Leaving Amina in the strange but surprisingly gentle care of Lenny the Lizard, they didn't linger.

Time was running out.

They bolted down the stairs of the apartment building, their footsteps echoing like a war drum against the cracked walls. Once outside, Sven didn't even wait for instructions.

"Give me a sec!" he called over his shoulder, and in a blur, he was gone.

One moment he was next to them, the next, just a gust of wind and a blurred silhouette darting through alleyways and sidestreets like a fox on caffeine.

Kai, Nadya, and Isaac stood awkwardly on the pavement for about half a minute until he called them over.

"Over here!" came Sven's voice from a block away, followed by the satisfying beep-beep of a car unlocking, except it definitely wasn't his.

They turned and saw him casually waving them over from the driver's seat of a low-slung, obsidian-black sports car that practically purred with energy. It was sleek, fast, and clearly not something a normal person left parked outside a dodgy apartment building.

Kai blinked. "You stole a sports car?"

Sven grinned as the roof retracted. "No, I liberated it."

"Do you even have a licence?" Nadya asked as they climbed in.

He shook his head. "But I'm a pretty good driver, if I do say so myself."

Before she could retort, Sven put his foot down, and the engine roared. Tyres screeched as the car launched onto the main road like a bullet out of a gun.

Within seconds, they were weaving through traffic like maniacs. Horns blared, people cursed, and Kai held onto the door handle, wondering whether this was what death felt like.

It was chaos.

But it was fast.

Really fast.

"Sven - car!" Nadya shouted, pointing ahead where a sedan blocked two lanes with no gap to squeeze through.

"We're not gonna make it!" Isaac yelled from the back.

Sven didn't slow down. If anything, he sped up.

"Brake, man! Brake!" Isaac's voice cracked.

But it seemed as though Sven was in sync with Kai, who had an idea he had filled him in on before they had started driving.

"No, keep going, Sven," Kai said calmly, and that he did.

Isaac stared at him. "What?! We're about to crash, and you have an idea?"

Kai glanced back. "You can phase people, right?"

"Y-yeah, but-"

"You're touching the car. You phase the car, and it will phase us along with it. Just... do it in short bursts. Let us pass through the car in front for a second, then return to solid right after."

Isaac's jaw dropped. "I've never phased anything moving this fast! The mass, the momentum - if I mess up, we might crash or sink into the bloody ground!"

Kai shrugged. "Then don't mess up."

Isaac paled.

Sven, still not slowing down, raised an eyebrow. "This car ain't slowing down."

Kai smirked. "You heard him."

Isaac groaned, pressing his palm against the car interior.

'Here goes nothing.'

He focused, pouring all his energy into syncing with the vehicle. His ability shimmered through his skin like a ripple of water, spreading across the seats, the frame, the engine...

Then the world blurred.

They phased.

For just a fraction of a second, their car ghosted through the one in front. No crash. No sparks. Just a pulse of pressure, and then they were through, as if they had turned into a hologram.

Sven whooped. "That was insane! Do it again!"

Isaac didn't respond. His face was clammy, eyes wild with concentration.

Before he could argue or refuse, another car loomed, and he phased them through again.

A truck - phased again.

A pedestrian crossing the street.

"Don't hit civilians!" Nadya shouted.

"Don't worry, Isaac can phase us through him too," Kai reassured her shamelessly.

But thankfully, he managed to pull through, as he yelled at the crazy duo sitting in the front of the car with his shaky voice.

And just like that, they kept going.

Blazing through intersections, racing past red lights, phasing through barriers like they weren't even there.

By the time the authorities caught wind of a rogue sports car that somehow ignored physics, it was already too late. Dashcams caught a black blur. Witnesses claimed the vehicle floated through traffic. One old lady swore it was possessed by a ghost.

But there were no crashes. No injuries.

Just a phantom car.

And by the time police sirens were wailing into the night, the phantom was long gone.

Meanwhile, Sven seemed to know exactly where to go.

Twisting through alleys, dodging checkpoints, cutting through empty car parks, they were making their way across the city with surgical precision. Sven didn't look at a single map - he didn't need directions.

He just knew.

"Are you sure you're not part GPS?" Isaac asked between breaths, wiping sweat from his brow.

Sven grinned. "Good instincts. Or maybe I've just seen every corner of this dump."

Kai, sitting beside him, watched him closely.

Despite the chaos, Sven never lost focus. His hands were steady. His eyes were sharp. He drove like a man who had nothing to lose, but everything to prove.

And that made Kai wonder.

'Sven's fast. Skilled. Knows way too much about seemingly everything and is well-connected. But where did he learn all this?'

He realised, for the first time, that he knew almost nothing about the guy. Just the cocky smile, the jokes, and the mutant ability that allowed him to move in rapid bursts like lightning in human skin.

'I guess he also has his own story, just like the rest of us.'

It was a weird realisation that he still had a lot to learn about the ragtag group of mutants he was with, but then again, he hardly knew anything about himself.

Kai leaned back in his seat.

That was something that would just come with time.

Right now, they had a meeting to crash, a city to burn through, and some destruction to cause.

And with Isaac sweating bullets, Sven cackling behind the wheel, and Nadya threatening to kill someone every time they brushed a mirror...

It was going to be a hell of an entrance.

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