"Why the sudden silence?" he said, with no emotion in his mechanical voice.
The five supers—Obsidian, Sharkwoman, Viper, Green Guardian, and Blue Shadow—stood before the leader of the Kobra Clan, Oppiculus' boss.
King Kobra.
"B-boss? What are you...?" Oppiculus muttered before a bright green light enveloped him, making him disappear in the blink of an eye.
The group looked at the empty crater in shock.
"Sorry about my subordinate. He can be quite reckless. I gave him a simple job, and he just HAD to screw it up. I didn't account for him destroying the bank like that."
He spoke eloquently, but his voice lacked the depth of a human's. It was like listening to an AI. Hell, Paulina thought he was an AI, too.
"G-got anything on him, Paulina?" Zack whispered to her.
"I ran several full-body scans on him. X-ray scans, as well. Nothing. Just the metal of his suit," she replied, also whispering.
He donned a full-body suit similar to her exoskeleton. It was green on his chest, shoulders, knees, and helmet but purple on his arms, torso, and legs. He wore a long, hooded black cape that did well to dim his bright red eyes.
His voice was emotionless.
His body language was robotic.
Everything about him screamed he was some automated AI, but...
"He's not an AI," Jake said, causing everyone to turn to him.
"What do you mean? I ran several scans and..."
"Yeah, I know. I can hardly believe it myself. It's just a hunch. A gut feeling. This guy is hiding something deep within him. Something I can't put my finger on."
"I sense it, too," Stacya continued.
"You do?" Zack asked, confused.
"Yes, but just like him, it's just a gut feeling. Instinct, to be precise. They haven't led me astray yet, and I don't see them doing it now."
"So what if he's human? Or a robot? Or whatever?" Ivy interjected with a scoff. "He's still in front of us, and from what I've heard, he's managed to give several high-ranking super teams the slip."
"Viper's right. It doesn't matter what he is. All that matters is stopping him," Jake followed up.
"Yeah! I couldn't agree more!" Zack shouted as he lunged for the armored mystery, rapidly expanding his fist for a blow to his face.
"Hey! What are you..."
"Stand back!" Zack shouted at them, interrupting Paulina, who tried to intervene.
"Have you learned nothing from our previous encounter? You aren't strong enough to fight me! Let alone him!" Jake shouted back at him.
"Yeah! I learned not to doubt myself! I learned I don't need to prove anything to anyone. Especially you. This isn't about that! This guy is responsible for so many deaths that I can't just stand idly by and watch him spew bullshit from those metal lips of his! I'm not..."
Suddenly, he stopped mid-air.
Kobra grabbed him by the neck and hoisted him above the ground.
"No!" Paulina shouted as she frantically morphed her arm into a cannon and ran toward them.
But it was too late.
Kobra straightened his palm and pulled his arm back for his first and last strike.
"You're brave. I'll give you that. So brave, in fact, that it comes off as headstrong. A word of advice, friend: stuff like that gets you killed in this business," he said coldly as he adjusted his strike.
"I'm not your..."
Then there was silence.
Kobra moved his palm to strike Zack's chest.
Only for it to be stopped by Jake.
He held onto Kobra's wrist, stopping it just as it touched Zack's chest. Holding it in place took way more energy than he expected, causing his arm to glow a bright blue as the seconds went by.
"Ah, interesting. You stopped my fist. I might say I'm impressed," Kobra said, his attention on Jake.
"Ja... you!" Zack stammered, but Jake heard none of it as he pushed Zack away with his free hand.
Now, focusing all his attention on Kobra, he realized this guy was beyond anything he had faced before.
Even Mr. E...
He didn't want to take any more chances at that point and decided to take him down on his own.
Here and now.
No holding back.
He charged his fists with a ton of blue energy. So much so that Kobra put his hand over his eyes to block all of its light.
Jake then unloaded a flurry of blows onto Kobra's chest so fast the rest of the onlookers barely saw his fists moving. Even Paulina had to activate her scanning mode just to see more than a bright blue blur.
Even then, she still barely saw anything.
Jake still kept going, though. Punching him in his armored chest again...
And again...
And again...
Until he stopped.
Smoke enveloped the whole warehouse, thanks to Jake's barrage of blows on Kobra's metal.
Once it cleared, Jake took a good look at what he'd done to Kobra.
A dent.
He let all his power loose.
And all he left was a dent.
Not even a scratch. Just a dent.
"Even more impressive! I've massacred a ton of vigilantes and supers, and you're the first one to leave a dent. I don't think I'm even gonna buff it out. A little reminder, you know?"
Jake backed away slowly as he heard it. Despite the lack of humanity in his voice, Jake felt some sense of bloodlust radiating from him. It was enough that just looking at him for long enough made him disoriented.
He was out of blue energy. All used up in his barrage. He didn't even have enough to dash away.
All just for a dent.
Kobra pulled his hand back to strike, only to stop suddenly. He turned to see a red beam had struck his hand, and it was turning to stone.
It was Viper, who was dashing as fast as possible to assist Shadow.
Kobra's eyes glowed from red to purple, and soon, so did his entire body. Once the purple light faded, his arm was normal. All that in the span of milliseconds. Too quickly for Viper to reach Shadow.
He swung his arm at Shadow, but he ducked just as it grazed his left cheek.
"What? I thought you were out of energy? How are you this fast?" Kobra questioned and soon took a look down.
Kobra saw a pair of hands pulling Jake into the ground, and as fast as he could blink, Jake was gone. He turned to notice a ripple effect in the ground getting away from him.
And the silhouette of an Atlantean taking Jake away.
"Oh. A muman... Atlantean? Now that's fun!"
His mask morphed into a smile.
His eyes glowed green again, and he disappeared.
"What the...? Where the hell did he go, Paulina?" Zack turned to her.
"I don't know! I can't find him in a five-mile radius! It's like he warped out of reality itself or something!" she said to him, frantically increasing the range of his scans only to come up empty.
Suddenly, with a burst of bright green light, he reappeared right above the ripple effect he noticed earlier and stomped on it, causing Jake and Stacya to fly out of the ground and crash into the nearest wall.
"Interesting. It's a good thing I decided to stay. My curiosity was right after all. I'm starting to see what took my subordinate so long," he said and turned slightly.
His head tilted to avoid a bright beam of light aimed at it, and he fully turned to see Paulina in a shooting position with her left arm fully morphed into a large, shining black cannon.
"Oh! That's new!" Kobra shouted, trying to assume joy that came off as incredibly fake yet oddly disturbing.
Despite not feeling genuine emotions herself, Paulina still knew how to talk like she did. Act like she did. She knew what she was to feel at all times. She just never felt it.
Only sparks. Sparks made by drawing closer to Zack that her emotions surfaced, be it for a second, millisecond, or nanosecond. Those made her feel human.
This man... no... thing, wasn't human. Something else. Something that reminded her of those days as a computer. Unthinking. Unfeeling.
The spark came back again.
Not of happiness...
Or love...
Or fear...
But rage!
She morphed her other arm into a similar cannon and bombarded Kobra with a multitude of shots. Some, he dodged. Some, he let hit. Others, they just missed.
He slowly approached her. His eyes rapidly changing color in quick succession.
"If you've got anything other than shooting him with pretty lights, I'd like to hear it!" Ivy shouted at her.
"If I had something like that... ugh... I would've used it by now," Paulina struggled to say.
"Then we'll back you up... ugh..." Zack said, slowly standing up.
"N-no Za... Guardian. You need to conserve your energy!" Paulina shouted.
"No. You need to keep firing. We got this. C'mon, Viper!" Zack interjected.
"Don't tell me what to do!" she said, following him anyway.
The two then rushed toward Kobra, dodging Paulina's beams in the process.
Viper shot a beam of her own in hopes of turning him into a stone statue; in other words, a proper target. The shot may have missed, but it distracted Kobra long enough for the two to reach his location.
Zack punched Kobra across the jaw, catching him off guard but doing no visible damage. Then he let three more attacks hit him in the chest, followed by two more beams from Paulina on the same chest area. He stumbled a bit...
But no damage.
Viper unveiled her fingernails, which turned into claws much longer than her whole fingers. She slashed at Kobra's armor at the same spot repeatedly. No scratches.
Still no damage.
In between every ten hits from her, there were six hits from Zack and three from Paulina's cannons.
They made him stumble backward...
But still no damage.
That didn't matter now, though. All that did was to keep fighting. As they bombarded him, Zack took a look at Ivy for a moment. She was slashing away with the ferocity of a wild animal.
Then at Paulina. She was firing like a broken turret. They would be pretty unstoppable together.
He couldn't help but smile.
"You're pretty good at this," he said to Ivy.
"Oh, shut up and keep hitting!" Ivy scoffed.
Zack took that command to heart because Kobra received a hit from him that got him to turn his head. He then noticed the ripple effect moving again.
This time, it was approaching him.
"Are you dead sure about this?" Stacya asked Jake as she swam toward Kobra.
"No. Not really," Jake said and smiled at her.
Stacya blushed for a brief moment and smiled back.
"Why didn't you come back to us? To me?"
"Stacya. Please focus," Jake said coldly, his smile fading.
Stacya looked away.
"So... what's the deal with that girl?"
"What gi... wait, what? This isn't the time for this."
Stacya was dead silent.
"It's complicated," he replied.
Stacya looked at him for a moment and threw him out of the ripple right at Kobra. That was his plan.
Jake wound up his fist for a blow while Ivy, Zack, and Paulina unloaded a barrage of attacks on him from the front. He went for the back of his head.
In the brief moment he flew toward the armored criminal, he took a brief look at Ivy and Zack. The two were seemingly in sync. It was almost mesmerizing to look at. Honestly, this whole moment reminded him of his first team mission with Zack and Stacya.
He smiled.
Then pulled his blue fist as far back as he could...
Suddenly, he noticed something.
Kobra's whole body turned red...
With a large explosion, Kobra released a shield of red energy, knocking the whole team back several meters away.
All Jake saw was black...
Then a blur...
Then he saw Kobra standing before him, in the middle of the warehouse, letting out an emotionless laugh.
He looked around to see everyone trying to get up, but they couldn't...
Some sort of red lightning was all over the floor.
Jake tried to do the same. Multiple times, in fact.
All of them failures.
"That was pretty fun, not gonna lie," Kobra said, stretching his arms like he was done from a warm-up.
"I'm afraid I have to cut things short. I sense a group of supers coming here, and I'm not in the mood to drag this out."
"We're... n-not letting you... I'm not..." Jake stammered but still stayed down.
"Cute, but I'm afraid I have to end this. Such a shame. You all had so much potential. A muman Atlantean, a cyborg, a gorgon, an expanding man, and whatever the hell the blue one is," he said as his eyes glowed an even deeper shade of red.
A ball of red plasma appeared on his left hand and began to slowly grow in size and power.
Jake tried to get up. They all did. But it was no use. Whatever that red lightning was, it was keeping them on the ground.
"Goodbye, frie..." Kobra said and suddenly stopped.
And looked up.
Jake watched the figure stare at the skylight for a brief moment, still trying to get up.
And still couldn't.
Then he noticed a change.
Kobra raised the hand with the red death ball toward the skylight.
Then it flew upward.
Into the sky...
Then, a large explosion could be heard from above. Like some kind of nuclear weapon. It made a light so bright everyone in the warehouse was blinded for a short 10-second moment.
Once their vision returned, they saw Kobra standing there, observing the skylight once more.
Suddenly, he jumped back extremely quickly just as something landed right where he previously stood.
It was covered in red smoke.
"What the...?" Jake muttered.
"Hey, guys! Sorry I'm late," a figure in red and black armor said as he took to his feet, radiating red energy the whole time.
"Max?!" Jake blurted out as he recognized the figure.
"And who might you be?" Kobra said to him.
A hint of confused joy in his voice...
"Call me, The Red Shadow."
To be continued...