

RING RING RING RING. RING RING RING RING.

A woman speaks up. "CIA headquarters; state your ID-"

"Melinda, its urgent."

"...Jules?"

"Yes. I'm in the middle of a mission. Vincent and I have both been compromised by sorcerers. I don't know how they know we're here, or what organization they're with, but we need back up. I've tried calling Vincent but he's not picking up. Make sure to track our coordinates and-"

A cold shiver. Jules feels it. The loud presence. As if knowing a bird of prey is watching from up above, or a tiger is merely a couple feet away, waiting to pounce. He slowly turns around.

Standing in the middle of the empty street, is Jinsei, crossing his arms. Blood drips down his brow. Parts of his jacket and skin is torn. Visible cuts and scratches tatter the majority of his being. Yet, with his cracked glasses in tact, and an annoyed expression, Jinsei patiently waits.

"...Jules....Jules?" calls out Melinda.

"I'll call you back."

Jules hangs up and pockets the phone.

"You're alive." Says Jules, starting to circle around Jinsei.

"You're one to talk." Responds the sorcerer, walking the opposite direction.

Jules stays silent.

Jinsei starts. "Let's find some place that's a lot quieter. I believe its in both of our best interest to not be seen by people."

Jules tilts his head and grimaces. "Fair eno-"

In an instant, Jinsei uses his wings to circle around Jules, and grasps onto the back of the agent's neck. Diving forwards mid-flight, Jinsei veers towards the ground, dragging the front of the agent's body towards the asphalt road. Jules, bracing for impact, holds his forearms up and protects his face. Within seconds, his suit worsens at the same rate as his ki chips off. Two streaks of blood and ripped asphalt elongate as the agent gets dragged across the ground.

Meanwhile, Jinsei's eyes dart around the cityscape looking for the best place to fight. The park? "(No; even if its the dead of night that's still too much of a risk. Any tall building is a no go for obvious reasons. And I don't want a repeat of what happened in the factory.)" Eventually reaching the edge of the city where smaller shops are located, he spots the perfect place: a bakery with a majority of the setting being red.

Ending the rocky ride, Jinsei, still carrying Jules with one hand, throws the agent towards the giant glass window with all of the pastries still in display. Jules rolls as he lands on the floor, immediately using the momentum to stand back up. He reaches into his vest and grabs a black wristband, as well as two daggers. He quickly slaps the wristband on. "(I finally figured you out,)" thinks Jules to himself.

"(Throughout the previous fight he depends too much on his fluid motions. But seeing my hypothesis from earlier work, his fluid motions would also imply the same weakness as squishy solids. No matter how much you disperse my impacts, and no matter how slippery you are:

A. Even if you can disperse the damage, if its big enough (like a bus), it'll be too much to the point where spreading it becomes a detriment.

B. Slashing attacks would still work on you.

Right now, I still have to test out B. but for the most part, I've got him figured out)".

Jinsei jumps through the broken glass window and takes off his red jacket. He looks at Jules. The agent is stanced up, awaiting for Jinsei to attack. The sorcerer furrows his brow.

"(I'll admit it,)" thinks Jinsei to himself. "(You won earlier because I underestimated you; I'll accept that. But for you to repeat my mistake-)"

All of the red immediately leaves the jacket as it becomes a pitch black version of itself. Red ink crawls up Jinsei's hand.

"How disappointing."

[Heart-wrencher]

He drops the jacket and goes into a javelin throwing position. In an instant, the red ink morphs into a ball, and then fashions itself into a long sharp spear. Jinsei launches the makeshift weapon straight towards Jules' chest.

Caught off-guard, Jules barely sidesteps the projectile in time. Unfortunately for the agent, Jinsei keeps up the pressure by gliding and dropkicking Jules in the chest. Jules is pushed back; Jinsei stares at his opponent. The sorcerer then takes off the hair tie keeping up his manbun, and lets his long orange hair flow. The moonlight behind the broken display illuminates his being. The air contorts not in swirls, but rather, in the formation of hands; hands aiming towards Jules' neck. With big waving motions, Jinsei circles his arms in a kung fu stance, before crashing his foot down, shaking the entire room. "HOUSS."

Even if it's only a display of power rather than a tangible attack, Jinsei knows the importance of psychological warfare, and connecting the body's motions with the soul's intent.

Jules, shaken, but not stirred, ignores the pressure. With his daggers in hand, he walks closer to Jinsei. Jinsei, keeping his kenpo stance, inches closer as well. The two meet up in the middle, wrist to wrist, blade to hand. They stand there for what feels like hours, awaiting for the other to strike. Jules stares at Jinsei's chest; Jinsei stares at Jules' soul.

The air sits still.

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"(Now.)"

"(ℕ𝕠𝕨!")

Jules tries to slit Jinsei's wrist, going for a combination of small, quick slicing maneuvers, before getting parried and slapped away with minimal movements. Jules feints a slice with one hand, before thrusting forward with the other dagger, aiming for Jinsei's head. Yet Jules clearly sees Jinsei's head distort and swirl around the knife. "What?" Says Jules, flabbergasted. The agent redirects the knife outwards to at least slash Jinsei's cheek. It works, at the cost of receiving a meaty elbow to the nose.

Jules stumbles back a bit, ignoring the fresh bruise on his face. Jinsei wipes away the blood on his cheek with his thumb; the blood is gone. The sorcerer then makes a quick flicking motion towards Jules' left arm. Jules looks down but doesn't see or feel anything. Jinsei then makes the universal "come over here" motion with his hand.

"Come back."

Jules stands there, staring at the sorcerer. The agent doesn't feel anything. "(...If this is a Psychopower attack, either he sucks, or he's simply baiting me.)"

"No," responds, Jules.

Walking forward, Jinsei lowers his head and stares at Jules. Just as Jules' right foot takes another step backwards, he feels something catch onto his foot. He looks down and sees: A glob of red.

"I wasn't talking to you," assures Jinsei

Confused, it takes only a second for Jules to realize what this thing is. "(The spear!)"

Immediately, the red blob clutches onto Jules' foot and sticks itself to the ground. Jinsei slithers forward, readying an attack. Jules knows that any supernatural resource has to be economical. So either he maximizes his ki for a short moment to rip this thing off of the ground, or he uses as little as possible to spare more ki for the fight. Yanking his foot with all his might yet as little ki as possible, the red matter stretches to a tar-like consistency, refusing to let go of the agent's foot. Meanwhile, Jinsei circles around and hammers a punch towards Jules' kidney. Jules tries to retaliate with long, out-stretched slices. But with Jules' leg stuck on the ground, Jinsei merely leans back an inch, evading any danger, and kicks the knife up, out of the agent's hand. Jinsei then snatches the knife mid-air.

"Shit," mutters Jules.

Jinsei steps to the side and backs out, nearing the kitchen area. He then proceeds to grab a bag of flour and throws it at Jinsei. White dust engulfs the room, blinding the agent. Jules, still stuck to the ground, frantically takes off his sunglasses, yet the cloud of flour still blurs his vision.

Jules thinks to himself. "(My ki, magic, and psychpower sensing skills are still at a novice's level, so the only thing I can rely on is my intellect. The obvious answer to where he would come from would be-)"

He turns around; "(my most obvious blindspot!)"

Jinsei bursts forth from the cloud, raising the dagger. Seeing as how dodging is out of the question, Jules holds his hand up. In the same instant Jinsei drives the dagger down onto Jules, Jules turns off the ki running in his hand. Jules' hand is then skewered straight in the middle of the palm. Jules then reactivates the ki in his now punctured hand, and clutches onto the knife for dear life. Confused, Jinsei tries to yank his hand back, yet Jules' grip won't budge. Jules shoots out a quick weak knee to Jinsei's liver with his free leg before bringing it back down to stand on. Both of them feel the impact disperse and spread out across Jinsei's body.

"(He's still in his squishy state- which means I can do this.)"

Just as Jinsei retaliates with a kick, Jules swiftly brings his other hand up with the knife, infuses it with ki and slices Jinsei's wrist in an attempt to chop the hand off.

[FA-JI-]

"AAGH-"

Jinsei's kick cracks at Jules' ribs, aiming to rupture the left lung. But due to being attacked at the same time, this causes Jinsei to misfire the [Fa-jin] kick and the force is instead transmitted towards the left shoulder. As for Jules, he performs the best attack in this situation. Due to [Fluidity]'s nature of trading durability for energy dispersal and turning the practitioner into a malleable, slippery person, that would mean its main weakness would be against any cuts that would be able to graze the user. Not only did Jules successfully infuse the blade with his ki, but he also beats Jinsei in compatibility. Due to his current nature as a half and half ki and sorcery user contrast against Jinsei's all-rounder nature, this means Jules' ki is technically stronger than Jinsei's ki. However, one significant thing holds Jules back compared to Jinsei.

Experience.

No matter how quick Jules was able to grasp the nature of these abilities, it all pales in comparison to years of practical application.

Being held together only by a string of muscle and a noodle of cartilage-like bone, Jinsei's durability, even while still using [Fluidity], barely manages to hold his hand together.

For a split second, Jules looks up, straight into Jinsei's face. He is met with fresh bloodshot eyes and saliva frothing through Jinsei's ravenous teeth.

"Insect," snarls Jinsei, before continuing: "pop."

[Heart-wrencher]

All of a sudden, something sharp goes through Jules' bicep and tricep. The agent glances down; he sees an impossibly thin red needle go through his arm.

"Crawl," commands Jinsei oncemore. The warping, mercurial wings upon Jinsei's back then condense themselves into a metal liquid, crawling up Jinsei's arm, down the half-torn wrist, then back up Jules' hand and eventually up Jules' neck. The sorcerer, with his hand dangling by sinew and squishy bone, lets go of the dagger and takes a couple steps back.

Too distracted with the metallic object crawling up his body to wonder how the needle landed on his arm, Jules desperately grasps onto the metal... to no avail. Every time he tries to get a hold of the metal, each clump disperses into smaller fragments of grey dust. Slowly yet surely, he feels the grasp of the metal ease in tighter and tighter, choking him.

Eight feet away, Jinsei touches the red and black tiles of the ground. He infuses a bit of magic into the ground, before the red tiles rise up and crawl up his mangled hand. As the red connects his wrist back together, Jinsei thinks to himself: "(It's a good thing he didn't realize the needle I flicked at at his shoulder earlier... not that it helped much anyway, but it doesn't hurt to have him affected by it.)" He looks at his reconnected hand, as the red finishes stitching the hand back together. He opens and closes his fingers; "(It's uncomfortable but it will do for now.)" He then turns back to Jules, who is struggling for his life. "(But now, this is checkma-)"

Jules, struggling to breathe, realizes the crucial nature of the situation. "(If I don't escape out of this metal, even if I concentrate all of my ki into my neck for defensive purposes, I will die. I don't have a magnet, and rummaging for a taser is too much of a risk since I don't know how the metal works. The only thing I can do now is-)"

Rushing forward, Jules puts his hand on his black wristband.

"(Seven seconds.)"

Jules puts up his hands, feigning a peek-a-boo style approaches as he runs towards the sorcerer.

"(I have seven seconds to kill him before the metal chokes me.)"

Jinsei, seeing the agent bursting towards him, prepares to parry a punch. "How insolent can you be?" Scoffs Jinsei.

Pulling a metal hook from his wristband, Jules feints a punch, and immediately flips over Jinsei, revealing what the wristband actually is: A garrote wire. Catching Jinsei's neck as Jinsei tries to parry the nonexistent punch, Jules lands on the ground behind Jinsei and immediately pulls with all of his remaining ki. "(Pull,)" thinks Jules to himself; "(PULL.)" Slouching his back while flexing his muscles, Jules carries all of Jinsei's weight on his back while putting all of the pressure on the sorcerer's neck. A harrowing "HACGCK" comes out of Jinsei's mouth. The ki amplified steel wire cuts into Jinsei's gelatin skin. Even with the caught fingers trying to push back against the wire, both the neck and fingers bleed, cutting deeper, second by second. Jinsei gargles loudly; Jules makes the most of his last breathe of air. Both wrestle for consciousness.

"(I...have to...cut his carotid...)" thinks Jules, inching closer towards blanking out.

Jinsei on the other hand kicks in the air. "(NO,)" he thinks to himself, gargling. The taste of blood becomes very apparent; his vision gets darker. "(NONONONONONONO. ALL OF THIS. ALL OF MY TIME. MY MOURNING. TO BRING BACK KAI, JUNO, EVERYONE. TO SOLVE THE UNFAIR SYSTEM OF LIFE. ALL MY EFFORT...)" A tear goes down Jinsei's eye. "(TO END LIKE THIS.)"

SPLASH

All of the metal around Jules' neck lets go; microscopic beads rain down on the ground. For a split second, he feels Jinsei's body go limp. He takes that split second to loosen his grip and focus on breathing as much air as possible.

In that split second of unconsciousness, Jinsei's body feels the string loosen up. In just a split second, Jules slips up.

With a gasp, Jinsei cancels [fluidity] and maximizes his ki's output. "NO." gargles Jinsei; "I refuse". Latching onto the wire with his half-cut fingers, Jinsei flexes his own back to unslouch Jules' back and lands on the ground. With the the maximized durability, using his fingers and neck muscles, Jinsei tugs forward, flipping Jules back in front of him. Jules lands on one knee. The agent looks up-

CRUNCH

A meaty knee greets Jules' face. Not letting his ki go to waste, Jinsei rushes the staggering Jules, grabs his hair with one hand and with the other, punches the agent's body upwards. The punch itself is so strong, it launches Jules off the ground. Then Jinsei alternates with another punch. And another, and another, carrying him up foot by foot in the air, well above Jinsei's own head. Unlike [fluidity] which has strikes that aim to pass through the body, the regular application of ki sledges the surface of Jules' skin, chipping away at his ribs despite the ki coursing through his body. As the agent gets comboed mid-air, he sees his assailant's face for a split second: a spitting image of a determined, inhumane creature, filled with nothing but malice, and self-righteousness. Just as Jinsei finishes carrying Jules' body up the air, Jinsei strikes a Chinese kung fu stance, yelling "HO." In slow motion, Jules' half-conscious vision sees Jinsei transition from the stance into a sideways shoulder-charge typical of Chinese kenpo. "SHIAO!"

Jules is then launched across the bakery, splatting flat against the wall, before slumping down to the ground.

The sorcerer slowly walks up to Jules' body. "Just for good measure," mutters Jinsei, before sending one last kick to Jules' chin, surely rocking the agent's brain by now. Finally, Jules lies there, unconscious.

Jinsei sits down on the ground, across Jules' body. Breathing heavily, he lets of the telekinesis that was keeping his body together. "Return." The shapeshifting pool of metal eagerly slithers back to its owner. "Wings." The metal then latches onto the sorcerer's body, retaking its usual shape. Jinsei then rummages through Jules' pockets, eventually finding the agent's phone. "I'll be needing this." He then picks up Jules' limp body and walks out of the bakery. "For someone who's clearly a novice," says Jinsei. "You are... really annoying to fight." Jinsei's ki drops to a minimum, nearing human levels. He then lets his wings do a majority of the lifting, flying back up to the sky.

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A couple miles away, in the fields outside the city, a ragdoll comes plummeting down, rustling the tall grass. A few seconds later, Vincent replaces the doll, gasping for air. "My... GOD," says the agent. "On one hand, that guy's a dumbass, and on the other, this replacer chip is really fucking good."

"Oh yeah," says a cold, heavy voice. "I should've remembered you could do that."

Immediately turning around, a cold shiver runs down Vincent's back. There he sees Chad standing there, barely sweating.

"H-H-How did you-" stammers Vincent.

"I ran here."

"B-but you're-"

"I'm very fast, I know. Also you've been falling in the sky for a long while, not sure if you realized."

The both of them stand there, awkwardly. The cold wind blows by.

"..."

"..."

Chad walks up to Vincent before slamming his fist onto the agent's chin, knocking him out.

"That was easy..."

RING RING RING RING

Chad immediately picks up the phone. "Yello?"

"I got my agent. He's knocked out cold. I'm assuming you got yours under control too?"

"Yup. What now?"

"Send me the coordinates to your location. Also send them to Solomon. I have a plan."

"What's the plan?"

"I'll explain in a bit but the best case scenario, things go smoothly and it helps us operate. Worst case scenario, I don't know the exact circumstances but the only thing I can say for sure is to get ready for a long night."

Chad lets out an audible sigh.

"Anything else?"

"For now that's it, but just in case, be ready to be defensive. One of the agents called their headquarters and now they know we're here."

"...I don't know what to say."

"Then don't say anything. Be ready when I get there."

*Click.*

Chad stands there.

"...Man I just want to eat dinner now," he says, kicking the dirt.

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Not too far away, Giovanni, Scotia, Dani, and ZXVC9 get closer to their target.