They moved toward the port office like predators closing in on a den: easy, unhurried steps that hid a hundred ways the night could end.

But as they neared it, the two figures came out on their own.

The metal door groaned as they shoved it open, and they stepped out into the morning sun - calm at first, until the reality of the scene before them hit.

One was a slime-slick man who introduced himself to no one. Ionut was thin-cheeked, shoulders hunched, a face that had never seen a gym or kindness. He smelled faintly of grease and cheap alcohol. His shirt clung to him, damp and stained; he looked fifteen pounds away from collapse. He smiled like a sleazy scammer.

The other was a taller figure, younger in looks but steadier. A ski mask hid most of his face; his posture made him look like someone whose hands had learned to move first and think later. Kai's blood vision hummed faintly at both of them - mutant signatures, if you could call them that.

There wasn't much power emanating from them, and Kai almost felt disappointed after seeing them in person. Still, they were mutants, so he didn't entirely dismiss or underestimate them.

"Ionut, it's been a while," Nadya said, voice casual. The tubby man's grin faded the instant his name left her mouth. His heart sank, and he immediately recognised her - how could he not?

You could see the calculation in his eyes - how to back away, what to blame, which pockets to empty.

Before he could try to figure things out and talk his way out of things...

Click!

The masked man clicked his fingers, a sharp and loud snap echoing around them. The move was random and sudden, but immediately after...

Kai watched closely; it was like the air itself had hiccupped.

Where Ionut had stood, Lenny now slumped, small and stunned, a pale teenager in an oversized coat. The ski-masked kid had a knife to Lenny's throat and a wild look that said he expected compliance.

They had traded places!

For a second, everything was off-kilter. Nadya and Kai both blinked, and then - because life here never wasted a beat - both of them burst out laughing.

"What an idiot," Kai spat, amusement and contempt mixed. "Of all of us. You pick the kid?"

"Yeah, good thing he didn't pick Amina," Nadya added, voice flat, calm and dangerously amused. "I would've blasted his face real quick."

The masked man's confidence frayed slightly after seeing their lack of reaction to his plan. He'd swapped Ionut for what appeared to be the smallest and weakest one in the group.

Yet rather than feeling threatened by his plan, which he thought was genius, they were amused by it.

Ionut, now planted where Lenny had been, looked around and saw the dock's carnage, the fallen mercenaries, and Kai's red eyes.

He had heard the gunshots outside; they had woken him up from his hungover sleep. But he always kept his radio off and felt as secure as could be - this was his base of operations after all.

Who could take down all 15 of his lethally trained mercenaries?

In a world of mutants, monsters, and beasts, few could take a spray of bullets. Not unless they were a B-ranked, making them either a Howling Threat or a High Tier Mutant.

Even then, it would be tough, and what were the odds of something like that showing up at his port? But now there was a group of mutants that was worse than he had imagined.

The reality hit him like a fist. He vomited words, blustered, started to plead, but it sounded thin and ridiculous.

"Hey-hey! Listen-listen, we didn't- this wasn't-" He tried to explain, but it was too late.

-

Kai and Nadya were confident Lenny could handle himself; hell, they doubted they could inflict much damage on him, even while he was in his human form. Either way, all it would take was for him to get angry, and he'd transform into a giant lizard.

As such, they focused on Ionut, who was within arm's reach of Amina, as Lenny had once been.

Nadya stalked forward. "Can I take this one?" she asked, voice low and hungry.

"Be my guest," Kai said, not looking away from the man pinning Lenny. Blood crusted his shirt from the earlier exchanges; he looked like a walking hazard someone ought to stay afraid of. His veins still sang with the aftertaste of adrenaline.

Ionut's power was small, clever, and poisonous in the way it spread information. He could pass telepathic messages to anyone he had once touched - a whisper in the mind that travelled only one direction.

A useful tool for a smuggler who wanted to coordinate shipments without leaving a paper trail. He carried a Rolodex of contacts in his head: docks in Odessa, a warehouse in Novorossiysk, shadow brokers in Sevilla.

It was smart, crafty, but absolutely useless in a fistfight.

He had muscle hired for that very reason. Without them, he was a man who opened his mouth and spat deals. With them gone, he became easy to snap in half.

Nadya closed the distance and moved like a hammer. One motion, fast and crisp - elbow, knee, shove - and Ionut's smile went paper-thin. He tried to backpedal, words spilling, "Please - we can talk, we co-"

Her reply was a fist. It connected with the side of his face like a judge's gavel. He crumpled on the wet concrete, palms scrabbling uselessly for purchase. Nadya didn't bother waiting for speeches. She pinned him, rained blow after blow into the man's ribs, into his throat, into the places where money had been allowed to make men arrogant.

"Talk?" she spat between impacts. "You traffic kids and call it business. You're a pig."

Ionut's pleading grew thinner, a flapping sound. He tried to reach outward for help with his ability, but the men who had been his safety were flat and still. He had no lifeline left to whisper through.

'That dumb fucker,' he thought in a burst of panic as the pain sharpened his senses. 'I hired him to move things, not to-' His internal protests were swallowed by Nadya's next fist.

Kai watched from a short distance as Ionut was battered, and it was mildly amusing.

Then, the other problem flashed into his field of vision: the ski-masked man restraining Lenny. He was a slab of muscle with a thin blade glittering at the boy's throat. The masked man's breathing was steady, the only thing calm in the pocket of violence.

Kai stepped forward, slow and casual. "So what now?" he asked. "You going to threaten to kill him to save this loser you work for?"

The ski-masked man's voice was rough, an attempt to sound intimidating. "W-what if I do?" he said.

"Go for it," Kai said, soft as rain.

Lenny's face went white. "What?!" he blurted, his panic high. He'd been sweating, knuckles going pale where he gripped his knees. The sudden switch from being beside Amina to now standing hostage caught him completely off guard.

But now that fear edged into fury, his skin tinged green at the edges as if something small and ancient unfurled inside him...

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