081 No Other Choice

Leora slammed our vehicle into the approaching cop car, the impact sending a deafening crunch through the air as metal twisted against metal. Both vehicles skidded across the road, the police car’s hood crumpling inward from the sheer force of the crash.

At that moment, we jumped.

I hit the ground hard, rolling over rough pavement. My arms burned from the friction, but nothing aura-powered healing couldn’t fix—assuming we disabled the AAT first.

Gunfire erupted from behind.

I ran for cover, ducking behind a broken streetlamp as a squad of officers opened fire. Their bullets kicked up dust and debris as they rained hell in our direction.

Leora, meanwhile, vaulted onto a wall and disappeared into the shadows, heading toward the abandoned apartment building where the AAT beacon was likely planted. I trusted her to handle it. I had my own job to do.

I reached out with my aura threads, calculating the angles to return fire using Homing.

The first few attempts were off, the bullets barely changing trajectory before slamming into the pavement. But with each adjustment, I got closer.

Then—

A bullet spun midair and curved back toward its shooter.

One of the officers shouted in alarm, ducking just in time to avoid his own bullet. That was rather powerful acuity. The suppression fire faltered for a second.

I pressed the advantage.

AAT technology was impressive, but it had a fatal flaw—it couldn’t keep up with the rapid evolution of Gifts and aura techniques. With DIVINE making waves and Bob pushing his vision of an era dominated by Special Abilities, AAT would eventually become obsolete. It was only a matter of time.

I flicked my fingers, sending more thin strings of aura into the air. Some latched onto the debris, others onto the squad themselves.

Then, I waited.

Seconds passed.

Then—

A pulse.

A familiar tingling sensation crawled up my spine.

My aura was coming back.

Leora did it.

I immediately equipped Puppetry on top of Connection and Homing.

My fingers began to click and clack, moving in precise rhythms. The moment a bullet reached me, my aura threads snagged it, redirected its trajectory, and sent it back with Homing.

This time, my shots didn’t miss.

Screams erupted as the officers scrambled for cover, their own bullets turning against them.

Then—

A flash of light from above.

Leora reappeared on the rooftop, her katana glowing.

She sliced through the air, severing a drone that had been silently hovering above. Sparks rained as its mangled frame crashed to the ground.

Then, she summoned orbs of light—each one brighter than a flare.

She hurled them downward.

The street exploded in flashes of gold and white, forcing the armed forces to scatter.

I didn’t waste the opening.

I ran.

Jumped onto a wall.

Shot out a thread—

And ascended.

I reached Leora in record time, barely landing before she grabbed me by the waist.

“Hold on,” she said.

Then—

We vanished in a burst of super speed.

In the end, we abandoned the SUV.

It had a lot of memories, but—well, that was life for you. You couldn’t have everything.

When my vision stabilized, I realized we were no longer in Temon. The dim glow of overhead lights, the rhythmic clatter of wheels on steel, the occasional sway of movement—

We were on a train.

I blinked, still disoriented from the sudden shift. How?

I turned to Leora, who was heaving for breath, her skin slick with sweat. Her usual composed aura was frayed, her hands gripping her knees as she leaned forward in exhaustion.

“Now,” I said, checking my wristwatch. “How the hell did you manage that?”

The dial showed it had been five minutes.

Five whole minutes.

She had carried me and used super speed nonstop for five minutes straight.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

That had to be some kind of record.

Leora let out a weak chuckle, lifting her gaze to meet mine. “It… really burns a lot of energy.”

She wobbled slightly, placing a hand on my shoulder for support. I instinctively reached out, steadying her as she nearly collapsed into the seat beside me.

She let out a long sigh, closing her eyes for a moment. “This really sucked,” she muttered. Then, with a half-smirk, she added, “But I guess… welcome to Meron.”

I froze.

“…What?”

I snapped my head around, finally taking in our surroundings. The passengers. The station signs passing by outside. The slightly different architecture.

This place finally registered in my head.

The Meron City-State.

Leora hadn’t just run to another district or found an escape route.

She had outright ran to the nearest city-state in a single bound.

We got off the train at one of Meron’s lesser-known stations, keeping our heads low and our auras suppressed. The World Order might not have the manpower to track us down immediately, but I wasn’t about to take any chances.

The city-state was just as busy as Temon—towering skyscrapers, blinking billboards, and an endless flow of people walking about like they had all the time in the world. It was a strange contrast to our situation. We were on the run, but to everyone else, it was just another night.

Leora and I didn’t speak much as we found a hotel, a smaller one in the backstreets where the staff didn’t ask too many questions. I paid in cash—works, obviously—and we took a room on the fifth floor.

Once inside, Leora collapsed onto the bed, face-first.

She groaned into the sheets. “I think I broke a lung.”

I pulled the chair from the small desk and sat down. “You don’t have asthma.”

“I might start having it,” she grumbled, flipping onto her back and staring at the ceiling.

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “So, what now?”

Leora pushed herself up. “Now? Now, we call Bob.”

I frowned. “No.”

She turned to me, raising a brow. “No?”

“No.”

Leora crossed her arms. “And why not? The Hunter’s Association exists for situations exactly like this. The World Order is after us. They’ll keep coming unless we make them stop.”

“I’d rather we deal with it ourselves,” I said.

“That’s stupid.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “But it’s still my decision.”

Leora narrowed her eyes. “Your decision? This affects me too, you know. You think I want to be on the World Order’s hit list? You think I want my son in danger? Our son in danger?”

Wow. She was evolving.

I sighed. “I’m not saying it’s just my problem. But if we bring in the Hunters, this gets a lot bigger than just us. Bob is already on thin ice dealing with DIVINE, and if the Association openly goes against the World Order, the whole balance of power shifts.”

Leora scoffed. “And you think us running around the city alone will solve the problem?”

“I think it’s better than escalating it to a full-scale war,” I said.

She ran a hand through her hair. “Reynard. Be realistic.”

“I am.”

“No, you’re being reckless.”

I leaned back, meeting her gaze. “If Bob gets involved, we lose control over this situation. It becomes about politics, about power plays. I don’t want that.”

She exhaled sharply. “Then what do you suggest?”

“We cut off the World Order’s reason for chasing us.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?”

I didn’t answer immediately. Because, truth be told, I wasn’t entirely sure yet.

Leora shook her head. “Look, I get it. You don’t want to owe Bob another favor, and you sure as hell don’t want the Hunters tangled in this mess. But we’re outmatched, and if we don’t do something soon, we’ll be dead.”

I sighed. “I know.”

“So?”

“So,” I repeated, “I still think we should handle this ourselves.”

Leora stared at me for a long moment. Then she flopped back onto the bed with an irritated groan. “I hate that I know you’re not going to change your mind.”

“Then don’t fight it,” I said.

She threw a pillow at me.

After a quick scan of our room, I set up aura threads along the windows, the door, and even the ventilation system. They weren’t much, but they’d serve as an early warning system if anyone tried to sneak in while we slept.

Leora sat on the bed, arms crossed, watching me work. “So, you’re that paranoid?”

“Considering what just happened? Not paranoid enough,” I muttered, tying off the last thread. “Alright, we should get some rest. We’ll move tomorrow.”

She stretched and let out a yawn. “No hanky-panky?”

I gave her a flat look. “Yeah, because dodging bullets and running from a global shadow organization really gets me in the mood.”

She smirked. “Just checking.”

We slept. Or at least, we tried. I had no idea if Leora actually managed to sleep, but I spent most of the night on high alert, ears tuned for the slightest disturbance. Eventually, exhaustion won, and I dozed off.

Morning came too fast. My aura threads were untouched, so that was a relief. Leora was already up, fully dressed, stretching her limbs. “We need to talk,” she said the moment she saw I was awake.

I groaned, rubbing my face. “Great. Arguing first thing in the morning. Love that.”

“We should call Bob,” she said, standing over me with that unreadable look she always had when she was trying to be rational. “Get the Hunter’s Association involved. This isn’t just some Cult issue anymore—the World Order is after you. This is big.”

I sighed and sat up. “I know it’s big, but dragging Bob into this means making this political. And making it political means it stops being just my problem.”

Leora frowned. “It stopped being just your problem the second they killed Rory.”

I swung my legs over the bed, stood up, and stretched. “We don’t need Bob. Not yet. If we bring in the Hunter’s Association, it turns into a war. That’s exactly what the World Order doesn’t want. They operate in the shadows for a reason. We can use that.”

“So what’s your brilliant plan?” she asked, arms crossed.

I smirked. “We force their leader to the table. Make them negotiate.”

She scoffed. “And how do you plan on doing that?”

I shrugged. “Still working on the details. But that’s the plan.”

Leora muttered something under her breath and turned away. “You’re impossible.”

We grabbed breakfast at a small diner near the hotel. I kept my aura threads low-profile, just enough to sense any hostile intent from the other patrons. Nothing. At least for now, we were safe.

After eating, we found an internet café. I logged into the Hunter’s Net, an underground network used by Hunters to exchange information. I sifted through reports, job listings, and recent events, looking for anything related to the World Order or Rory’s murder. Nothing concrete, but I did find some chatter about heightened activity in Temon. We weren’t the only ones who had noticed something was off.

Leora sat next to me, scrolling through her own screen. “Still think we don’t need backup?”

“We don’t,” I said, not looking away from the monitor. “We just need to be smart about this.”

She sighed but didn’t argue. Not yet, anyway.

Lunch was a quiet affair. We stayed under the radar, eating at a food stall near the market district. No auras following us. No suspicious individuals. At least, none that I could pick out.

To keep our minds busy, we played a few rounds of pool in a bar. Leora was good. Too good. I was convinced she was using some sort of subtle aura trick to guide the shots, but I couldn’t prove it. She smirked every time she sank a ball.

“You sure we shouldn’t just run?” she asked as she lined up a shot.

I leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “You running?”

She paused. “…No.”

“Then let’s not waste time thinking about it.”

She sank the shot. “Still don’t like it.”

By late afternoon, we started making preparations. Gear, supplies, transportation. We found a shop that sold military-grade equipment under the table and stocked up. Knives, firearms, basic survival gear. We also bought a new car—nothing fancy, just something fast and untraceable.

All the while, we kept arguing.

“This is stupid,” Leora said as we loaded our supplies into the trunk. “If the World Order has decided you’re a problem, they won’t stop. We should be using everything we’ve got to fight back.”

“This is how we fight back,” I countered. “We put pressure on them. Make it clear that they either talk or I keep making their lives difficult.”

“And if they just decide to kill you?”

I shrugged. “Then we make it as hard for them as possible.”

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “You’re exhausting.”

“Inspiring, you mean.”

“No, exhausting.”

We finished loading up the car. The sun was starting to set, casting long shadows over the city. We still had a long road ahead of us, but I had made up my mind.

We weren’t running. We were going to force the World Order to negotiate. And I was going to make sure they had no other choice.