“Vincent, Vincent, c’mon man,” he heard those words mixed with the sound of fingers snapping.

  He opened his eyes and saw a face he didn’t recognize staring at him, “He’s up!” They shouted.

  Vincent sat up on his bed and saw several Diamond Council guards in his room, one sitting next to him being the one who woke him up.

  “Vincent. Just the man I was looking for.” Said what seemed to be the leader of this particular group, “We can talk about this flower bed you got here later; Kane is in your basement waiting for you.”

  Vincent rose to sit. He expected his abdomen to be in severe pain, as it was before, yet all pain had seemed to have vanished. “You… you all have no right to be in here.” He said before standing up.

  Vincent walked past all the guards, waving his arms about to signal his order for them to leave. He walked through the house and out the front to meet Kane downstairs.

  “What are you doing here?” Vincent asked as he walked downstairs.

  “Nice work, never seen a live one,” Kane said.

  “How long was I out?”

  “Only through the night.”

  “Your men were in my room; they had no authorization to be in-”

  Kane cut him off, “Not important. This creature could be incredibly beneficial to our studies on how these creatures work.”

  “I have a theory myself.” Vincent said, “I’ve noticed they’ve only attacked while I’m home alone.”

  “That’s what we’ve figured out as well, but there’s still much to be discovered about them,” Kane paused, “Now… they tell me you had a flower bed in your room.”

  “So what, I’m a botanist, sue me.”

  “You know what I’m talking about. You have a whole flower bed full of void flowers. Who authorized you to have them?”

  Vincent thought for a moment, “If we’re back on this subject, I hardly remember allowing your guards into my room, let alone my house.”

  “We took the measures we thought we had to, keeping you safe and comfortable.” Kane retaliated.

  “Could’ve sat me down on the couch” Vincent muttered under his breath before speaking up, “Those flowers are just a little souvenir I kept from back when y’all employed me.”

  Kane kept looking at the target chained up to Vincent's basement support, “Obviously we’ll have to be confiscating them.”

  “C’mon Kane, you know I don’t plan to use them for anything stupid.” Vincent said.

  “No, I don’t know that.” Kane paused, “Do you know what the main material found in those weapons we’re hunting down is?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “Blue plasma, the same material often harvested from void flowers. That’s why those weapons melt flesh when residue is left behind.”

  Vincent paused for a moment, “Fine, do whatever you need.”

  Kane stood up and turned around, glancing at Vincent on his way out. He walked out front into a ship and his guards followed behind, carrying the flower bed with them. A guard came downstairs and told Vincent to leave as they wrapped a cage around the target he had chained up. Vincent went upstairs and plopped down on his couch. He ruffled around in his pocket for a few moments, pulling out a piece of paper. It was the list of the targets he needed to secure.

  Vincent pulled a laptop out from under the couch and brushed off the dust. He searched up the city where the coordinates on the sheet led to. In the news he saw many sites talking about a man with targeting bullets. He’d been committing crimes around the town and intercepting cops’ bullets with his own, somehow by magic. Vincent figured out this target’s whole deal. Vincent set the laptop down and sat back in the chair. Suddenly it clicked.

  The attack from the creature in the tunnels, a piece of metal getting thrust into his ribs. Everything except the gash on his arm from the axe had completely healed in hours, even then, all the axe left was a large scar on his forearm. But Vincent had to be sure, he stood up and went to his room. He rummaged around in his drawers and pulled out a revolver. Vincent slowly pulled back the level and placed the gun face down over his left hand. His finger hovered over the trigger, shaking. He shut his eyes, and a loud crack echoed through the house. Vincent immediately dropped the gun onto the floor and yelped loudly while holding his left wrist. He crumbled to the floor while screaming. He closed his eyes and attempted to focus on something else. Suddenly the pain was heavily subdued. Vincent creaked open his eyes and looked down at his hand. Still gushing blood, but he felt almost no pain from it, as if his body had already gotten used to it.

  Vincent stood up and waddled to the bathroom. He dug around in the cabinet for something to wrap his wound in. Vincent found a bandage and started wrapping it around his hand. While he was wrapping it, he noticed he’d regained some very slight motion in his fingers. Vincent decided he was either going to go with his initial plan if the wound heals by the time he gets there, or come up with a ‘Plan B’ if it fails. Vincent began loading some of his arsenal into his motorcycle he’d been reminded of from the basement, ready to take the target. He carried the motorcycle up the stairs, the back wheel bouncing against each stair as he made it to the top. Then Vincent got on top and whipped off, steering with only his right hand.

  Vincent got to the Diamond Council branch he’d been going to before.

  “Hey…” Vincent glanced down at the receptionist’s name tag, “Gary. Vincent, coming in for another trip in the wormholio.”

  “Yeah… one moment… take a seat over there.”

  Vincent took a seat for a moment before being called to go in. As Vincent went through the door and down the hallway, he pulled out his phone. He tried to call Eiliesh but was immediately sent to voicemail. His finger hovered over the call button again, but he got a text notification first.

  Eiliesh sent him a message, “Hey, sorry, we won’t be able to make it to the mission today, assuming that’s what you’re doing.”

  Vincent just tucked his phone in his pocket as he neared the end of the hall. He opened the door and gave the portal operator the coordinates.

  As Vincent turned around to begin walking down the stairs the operator posed a question, “Hey… what happened to your hand?”

  “I shot myself.” Vincent said without turning around.

  The portal booted up and a ship got carried in front of the portal. Vincent boarded the ship as the portal fully powered up. He flipped all the switches before realizing he left all his gear back in his car, but it was too late, the ship launched into the portal.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  * * *

  Tod gently knocked on Eiliesh door. She opened it and he seemed incredibly uncomfortable.

  Eiliesh spoke up first, “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Can… can we go on a walk?” Tod asked.

  “Sure, let me just… get on my shoes,” Eiliesh said.

  Tod went to the door and waited for her. A minute or so later she came out.

  “Should we leave Vincent a note?” Eiliesh asked.

  “Sure, make something up.”

  Eiliesh wrote down that they were going out to a party and left it on Vincent’s desk. They then began wandering outside.

  “Hey so, was there something you wanted to talk about?” Eiliesh asked.

  “Yeah, I just…” Tod shook his head, “I need to be somewhere else right now.”

  They continued walking until they ended up at a park. They hopped over the fence, the sun was setting at this point. They took a seat on a lush grassy hill.

  They sat in silence for a moment, “I learned something about Vincent…” Tod said, breaking the silence.

  “Oh god, what’d he do?” Eiliesh said.

  “I think… I think he killed someone.”

  Eiliesh sat in shock for a moment, “Like… not just the mindless zombies?”

  “You know the Super Three?” Tod asked.

  “Yeah…?”

  Tod collected his thoughts for a moment, “They used to be the Super Seven, including Vincent.”

  “Oh my god… what did he do?”

  “He collected three of them into a room, pulled out a knife and stabbed all three.”

  Eiliesh turned from the sunset to face Tod, “He… killed them?”

  “Two of them, paralyzed the third.”

  Eiliesh turned back toward the sunset, they sat for a moment. Suddenly Tod’s ringtone interrupted the peace. He looked over and shut off his phone. They sat for a moment more but then Eiliesh’s phone rang, she decided to pick up though.

  “God, Vincent, what?” she asked.

  “Where are you two? Didn’t bother telling me?”

  “We left a note on your desk, we went down to a party.”

  “Oh, who’s there?” Vincent asked.

  “Just a small group of friends, that’s all.”

  “Okay…”

  Eiliesh hung up the phone.

  “What do we do?” Eiliesh asked.

  Tod spoke quietly, “I don’t want to see Vincent tonight. Do we have anywhere else to stay?”

  “Uh… I think I still have a couple weeks left on my apartment, never fully dropped it.” Eiliesh said, “We could crash there for the night.”

  “That sounds good.”

  They began walking down the street, heading towards the apartment building. Eventually after walking for roughly half an hour, they made it to Eiliesh’s old house. They went inside and up the elevator. Eiliesh led him down the hall and unlocked the door. The apartments had the living room and kitchen combined into one room while the bedroom and bathroom were separate. Eiliesh dug in a closet and threw down a pillow and blanket onto the living room couch.

  “That’s where you’ll be, I’ll be over there,” Eiliesh pointed to her room, “if you need me.”

  “Thanks.” Tod said before sitting down on the couch.

  Eiliesh walked into her room. Tod layed down and tried his best to get some sleep, to no avail. Eiliesh came out of her room and the sun beamed in through the window.

  “Its already morning?” Tod asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You get any sleep?”

  “Not a bit.” She said, “You wanna go back or have me make you some breakfast?”

  “I don’t know if I’m ready to go back yet, I can just go out any buy some fast food.”

  “You sure?” Eiliesh asked.

  “Yeah.” Tod sighed.

  Tod left and a couple minutes after Eiliesh got another call from Vincent. She declined it and texted him that they weren’t going to be able to make it. Tod sat outside the apartment for twenty minutes before heading back in.

  “How was your breakfast?” Eiliesh asked.

  “Fine…” Tod said.

  Suddenly a pop echoed from outside, shattering Eiliesh’s window and a bullet sunk directly into Tod’s head.

  * * *

  Vincent landed the ship at the rough coordinates of the target. He stepped into the back of the ship, searching for any form of offense against the target. All he found was a simple pistol. He slid it into his pocket and hopped out of the ship. He wandered around town, sitting in parks, cafés, etc. for a few hours. Eventually he saw several cop cars whiz by. He hopped up and started booking it in the direction the cars were headed. He turned down an alley, hopping a fence where he heard more sirens from. He stopped running when he saw dozens of officers on the floor with helicopters flying overhead.

  Vincent lifted up his hand a looked at it. He slowly unwrapped the cloth. All that was left was a dark red dot on his hand. He indeed had some sort of quick regenerative ability. Vincent’s first plan of tanking the whole encounter was a go. Vincent ran toward the hospital the target had shot the cops from. He sprinted inside, past all the high alert security. All the security was relatively calm though, the target couldn’t be in the building. Vincent ran toward the back of the hospital when he saw someone running through the field behind the building.

  Vincent slid open the door and started bolting toward them. They seemed to be limping from what Vincent could see. One of the officer’s bullets must’ve gotten them. Vincent pulled out his gun and fired once at the target. A spark almost instantly appeared right after Vincent shot his gun, seemed that the target kept limping the exact same without a second thought. He shot another and his bullet sparked mid air yet again. He ran to where the spark was and that’s when he saw it. In the grass was a bullet that’d been squashed by another moving bullet.

  Vincent kept sprinting and as the distance between him and the target closed, they spun around and saw him. Vincent stopped.

  “Drop your weapon, make this easy for both of us,” Vincent yelled.

  They aimed their gun up into the air and fired it.

  Suddenly Vincent felt a sharp pain in the back of his calf. He’d been shot. This was it, Vincent simply had to go for it. Ignoring the pain of each step Vincent charged toward them. They continued firing shots upward. Each one landing in different points on his body. His shoulder, his leg, his stomach, his arm, each several times. Vincent pulled out his gun and started firing, his bullets still being intercepted. As he got within a few meters of the target they figured it wasn’t working and started sprinting away.

  Blood pooled in Vincent’s mouth, he couldn’t move one of his arms, his legs were barely functioning, but he kept running. Vincent began screaming as the pain overtook him, pushing his muscles further and further to catch the target. The distance between the two had nearly closed when the target held up their hand once more. Vincent neared them and pulled out a switchblade. He could barely muster up the strength to grip it. His blood-soaked hands raised the blade when the target fired a bullet. It buried itself where Vincent’s heart was. He crumpled to the ground.

  The target stopped and turned around slowly, every helicopter had either been shot down or simply lost them. They started walking toward Vincent.

  “No way, is this really Vincent?”

  The only sound Vincent could make was a blood-soaked cough.

  “Well, I must say I’m honored to be the one who gets to do this,” The target said, “You had it coming, its just the way it goes, my friend.”

  Vincent slowly turned around and lifted himself up onto his knees. He stepped one foot up and then the other.

  “Oh, that won’t be necessary.”

  Another crack rung through the peaceful field, the bullet landing directly in Vincent’s ankle. He fell back down, this time onto his stomach, gasping for air. Unbeknownst to the target, Vincent was still gripping the pocketknife. The target kneeled down next to Vincent and pressed the gun up against the back of his head. Vincent shut his eyes, concentrating all his strength into what he was about to do.

  Vincent’s eyes opened as he screamed. He lifted his upper body up and wrapped his arms around the target, catching them by surprise and sending them onto the ground. They pushed themself up as Vincent grappled onto them. Vincent reeled his arm up and began repeatedly and swiftly stabbing the target in the back causing them to screech. They both fell onto the ground.

  Vincent rolled off of the target and glanced over down the field, cops were running for them. He also saw the target’s gun lying next to him. Vincent breathed a sigh of relief and shut his eyes, clutching the target’s gun in his hand.

  Vincent woke up roughly twenty minutes later to the sound of sirens. An ambulance was nearing them, and he was about to be loaded into the truck. Vincent coughed all the blood left in his system before lifting himself up.

  “Woah, sir, please don’t move, everything will be alright.” Said an officer standing by.

  “No, I’m… I’m fine, its fine.” Vincent spoke hoarsely while climbing to his feet.

  Vincent pulled out his phone and pressed the call button.

  “Hey, did you grab that guys’ gun?” an officer shouts at Vincent.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, I’ll have to get back to you on that one. My ride is here.”

  The officers started bolting toward Vincent as his ship landed behind him, the back door already open. Vincent hopped inside and shut the door before the cops could do anything. He crawled into the front and powered it up. He pulled himself up into the seat and summoned a return portal, back to The Diamond Council.

  Vincent made it back, he lumbered out of the ship. He stumbled up the stairs and down the hall, tracking his bloody handprint on the walls to hold himself up. He got into his car and breathed a sigh of relief. He pulled out his phone and looked at his notifications, eleven missed calls from Eiliesh.