And so, the battle began.

By sacrificing all of his guns and bullets to transmute the hand cannon round, Theo was effectively unarmed.

And more annoying still, it seemed that the remaining 12 of Owen's original 40 were not your garden variety thugs.

3 of them transformed into a fire elemental, a chimera and hulk respectively and were facing off against Biajo. On top of that, there were 2 katana wielding thugs that joined the fray

Mind you, Biajo was no pushover himself.

Even if he wasn't decked out with his best items, his decades of combat experience dwarfed his opponents by a large margin.

However, 5 on 1 was still giving the perverted pastor a bit of a hard time.

Theo would have backed his hentai mentor if he wasn't in a pinch himself.

Out of the 7 that were focusing on him, 3 had AK47s, 2 wielded melee magic weapons and the last one used telekinesis to hurl large objects at him.

Theo ran from cover to cover in a desperate bid to keep himself safe.

Thanks to his initial surprise attack with his hand cannon, there were quite a number of guns, weapons and ammo scattered about. All he needed to do was pick up one as he ran to his next cover.

First on the menu was an AK47 and a magical warhammer. Not a bad spread for an appetizer.

Theo ran for the nearest building, a bakery, without bothering to return fire.

As much as he wanted to let it rip, getting caught in melee out in the open was suicide.

Theo shot the glass window and crashed straight through it before hitting the deck. Not a second later, a car came flying over him and slammed into the interior of the bakery.

While still on the floor, he moved right next to the broken window and hid among the rubble.

About 20 seconds later, the 2 melee fighters entered the the bakery to check if he was still alive.

Based on the spy drone camera feed, the 3 gunners and the telekinesist was 20 meters behind the vanguard. He had hoped that they were much closer so that it would have been easier to deal with them.

Oh well. Theo just had to make do with the cards that he was dealt with.

Theo took aim and shot one of the melee's on the leg.

Sadly, the man was saved by this annoying thing called 'Instincts'. He used his battle axe to perfectly block the bullet.

Unfortunately for the man, this left him with his guard down.

Before the man could recover, Theo threw the warhammer with all of his might right into his opponents face. The force was so great that it shattered the man's skull like a pinata.

The other warrior was quick to react and lunged at Theo with his executioner sword.

Theo was forced to sacrifice the battle axe guy's corpse and his AK47 to stop the fearsome blade on its tracks.

Theo quickly launched a counter attack before the swordsman could pull his blade out of the corpse.

He fired his grappling arm and latched it onto the swordsman's face. He quickly raised it's temperature to maximum and watched as the mechanical fingers sink into the man's skull with ease.

It was quite nasty to look at.... though the aroma of fried brains smelled surprisingly similar to fried chicken.

Before Theo could ponder about the ethics of eating fried human brains, he forcefully dragged both corpses to himself and used them to shield himself from the incoming gunfire.

He quickly abandoned his beloved meatshields and ran for dear life into the store.

And good timing to, for a fully loaded garbage truck came crashing into the bakery.

The main metric of a telekinesist's power was how much weight and how many individual pieces he can control.

Though the enemy has only been throwing things one at at time at Theo, moving a truck at high speeds with one's mind was no small feat.

Whoever the telekinesist was, his power was nothing to scoff at.

As the building caught on fire, Theo sneaked out from the back and moved through the back alleys

After moving to the neighboring building, the bakery got obliterated when a large water tower.

"Holy shit.... That telekinesist dude really needs to die now."

Theo entered the building to discover that it was a hardware store.

With childish glee, he took 2 of humanities most terrifying weapons from the shelves and left some money on the counter.

Once his preparations were ready, he accessed his spy drones to check the situation outside.

On the Biajo front, it seemed he has already killed 2 of the weapon wielders and one of the elementals.

One does not simply underestimate a pervert and lives to tell about it.

As for Owen, he was trying to open the coffin.

While Theo could easily murder the Broadway elite with a simple hand cannon shot, the bastard was one of the very few people in the 'Do Not Kill No Matter What' list given by Agent P.

Yes, even if Owen ended up opening the coffin, he was not allowed to die no matter what.

Naturally, Theo had doubts about this, but when Agent P explained who were the ones that would get pissed off at Owen's death and how catastrophic the damage would be, he was forced to relent.

Pissing off Owen's many friends and relatives that could easily ruin the livelihood of at least a million people.

Though these people were corrupt, they were 'law abiding citizens' that understood how to legally screw with the system. They were not someone Theo could just kill without causing collateral damage.

He may be a lunatic that enjoyed killing criminals under the guise of righteousness, he also hated inflicting unnecessary damage to those unrelated to his bloody hobby.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

As such, he decided to end his current pursuers first before dealing with Owen.

He went up to second floor of the hardware store and went into a bathroom to rev up one of the most beautiful melee weapons created by modern science.... The Chainsaw.

He did this in a bathroom to keep those from outside from hearing the sexy purr of the lovely machine.

He approached the window and readied himself.

The gunners has entered the bakery ruins where they carefully inspected the wreckage for Theo's corpse while the telekinesist hanged 10 meters back.

"Heh. They're making this way too easy for me!"

Still remaining within the shadows, Theo took the chainsaw with his left arm and threw it with all of his might.

The sound of metal rending flesh could be heard as the chainsaw sunk into the telekinesis. Let's just say that the poor bastard was experiencing an extremely severe case of loose bowel movement.

The man was spilling his guts out like in one of those boring talk shows.

Naturally, the poor guy screamed in agony as the chainsaw tore through his flesh.

The gunners obviously noticed this and tried to help their already doomed comrade.

In this small window of distraction, Theo jumped out of the window and lunged at the nearest gunslinger with the 2nd greatest melee weapon created in the modern era.

The Crowbar.

Now, you may not think highly of this simple piece of metal that was meant for opening crates, but do not dare underestimate it.

A legendary theoretical physicist (normal powerless human) once drove back an entire alien invasion with the humble crowbar as his iconic weapon.

Beauty in simplicity and functionality.

Theo honored the great crowbar by killing the nearest enemy with a single tap to the cranium. At the same time, he used the recently deceased corpse to cushion his fall.

Before the enemy could react, he took the cushion's AK47 and open fired at the remaining 2.

One failed to react fast enough and was injected with a lethal dose of lead.

The other one was a bit of a surprise.

The guy took a stance that Theo was oh so familiar with.

He kept his AK47 relatively close to his body and only fired one precise shot at a time.

The way he ran was similar to shuffling where the movement was concentrated on his knees. It was a running style that increased the number of small steps without increasing or decreasing movement speed, but also allowed a high degree of mobility.

The combination of conservative ammo use with a high mobility running technique was something Theo knew very well.... because he uses the same fighting style.

The opponent open fired as he rushed towards Theo.

Theo made a steady retreat as he moved from one cover to another.

Truth be told, he was in a severe disadvantage here. He stole his AK47 from a recently deceased opponent, but was not able to secure additional ammo for it.

And his opponent knew this as well.

As such, the man quickly drove Theo into spending his very limited ammo count by skillful use of cover and constant movement to evade the bullets.

Naturally, this went both ways with Theo being completely unharmed despite his enemy's heavy pressure.

The moment Theo heard the dreaded 'Click of Emptiness', he dove behind the largest cover he could find and waited for his opponent's next move.

"Hey Hello Kitty, you're from the HAA aren't you?" asked the enemy as he confidently walked out in the open.

It seemed that Theo was being underestimated.

If he was a normal goody two shoes, he would have been pissed off by such blatant expression of superiority. Such insult to his pride will not go unpunished!

However, he was actually happy his opponent was looking down on him.

It was as Ms Samantha once said: 'It is at the point of victory where your opponent is most vulnerable.'

Though Theo could easily kill the man with a single shot from his hand cannon, he decided against it.

He has a bigger fish to fry.

As such, he decide to stroke the man's ego and end him in a very Theodore Lorne fashion.

"Huh? How did you know?" asked Theo as he prepared his crowbar.

"I know the Wick and Foxhound styles when I see them. Those are probably the highest form of gun fighting combat styles out there and finding a training instructor for those styles are very hard to come by. I know only 2 places where those are being taught: the Army and HAA. And based on your body structure and your voice, I'm fairly confident that your age is less than 20. So HAA it is."

"Ho. A voice of reason? What the hell someone as smart as you doing with a bunch of idiots like the Ally of Justice? Don't tell me you actually believe their nonsense?"

"Of course not. But the pay is so much more than the Army. What? Is prioritizing one's gain too unjust for an HAA student?"

"Nope. I see no problem in it."

"Oh? I wasn't expecting that answer."

"I dropped out of the HAA because of ideological differences like this one. I'm not very superheroic you see."

"Hahaha. I get you. If you're not fighting for something idiotic as justice, then why not join us? The pay is good, the job is relatively easy and you get to fuck as many pretty girls as you want! Not a bad deal if I say so myself."

"Tempting but I'll pass."

"Such a quick rejection. Why?"

"You probably noticed my cybernetics, but I'm quite well off. My employer pays so much more than yours."

"Touche. Care to introduce me?"

"And split the cash with anyone else? Not on your life."

"Tch. Greedy bastard."

"Flattery will get you nowhere."

"Well, since we're both user's of the same fighting style, I'll at least give you an honorable death. Come out from there and fight me in melee." said the enemy, much to Theo's glee.

This was exactly what he was hopping his opponent would do.

Naturally, Theo was happy to oblige.

He stepped out of his cover and made a show of throwing his AK47 away.

He took a stance where the crowbar wielding left hand was raised above his head and his right hand extended forward.

The enemy also threw his AK47 away and drew his knife. From the stance alone it was clear this man was an experienced melee combatant. No wonder he was confident.

"Got a name kid?" asked the enemy.

"We're gunslingers. Unlike our superpowered friends, our names will never be remembered."

"Hahaha. True enough. Let's enjoy this brawl!"

And then, there was silence.

Despite having 10 meters of space between them, the 2 were in no rush to enter each other's effective range. They slowly moved forward while keeping tabs on each other's movements.

The tense atmosphere lasted about 5 seconds before some random debris fell to the ground.

The enemy rushed forward with his dagger at the ready..... and then he died.

What happened?

Theo threw the crowbar with all of his might. The man's skull shattered at on impact.

"Throwing away your greatest advantage just to stroke your ego? What a dumbass. If I were you, I would have shot me the moment I stepped out of cover." said Theo as he looted the army guy's corpse for weapons and ammo.

"That was a dick move Lorne." said Biajo who was leaning on a nearby wall.

"Wahahaha! My motto in combat is to 'Never fight fair when you're in a disadvantage'!" replied Theo. "But I'm more impressed at you finishing all 5 of them so quickly."

"Their numbers might have given me some trouble, but they're hardly a challenge.... But that doesn't change the fact that what you did was a dick move."

"Oh stop it. You're making me blush."

True enough, aside from a few cuts to the face, Biajo was mostly unharmed. It must be nice to have a superhuman body.

"Now that we're done with the small fries, let's see if cant convince Mr. Owen..... huh? Where the hell did he go?" asked Biajo

True enough, the area was now devoid of anything with a heartbeat.

Fortunately, Theo's spy drones were always watching.

"He's running down the 41st Maple street. He has a satisfied smirk on his face.... which means...... Oh shit..."

A massive roar shook District 69 at its very foundation. Almost immediately, an invisible pressure blanketed the entire area.

Theo felt a familiar fear of death gripping his body. It was as if an apex predator has entered the scene and his death was inevitable if he stayed.

It was the same feeling he felt on his first meeting with Nosferatu and Freyja.

And this feeling became even stronger as the coffin's door burst open and a massive chunk of expanding flesh made its appearance.

For a couple of seconds, it's growth eventually stopped when it was approximately 15 meters tall.

It looked humanoid with 2 small legs, 3 massive arms (1 right, 2 left), tons of eyes and mouths all around its body.

Calling it an abomination was an understatement.

It roared once again, but this time it sounded like a chorus of many animals doing it at the same time.

Naturally, Theo was scared shitless at the presence of such a beast.

But weirdly enough, he also felt that he knew this beast. He did not understand why, but he could feel that the beast was similar to a child waking up from a horrible nightmare.

It was scared, confused and was calling out for its parents.

How could Theo understand it?

He had no idea.

One thing is for sure though, Theo must not kill this beast.

"Whatever this is, it ain't no angel." said Biajo.

"NO SHIT SHERLOCK! Case after Owen! Make sure that asshole doesn't die from this shit!" roared Theo as the 2 ran away from the abomination.

"Isn't that suppose to be your job?! I'm more better suited for fighting things like that!"

"Don't be stupid! The Machine God is using my tech as a beacon. He's heading to wherever I am! And I'm pretty damn sure he's pissed off for being dragged into this fight! Are you willing to risk meeting up with him at his angriest?!"

"Oh.... Never mind then. May the Creator get you through this in one piece!"

"Good luck to you too!"

The pair went their own separate ways with Theo hiding in one of the many abandoned buildings.

His gaze was not on the abomination, but on the massive pillar of smoke that stretched from the scrapyard right up to the heavens.

"It's been a while since I've taken the Terminator out for a spin." said Theo as he accessed the rocket's controls.

"Comence orbital drop!"