I burst out of the surveillance room, the door slamming behind me like a gunshot. The crash jolts Yamazaki from his sleep with a muffled cry, but I'm already gone. In the hallway, the air feels thin. A dull thud a metallic impact echoes somewhere deep in the building's foundations.

  I run into Takeshi. The moment our eyes meet, he turns pale. His pupils shrink. He spins around abruptly, his shoes screeching on the linoleum, and bolts without a word.

  "Takeshi! That wasn't me this morning! I—"

  My voice dies in the empty air. The Chief appears then, rubbing his hands, which are covered in a fine gray dust. He has that proud smile the kind reserved for soldiers returning from the front.

  "Kenji! What power, my boy. I had no idea you were hiding such rage under that uniform." I feel my legs go weak. A wave of nausea rises in my throat, acrid and sharp.

  "Chief... those two suspects... where are they?"

  "Already transferred to Central. They won't be coming back anytime soon they saw the devil himself."

  I swallow hard. Something used my face to deliver brutal justice, and I'm being congratulated for it. I want to protest, to scream that it wasn't me, but the Chief is already turning his back with a satisfied little chuckle.

  I step out of the station, my brain on fire, desperately searching for logic in this chaos. I haven't gone ten yards before my phone explodes. A long, shrill vibration.

  [NATIONAL ALERT - SECTOR 4] THREAT: POLYMORPHIC ENTITY. INSTRUCTIONS: IMMEDIATE LOCKDOWN. TRUST NO ONE. THE ENTITY CAN MIMIC YOUR LOVED ONES. ANY SUSPICIOUS INDIVIDUAL WILL BE NEUTRALIZED ON SIGHT.

  The silence following the alert is more terrifying than the noise. In the street, people stop dead. Expressions shift. In a heartbeat, a neighbor becomes a potential predator.

  I spin around and sprint back toward the station, but the heavy thud of an electromagnetic bolt stops me cold. The glass door is locked. I pound on it, my fists bouncing off the reinforced pane.

  "OPEN UP! It's Kenji!" On the other side, I hear chaos. Chairs being overturned to barricade the entrances.

  "Don't let that thing in!" the Chief bellows through the intercom.

  "It's me, Chief! Look at me!"

  "Get lost before we open fire! We're waiting for the Heroes!" The rejection is a freezing slap. I back away, alone on the sidewalk, as the civil defense sirens begin their mournful wail. I am the prime suspect in my own life.

  I start to walk, every muscle in my body taut like a piano wire. The city has become a labyrinth of shadows. At every street corner.

  I imagine a creature with distorted limbs, a faceless thing lurking in the blind spots. The irony catches up to me: yesterday, I walked here without fear, protected by my ignorance. Today, knowledge is a poison.

  BOOM.

  A shockwave nearly knocks me to the ground. The scent of ozone and scorched concrete fills my nostrils. I press myself against a brick wall, my heart hammering hard enough to snap my ribs. In the middle of the intersection, the street has been ripped open.

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  Steel Fist Ryoga faces off against Crystal Shade. Two icons, two saviors, now transformed into rabid beasts by paranoia.

  Ryoga looks like a mountain of molten muscle. Sweat beads on his bare chest, evaporating the moment it touches his searing skin. Every time he clenches his fists, the air around him vibrates. Shade, meanwhile, is an apparition of ice. Her blue hair whips through the air as she raises ramparts of prismatic crystal that reflect the glow of the surrounding fires.

  "Admit it, Shade!" Ryoga bellows, his voice drowned out by the roar of his own power. "The real Shade wouldn't back down! You're a faulty copy!"

  "You're the one who's lost your mind, Ryoga!" she retorts, her hands encased in a bluish aura. "You're punching everything that moves! You are the threat!"

  Ryoga charges. His feet pulverize the asphalt with every stride. He plows through a forest of crystal spears as if they were mere twigs. The sound is excruciating: a screech of shattering glass that tears at your eardrums.

  He brings his fist down on Shade's final shield. The impact creates a shockwave that shatters the windows of the nearby buildings. Thousands of shards glitter in the air like a rain of lethal diamonds. The street is nothing more than a graveyard of rubble and translucent spikes.

  A piece of the cornice, dislodged by the vibrations, crashes onto a small house below. A cloud of suffocating dust rises.

  "Help... someone... please..." A cry. Weak, muffled beneath the debris. I feel the adrenaline searing my blood. My hands tremble on the edge of the wall. A real cop, a man like my grandfather, wouldn't ask questions.

  He would brave the storm between these two monsters of power to pull that victim out.

  But I see Ryoga winding up for another blow, even more terrible. I see Shade preparing a crystal explosion to counterattack.

  I'm only human. A neighborhood cop with no powers, no armor. If I take one step too far, I'll be crushed between two colossi who won't even notice me.

  I stare at the collapsing house. I stare at the path leading to my safety. Honor or survival? I take a deep breath, my fingers tightening around my service weapon which I haven't even drawn yet.

  My heels dig into the asphalt. One step back. My gaze flickers toward the deserted street. My hand tightens around the grip of my weapon, knuckles white.

  Another cry. Sharper this time.

  My teeth grind hard enough to snap. I pivot. I stop thinking; I run.

  The air is thick with crystal dust a jagged snow that tears at my throat. An impact. The ground undulates from a blow landed by Ryoga two blocks away. A translucent slab breaks free from a storefront. It whistles through the air. I dive.

  BOOM.

  The blast pins me to the ground. Grit in my mouth. The taste of iron. I pull myself up, staggering, ears ringing. My uniform is nothing more than a collection of gray tatters. One step. Then another. My lungs are screaming.

  The property gate. The metal shreds my hands, but I feel nothing. My back catches on an iron spike. A dull tear. The warmth of flowing blood. I tumble to the other side, a mass of inert pain.

  The door. Locked. I shoulder it. The wood doesn't budge. From inside, a frantic yelping. Then, silence.

  I go around. The kitchen window. The smell hits me before I even reach it. Rotten eggs. Thick. Toxic. Gas. Through the glass, I see a schoolgirl. A broken doll pinned beneath a section of the ceiling. The hiss of a ruptured pipe pulses in sync with my heartbeat.

  Above her, a shard of crystal the size of an engine hangs by a single wire. With every impact from Ryoga outside, the block sways. A lethal metronome.

  I raise my elbow. The impact shatters the glass. A flash of white pain blinds me. A shard has pierced my palm. I don't scream. No air left.

  I haul myself into the room. The gas stings my eyes, drawing tears that blur everything. The latch. I fumble it open. The dog bolts between my legs. One less weight to carry.

  I grab a metal bar. A lever. My pierced hand slips on the iron, lubricated by blood. I heave. My vertebrae crack. No oxygen. My head weighs a ton.

  The crystal block above us quivers. Ryoga just landed a hit. A big one. The wire frays. One strand. Two.

  "Come on..." I mutter in a charred breath.

  The lever creaks. The debris lifts by a millimeter. My vision tunnels into black. I see the girl's hand twitch. One more push. The muscles in my arms are about to snap.

  Click.

  The sound comes from the wall. A short circuit. A tiny blue spark in the middle of an invisible cloud of gas.

  Time freezes. The crystal block lets go. The spark blooms.

  BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

  The world is nothing but heat and white noise.