1

The eyes of his prey glowed in the darkness.

Although the wrapper still looked human, at this point it was more beast than man. It raised an arm, which had transformed into a mess of metal and wires. A firearm installed in your own arm, one of the many atrocities of the modern era.

"Die!" Shouting his desperate desire, the prey opened fire.

The man across the alley did not move from his position. He didn't even try to dodge. That steel storm could shatter tree trunks with ease, so it went without saying what it could do to a frail human body. But he didn't even try to dodge.

He didn't need to.

With one fluid motion, so much so that his prey didn't even see him, the man unsheathed his katana.

"What? How is that possible?"

He only realized seconds later what had happened. The man had deflected every single bullet with his katana. It was so amazing that, instead of being overwhelmed by his inhuman speed, he was more surprised than frightened. For the moment.

The prey acted as such. In other words, turned around and ran away. He rounded the corner. The man knew very well what was on the other side.

He walked unhurriedly forward, chasing his prey. All in good time. There was no need to rush the moment of climax.

Another storm of steel greeted him as soon as he turned the corner. He deflected the bullets with the blade of his katana as smoothly as before. He saw the fear grow in the eyes of his prey. He saw the first crack in his heart.

There was little left for him to collapse completely.

Only then would he deliver the coup de grace.

He didn't know what he had gotten himself into. The fair thing would be to send him to hell only after opening his eyes. Though it wasn't as if that beast knew anything about fairness, or deserved it.

His prey kept running. The man didn't increase his pace one bit. Not that he knew it was a dead end. He didn't know what lay beyond the next corner. He simply had no fear of this weakling getting away from him.

The prey must have been feeling like the alley was endless. He stopped to turn around and shoot him again. He should have kept running since that didn't even slow him down. Barely moving the hand with which he held the katana, he did it again.

If the bullets were a tempest of steel, then the man was an impenetrable fortress of steel. Not a single one would get through.

The prey rounded the next corner.

When the man got there, still walking, he saw him nowhere even as he moved his head. Then he felt him. Behind him, putting the gun against his skull.

He wasn't as dumb as one might expect. He didn't boast of his apparent victory, didn't waste time. But the man didn't allow him to fire anyway. Demonstrating once again his inhuman speed, he spun on his heels and cut off his gun arm with a single slash. On the ground, it was enveloped by particles of dark blue light as it returned to its original form, a human arm.

The prey writhed on the ground as he screamed and cradled what was left of his arm as if he could retrieve it, as if there was a way back.

In the moonlight, his face sunk in shadows, the man raised the katana to finish what he had started.

A massive form descended beside the wounded beast.

A man over six feet tall with arms like logs. Aside from a mask, very short pants and knee pads he wore nothing but his boots. Yes, he was dressed as if he had stepped out of a wrestling ring. The man blinked. The wounded beast was vulgarly common, but this was not something you saw every day.

"This is the best bodyguard you could get?" The man spoke to his prey for the first time. He usually didn't like to waste oxygen when he was working. "What, only this circus freak was in your budget?"

The wounded animal stood up, still clinging to the stump of his arm as if it could do anything to stop the bleeding. Despite the wound he had just received, he ran very fast to escape. The fear must have eclipsed the pain. He couldn't waste time with this freak.

The giant said nothing. It didn't lunge to attack directly, instead, he grabbed one of the garbage cans with both hands. He lifted it with ease and threw it towards him. The object reached a surprising speed, which was the same as strength. If it hit.

It didn't quite make it. His katana cut the trash can in half, and the trash fell all around him without even soiling his suit with the smallest stain.

The giant had wasted no time. He was big, but not slow. He lunged at him, trying to grab him with both hands and crush him as if he were a toy.

The man jumped. The leap carried him over the giant dressed like a wrestler, and he was able to land smoothly crouched down.

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He took off running. He could handle the circus freak, but that didn't matter. He'd waste too much time on that, and his real target was that man.

It wasn't a dead end. He saw the wounded animal steal a car, dragging the occupant out with the only arm he had left. The man might be superhuman, but he wasn't some kind of superhero. If he tried to chase him on foot, he would lose him.

Fortunately, he had come prepared.

The man pulled a black cube from his elegant jacket pocket. On top of it was a blue circle. He dropped it on the ground, watched it as it rolled. As it gave off discharges of blue energy and grew to more than twenty times its size, transforming into a motorcycle.

He got behind the controls of the bike. He stepped on the accelerator. The prey had proved to have an ace up its sleeve and had now disappeared from his sight, but he was still not afraid of losing him.

The wrestler didn't give up so easily. In other words, he picked up another dumpster and tried to hit him. This time he didn't even have to split it, it just missed him. It bounced off the hood of a car, sinking it and cracking the glass before falling to the side.

His organization didn't like collateral damage, it wasn't his style either, but it was more important to stop his prey than to stop the wrestler on his tracks.

That guy wouldn't be able to catch him on foot either, naturally. As much of a freak as he might be, that would be a step too far. So that shot would be the last thing. He'd have to back down after that.

Completely ignoring traffic laws, the man from the syndicate pursued the prey at high speed.

And the ability to weave through traffic without getting hit and ending up in the middle of the road.

Soon he saw the car the prey had stolen again. In no time he would be on top of him and this time he wouldn't escape.

His motorcycle stopped suddenly. For a moment, he thought he had run out of fuel. But the engine was still roaring and the wheels were still skimming the road. It hadn't stopped, it had been stopped. The giant wrestler had grabbed the rear end, bringing it to a halt.

Fast. And strong. Too strong.

The man didn't use his sword, he just kicked the wrestler in the chest. That's how he got him to let go and started off again. He almost hit a car in the process. He would have, had they not swerved to avoid running him over. He had to get out of here before he caused a car accident, and he had to catch his prey no matter what.

As for the wrestler, who could be a problem for the civilians....

2

The big guy fell to his knees in the middle of the road. To his credit, he only let out a grunt of pain instead of screaming. Anyone else in his position would have screamed.

She'd blown a chunk out of his right leg, after all.

The big guy turned the mask in her direction. There was nothing friendly about him even with the shiny star on his forehead.

"Now you're going to play with me," the woman said.

Retreating back into the darkness of the alley.

3

He didn't work alone.

The prey had simply chosen the first vehicle at hand. With something like that he couldn't outrun him and his motorcycle. He was almost upon him.

But the man was patient, and now he had a better reason to hold back than in the alley. He just had to wait a little longer.

Get it a little closer. Until the distance to cover in one jump was within his capabilities.

Now.

There was no room for doubt or fear of death. If he hesitated even for a second, the opportunity would slip through his fingers. The man jumped, returning the bike to its cube shape at the same time. He landed perfectly on the roof of the car he was chasing, on all fours, with the elegance of a cat.

He thrust the sword into and through the roof, intending to take the scalp of his prey. The vehicle began to move erratically. Because of the fright and because he was trying to get rid of him like that, to throw him off. He hadn't killed the prey, not yet. The man couldn't see him, but he could hear him whimpering. It didn't matter.

He pulled the sword from the roof of the vehicle. He didn't need it to keep his balance. The katana had cut a hole in the roof, his hands finished the job. He opened the roof wide, exposing his wounded prey.

He had been doing a good job driving so far, considering he only had one arm, but his luck had run out.

Their gazes met for the last time.

The eyes of a wounded animal and the eyes of a hunter.

In the blink of an eye, less than a breath, he drove the sword into his skull. The man spun over his head, forward. He landed on the hood of the car. He didn't see the rest, but he heard enough. Skin and flesh tearing, blood and gray matter flowing. The katana blade must have reached up to his nose.

The driver was dead. The man was ready to regain control of the vehicle, he started up at once. He entered through the window, smashing it with his boots and dislodging the corpse of his prey to one side. But it had been too late to avoid crashing from the start. It wasn't a matter of if he had only been a few seconds faster, he hadn't had a chance from the start.

The vehicle slammed into the fence hard enough to sweep it away, even as he slammed on the brakes.

But in the end it stopped.

There were no more incidents, no more surprises, no more cards up the sleeve. The job was over for the night.

The man glanced at his copilot. What was left of him, anyway. His head had been split in half. His nose too, his judgment had been correct.

"Pathetic. But nothing is more pathetic than the life you led. I think this is all there is to it, but I still hope you're burning in hell."

Those weren't the words of the professional, but of the man behind it. He didn't have to act professional because the job was already finished.

But it turned out to be another misunderstanding. He, no, the syndicate had misunderstood the nature of this job.

The body began to shake. The first thing that crossed his mind, naturally, was that these were spasmodic movements. The natural process of death. Then he saw the purple energy it began to give off and he understood.

He understood that he wasn't dead yet. The man jumped out of the car. He got out just in time. Just before the corpse burst like a piñata. Long, hairy legs emerged from the hole in his chest. Then, from his back, two more legs.... No, they were like the claws of a crab.

In any case, the creature continued to grow, the wrapper continued to writhe. It grew to the point that the vehicle was also shattered in the process of transformation.

It was transformed into nothing more than a metal ball that gave no hint of its original form. It was as if it was telling him that it would crush him that way too.

When the monster emerged from its shell, what did it turn out to be? A spider or a crab? A bit of both. Spider, since it had eight hairy legs that looked sharp as swords. Crab, because of the two extra legs that were pincers. And...

Human. Human, too. Although the corpse had been torn apart, the shape of his prey was perfectly reproduced in the middle. He was sort of hanging upside down, though. The two long pincers began on his legs, which had been lengthened, twisted and monstrously transformed.

It was a complete hideous freak that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end just by looking at it. At least that was the effect it would produce on any normal person.

The man simply adjusted his red tie. Then he pushed his short, dark, scrupulously combed hair back with one hand. Preparing to continue his work. Simple, neat, professional.

"It looks like the hunt isn't over. Not yet."

His eyes glittered like gold coins in the moonlight as he smiled.

That was a slightly less professional smile, but rather that of a hungry wild beast.