The Devil’s Cage

Behind Emma Eddie was a man in messy attire.

The man was pointing a gun at Emma Eddie’s head and he was careful to not show any excessive parts of himself as he hid behind her.

“Don’t you dare do anything crazy! Or else this girl gets it!”

The man shouted and pushed Emma Eddie back into the room.

Then, the uninvited man realized his words were ineffective. Although there were two men in the room who stood up and glared at him, the one sitting at the table was still eating his breakfast.

“Stop! I say stop! Did you hear me!?”

The man pushed his gun at the back of Emma Eddie’s head. The strength exerted through the gun made Emma Eddie stagger forward and the pain from behind her head added tears to her eyes as she stared at Kieran eating his breakfast.

‘So you don’t care about my life and death after our collaboration is over?’

The thought rose in Emma Eddie’s mind and it made her feel wronged.

The man behind her was infuriated though.

“DIE!”

The man turned his gun at Kieran and wanted to pull the trigger.

However, just when the man went to squeeze the trigger, a sharp rapier flew out from the shadows and sliced his neck.

Blood sprayed all over the floor and his head flew up high.

Not only that, the flying rapier spun and picked up the falling body before throwing it out the door.

The body didn’t get thrown on the floor though, it exploded halfway in mid-air.

Bang!

Clouds of smoke and balls of fire burst out from the flying body, the loud bang frightening the neighbours who were on their way to work. Many of them scattered away in panic.

Freezer and Bloodman widened their eyes in shock, even Emma Eddie, who was held hostage earlier, had thoughts in her mind.

This wasn’t a robbery! At least not a simple one!

Robbers were after money, there was no reason for them to strap a bomb on their body, not even a death sentence fugitive would do something like that.

More so, based on the explosive power of the bomb, the man could not have hid it underneath his shirt.

Inside his body?

When the theory popped, Freezer and Bloodman’s faces turned ugly, yet no one dared to disturb Kieran.

They clearly knew how Kieran hated to waste food, likewise being disturbed by others during his meal.

Emma Eddie knew that too, so she put away her wronged feelings and stood aside.

Leaving again?

Stop joking!

Something big had just gone down and the enemies had treated her as one of Kieran’s subordinates. Once she stepped out of that door, she would be on her way to die.

Based on how fanatical the attack was just now, their enemies might not even listen to what she had to say.

The room fell into silence after the explosion, only Kieran’s chewing heard.

When all 10 sandwiches were gobbled down, Kieran wiped his mouth and said to Freezer, “Let’s go welcome our old friend.”

…

Pudder, who once got abducted and lost his identity to the Thousand-faced Man, had regained his police uniform.

He was still in the midst of adjusting his condition and so far so good.

The bitterness of the coffee expelled the exhaustion of an all-nighter.

While looking at the stacks of documents on his table, which Pudder had finished working on, he felt a sense of achievement, his lips curling up into a smile but the chief officer’s smile faded soon enough.

“Chief! An explosion happened at Randletine Street, at least one casualty!”

“Randletine Street?” Pudder frowned when he heard the street name.

A few who lived there gave him quite the headache in the past.

“Don’t tell me it’s Randletine Street 17th.”

“It is right in front of Randletine Street 17th! Your friends are alright,” his assistant provided more details on the case.

“Who is friends with those lawless… bastards?”

Pudder wanted to say something more severe to describe them but all he could say was a mere ‘bastard’.

He didn’t think he should address his life-saver with harsh titles but the identity of his life-saver contradicted his beliefs.

Debt of favour and duty. Both were something that Pudder could not neglect, hence the torture.

Huu!

Pudder took a deep breath and decided to stop thinking about it for the time being.

No matter how hard he squeezed his brain, he wouldn’t get answers by being in his office, so he might as well pay the scene a visit.

He pulled out his gun from his drawer, holstered it and headed down with his assistant. Two police cruisers with officers had already left for the scene.

Someone had to maintain order and protect civilians at the scene of the explosion.

The chief’s car at the basement had no obvious police insignia, purposely making it look like a normal car for the sake of convenience during investigation, only given to the ranks of chief officer and above.

A driver was sitting inside, waiting for Pudder and his assistant.

“Chief,” the driver greeted Pudder.

“Em.”

Pudder nodded, and out of occupational habit, sized up the driver through the wind down window. The officer cum driver looked unfamiliar to him, so he should be a newcomer. There were some little yellow stains in his right middle finger, probably from smoking habits, and although his neck was covered up, a little corner of the tattoo on his skin was revealed.

Wait! Tattoo?

Other than some officers on undercover duty or missions, police officers were not allowed to have tattoos!

Pudder stopped his assistant from getting in the car out of instinct and his sharp eyes glared at the officer in the driver seat.

“You are a newcomer? What’s your police ID?”

As he voiced his question, Pudder reached out for his gun.

“Tsk Tsk Tsk.”

After the officer in the driver seat heard the question, he showed a weird smile and squelched repeatedly, despite having a gun pointed at him.

Pudder’s instinctively felt danger.

“BACK OFF!”

Pudder shouted and dragged his assistant back to the lobby.

KABOOM!

Pudder managed to get 4 to 5 meters away from the car before it exploded.

The huge shockwave sent Pudder and his assistant flying almost a dozen meters away. Both of them tumbled on the ground for a few rounds before they stood up with some difficulty.

Pudder’s face turned extremely ugly as he looked at the wreckage of the burnt car and the messy scene.

“FIND HIM! I WANT ALL CCTV FOOTAGES ON HIM! I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS BASTARD WITHIN 10 MINUTES!” he shouted.

…

While humming a recently popular song, Willis walked out of the building of Hero Alliance.

Following the death of Mr. Ghost, Death Knell, and Grudge Dragon and the cleansing of Smorewill Street, as Drexton’s assistant and the ‘eyes’ of many, Willis got a long overdue vacation.

It has been two years since his last day off.

It was very tiring for him to keep his eyes up on those evil villains everyday. So he ought to have a good rest this time!

At the same time, Willis gave his blessing to his colleagues who were still working.

He earned his vacation but it didn’t mean his colleagues got any.

A lot of his colleagues were still working on cleaning up the remaining resistance in Smorewill Street, including Drexton.

The remaining resistance were all criminals who committed heinous crimes. The court could easily sentence them to death by hanging if apprehended, so they had no reasons to surrender.

Willis, however, wasn’t looking forward to the stubborn resistance.

No one understood the distance between a normal and an Extraordinary better than Willis himself because he was also an Extraordinary.

“Stop thinking! Stop thinking! It’s a hard-to-come-by vacation, I must stay at home and clear all the games that I’ve been saving up. I shall book myself 10 days worth of burgers and Happy Water first before I start my beautiful vacation!”

Willis booked all his meals through his smartphone, unable to t hold back his joyful smile when he thought about the upcoming gaming vacation.

The place he was staying wasn’t far from the Hero Alliance headquarters, it was only one street block away. When he walked back to his place, the delivery boy was already at his door.

“We will deliver your meal punctually everyday for the next 10 days. And because you’ve made a consecutive booking, we have prepared a special coupon for you. The coupon gives you a 10% discount on the next meal booking, so can I have your details here?”

The delivery boy gave Willis a form to fill.

Willis started to write down his details happily. He was living on a salary, why wouldn’t he be happy about a 10% discount?

He could save a lot down the line and it would be enough for him to buy a few more extra triple A games.

While he was writing, Willis heard a weird ticking noise.

It came from the delivery boy. It sounded very familiar, it sounded like… a clock.

Thankfully for his related training and natural abilities, Willis could tell apart the difference between a clock and a ticking bomb. He turned around and ran for it without a second thought.

KABOOM!

KABOOM!

Blazing light shone brightly as flames sprayed everywhere, the explosion causing Willis’ ears to ring loudly but he didn’t care, turning around and looking at his room, which had fallen into the sea of fire. He knelt down on the street.

“My consoles, my games! My figures! My pillows! This is the end! This is the end of everything! The world is meaningless now, it’s become dark and gloomy!”

Willis became weak and dispirited after the explosion.

His condition didn’t change even after he was transported to Randletine Street 17th.

“What’s wrong with him?”

Emma Eddie pointed at Willis, his upper body on the table, looking dark and gloomy.

“I don’t know. I think his beliefs were destroyed in the explosion,” the injured Pudder, who brought Willis here, answered before he looked at Kieran.

“What do you think about the explosions? The tech department checked all the surveillance footage and they found nothing, not even an image of that bastard appearing. Bunch of fatheads!”

Pudder slammed the table as he talked.

Anyone could see how angry he was.

For a chief officer, having a bomb delivered straight up to the station’s basement wasn’t just a matter of provocation, it was an insult!

The worst thing was that he had no way to repay the insult!

Kieran didn’t say anything, instead nodding at the Freezer.

A laptop was placed in front of Pudder right away, showing the surveillance footage of Randletine Street 17th. The shocking thing was the footage didn’t show the explosion before or after, as though it was replaced by a loop.

“Your surveillance system is also hacked?” Pudder frowned.

Before he arrived at Kieran’s, he placed all his hope on Ferris the Freezer because in his files, Ferris was once a math teacher and skilled in engineering. After multiple contact with him, it proved how vigilant he was.

Randletine Street 17th wasn’t just equipped with the most advanced cameras, the surveillance had zero blind spots too.

“Not just hacked,” Ferris said coldly before operating his laptop.

Soon Pudder was looking at the whole Randletine Street.

“Installing cameras in public areas and hacking other private cameras is illegal…Huh?”

Pudder was criticizing Ferris before he stopped all of a sudden, realized the footage during the time of the explosions was missing.

“All my cameras, including other private cameras, public cameras, and all the cameras throughout Alkender City, did not record what happened in that time period, as if the footage had vanished,” Ferris said it in a flat tone.

“All the camera footage vanished? Impossible! The cameras belonged to many different departments, especially those private ones that have extremely high security levels! Although it may be hacked by a hacker, even the best of the best couldn’t hack it all at the same time!” Pudder shook his head.

“It’s hard but still possible, just that the time spent is unimaginable and after that much effort is spent, attacking you and Willis seems to be a little wasted. Based on the action pattern, it looked more like the enemy are doing some insignificant thing, so it must be some kind of abilities that we do not know off,” Ferris said from an objective point of view.

Pudder wanted to argue but he had no words up in his mind.

Although he was a chief officer, compared to someone else, he was really insignificant.

“My games, my figures, and pillows are priceless,” Willis shouted but no one cared.

Pudder looked at Kieran again.

“A bastard with super abilities has appeared, any clues 2567?” Pudder went straight to the point.

“A little. The head. After I chop the head off and threw its body out, the body exploded but the head remained. As a pawn piece, he should have contacted the mastermind,” said Kieran.

Bloodman then brought out a plastic bag.

Emma Eddie twitched her body in an unnatural way. She may be used to blood but a head was out of her league.

“This is great! This is the best news I’ve heard all morning!” Pudder smiled.

“Can you give me the head?” he asked.

“Sure, but on one condition: you must tell me whatever you find,” Kieran smiled.

“Without crossing lines, of course,” Pudder nodded and headed out with the plastic bag.

After the chief officer left and the door closed, the phone in the room rang.

Ring Ring Ring!

Ring Ring Ring!

“Hello?”

The Freezer passed the phone to Kieran.

When Kieran answered the phone, a sinister voice came from the other side.

“Did you receive my ‘good morning’…”

“No.”

Kieran hung up the phone.