A wave of confusion, relief, and happiness washed over my body at the sight of my daughter, Sunshine, standing in front of me. It had only been a week since we last saw each other, and yet it felt like an eternity. However, there was something different about her presence this time around. Her small body emitted an aura of newfound strength and confidence that, in my eyes, dwarfed Jason’s radiated bloodlust. And I wasn’t just thinking that because of that metal baseball bat she had in her grip. My daughter literally had a green aura around her. My daughter was named Sunshine because she was the light of my life—lighting up any dark day I was going through. Now, she really was glowing.

“S…Sunshine!” I exclaimed. The smile on my face might’ve cracked even more with how loud I said that. “You’re here! But what happened to our plan to meet back up in a month?”

To my surprise, she readied a battle stance with the baseball bat, stuffing the status board in her jean pocket. “Apparently, a month’s already passed. Individually for us and possibly worldwide.”

“Huh!? That can't be true!” I denied.

“We can explain the specifics later…probably,” Sunshine responded. Her voice sounded different…as if she had actually grown older. But whose voice changes that much in a hypothetical month? “Anyways Jerome, we got someone else we need to worry ab-”

Jason swung his machete at Sunshine, aiming for her chest, but my daughter was surprisingly able to jump out of the way. The blade sliced the concrete near my feet, creating a crevice. The realization that I was a bit too close to getting my feet chopped off made me back up a couple meters. Unlike me though, my daughter didn’t back down. Somehow, she was able to land hits on both his feet and elbows, the metal reverberating with each strike. Jason fell to his knees, and Sunshine hopped back, pointing at me with her weapon. “Jerome, the chin! Aim for his chin!”

Taking her words seriously, I gave Jason’s chin a nice, hard kick. He spun through the air until he crashed into a red truck in the distance. I was confused on how I could suddenly send the guy flying when I couldn’t even make the guy bleed a couple minutes ago. What baffled me even more was that Sunshine was able to damage him. How much stronger did this kid get!?

“Why didn’t you vaporize that freak! Your body’s glowing brighter than a flashlight right now!”

“I absorbed something-well, someone, and I can’t release that energy or else something bad will happen to that person.”

“Huh?”

“I know it sounds confusing, but we don’t have time for long stories right now. How were you able to do all that!? It’s only been a we-”

“Quick, put these one,” interrupted Sunshine, handing me two small, green orbs. They looked oddly familiar. “Like your ears… oh, shoot! I forgot you don’t have any ears. How can you even hear sounds in the first place? This makes everything so much harder.”

I noticed that she had the same kind of balls in her ears and asked, “Why are you muffling your hearing with those? You know, hearing is very essential in a fight. You shouldn’t be so careless.” I thought that horse-head weirdo would’ve at least told her something that simple. I mean, she’s gonna get herself hurt!

“Tell me all the phrases Jason used today!” She jumped up to my shoulders and held on. “Try to remember each one he used or we might be screwed!”

“Phrases? You mean that power he has!? How do you know abou-”

“We don’t have time for long explanations right now, Jerome! C’mon, phrases. Give ‘em to me!”

I thought back to the fight I had for a couple seconds. “Um… he said decapitation… slicing things… he used his ability on himself and that caused me some trouble.”

“Some trouble? Your arms are broken!” she said, scanning my arms. “Why didn’t you heal with your absorption thing already?”

“Can’t absorb energy either,” I replied. “The person inside me wouldn’t be able to handle it all.”

Sunshine raised an eyebrow. “What kind of person did you absorb?”

“We can explain the specifics of that later… hopefully! I told you most of the phrases I remember, so now what?”

“Now, you die!”

Our attention shifted to the sky, and we realized that Jason had not only recovered from my kick, but he was also carrying the truck he collided with, twirling it in his hands like a basketball. I rushed towards my daughter, aiming to push her out the way, however she already moved out the way, leaving me alone to fend off the psycho.

That was until I felt a lackadaisical grip on my viney hair that pulled me backwards before the vehicle was slammed into the ground.

“Neeeeigh! Nice transformation, hombre muerto.”

Oh no… I know that obnoxious sound from anywhere!

“Jesus!?” I shouted, pulling my vines from his hand. “What the hell are you and my daughter doing here? And what's all this nonsense about a month already passing?”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“We can talk about the specifics later… eventually.” He pointed his katana behind me. “For now, let's focus on the more serious task at the moment.”

I looked back at the two and noticed Sunshine was in the middle of dodging Jason’s blade swings. “The hell are we doing standing around for while my daughter’s out there all alone!” I attempted to sprint back into the battle, but a flash of pain filled my arm. That bastard Jesus stopped me in my tracks…

“Don’t get so desperate,” he said. The guy wasn’t even trying to keep a good hold on me, and yet it still hurt like hell. “You’re the one who put your trust in the little lady to get stronger, right? Just keep watching and you’ll find that she’s gotten pretty interesting.”

“We can’t just do that! Jason’s ability could kill her instantly!”

“Remember that thing about the phrases? The thing about Jason’s ability is that he can only say that phrase once before he has to kill something in the exact same way. If he’s already said the words you’re confident he did say, then your kid is safe from any insta-kill move.”

“That’s useful to know. What about variations? I’ve heard him talking about gunshots in different fatal areas before.”

“From my time with the man, I’m pretty sure his ability doesn’t allow him to do that. So, if he decided to use that tricky power again, he only has slow death options.”

Did Jason really use up all of his instant killing phrases? How many of those phrases could possibly exist…

“Explosion!” I screamed out, causing Jesus to jump in shock.

“Aaaah… forgot about that one,” Jesus responded casually.

Upon this realization, I tried to run to my daughter’s side, but the horse head weirdo wouldn’t let go of me. “Damn it, Jesus! Let go of me or I’ll make you!”

“Explosion!”

My imaginary heart dropped when I heard those words. My daughter was about to… Huh!?

“Nothing happened!” I yelled shockingly.

“Aaaah, so that’s why she was talking to him about earplugs,” he said, letting out an annoying neigh right after.

My focus returned to the fight, and I noticed something was off about Jason. The guy was usually quick on his feet, catching me off guard many times. But his movements were gradually becoming pretty sluggish, allowing my nine year old to effortlessly whack Jason’s body with her bat. He panted like a dog in the summer sun while Sunshine hadn’t even broken a sweat yet. There were two phrases that the man had used on himself. Radiation poisoning and, the thing that must’ve been causing him the most trouble, steroid overdose. A combination of those two was a pretty stupid idea. He was just killing himself by the second.

“Jesus, I have a plan to kill that sunnava bitch, but we’ll have to play the waiting game,” I said, taking a few steps to the right.

“I’m aware of it,” he replied back, following me. “The guy’s heart is beating like crazy. And his skin has a weird zombie-ish tone to it.” He then pointed towards my daughter and added, “It seems like the little lady’s already figured it out though.”

Sunshine dropped her weapon and clasped her hands together, extending her index fingers and thumbs to form a finger gun. There was a green mark etched on her forehead, illuminating Jason’s kneeling body. It looked familiar… like when that piece of aura showed up on her head when Johnny was being controlled by her Radius ability. Don’t tell me she’s about to-

“Mind Trick: Dog.”

Jason was paralyzed for a couple seconds, and my fatherly instincts were shouting at me to jump in there. Then, Jason placed his hands on the ground, shook his… ass, and began to bark incessantly.

“Sunshine!” I approached her, confused about what she just did. “This is your Radius ability, right? How’d you learn how to do that?”

My daughter, to my disgust, petted Jason’s head affectionately. “Like I said before, a month’s passed so I had time to learn a few moves. And I’ve been… wanting a dog so I guess learning how to do this was easy.”

First a bed, now a dog… the world’s really changing my daughter’s look on things.

“Jesus, how far are the other two from our location?” she asked as Jason rubbed his face on hers.

I pushed the big guy off of my kid with my foot. “You two came with other people!? Who are-”

“My energy sense tells me they’re a few hundred feet away from us,” he answered, walking over to us. “I’ll finish the job before they get here.”

“And who is ‘they’? I thought you two were alone?”

“Don’t worry about it right now,” said Sunshine, preparing to bash Jason’s skull, however Jesus stopped her.

“I'll do it,” he said, raising his katana above his horse head. “You might waste your time limit using that slow method.”

The man brought his sword down onto the barking man’s neck. I expected blood to be gushing out of a decapitated head, however Jesus’ arm was blasted back by an imaginary force while Jason panted heavily, oblivious to the fact his life could have ended there.

“Geez, he directed all of his aura into his neck and made the ultimate shield with it,” said Sunshine. “But how can he do that when he’s still my dog!?”

“Through sheer willpower, that’s how,” Jesus answered, caressing his shoulder. “Serial killers are the most stubborn pieces of shit in the world..”

“I don’t see what the problem is,” I said, readying my foot. ”I’ll just aim for something else!” I aimed for his chest, but Jason was able to stop me, clenching onto my ankle.

“Woof… Woof… Woo, Woo, Wo…”

“Wolf’s Bite!”

My daughter yelped in pain, and I immediately turned back to see what was wrong. She was clenching her arm, drops of blood seeping through the curved holes in her hoodie sleeve. A cloud of crimson filled my head as a surge of animosity filled every inch of my soul. My body twisted towards Jason on its own, and my foot was this close to connecting with his smiling face before an orb of green energy spawned out of nowhere, protecting Jason.

This ball of protection looked very similar to… his.

“You assholes! Taking the chance to deal with Jason while you knew we were busy with something!”

My gaze shifted to the sky, and… there he was. Dante Williams descending towards us in a forcefield. I couldn’t hold myself back.

I couldn’t contain the fury of seeing the man who started this entire thing the moment I saw his face.

“Dante!”