Calida’s footsteps echoed across the tight alleyway as she slowly walked willingly into a dead end, her peruses made no attempt to hide the fact that they were following her. She had tried to look as vulnerable and frightened as she could as she led them down the ally.

As she walked down the alley she flexed her hands, focusing on the feeling in her palms. The girl’s palms began to heat up. Cali was an abnormal, Cali didn’t know how her powers worked exactly and she didn’t particularly care either, all she knew is that they did what they did, and she knew how to use them.

‘Better get the drop on them and deal with them now’ she thought, as she turned to get a look at her stalkers. There were four of them, large and bulky, so much so their shoulders were millimetres away from grating against the alley walls and they were forced to stand single file.

Each man’s face looked identical to each other, they were clean-shaven and completely bald, wearing black and gold pinstripe suits that looked way to lavish for the slums or kidnapping a teenage girl for that matter, which is what she was assuming these men were trying to do.

Cali dropped her ‘terrified little girl act’ and asked the four men “so, what’s the deal, why are you four following me?”. Instead of answering the first man pulled out a pistol and aimed it at her head.

“Abnormal, you are to come quietly and cooperate or be taken by force.” He said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion like an Artificial voice.

{}{}{}

Reina looked down from the roof of the building, she felt her tendrils twitch. “Homunculi,” Hades growled, his voice filled with disdain and pure hatred “Olympian knockoffs.”

Reina could feel the dulled feeling of dislike toward them in the back of her mind or was what she was feeling sadness? she internally sighed, ‘stupid emotions’ she thought.

The Bald men or Homunculi had cornered the girl, but by the looks of it, the stupid girl had led them to this dead-end thinking she could take them on, then again the girl probably thought that these things where just regular humans, unfortunately, they are not.

“Hades are we going to do something?” Reina asked tentatively.

“Just wait, I may not need your help if she is about to do what I think she is” he answered observing the scene below carefully.

“What do you mean?”

“The air feels weird, it’s as if it's gathering around that girl…A Hestia maybe?” He pondered

“Hestia?” she asked suddenly feeling a more apparent wave of sadness wash over her.

Hades placed one long clawed finger on his lips in a gesture of silence “My senses are tingling.” He said with a sharp-toothed grin.

{}{}{}

Cali frowned “Excuse me?”

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The bald man opened his mouth to repeat himself, as he did Calida lifted her right hand and snapped her fingers.

A massive ball of flame erupted out from the alleyway with a giant ‘Woofing’ sound, the buildings on either side shook with the force of the explosion.

Cali stood standing with her hands on her hips observing her handy work, the rest of the alleyway was blanketed in smoke and the brick walls were charred black.

The front of her clothes smouldering with a few small patches of her shirt the size of a 20-cent coin completely burned away, her skin seemed to glow orange but otherwise, she was unharmed.

Cali grinned “less messy than last time, had to wrap a cardboard box around me after I obliterated those gang members last year.” She said smugly, her pat-herself-on-the-back moment was rudely cut short as a dart half the length of her pinkie, pierced through the smoke cloud and stuck into her right shoulder.

Calida quickly ripped the dart out of her shoulder and squinted at the smoke. A long green skinless hand reached out to her, viscous green fluid bled from the smouldering limb.

The limb fell forward and with it the body it was attached to, the humanoid body had patches of sizzling cooked green muscle, the viscous green fluid pooled under the body. The body groaned and began to drag itself towards her.

Letting loose a high-pitched scream, Cali aimed her hand down at the creature’s head. Her hand flexed opened as if grabbing something, in that same motion she snapped her fingers creating a spark, causing a ball of explosive fire to discharge from her hand, blasting the head of the ‘creature’ into the ground, she continued firing them until the head resembled a smoking crater of green scrambled eggs.

She felt a shiver crawl up her spine “What the hell was that?” she asked herself, staring at the body of the thing.

Cali became aware of a coldness spreading from her right shoulder, her arm flopped to her side, she couldn’t move it. “Paralysis!?” she exclaimed, “this isn’t good!”.

The smoke began to thin as three figures stepped out, green gooey fluid oozed from the places were chunks of flesh had been blown off, although those wounds were rapidly closing as the green goo seemed to fill the gaps and solidify into whatever was missing. In a matter of minutes, the men had completely healed, the only testament left to being cooked alive was the scraps of charred cloth hanging off them.

The three’s skin began to bulge, shed and change colour until they ended up clothed in their own skin which resembled the perfectly ironed pinstripe suits they wore before being burnt alive.

The ‘Men’ looked down at their fallen comrade then looked back at Cali, who was kneeling on her left leg which had gone numb just like her arm.

Her vision was becoming more and more blurred, to the point where she could only make out four large black shapes that were beginning to move toward her, she internally frowned ‘four of them?’.

In small stiff movements, she looked down at the creature she just blew to smithereens, the green and black shape was sill their lying in its own pool of ‘Blood’ unmoving, yup still dead.

{}{}{}

Homunculus C704, watched the female Abnormal warily as C702 and C703 approached it. It had already done what C704 had thought impossible and killed C701.

Harming a Homunculus is easy, however killing one is not, unless something knew what to attack or could obliterate them completely, a Homunculus could always regenerate (as long as they had enough Bio-mass).

Anything that could kill a Homunculus easily as the Abnormal just did, is a creature that should be treated with care.

Luckily for the surviving Homunculi C701 had done its job and weakened the Abnormal with a poison dart, now they could bring the creature back to their master. In a way, C704 was what you could call ‘grateful’ to the Abnormal for killing C701.

Now they could have a snack to make up for the missing Bio-mass, there might even be enough between them for upgrades since C704 was damaged the least!

A small grin formed on the Homunculus’s face, it would become the strongest of them all, it may even become an elite at this rate and get to hunt Olympians!

C704 froze as he felt a sudden presence materialise behind him. C704 turned just in time to see a black four-fingered talon-like hand shooting towards his face, C704 felt it’s skull getting crushed under an immense force and then nothing.