The man with the scarred face scratched his head and glanced down at the tiny device.

  “Show’s over, you eavesdropping bastards.”

  With a sharp pinch of his thumb and forefinger, he crushed the transmitter into dust. He looked back at Allen, a smirk playing on his lips. “Sometimes those two are a real pain in the ass—both Titan and Shinobi.”

  An irregular beeping erupted from the man’s watch. The face of the device pulsed with a rhythmic red light. He checked the screen, then locked eyes with Allen.

  “A monster just spawned in Zone D-31. Go do your job, Hero.”

  Allen offered a thin smile and began to walk. Behind him, the man barked the intel he’d just received.

  “The Federation dubbed it Strix Temporalis, Category 3. One of its traits is time-stasis. It’s going to be a bitch to handle if you don’t have long-range attacks.”

  “I’ve got something for temporal shifts,” Allen called back over his shoulder.

  When they reached the intersection, the man stopped and watched Allen head west. “He’s much stronger than he looks...”

  The man pressed a button on his watch, clearing the monster alert. He shed his civilian clothes, revealing the deep crimson gear beneath, and pulled his mask into place. He tapped the comms on his wrist.

  “To all units currently in Zone D: I just spoke with Allen. He’s engaging the Strix Temporalis. You know the drill. Do not repeat the mistake from last time. Anyone who leaves behind residual data of his fight will be handed over to the Heroic Federation—and you all know what they do to people there.”

  His tone was far more dominant than it had been with Allen. It was the voice of a commander, cold and absolute. No one dared to talk back. Orders given, he fired a grappling hook toward a nearby roof and vanished into the skyline, trailing Allen from the shadows.

  Panic had turned the streets into a meat grinder. People ran in every direction, colliding and trampling one another in a desperate bid for safety. Allen could only sigh at the chaos.

  A piercing screech echoed from two blocks away. A second later, a massive wing with obsidian plumage smashed into the corner of a high-rise. Concrete rained down as the face of the Strix Temporalis emerged from the dust.

  As its name implied, it was a raptor-like nightmare with blood-red eyes and a massive ivory beak. Its head feathers were jet black, but they shimmered with a cold silver sheen under the sun.

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  Allen didn't waste time staring. He squeezed the green stone in his palm and bolted toward a massive slab of falling building. In a blur of movement, he reached the debris just before it hit the pavement. He shoved the slab with his bare hand, redirecting its momentum. The concrete soared back toward the Strix Temporalis, but before it could make contact, the monster’s eyes flashed.

  The slab froze mid-air.

  Allen landed and looked at a small boy paralyzed with fear on the sidewalk. “Go. Now.”

  The boy nodded, eyes streaming with tears, and scrambled away into the alleyways.

  “Category 3... shouldn't be a problem,” Allen muttered. “The issue is the time-stop.”

  He looked up at the slab. It hung suspended in the sky, surrounded by frozen clouds of dust that looked like statues of smoke.

  The monster let out a deafening shriek and hammered the frozen slab with its beak, shattering it into jagged shards. Then, it beat its wings. As the Strix’s eyes flared, the shards—previously frozen in time—shot toward Allen like railgun slugs. With a green flash of speed, Allen blurred several yards away, the debris whistling past him.

  “He controls time and wind. That leaves a third ability,” Allen noted. He pulled the yellow stone from his pocket. “If Shinobi doesn't give me my staff and prism back soon, I’m going to have to use Plan B.”

  The Strix Temporalis screeched and flapped its wings, preparing to take flight. The resulting gale forced Allen to brace himself until the monster was airborne, its red eyes locked onto him.

  “Troublesome.”

  The green stone in Allen’s fist glowed, allowing him to defy gravity. He began to hover. “Now we’re even. You want a dogfight, bird?”

  The monster shrieked, seemingly in response, and tucked its wings, diving at him with its beak aimed like a spear. Though the Strix was significantly faster than Allen’s unarmored form, Allen managed to roll in mid-air. He delivered a brutal kick to the monster’s massive neck, using the impact to propel himself even faster.

  The monster twisted its neck with another screech, and the deadly dance of dive and dodge began again.

  Several miles away, a man in ornate purple armor watched the battle through a high-tech visor.

  “So, it was true,” he whispered, a macabre grin spreading across his face. “The little knight’s apprentice has finally shown his face.”

  He pulled a black stone from a hidden compartment. “Let’s have some fun... I wonder what happens if I feed the beast the power of the Onyx?”

  The man slotted the black stone into a gauntlet on his left arm, right next to a pulsing purple gem. A bow of pure violet light materialized, notched with a single black arrow. He drew the string taut, aiming for the monster’s chest, and let fly.

  “Will you use the Topaz again... or something new?”

  The man’s sinister smile widened as the arrow struck the Strix Temporalis. Instead of a wound, a dark, oily radiance began to bleed into the monster’s feathers.

  Allen continued to dodge the Strix's supersonic lunges. Without his staff, he had no way to counter-attack or defend properly. But that changed the instant a black bolt of energy pierced the monster’s chest, forcing it to a dead stop.

  “Was that...?”

  A premonition flashed through his mind, but he shoved it aside to focus on the threat.

  “If that’s what I think it is, this just got life-threatening.”

  The monster didn't die. It shrieked as its body began to swell, doubling in size. Its black plumage took on a sickening, blood-red tint. Its ivory beak turned a bruised purple, and its red eyes rolled back until they were voids of pure, dead white.