The past couple of Cycles had been a strange and disquieting experience for Jeremiah King. Dozens of missing person reports, several mutilated bodies found, and nearly no clues on who did it. The Altered Humans were blamed by the fearmongers and the public, but as an Altered Human himself, he couldn’t really do anything to assuage the hostility. It wasn’t as if Altered Humans were a cohesive group. They were just normal humans after all: ones who were exposed to some kind of bizarre energy that sprung up from nowhere and disappeared just as quickly. Besides, there were far more Altered Humans than the public knew, and it was quite possible that the very same people who were afraid of the new and strange weren’t aware that they were also Altered. It wasn’t as if everyone had a physical tell.

And without spending time to check, someone might never realise their hidden potential. Very few Altered were awoken with great, immediate power after all. He had been an Altered for nearly a decade now, starting from an unknown exposure when he was thirteen. Control, breadth, and depth of power took that long to actualise, and it was only the past couple of years since he grew confident enough to make use of it.

It was late afternoon and he and his partner were holed up in their base, just north the island that contained the heart of Neo Prism City, and he was having tea, while Lightfoot, Haven Owen, took her cup of fancy, heavily sugared, iced coffee blend. The blue haired woman moaned as she sipped her drink, though the roots of her hair showed up as a light brown. He wisely didn’t comment.

Instead, he focused on the tablet that showed the abduction and murder tally, some conjectures, and more than a few gruesome photos of the bodies. About half of those found had their torsos burst, seemingly from the inside. Autopsy reports that while it did seem like that, there was also an external force that acted on the torso, which muddled up the investigation. There were no indicators of what came out of the bodies, which was chilling if he spent time thinking about it.

Altered Crime Prevention Group. That was the association the two of them were part of. A government sanctioned squad of Altered to fight Altered. A group that was mostly secret from the public, but necessary considering what kind of calamities an unchecked Altered could be, as noted by history.

“The latest abduction is out in the suburbs,” Haven murmured as she paged her own files. She was reading through her smartphone rather than a bigger tablet.

“Finish your drink,” Jeremiah grunted. “We’ll go as soon as we’re suited up.”

“As you say, Soundwave,” Lightfoot said cheekily, gesturing towards his ears.

He fingered the plugs that covered his ear canal. His Altered physiology enhanced his auditory senses to the point where he could hear a pin drop from a longstride away even if there was a busy street in between. It also couldn’t be toned down, and it took the better part of a year to learn how to focus on specific sounds. Only then was he able to use the second part of his power.

Tea finished, he and Lightfoot headed down to the garage. The unmarked, black van was theirs to use, giving them better anonymity than running in costume outside, or taking one of the flashier muscle cars. He and Lightfoot were mostly in costume, just their masks undone. He put it on before entering the van, and he sat in the passenger seat, letting the Altered whose power involved momentum take the wheel.

“Ella Hark, missing just yesterday.” He read the file aloud as Lightfoot drove the vehicle into the Neo Prism streets. It was almost evening, and the rush hour traffic would box them in if they didn’t move out soon. A good thing their destination wasn’t the city centre. “Greenfield, Aurora.”

“Where’s that?” Lightfoot asked.

“Northeast, along Highway Ninety-five. About a couple of leagues from here.”

“To Greenfield?”

“No, to the turnoff point,” Jeremiah said with a smile.

“Ah, alright.”

For all that Lightfoot was all about going fast, she had the worst memory for places. Direction’s fine, but ask her where the capitol building was, and she wouldn’t know. Heh.

They managed to escape the traffic jam before it solidified into a nine league parking lot, and they puttered along until it grew dark. The outskirts of Neo Prism stretched out for leagues around, and communities, even mini-cities formed around the cultural centre of Astoria Republic. The Endless Sea was just a few leagues south and east too, though some call it the Sea of Storms. It was more an ocean, really, but calling it Endless Ocean didn’t quite roll off the tongue as well as the original name.

Greenfield was a small community that probably covered a square longstride. It might have five hundred households to its name, but according to the dossier he found online, half of the land there was owned by a warehousing corporation that focused on personal storage rather than industrial. The place had nice pictures too, and looked like a perfect staycation place. So close to Neo Prism City, too.

Soundwave rolled down the windows and removed the plugs restricting his hearing. Perhaps he could find something unusual, as unlikely as it was to happen. He didn’t know Ella Hark so he couldn’t find her even if she shouted for his name, but perhaps he could hear signs of distress?

Unfortunately, it seemed the people living in Greenfield were fond of…exotic adventures. He nearly yelled for Lightfoot to pull over when he heard the first squelched scream, only to stop when he heard the following moan of passion. There were at least five sources of such sounds, and it was early evening too!

‘And it looked like such a tranquil place,’ he thought to himself.

He startled when he heard another scream, and at first, he thought it was just another roleplay. But the quality and the timbre of the voice, which was followed by a gruesome, crackling sound, then a wet thump, painted a grisly picture in his head. He couldn’t help but imagine what he heard, and pictures of the victims flashed in front of his eyes and nearly made him lose his dinner. They’d gone for a burger drive-through on the way out and he was regretting every sliver of greasy fried potato he shoved down his gullet.

“There.” He pointed with a quivering finger. “Two longstrides. Maybe three. I’m hearing something else.”

“You alright?” Lightfoot braked hard and spun the van completely around, but ended up parking it properly next to the road. The manoeuvre rattled them around, but Lightfoot’s frame bounced oddly instead of pulling hard against the seatbelt or the window.

“Yeah, heard something bad.” Soundwave’s hand rattled as he unbuckled. He got out of the van with his knees shaking, but by the second step, he was stable.

“Come on. We can’t waste time. Where?”

Soundwave pointed and Lightfoot took hold of his arm. “Jump.”

Long used to Lightfoot’s method of travelling, he took a little hop, just enough so that his feet weren’t connected to the ground. Lightfoot kicked off, and it was as if he was weightless. They flew across the field and then the woods.

Lightfoot slammed against the trees, but her impact didn’t even shake the trunk. He didn’t feel the hit either, and after every slam, she moved faster and faster.

They slowed down a hundred paces from where he felt the scream came from. He wasn’t sure what he was looking at, or rather who. A shadowed figure stood on the field, the Moon’s light barely illuminating the scene. He could see what was probably the missing woman’s corpse on the ground, with her ribs sticking out.

The figure was just standing there, with their hands tucked into the front pockets of their clothing. A grey hoodie, he thought.

If he just looked at the figure, a woman he thought, from the shape, it was a picture of someone enjoying the evening. But with the corpse there…the woman was standing with little tension in her body, as if she was looking at an everyday occurrence. Like it was commonplace to come across a mutilated body. The woman was casually observing…or perhaps she was the cause of this?

He didn’t know, but he needed to find out.

Soundwave’s auditory senses were incredibly potent, but another aspect of his Altered biology was the ability to control his namesake. Soundwaves.

“Take us close,” he said directly into Lightfoot’s ear.

Her hold on his arm tightened and he did a little hop. His vision blurred as they were brought a hundred paces closer, and they landed without a sound.

“Ma’am. I’m going to have to ask you to step away, and hold your hands over your head.”

The woman’s face snapped towards them, but the hood was drawn firmly over her face, revealing nothing but a bit of her neck and jaw. What little he could see made him swallow softly. Her skin was pale and flawless, and her jawline looked incredibly aesthetically pleasing.

The grey hoodie did a lot to conceal her body line, but the hem of it rode up her hip. The tights she wore revealed every curve of her legs, and he felt himself craving to see them without the concealing cloth.

‘Why…am I thinking like this?’ he yelled in his mind, and then, the feeling receded like the tide. Lightfoot’s heartbeat was thundering in his ear, and he wondered if she felt the same attraction, even though he was sure Haven was straight.

The woman withdrew her hands from her pockets and they were treated to the sight of long graceful digits. Her right hand rose up towards her lips, forefinger extended. She didn’t say a word, and instead, shook her finger side to side in clear denial of his order. He thought he could see the hints of a teasing smile, and he could see a burnished golden glow that refected off her hidden eyes.

“A fight, it is,” he muttered, and the woman nodded. “Subdue her,” he said to Lightfoot, who nodded in acknowledgement.

One moment, all three of them were still, then, the woman leapt away from the corpse. Not running from them, but a lateral movement that pulled them twenty paces from the body.

Lightfoot’s leap rocketed her towards the woman, her hand extended to catch. As soon as his partner caught the other, she would drain momentum from her foe and lock her down.

He could barely catch sight of the movement. Lightfoot’s hand closed in, but then, hoodie girl tapped her finger against his partner’s wrist and somehow deflected her trajectory entirely to the side. Lightfoot stopped her momentum an instant later, going from full speed to nothing in the blink of an eye. There was no shockwave, no plume of dirt and dust, just an instant stop. Then instant acceleration.

She tried to grab hoodie girl’s sleeve, her arm, the hem of her clothes, anything. But the quick swipes, lunges, jabs, and flat out punches found no purchase. Hoodie girl simply danced around, not even bothering to deflect or block Lightfoot’s attacks. The first deflection had surprised his partner, but he knew she wouldn’t make the same mistake again. But only if she actually managed to make contact.

And…he was just standing like a fool.

He took a deep breath, held it in his lungs, and filled it with more air. He compressed it inside, denser and denser, until he could feel the unpleasant tightness pushing against his sternum.

“”HAAAAH!” he yelled and took control of the sound waves, and directed it towards hoodie girl’s body. He didn’t focus it on her head, or ears, as that would rupture her eardrums and probably deal permanent damage.

Whoosh! Ptang!

The waves slammed into the girl, but instead of throwing her back, stunning her, or anything of the sort, the waves hit…something, just around the girl’s body. It caused massive ripples to cascade around her, and when the girl took a step back, the earth around her foot exploded backwards, though it left hoodie girl unharmed. But then, she turned to look at him even as she weaved out of Lightfoot’s strike.

Then, it was as if a massive pressure wave fell down on him and filled him with dread.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep