188 Love as a Weakness
188 Love as a Weakness
Night wrapped the city in a dull haze as I stepped off the edge of the taller building. Wind rushed past my ears, tugging at my coat while the porcelain mask stayed firm against my face. I phased through the roof as if it were mist, then softened the last stretch of my fall with a brief pulse of chronokinesis. The impact became a quiet tap instead of a crash. Inside, my senses spread out automatically, counting heartbeats and breathing patterns. Two people. Close together. Naked. Distracted.
The room was dim, lit only by a flickering lamp. A man and a woman froze mid-motion, their eyes wide.
“Fuck, isn’t that Eclipse?” the woman screamed, scrambling backward.
“What is he doing here?!” the man shouted, panic breaking through his voice.
Before I could say a word, the woman dissolved downward, her body slipping through the floor with practiced intangibility. She vanished in seconds, bringing along the man with her.
We had received solid intel earlier that night. A few capes tied to the assassination circuit were operating here in Markend, and their patterns matched the group that had already taken shots at me. Too coordinated to be freelancers, too quiet to be amateurs. Someone had set up shop here, and they thought hiding in plain sight would keep them alive.
I phased down another level, my body passing through concrete and wiring until I landed in a cramped room below. An old woman sat there, hunched and silent. The naked man dropped behind her in a panic, wrapping his arm around her throat and pulling her tight.
“Stop right there,” he barked, his voice shaking. “I got a hostage!”
I tilted my head slightly and looked at him through the mask. “Do you really think that would work on me?” I said calmly. “Kill her.”
His eyes widened. “W-what?”
My psychic senses swept the room again, sharper this time. There was no second presence where the woman should have been. No fear spike, no pain, no living mind where his arm was locked. The man swallowed hard.
“Look, man, we got no quarrel with you,” he rushed out. “Is this about the bounty? We turned down the job offer! There’s no need to fight between us!”
He lied badly. I could feel it in the uneven pulse of his thoughts, the way his fear spiked every time he mentioned the bounty.
I had already survived two assassination attempts, which honestly wasn’t impressive given the money the Monarchy was dangling and the reputation anyone would earn by killing Eclipse. If anything, the low number told me they were cautious, not brave.
I let silence stretch, then spoke again, my voice even and clinical. “Jamie Green. Male. Twenty-seven. Biokinesis rating four, strength six. You go by Muscleman. Former hero. You sold yourself for money.”
His grip loosened. His breathing hitched.
“Edna N. Flynn,” I continued. “Twenty-nine. Intangibility four, shapeshifter four, telepathy two. Calls herself Haunt. Ex-convict. Recruited directly into assassination work. Also, I can see you. Come now, don’t make this any harder for yourselves.”
The ‘grandmother’ in his arms shuddered. Her form melted, skin stretching and reshaping until the familiar naked woman stood there again. Then her body thinned and faded, turning translucent as her skin took on a sickly green glow. She let out a shrill, inhuman cry, eyes blazing with hate.
“DIE!” she screamed, unleashing a psychic wave straight at my mind.
The force hit me like a dull shove. I didn’t even take a step back. My own psychic defenses rose on instinct, empathy and telepathy locking together and crushing the attack before it could dig in. I stood there, unmoved, staring at her through the porcelain mask as her scream died into nothing.
It was rare for me to fight another cape whose primary class overlapped with mine. Intangibility users were uncommon to begin with, and most of them stayed low because the learning curve was brutal. Haunt, though, was near the upper end of the low-rated spectrum. She was skilled enough to slip in and out of reality without panic and bringing someone along with her, which meant she could reposition freely and disengage whenever things went bad. That also meant she carried the usual weakness of her class. Energy-based attacks tended to bite harder against intangibility, especially when timing and perception slipped.
I didn’t waste time testing that theory. Electricity surged from me in a sharp arc, lightning cracking through the air and tearing straight toward Haunt. She shrieked as the current reached her, but before it could do real damage, Muscleman yanked her away. His body swelled grotesquely, muscles and dense tissue erupting outward like living armor plates forcing their way through skin.
The combination of biokinesis and super strength made my stomach sink at the idea of having to confront a lump of muscle.
Muscleman planted his feet and took the rest of the electric burst head-on. The current crawled across his bulk, scorching flesh, but he roared instead of falling. Then he slammed his fist into the floor. The impact shattered concrete and sent all of us crashing down into the next level. The world flipped, dust and debris swallowing everything. My senses flared, counting heartbeats below us. Three people. Civilians.
Normally, I wouldn’t have hesitated. Collateral was just another variable. But Amelia’s face surfaced in my mind, uninvited and irritatingly clear. I still didn’t know whether she was changing me for the better or simply slowing me down, but the discomfort was there, gnawing at me. I couldn’t ignore it. With a sharp breath, I pushed harder than usual, layering enhancer output with biokinesis to reinforce myself while phasing. Hidden beneath the rubble, unseen and unheard, I moved quickly.
I reached the family first. Father, mother, son. Fear spiked as my hand brushed them, but I didn’t stop to explain. I tapped each of them in turn, phasing them cleanly down to the floor below. It wasn’t gentle, but it was fast, and it kept them alive. Debris continued to fall as Muscleman and Haunt hovered above the wreckage, shouting to each other. I repositioned myself directly beneath them, still intangible, still unseen.
With a flick of my fingers, I sent tarot cards upward. Telekinesis carried them like silent blades, their forms partially phased so they could strike from impossible angles. I felt the impact through the link, clean hits snapping into place. All of them landed where I intended, except one. Haunt vanished from above and reappeared beside me in a ripple of distorted air.
“I’m going to kill you, fucker,” she screamed, keeping her distance as psychic force slammed into my head.
“Wrong move,” I snarled back, unleashing my own psychic scream. It hit her like a hammer. Blood streamed from her nose, her eyes widening in shock as the feedback tore through her concentration.
I didn’t get to finish it. An enormous fist burst through the collapsing debris above us, muscle packed so densely I could feel the structure of the bones inside it. The blow caught me squarely and hurled me through the wall. Concrete exploded outward as I was launched into open air, the night wind tearing at my coat. A hulking shape followed immediately. Muscleman smashed through the opening after me, Haunt clinging to his shoulders like a vengeful specter.
I twisted mid-air, stunned despite myself. I hadn’t expected him to land that hit. Not through intangibility, not with that timing.
Looking closer, there was only one explanation that made sense. Nullification again. It was getting irritating how common it had become, as if the world had collectively decided that I was a problem that needed a specific answer.
In Muscleman’s case, it was crude but effective. Implants. His bones had likely been coated or threaded with null metal, something only possible because his biokinesis let him reshape and tolerate the foreign material. Most people would have died from the procedure. These assassins weren’t idiots. The two that came after me earlier this week had already shown the pattern, one leaning on raw energy output to counter intangibility, the other using tech specifically rated against my class. This pair was worse. One carried adjacent nullification, the other psychic pressure layered on top of intangibility. I weighed my options quickly and discarded possession almost immediately. One body resisted it, the other couldn’t be anchored properly. Fine. There were other ways.
I reached out and froze Haunt in midair with chronokinesis. She hung there like a broken doll, hair drifting, mouth open in a half-formed scream. Muscleman didn’t stop. Momentum carried him forward as he crashed toward me, his bulk smashing through parked cars and sending metal shrieking across the street. Civilians scattered in panic, screaming and diving for cover. I clicked my tongue.
“That could’ve killed me,” I said flatly as I phased a short distance above the ground.
At the last possible moment, I sank through the pavement and reappeared several meters away. Gravity reclaimed Haunt as soon as the time stop released. She dropped hard, landing between me and Muscleman with a sickening sound. Limbs bent the wrong way. Skin split. Blood sprayed across the asphalt. During the brief window when I had been falling alongside Muscleman and holding her frozen, I had already acted. Tarot cards slipped from my hand, guided by telekinesis and sharpened by empathy. At the same time, I turned her own body against itself, burning her nervous system with hijacked bioelectric signals amplified by telepathy and electrokinesis. She never regained intangibility. She hit like a flightless bird.
Haunt twitched on the ground, still alive, eyes unfocused. Muscleman stared at her, shock draining the rage from his face. He took a step forward, then another, mouth trembling.
“I love you,” she whispered, blood bubbling at her lips.
I answered by bringing my boot down on her skull. Biokinesis, enhancer output, and emotional reinforcement stacked together. The sound was wet and final. I didn’t look away. I turned my attention back to Muscleman, my voice calm and empty.
“Tell me about your organization,” I said. “Who sent you?”
His answer came as a roar, grief snapping into fury.
“I AM GOING TO KILL YOU, ECLIPSE,” he screamed, veins bulging beneath warped skin. “IT DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU ARE THE MONSTER OF MARKEND.”
I exhaled slowly. Maybe I should’ve kept her alive longer. Again, it wasn’t like I truly cared what they knew.
I stepped forward, phased down into the corpse at my feet, and let my possession technique take hold. When I stood again, my posture sagged, my voice breaking into a whimper as I looked up at him.
“Jamie,” I said softly in Haunt’s voice, tears leaking from borrowed eyes. “It’s me…”
This was one of the newer applications I had learned through abusing the overlap between possession, empathy, and telepathy. It was effective, efficient, and utterly revolting. I hated it more than most of my other tricks. There was something deeply wrong about wearing the face and voice of someone a person loved, about weaponizing affection and memory until it collapsed inward. Shapeshifters did this kind of thing all the time, turning into mothers, lovers, or dead friends to break their targets, and every time I saw it, I felt the same sick twist in my gut.
The difference was that I understood exactly why it worked, because I remembered what it felt like to be on the receiving end.
I looked up at him through Edna’s eyes and let my voice shake. “Please,” I whispered, tears streaking down her borrowed face. “Please, kill me. This isn’t me anymore.” I made sure my hands trembled, that my posture looked weak, folded inward like I was being crushed from the inside. I knew how strong this kind of bait was, because I remembered the past far too well.
Muscleman screamed her name, his voice cracking. “No, no, Edna, don’t do this to me.” The grotesque armor of muscle and tissue began to loosen and retract as panic overtook him, revealing the man underneath. He staggered forward, sobbing openly now, eyes red and desperate. “We’ll find a way,” he begged. “You can fight it. You’re strong. You’re both intangibility-class, right? Please, Edna—”
He never finished the sentence. I drove Edna’s hand straight into his chest and phased through flesh and bone without resistance. My fingers closed around his heart, and I tore it free in one smooth motion.
“W-what?” he gasped, staring down at the empty cavity as blood spilled everywhere. His body tried to respond, biokinesis flaring as tissue twitched and began to regrow.
I didn’t give him time. I kicked his knee sideways, hearing it snap, and slammed him down. One shoulder hit the pavement hard as I pinned him there, standing over him while his biokinetic regeneration struggled to catch up. Before the new heart could finish forming, I grabbed his head with both hands and phased it into the ground. I left the rest of him tangible. His skull burst, brain and blood merging with concrete in a violent spray, the pavement swallowing what remained.
If I wanted to send a message to the organization hunting me, it had to be unmistakable. I released the possession and stepped back as the meat suit collapsed. Edna’s body fell forward onto Jamie’s, both of them naked, broken, and still. Rain began to fall, washing blood into the cracks of the street.
The area was empty now, aside from overturned cars, flickering fires, and the smell of burned rubber. Sirens would come soon. Worse, capes might arrive if the call went out. Spoiler had made her deal with Leverage, which meant Mira would be obligated to respond if my name came up on the alert. That couldn’t happen yet. The stage wasn’t ready, and neither were the players. I should have left immediately. I should have vanished.
Instead, my luck ran out.
A woman stepped into the street, blocking my path. She wore a black and white tracksuit and a helmet that reflected the firelight. She raised a hand, calm but firm, and I stopped. Slowly, she removed the helmet.
Nicole’s face stared back at me, tired and disappointed. She sighed and shook her head. “This is too much, Nick. Ah, right. Eclipse,” she corrected herself with a dry laugh. “Sorry about that.” Her eyes flicked to the bodies behind me, then back to my mask. “Still, did you really have to do that? I kind of liked them, you know. Edna complains a lot, but she’s funny. Same goes for Jamie, even if he’s corny as hell.”