SOLDIER POV
(Outside Ikar’s apartment)
The scope was steady.
The man breathed slowly, evenly, the rifle braced against the edge of the neighboring building. From that height, the neighborhood looked like a messy map—concrete rooftops, laundry hanging from balconies, cables crossing like old scars.
The objective was clear.
Third floor. Apartment with a shattered window and poorly drawn curtains.
“Visual confirmed,” he murmured, never taking his eye off the scope.
Only a low hum answered in his earpiece.
He frowned.
Adjusted the focus. Inside the apartment, he could make out two silhouettes. They weren’t moving. They were separated, as if waiting for something… or someone.
Too still.
“Alpha Team, hold position,” he said. “Do not breach yet.”
Silence.
He tried again.
“Alpha, do you copy?”
He rose slightly, bracing one knee against the concrete. He checked the channel, switched frequencies. The hum persisted—irregular, like static interference… but not the usual kind. Something about it was wrong. This kind of interference shouldn’t exist here.
He returned to the scope.
The figures were gone.
That didn’t match any protocol he knew.
“Something’s not right…” he whispered.
For a brief moment, a figure crossed one of the windows. His finger tensed on the trigger—but he didn’t fire. He had no orders.
And for the first time since the operation began, he felt the unsettling sensation that he wasn’t the one observing.
He was being observed.
The blast tore him out of the thought.
Fire burst from the apartment windows in a violent tongue of orange and white. The shockwave slammed into the building he was in, shaking it like paper. The scope was filled with fragments, dust, and blinding light.
Car alarms screamed. Shouts rose from the street below.
“What the hell—?!”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
Something struck the back of his neck.
It wasn’t brutal. It was precise. Calculated.
The rifle hit the ground before his body understood what was happening. The communicator was ripped from his ear with a sharp pull.
As he fell, his vision blurred just enough to register a silhouette.
Tall. Dark.
The figure picked up the earpiece, brought it to their own ear… and spoke.
The man never heard what was said.
His mind went dark.
Minutes before the explosion:
Ikar looked around.
The old couch. The dining table for two. The marks on the wall where Lívia had insisted on hanging a painting he never really liked. The narrow kitchen. The smell of coffee still lingered in the air.
He had spent so long convincing himself this place was safe…
Everything he had built here was doomed now.
He exhaled slowly.
“Maybe we don’t have to fight,” he said suddenly.
Silyan looked at him, suspicious—just as Ikar was already moving.
“I don’t like how that sounds,” he muttered.
Ikar headed for the kitchen with quick, decisive steps.
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“I knew you’d come up with something,” Silyan growled, following him. “This is getting interesting.”
Ikar opened one of the cabinets, pulled out a cheap lighter, and slipped it into his pocket. Then he crouched beside the stove and turned the gas knob without igniting it. A faint hiss filled the room, barely noticeable at first.
He opened several valves. The smell took only seconds to become obvious.
“Are you insane?” Silyan whispered.
“A little,” Ikar replied. “But not enough to stay here and get caught. We have to rescue Hera.”
He left the kitchen exactly as it was—doors open, the remaining windows still shut. The gas continued to build, slow, silent, treacherous.
Silyan’s tapping sped up.
“They’re on the floor,” he said. “Main door. Two in the back. The rest coming up the stairs.”
Ikar nodded.
“Then it’s now.”
The door was blown in with a sharp удар. The apartment fell into absolute silence.
The soldiers entered cautiously, weapons raised, clearing each corner. There was no one. Just an abandoned space—shifted furniture, a crack in one of the walls.
One of them frowned.
“Do you smell that…?”
At that moment, Ikar burst from one of the rooms. Silyan was right behind him.
They sprinted across the living room and hurled themselves toward the balcony.
They jumped.
The impact against the neighboring building was hard, but controlled. They rolled, got up, and kept moving without looking back.
Inside the apartment, one of the soldiers shouted:
“Gas! Don’t enter, fall back—”
Before the jump, Ikar had dropped the lighter into the kitchen.
The fire found its path.
The explosion shook the entire building. The balcony they had just left disintegrated into a rain of concrete, glass, and metal. The blast echoed across the block, shattering windows, triggering alarms, waking the entire neighborhood.
Ikar didn’t slow down.
As they ran across the rooftop of the adjacent building, he knew one thing with absolute certainty:
There was no going back.
They leapt from rooftop to rooftop without looking behind them.
Footsteps thundered after them—too many, too close. Boots slamming against concrete, clipped orders shouted, the metallic click of weapons being readied.
“This way,” Silyan said, turning sharply.
They dropped onto a lower roof and slid across a poorly secured tarp. Ikar barely managed to grab hold before letting himself fall.
The impact threw them straight into chaos.
An improvised produce stand filled the corner of the alley—wooden tables, stacked crates, bright fruit beneath faded umbrellas. They tore through it at full speed. Tomatoes rolled like marbles, oranges burst against the pavement, and a pyramid of bananas collapsed.
“What’s going on?!” someone shouted.
People scattered in panic at the sight of armed men flooding the streets. A man dropped his cart. A woman pulled her child to her chest. Ikar slammed a table aside with his shoulder just as a soldier appeared at the end of the alley and had to stop short to avoid crashing.
“Move!” Silyan growled.
They ran through the crowd, dodging obstacles, leaping over open crates. Gunfire cracked against a nearby wall.
“Ikar!” Silyan shouted as they turned another corner. “Are you going to use your ability, or do you want us hunted like rats?”
Ikar didn’t answer right away. He vaulted over a table, rolled across it, and landed on the other side without losing speed.
“Sure,” he panted. “Let me explode your internal organs in the middle of a crowded market. Brilliant idea.”
Silyan clenched his teeth.
“You know what I mean! You could get us out of here in seconds!”
“And you could shut up,” Ikar shot back. “If you want to keep your liver where it is.”
They burst onto a wider avenue. The noise multiplied—engines, voices, horns. The market stretched out in front of them: meat stalls, fish, vegetables, children weaving between adults, vendors shouting prices.
“Then fix it!” Silyan insisted. “That problem of yours. You said you were controlling it!”
Ikar shoved a man out of his path just as an armored van screeched around the corner at full speed.
“It only happens in high-risk situations,” he snarled. “It’s not something I can just turn on and off.”
Silyan looked at him like he was about to punch him.
“And this doesn’t count?!”
Ikar didn’t answer. He didn’t have an answer he liked.
Gunfire continued. Glass shattered. Fish stalls overturned, the smell of the sea flooding the air.
“And what about you?!” Ikar snapped. “You’re so great—why aren’t you attacking?”
Silyan skidded to a halt, eyes locked on the armored van, ready to send it flying—then stopped.
A child darted in front of them, glanced back, and kept running.
“Look around, idiot,” Silyan said tightly. “There are people. There are kids.”
Ikar knew he was right. This wasn’t the place to blow things up.
He scanned the surroundings quickly—and an idea struck.
An old red scooter was parked at the curb. The driver was arguing with someone, distracted.
No hesitation.
“That one!” Ikar shouted.
He ran, shoved the man aside without unnecessary force, and jumped on.
“Get on!” he yelled at Silyan.
The scooter roared to life. People scattered—screams, flying bags, someone falling to the ground.
“You’re insane!” Silyan shouted as he climbed on behind him.
“You already said that,” Ikar replied, swerving sharply. “Hold on.”
He accelerated.
The street turned into a tunnel of noise—horns, insults, screeching tires. The scooter zigzagged between stalled cars, brushing bumpers, jumping potholes.
Behind them, two armored vans burst through without slowing, shoving ordinary cars aside like toys.
“Above!” Silyan shouted. “A helicopter!”
The chop of the blades sliced through the air.
“Great,” Ikar muttered. “Just what we needed.”
A burst of fire struck the asphalt meters from them. Stone fragments flew like shrapnel.
“Take control,” Ikar said suddenly.
“What?”
“Drive!”
Silyan barely had time to react before Ikar shifted backward, clinging on however he could.
“I don’t like this,” Silyan said.
“You never do,” Ikar replied.
He closed his eyes.
The world contracted.
The noise faded into a distant murmur. Vibrations from the ground, the air, the engines—everything overlapped, chaotic. He raised his hands.
And the road fractured.
Suddenly, there wasn’t one—
But five.
Five identical scooters appeared on the street. Perfect copies in shape, sound, and movement. Five Ikars. Five Silyans. Five trajectories.
Each took a different path.
The vans didn’t hesitate. They split up, chasing each copy. The helicopter banked, confused, hovering for a second before dividing its focus.
Silyan tightened his grip on the handlebars.
“I hate it when you do that,” he muttered.
Ikar opened his eyes. Sweat ran down his forehead. The city vibrated too loudly.
“Be grateful you can still hate me,” he replied. “It won’t last long.”
The real scooter vanished into narrow streets, while behind them, chaos multiplied.
For a few seconds—
Just a few seconds—
They disappeared from the radar.
But Ikar knew.
That didn’t mean they had escaped.
It only meant the hunt had just become interesting.
