Neither Yata nor Wattz talked to each other as they hurried through the hallways of the StreetSenders HQ. Why would they? They both needed to remain alert and pensive; to remain focused on their objective: escape this place.

Still, Yata felt anxious. The black tendrils danced erratically in the air as if announcing to the world their freedom. It was revolting. After all, this was the first time he had activated Desolation in two years, and he wasn’t exactly thrilled about using it. He hated feeling this powerful.

With each step Yata took, he could feel each tendril curiously gathering under his feet, hoping to crack the stone floor beneath. Their trail of black cracks flowed and dissipated in the air around him as if an aura of death emanated from Yata. That’s what Desolation gave Yata: the capacity to destroy, to damage his surroundings until they crumbled to dust or were altered into unrecognizable things.

He had a force of calamity at his command, and all he had to do to unleash it was loosen the leash: let it respond to his feelings. He could never do that again. If he let a single ounce of his emotions slip, if he lost control of himself once more… He shuddered at the thought of repeating that mistake.

“Cat?” Wattz called to Yata. “The tendrils are acting more erratically. Are you ok?”

Yata turned his head sideways, freezing in his steps in reaction to that awful nickname. He took a breath to calm himself down, slowing the tendrils into a more passive role, before giving Wattz a pained look, “It’s been a long time since I've used it. I just forgot the intensity of the feedback. It’s a bit overwhelming”

Wattz slowly nodded at Yata’s statement, making a calculated stop beside him. No, not calculated, pained; probably due to his power’s activation.

“What about you?” Yata asked tentatively, both testing his luck with Wattz and jumping at the opportunity to focus his mind elsewhere. “Are your shoulders alright? It seems you can’t move them around.”

“Honestly? I feel like shit, but this isn’t as bad as it looks,” Wattz forced out a pained smirk that didn’t convince anyone, “At the very least, I can move my arm compared to other instances.”

This caused Yata to raise his brow in worry. However, before Yata could further question what Wattz meant, the Green-clad Newbie winced and grabbed his shoulder, “You know what, l think it’s best if we focus on getting out of here.”

“Agreed,” Yata huffed, conceding with Wattz, “Still, we don’t have a lot of intel right now on our position nor on who is where. I’ll be relying on your visor’s scan until I can get my PDP back.”

“Roger, Roger.” Wattz nodded, slowly raising his arms, and touching the left side of his string visor, to which he started looking around. “Give me a bit of space to do some preliminary scans”

Wattz clicked his tongue as he looked around, “From what I see, we can’t just jump out of a window. Not only would that attract too much attention from the public, but we would also plummet to our deaths as Mardav has our grapnel guns. Escaping from the inside won’t be easy either. The rest of the remaining guards are blocking almost all possible escape routes.”

“Wait… almost all? Which one is free?” Yata further inquired, gritting his teeth as Devastation tugged at his leash.

“The one we entered through: The emergency stairway on the fifth floor,” Wattz confirmed, still scanning around. “There are no guards near its vicinity. I’m doing an auxiliary Biometric scan to confirm our chances.”

The man continued looking around, taking his time to focus on the scans. Long enough time for Yata to fully assess his physical condition.

Wattz was in a terrible condition, probably worse off than Yata. Wattz's vest had spared him from two slash wounds, but it left his green jacket in tatters. He could also see that his power was actively harming him. It was almost covered in the blurriness, and it seemed to be limp, but it had retained some semblance of function.

This is when Wattz bit his lips and let out a small, frustrated groan, catching Yata’s attention.

“What did you find?” Yata asked him. The Green-Clad Newbie sighed.

“A problem,” Wattz answered, before elaborating further. “My scans are all over the place. Still, I’ve managed to pick up two points of interest. The first is a single remaining duo patrol that isn’t guarding any escape route, but a small room away from the emergency stairway. That’s probably where our gadgetry is. The other thought is more complex: there are three people currently fighting it out directly between us and the emergency stairway. From the movements and the footwork, one of them matches Cyan. The other two could be Mardav and Apatia but I’m not sure.”

“That’s a big problem, alright,” Yata muttered, before shaking his head and furrowing his brow.

“So, what are your orders then?” Wattz asked, causing Yata to raise an eyebrow at his sudden deference. Wattz noticed this, smirked, and then added a snarky comment, “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Cat. I’ll only disobey you if I think your decision puts us in more of a bind.”

Yata rolled his eyes before he started walking once more. Wattz followed closely behind, ready to hear his orders. “We are going towards the guards first. After all, we won't stand a chance of escaping without our gadgets and weapons. Once we’ve achieved that, our priority will shift focus to getting out of this place by whatever means possible, even if we have to fight those three men. Am I clear?”

“Crystal,” Wattz responded. Yata could feel his smirk deepen, signaling his compliance with Yata’s orders.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Thus, once more, both men made their way towards their objective. They ran as fast as they could despite their injuries. They turned corners, not minding the long trenches of lifeless white walls or endlessly similar-looking doors. They even stumbled upon the sickening carnage Agent Cyan had caused. A sight that almost stopped Yata in his tracks as his powers flared up. He wanted to learn every one of their names. Their families needed to know they lost someone to a supervillain. Yet, he couldn’t stop now. There was no time to process his anger and guilt. He had to focus on escaping.

Thus they kept running. Wattz had taken the lead, quickly finding the way up. Traversing the fifth floor was relatively easy too, as it was relatively empty. They turned some corners, evading the ongoing fight between the Agent, Hellent, and Apatia, and in no time, they were near their target. They only needed to turn right, and the room they were looking for was at the end of the hallway.

Both men took a moment to prepare themselves for battle. Wattz cracked his neck and checked up on his shoulders. Yata took a quick peek, confirming two hostile guards looking both tense and alert.

Yata breathed in and let out a silent sigh. His vision was a bit clearer than before. His heart was as calm as a shallow pond. The tendrils waited for him, acting like vultures. They circled around him, hungering for the moment they were free to feast on Yata’s enemies, to let them destroy everything they could touch.

Yata glanced at Wattz, who was waiting for him to act. He was ready. They launched themselves at their enemies.

“The heroes have escaped!” One of them shouted, immediately noticing the two Nemeses. A green hazy fog covered his hand while the other guard’s skin turned a pale bronze. Yata recognized the voice from earlier as the guard Gianmarcos, one of the two guards who accompanied Mardav when they had found the dead woman on the stairway.

“Trev, Formation Seven, now!” Gianmarcos commanded, making the other guard spring into action.

Trev rushed towards them, while Gianmarcos started shooting faint green bursts of energy to cover for his partner. Yata recognized this as a classical spear and shield formation. Always a good battle formation for a pair of metahumans, especially when dealing with close combatants like Wattz and Yata.

“Wattz, I’ll open the way for you,” Yata spoke, not stopping for a minute, “Slip by and take down the guy on the back!”

The green-clad newbie didn’t speak. Instead, he slowed his pace to allow Yata to go ahead. Neither guard shifted their position, as the one with the bronze skin kept charging at the, while the other kept aiming for Yata’s head.

Yata zigzagged across the room. Multiple flashes of foggy green passed his head, but most missed him, not Yata didn’t mind the added danger. For his heart drummed at his chest over and over. His vision blurred, almost blackening. All he could feel was his breathing and a familiar hot feeling coming out of his body. A feeling that went out into the air, poised to lash out.

He blinked a few times, and the guard was already in his range. A boulder of a fist was aimed towards his gut. Yata tried dodging back, but another green bolt almost hit him in the chest, forcing him to circle left. A mistake. He felt a boulder smash on his side, pushing out all the air in Yata’s lungs.

He felt dizzy. A million thoughts ran through his head. All of which were drowned as another hit connected, this time on his ribs. He didn’t hear any bones crack, but that pain almost made him scream. He fell to his knees, most of his initial strength already gone from the previous punches. The guard descended on him… but the third hit never came.

Instead, a wisp of green entered Yata’s sight, as a tattered green jacket flew in between them. It landed right on Trev’s face, disgruntling Yata’s opponent. Then a figure passed them by, Wattz. He was both laser-focused on Gianmarcos and jacketless, but he still managed to flash him a grin.

Yata chuckled dryly. Of course Wattz would make an advantage at Yata’s expense! After all, that was the same thing he had done during his hero exam. However, Yata didn’t mind it one bit. His vision hardened as he let the leash on his power loosen a bit. Emotions overwhelmed him as he directed the tendrils to gather on his fist. He raised it, petit but firm, like a maestro raising his baton getting ready to direct his symphonic band.

In a lull, he breathed heavily, his fist descending towards the floor. He let himself drown by the torrent of his emotions as his fist impacted the floor beneath him. The desolation spread its tendrils around Yata, rupturing his near vicinity. The guard tried to jump away, but he couldn’t do anything. Desolation raced through the floor like an electric discharge, scorching the ground beneath with its trail of black cracks, catching the guard's shoe.

The guard slowly let panic possess him as the tendrils melted the shoe of his feet. He flailed his leg erratically, all in an attempt to slow the power’s hold on him, yet there was no stopping it. The tendrils kept climbing up his leg. Despair took hold of him. His breathing quickened, a whimper escaped the guard's lips.

“Get away from me!” he screamed in terror, flailing his arms. “Get away from me!”

All that did was cause the tendrils to grow erratic. Yata desperately fought for control, but the leash fell from his grasp. On instinct, the guard further hardened his skin. It changed to a faint silver color, almost looking like he was made of Titanium. Yet it was useless, for Desolation was unbound. Any hardening abilities were useless in the presence of this power.

Yata’s power was voracious in its hunger. It rotted the guard’s pants, reaping it thread by thread. The same happened to his shirt. Nevertheless, it was what happened next that horrified Yata. Each tendril of Desolation that touched his skin kept leaving a nasty small black scar on him, followed by a small spurt of blood… and he had touched way more than most could handle.

Another scream escaped the guard. He fell to his knees. Then, his legs had given up, for he had fainted from the pain. The fight was over for him, yet Desolation hungered.

The tendrils tried to further harm him, yet Yata wasn’t going to let them. He took out his clover necklace, gripping it hard. He breathed in and focused on moving his power towards the necklace. It protested against him, but Yata tightened the leash until finally, it relented and returned to his side.

“Are you done over there?” The voice caused the cat hero to raise his head, which welcomed the sight of Wattz breathing heavily. He was leaning beside both the door and an unconscious but fallen Gianmarcos.

“I still need to check his condition,” Yata answered, crouching down towards his fallen “He touched several of the tendrils, causing both injuries and bleeding.”

“Hmm, a “Desolation” indeed. Your power's more terrifying than what I expected,” Wattz commented. He crossed his arm before tilting his head towards the fallen man, “Thankfully this one got to fight me instead of you. He may look like shit right now, but at least I tried to minimize the damages.”

“God, you’re awful,” Yata sighed, but a small wry smile crept up his lips, “Hasn’t anyone told you that yet?”

“Worse things actually,” Wattz replied, amused by Yata’s reaction, “Care to know what they called me?”

“Forget it,” Yata brushed off Wattz’s question before he made his way towards the end of the hallway before stopping right in front of the door. He used his power to destroy the door in front of him and proceeded to enter the room. “Come on, we don’t have much time left before my limiter activates again.”