A tense silence fell over the rooftop. Raptor's hand was already on his belt, but he had yet to draw anything. "Who are you?" he growled.

  There was no response from the strangers, who stared listlessly at the two. Jon stirred uncomfortably. Even standing still, there was something decidedly inhuman about these men. Even without being perfectly identical. For one thing, they didn't seem to breathe.

  "I'm going to need you six to stand down. I'm taking you in for questioning," he said.

  Again, no response. They didn't even blink either, Jon noted.

  They lunged forward in union, scurrying across the rooftop like a pack of wild dogs. "Shit," Raptor hissed, hurling a chakram from his belt. It whirled through the air with unerring accuracy, and struck one man in the forearm as he moved to block it. The sharpened edge bit deep into his flesh, but he didn't seem to notice. Didn't even make a sound.

  Two raced at Raptor, immediately putting him on the defence. But the other four were focused squarely on Jon. He cursed and jumped aside, avoiding one man as he came skidding past. A blow flew toward his head, and he quickly ducked under it. Grey knuckles struck a nearby air conditioning unit behind him, cleaving through a swathe of steel as if it were damp cardboard.

  He focused and swung at his attacker, punching him square in the liver. The man jerked, but his blank expression never changed. Jon blinked, bewildered. A normal man would've collapsed on the spot. And even a low-grade Dreadnought would have at least been knocked back.

  Two of them pounced in unison, and Jon felt his legs being kicked out from under him. In an instat he had two of the bastards raining punches down on him. Fists filled his vision, punctuated by white flashes of pain, and the iron tang of blood swiftly filled his mouth.

  Try as he might to fight them off, two of the other strange figures had grabbed his wrists and were actively pulling his arms in opposite directions, trying to tear them from the sockets.

  He cried out, actively trying to pull his arms back in while his head was used as a damn speedbag. A normal man would have had his head turned into paste by now. Small wonder Golden Sparrow had been torn up so thoroughly.

  Fuck it, Jon thought. I'm not about to be beaten to death by a pack of creepy nobodies.

  The whites of his eyes turned black, his pupils becoming two blazing orange serpentine slits. His skeleton began to glow, forming a white hot silhouette that contrasted by the blackened iron hue that rapidly spread across his skin.

  Fire exploded from his eyes in two blazing streams.

  The first attacker, directly above him, was not fast enough to dodge as the searing heat sawed deep into his torso. He made no sound as he fell, not even as great chunks of his body were blasted into molten vapour.

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  The heat around Jon's arms grew more and more, his aura and the special material of his suit keeping his clothing from catching alight. His attackers were less fortunate, forced to bull back for fear of their hands being scorched off.

  He leapt up and swung at the attacker directly above him. Jon distinctly felt the man's jaw fracture and crumple, half his face bubbling and melting from the sheer heat radiating from Jon's knuckles. "Come on you fuckers," Jon growled, hastily rising to his feet. His skeleton blazed brightly beneath his skin, the luminous white starkly contrasted against the metallic black edges of his flesh. His hair had seemingly vanished without a trace.

  Jon would have preferred to not use his powers in front of Raptor, but it was that or risk getting his skull stoved in.

  Across the rooftop he could see Raptor still locked in battle with the other two men. His movements were swift, dodging punches with inhuman speed. Yet he rarely found openings for counters, occasionally striking back but only barely forcing some room for himself. At one point he caught one man by the throat and set him alight with a sudden surge of electricity. Yet even this did little. Shock Jock had had to blast them with an immense voltage to take them down, after all.

  His own trio of foes were quick to recover, rushing him in unison. Each blow they landed scorched their fists, but this didn't even seem to give them pause. Jon, in turn, grew angrier and burned hotter with every blow. Even the pain in his face and his arms was reduced to a dull ache, all sensations overwhelmed by his anger.

  He swept a fist upward, punching a sizzling hole straight through the abdomen of one attacker. Even this did not get it to emote or react. It stared dully at Jon, gripping him by the arm. Then a flash shone in his eyes, fire burst from his mouth, and his chest abruptly tripled in size.

  "Oh fu-"

  The strange being exploded, the wave of force ripping his body asunder. The blast slammed straight into Jon, flinging him clean across the rooftop. His body smashed into the damaged air conditioning unit, tearing the steely frame to shreds. But he was able to duck and roll through the air, skidding to a halt near the edge of the roof.

  Already the last two were rushing at him, clearly aiming to knock him off outright. Jon grit his glowing teeth. A fall from this height? Even his durability would struggle to survive that.

  He braced and leaped over the incoming figures, striking one on the neck in passing. The snap of his neck echoed across the tower rooftop. He stumbled, twisting around with his head locked at an impossible angle, took two more steps, and then dropped like a rock.

  Raptor had brought down one of his attackers, his face and torso pierced by a flurry of daggers. He loomed over his last opponent, raining down punches but still finding it difficult to knock him out.

  Jon's last attacker pounced at him like a hungry beast, and Jon saw his eyes take on a blazing glow mid-flight. This time he was prepared, catching him by the throat before he could land. He twisted and flung the man skyward, his insubstantial weight climbing over two dozen meters skyward. His body exploded, the flash nearly blinding. Only a few smoking particles of his corpse floated back to the ground.

  Jon huffed for breath and turned his focus toward Raptor. He'd resorted to snapping the figure's neck, leaving his head twisted the wrong way around. His expression was still dull and lifeless.

  The glow faded slowly from Jon's body, his body still smoking and steaming even as his flesh returned to its normal tanned hue. His scalp tingled. His hair would grow back quickly enough, thanks to that little bit of gene tailoring he'd had done in his younger years. "Thought you didn't kill," he said flatly.

  Raptor grunted, huffing for breath. "I don't kill humans," he said. "But those things weren't human, or even intelligent. They were like cockroaches in human skin."

  "Fair point," Jon muttered. Well, they had some new samples for Peel and his team, at least.

  "Nice power you got there," Raptor replied, resting his hands on his hips. "Dreadnought, clearly, with hints of Prism too. A rare combo."

  Jon grimaced. Just as he'd feared, Raptor was going to use that little display to try and look into his past, see who he may have been before he became the director of ANVIL. It would be a damn pain if he managed to put two and two together.

  Oh well. People would learn eventually. He had bigger problems at present.

  "Shame we couldn't take one alive. Then again they'd likely self destruct, even if you could restrain one." Jon sighed, moving to the nearest corpse. "So... was this just a random attack? Or a planned hit?"