THE SYSTEM GAVE ME EVERY VILLAIN'S POWER

Chapter 9

The glass didn't just break; it detonated into ten thousand diamond-sharp teeth.

"Down! Get down!" Bao screamed, lunging across the tea table to shove Kian toward the floorboards.

A vibrating silver blade, thin as a wire and six feet long, lanced through the space where Kian’s throat had been a split second before. It retracted with a wet hiss, slicing through the heavy oak table as if it were soft butter.

"They're inside!" Kian scrambled back, his boots slipping on the slick porcelain of the tea set. "Bao, the back door—"

"Forget the door! Out the window! Go!" Bao scrambled up, tossing a handful of those small black scramble-boxes into the center of the room. "The window’s your only shot! The back is a kill-box!"

"I’m not leaving you here!" Kian yelled, his hand igniting with a frantic, stuttering orange flame.

"Don't be a hero, kid! I'm an old man with zero points worth taking! You’re the jackpot!" Bao grabbed Kian by the back of his hoodie and literally threw him toward the shattered frame. "Go to Sector 9! Don't look back or we're both dead!"

Kian hit the wet pavement of the alley shoulder-first. "Ugh... damn it."

"Target in sight," a flat, modulated voice hummed from above.

Kian looked up. A figure was perched on the edge of the tea shop’s roof. He didn't look like a Hero from the glossy magazines. He looked like an insect made of carbon fiber and polished chrome. His eyes were four glowing red slits, and his right arm was fused into a series of jagged, hydraulic blades.

"Are you the Inquisitor?" Kian gasped, backing away into the deeper shadows. "Mei Ling said you guys were coming!"

"Status: Level 3 Anomaly," the figure intoned, ignoring the question. "Trait: High Psycho-Mana Saturation. Classification: To be purged."

"Purged? At least give me a warning first!" Kian barked, his voice cracking. "I haven't even done anything today!"

Oh, come on, Kian, the arsonist’s voice giggled inside his skull. He’s a robot. You can’t talk to a robot. You can only melt it. Let me show you how to peel that shiny skin off.

"Shut up! I can handle this!" Kian growled at himself.

"Resistance detected," the Inquisitor said, dropping from the roof with zero sound. He landed in a crouch, the ground cracking under his weighted boots. "Agent X moving to engage."

"Wait! Hold on!"

A blue streak flashed across the alleyway. Mei Ling slammed into the brick wall above them, her spear vibrating with intense energy. "Seven! Back off! This is my jurisdiction!"

"Agent Suryani," the Inquisitor—Agent X—said, his blades clicking into a defensive guard. "Your authorization has been flagged. You are currently obstructing an Inquisitorial cleansing."

"I told you I was bringing him in for observation!" Mei Ling shouted, her face pale under the flickering neon signs. "He’s a witness, not a target!"

"Incorrect," Agent X countered. "My sensors detect pseudo-mana signatures from the Arsonist Core. He is a primary infection host. Out of the way, Mei Ling."

"I said no!" Mei Ling lunged forward, her spear clashing against the Inquisitor’s jagged blades.

The sound of the collision was a deafening screech of metal on metal.

"Kian, run!" Mei Ling gritted out, her heels sliding across the wet asphalt as she tried to hold the Inquisitor back. "He’s augmented! I can’t pin him for long!"

"I'm not leaving you!" Kian shouted back. "He's going to hurt you!"

"I’m a Hero, Kian! It's my job! Move!" she screamed.

Agent X shifted his weight with inhuman speed. A hidden hydraulic piston in his shoulder fired, and his elbow slammed into Mei Ling’s chest. She let out a sharp, choked gasp and flew backward, her spear clattering into a pile of trash bins.

"Mei Ling!" Kian’s heart stopped.

"Obstruction neutralized," Agent X said, turning his cold, multi-eyed gaze back to Kian. "Focusing on primary anomaly. Commencing lethal disposal."

"You... you hit her," Kian whispered. His hands weren't just sparking anymore. They were turning a deep, throbbing crimson.

"She was in the logic path," the Inquisitor said, his arm-blade beginning to spin like a circular saw. "Now, stay still. It will be over in three milliseconds."

Kian... look at him, the Embers voice whispered, but it sounded different now. It sounded excited. He’s all straight lines. All logic. All metal. But logic can be broken if you confuse the sensor.

"Give me the control," Kian muttered. "I'm not gonna let him touch her again."

"Die," Agent X drone. He launched forward, a silver blur of high-frequency death.

Kian didn't scramble back this time. He felt the cold pressure of the arsonist’s will pushing against his eyes, but he felt something else too—a strange, analytical stillness. He pivoted his foot exactly three inches to the left. The blade missed his ear by a fraction of an inch.

"Error," Agent X beeped. "Target proximity miscalculated."

"You rely too much on your scanners," Kian said. His voice was becoming flat, devoid of terror. "I’m an anomaly, remember? You can’t calculate chaos."

Kian ducked under a second swing, his movements fluid and precise. He grabbed the Inquisitor’s metallic wrist.

"What are you doing?" Agent X’s red slits flickered. "Release immediately. Heat detected—high yield—"

"Here’s your logic error," Kian growled.

He didn't just throw fire. He focused every ounce of the arsonist’s rage into the joint of the Inquisitor’s arm. The sound was like a pressure cooker exploding. White-hot mana forced its way into the seams of the augmentations, melting the internal servos in a shower of sparks and black oil.

"Systems failing," the Inquisitor droned, his movements turning jerky. "Self-repair impossible. Anomaly 88 has breached the—"

"Goodbye, Seven," Kian said.

He thrust his other palm into the center of the Inquisitor’s chest-plate, right where the mana-core was located. He didn't use a firehose; he used a needle. A single, focused spike of heat pierced the casing.

The explosion was contained within the agent’s own body. Agent X collapsed forward, his armor glowing a dull, lethal red until the light in his eyes finally flickered out.

Kian stood over the body, his chest heaving. Silence returned to the alley, save for the sizzle of cooling metal.

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: ELITE COMBATANT NEUTRALIZED]

[TRAIT DETECTED: ILLEGAL AUGMENTATION - LOGIC OVERRIDE]

[INITIATING SKILL DRAIN...]

[SKILL STOLEN: COLD-BLOODED CALCULATION (TIER 2)]

Suddenly, the world in Kian’s vision changed. The alleyway was no longer a dark, scary place; it was a grid. Distance, wind speed, mana density—everything appeared as small, floating numbers. His heart rate, which had been at 160 beats per minute, dropped instantly to 60.

"Kian?" Mei Ling’s voice came from the ground. She was clutching her ribs, looking at him with wide, terrified eyes. "Are you... did you just kill an Inquisitor?"

Kian slowly turned his head toward her. The orange light in his left eye was still there, but his right eye was stone-cold, shimmering with a digital blue hue.

"Observation," Kian said. His voice was no longer his own. It was clear, mechanical, and devoid of any human tremor. "You have three broken ribs and minor internal hemorrhaging. Probability of survival without immediate intervention: 94 percent."

Mei Ling shivered, pulling herself back. "Kian, you're scaring me. Talk to me like a person."

"Scaring is an emotional response based on perceived unpredictability," Kian said, taking a step toward her. His gait was perfect. Professional. "I am no longer unpredictable. I see everything."

Wait a second, the Embers voice hissed inside his head, sounding panicked. What is this? Who are you? Get out of our head!

Quiet, Fire-Starter, a new, sharp voice replied in Kian's mind—the voice of Agent X's stolen echo. Your thermal spread is inefficient. We are calculating a more optimal path for dominance.

"Stop it," Kian muttered, clutching his forehead. "Both of you... shut up."

"Kian?" Mei Ling whispered, reaching out a trembling hand toward him. "Come back. Don't look at me like that. You look just like... him."

Kian looked down at her. He saw the way her hand shook. He saw the way her hair was matted with blood. He wanted to feel sorry for her. He wanted to say he was glad she was okay.

He opened his mouth to tell her that he was still in there, that he was still the same guy who wanted to be a graphic designer.

But instead of words of comfort, what came out was a short, sharp, mechanical laugh.

"Don't worry, Mei Ling," Kian said, the metallic sound echoing off the cold brick walls. "The calculations show that this is only the beginning."