Ilse cried out at the sound of bones breaking as her brother was flattened against the ground by the madman.

This time he appeared to have lit himself on fire before jumping, confirming just how truly insane he was.

Sanne, recharged somewhat, dashed in and grabbed the madman, yanking him away and slamming him into the ground with a crunch.

Bram didn’t even bother shifting, just drove his bare heel down into the man’s eye socket, creating another crunch.

“Help him!” Ilse pleaded, but Sanne was already at Daan’s side, sucking the fire from his body.

She quickly absorbed all the flames, leaving Ilse’s brother blackened and unconscious on the ground, much of his suit melted into his skin.

Ilse fell to his side, weeping.

“He’s alive,” Sanne said coldly. “He’ll be fine.”

Ilse and Daan were twins, though far from identical. Ilse wasn’t sure if this was why their powers worked like they did—the Scion hadn’t said. He hadn’t said much of anything. But as long as she and her brother were close to each other, they shared their powers. She got his ability to defy physics, and he got her ability to heal.

But fire was the one thing she was weak to, so she wasn’t sure how well her healing ability would work on her brother’s burns. Even though most of the damage was from the crazy bastard leaping onto her brother and knocking him to the ground, the fact that he was burned at all might interfere.

Had the madman somehow known this limitation?

She curled up beside her twin, clutching him to her like they were back in the womb again. She hoped the closeness would speed the process, give him more of her power. Hoped that with the flames out, her ability would be able to heal him.

“We need to leave,” Bram said, surprising everyone.

“What?” Olivia asked in disbelief.

“Maybe we can beat him, maybe we can’t.” Bram picked up his robe and put it on. “We don’t know enough about his ability. Or frankly ours, for that matter.” He glared at the corpses of the two slain members of their group. “We’re leaving before he comes back again.”

“But—” Olivia began.

“He’s right,” Sanne interrupted. “Ilse.”

Ilse sniffed and nodded, not getting up, but unwrapping an arm from her brother and holding it out to Olivia and Bram. She and her twin had a third power, but only when they were together: the ability to share their powers not just with one another, but anyone, though only through touch instead of mere proximity.

“No!” Olivia objected.

“Don’t be a fool,” Bram said. He took Ilse’s hand.

Sanne shimmered, the flames dying down but the haze intensifying, and lifted weightlessly from the ground. She could handle her own transportation, and didn’t need Ilse’s help to fly. “Meet at the rendezvous.”

“But the Scion!” Olivia objected.

“Stay and fight if you want,” Bram said coldly. “It’s your life to lose.”

Olivia looked around, arms still obsidian blades, ready to impale them in the madman.

But he didn’t show himself.

She sighed and dismissed the blades. “Fine.”

“Leave them,” Bram said as she began to pick up the madman’s cards where Ilse had dropped them when her brother had been attacked.

“But—”

“Leave them,” he repeated, and there was something in his voice that chilled Ilse. She had the suspicion that the powers they’d been gifted were mirrors, reflections of their true nature, or at least their primal drives. And she thought Bram’s beast form fit him like a glove. Beautiful boy on the outside, but on the inside…

Olivia glared a moment longer at Bram, then took Ilse’s hand in disgust, and the four—Ilse, Olivia, Bram, and an unconscious Daan—took to the air, then zoomed off to the north, followed an instant later by Sanne, leaving their dead companions behind.

∎ ∎ ∎

Sebastian watched the group fly away.

He was on the balcony for a third time, but had decided not to attack.

At first he had just wanted to enjoy their reaction to his surprise attack before seeing how they would react to him doing it for a third time, but then he’d begun to come back to himself, and he’d felt disgust with what he’d done.

Sure, they’d killed him. But he was fine. The first time they might not have known, but they had the subsequent times.

So, were they really murderers? Come to think of it, they’d thought he was immortal, even the first time. That was the whole reason they were after him. So maybe shirtless Lars hadn’t expected his knife to put Sebastian down. Not that kidnapping was much better than murder.

But, it was better. At least you could come back from kidnapping. There was no coming back from dying.

Well, normally anyway. For Sebastian, kidnapping was actually probably worse.

Regardless of how he felt, he would have attacked again if they had tried to take the cards. But the beast-boy had stopped the American girl from doing that for some reason, so he’d let them leave.

He decided to wait a minute before going down to grab his cards, wanting to be sure the group was actually gone and not coming back, thinking maybe the reason they’d left the cards was to lure him into a trap.

In the meantime, he turned his attention to the mental messages the System had sent him.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

You have slain a Scion’s Vassal (Rank F2)

You have slain a Scion’s Vassal (Rank F1)

You have slain a Scion’s Vassal (Rank F1)

You have slain multiple Vassals during the first day.

Title earned: Adversary

Effect: Vassals will be warned when you enter their vicinity. In addition, you are able to detect whether someone is a Vassal. This effect applies only to Vassals within the same rank tier as you.

(This is an automatic effect.)

He didn’t like his new title, and especially didn’t like that it was automatic. The benefit of being able to tell if someone was a Vassal wasn’t worth the loss of stealth.

He wondered when he’d gotten the title. It had to have been recent, because he was pretty sure superhero guy had still been alive when they’d flown off. Luckily it wasn’t during the fight, or they’d have been able to track him down before his cooldown finished.

Yeah, he really didn’t like this new title.

How do I disable this title? he asked the system.

Title is automatic and cannot be disabled.

He grunted, looking over the message again.

He assumed rank tier meant someone who was in the F-ranks, but he asked the System just in case. It confirmed that was what it meant.

Well, at least Vassal’s wildly stronger than him wouldn’t be alerted to his presence.

The ones he’d killed had been a higher rank than he was, since he was still F0, though still within the same tier. He wondered again how he was supposed to increase his rank.

He realized he could just ask, so did.

Information not currently available.

Great.

Though it made him think about something else, something Anubis had mentioned.

Are certain ranks different colors?

Due to alterations, you are now able to see the relative power of other aspirants. The colors are based on a phenomenon humans call redshift and blueshift.

Uh, how about a refresher?

Sebastian remembered the concept from physics class, but could only remember the two ends bookending the spectrum of light people could see: ultraviolet and infrared.

The following are rough estimates. For better accuracy, evaluate another aspirant to directly feel the disparity.

Red to Yellow: much to somewhat weaker

Green: equal

Cyan to Violet: somewhat to much, much stronger

Right, so warm colors were weaker, green was equal, and cool colors were stronger. Easy enough.

He wondered what it meant by feel it. Something to test out next time he saw an aspirant.

How do I activate it?

By focusing on an aspirant.

He looked down at the only aspirants around, the corpses of the two he’d killed. No colors there.

The System couldn’t tell him how he was supposed to increase his rank, but it didn’t seem to be like a video game where he got experience from killing.

Maybe he needed to loot them?

He looked at Lars’s bloody face, and the other one’s melted skin, and sighed.

∎ ∎ ∎

Less than a minute later he was on the street, trying everything he could think of to loot the corpses, but nothing worked.

Is there something special I have to do to loot them? he mentally asked the System. Like in a video game? To get their cards maybe?

You possess no abilities which would allow you to remove items through other than physical means.

How do I rank up then? he asked in annoyance.

All authorized information on this subject has been dispensed.

Finally, he resorted to just going through their pockets. This was easy enough on Lars, since he was only wearing a pair of leather pants.

For Niels, on the other hand, it was more difficult. And not just because the motorcycle gear he wore was partly melted.

While Sebastian managed not to throw up in the process, he needn’t have bothered, because in both cases he came up empty.

He was disappointed. He would have liked to get Lars’s speed. He wasn’t sure what power Niels had possessed, but even if the card had been crappy, Sebastian still could have sold it for orbs.

He picked up his own cards from where superhero girl had dropped them and only then realized he didn’t have anywhere to put them.

His clothes, along with his original corpse, weren’t much more than ash now. Including his phone.

He expected to feel a loss at this, but instead he felt freed.

The old world was dead, and so was his old self. Literally.

The only real annoyance he felt at the destruction was that it meant he needed to get some new clothes.

Hopefully magical ones that could resurrect with him.

Actually, he wondered if something like that might exist and asked the System, which responded by saying anything was possible.

He sighed and looked at his one remaining phantom. It was burned badly, had a severely broken leg and partially collapsed skull, and wasn’t going anywhere fast.

He tried connecting to it again anyway, in case being closer to it made a difference, but had no luck.

Cursing himself for not thinking to grab some clothes while he was there, he headed back into the apartment building—through the front entrance of the building this time—and up to the group’s apartment.

The girl he’d seen in the stairwell was gone, but where she’d been sitting was scorched like someone had taken a flamethrower to the area.

Sebastian wondered what happened, and hoped she was okay.

Reaching the group’s apartment, he scrounged around, looking for something to wear.

After finding something suitable and dressing, he looked around for anything else that might be useful, but ultimately didn’t find anything except a small backpack. They didn’t even have any food to speak of other than a few frozen pizzas.

He took the backpack and forced himself to drink a glass of water, despite not being thirsty, then headed out.

He made his way to the street, avoiding the bodies of Lars and Niels and the remnants of his own body beast-boy had squashed.

It felt weird just leaving it here, but it wasn’t like he was going to carry it around or take the time to bury it.

Shrugging, he headed toward a bike rack.

A sound of a door quietly clicking shut from behind him stopped him in his tracks.

Frowning, he turned around, only to get a fist to the face.

He flew backward, his face somehow now on fire.

He crashed into the apartment building on the opposite side of the road and slammed to the ground, knocking his head on the sidewalk hard enough that his ears rang.

He stared at the sky in a daze, blinking through the fire on his face.

The flames died quickly and his wits returned to him a moment later.

He sat up.

Twenty feet ahead of him, at the spot he’d been punched from, stood a girl he recognized. She was breathing heavily, fists clenched at her side, blue fire in a roaring halo around them.

“What the hell?” he said, his burned lips splitting and cracking. “What was that for?”

In answer, she shot a beam of fire at him.

It took off his head.