Heavy rain coated Novaria in a slick, black varnish, turning the city into a drowning monolith. Lightning tore the sky open, illuminating the neon-lit skyscrapers that loomed like silent sentinels in the dark.

  Angelo didn't glide—he tore through the air with violent intent. Smoky orange energy tethers lashed out from his body, anchoring to gargoyles and steel beams before yanking him forward in brutal, jerking motions. He wasn't patrolling. He was hunting.

  "Angelo," Blue's voice cut through the howling wind, cold and sharp as a scalpel. "This course of action is ill-advised. Your emotional baseline is severely compromised. You are unfit for engagement."

  "Save it," Angelo gritted out, banking hard around a glass tower, the g-force pressing against his ribs.

  "I will not. You are operating on raw trauma. That file—"

  "I'm fine!" Angelo roared, the sound swallowed by a clap of thunder that shook the sky. "There is a criminal out there. I'm doing my job!"

  "Yeah, stow the lecture, Blueberry!" Red chimed in, his mental voice buzzing with manic anticipation. "The man wants to hunt. Let him hunt!"

  Angelo spotted the destination ahead—the Jewelry District, glowing like a diamond in the muck. The New Light Festival decorations were already up, colorful lanterns sagging miserably in the relentless downpour.

  "Listen to reason," Blue persisted, stubborn as a mule. "I understand the disorientation. The desire for vengeance, even. We just learned our parents were murdered. But this mindset—"

  "I don't care about the murder!"

  The thought slammed into their shared consciousness like a physical blow, stopping both voices cold.

  "I beg your pardon?" Blue asked, genuinely taken aback.

  "You heard me. They're dead. I never knew them. I don't care how they died."

  "Bullshit," Red interjected, his tone dropping an octave. "I can feel your blood boiling. You're a walking pressure cooker."

  "I share Red's assessment," Blue noted. "If not the homicide, then what is the source of this aggression?"

  Angelo landed on a stone gargoyle, his boots slipping on the wet surface before his tethers anchored him. He looked out at the city that had chewed him up and spit him out, the rain masking the heat in his eyes.

  "We were always treated like trash," Angelo hissed, the truth tearing its way out of his throat. "And someone out there is responsible for that hell we had to live through. The orphanage looked at us like we were broken, and Sleeser... he left us to rot when he joined the army."

  His eyes burned orange, hot enough to make the raindrops hiss as they neared his face.

  "Everyone gave up on us. But if our parents were around... maybe someone would have actually given a shit."

  "Preach," Red agreed, his voice low and dangerous.

  Blue remained silent. There was no logic to counter pain.

  Angelo dropped from the perch, landing heavily on the flat roof overlooking the Jewelry Center. The complex gleamed below, a maze of glass and gold that seemed to mock the grime of the city.

  "Red, Blue, scout the perimeter," Angelo commanded, staring down at the streets. "Find the Water—"

  Crimson smoke poured from Angelo's body before he even finished the sentence, Red shooting off into the rain like a bloodhound released from its leash.

  Angelo turned his internal gaze to the other presence in his mind. "And you? Why aren't you deploying?"

  "My role is that of an observer," Blue declared, his tone final and dripping with disapproval. "I will not validate this tantrum. I shall not take part in your vigilantism unless my hand is forced."

  "Fine," Angelo spat, grinding his teeth. "Stay in the car then. We don't need you."

  He stepped off the ledge.

  "I swear you two will be the death of me," he muttered, and plummeted toward the lights below.

  Red streaked through the air, his energy vision turning the world into a high-contrast landscape of shades of crimson. He ignored the cold, he ignored the wet. He was looking for a pulse.

  Then he saw it—the rhythmic movement of a figure inside one of the high-end shops, their aura suppressed to blend with the darkness.

  As Red swooped closer, he noticed the anomaly. The display window wasn't glass—it was a sheet of opaque ice, "fixed" into the frame. Every security sensor was frozen solid, rendered useless by the cold.

  He could have smashed through the ice, made an entrance. But that was too easy. He spotted a small ventilation gap near the top of the frame. Squeezing his smoky form through, he drifted inside like a crimson draft.

  The thief was methodical, emptying a velvet-lined shelf into a heavy sack before moving to the next display near the window. Red coalesced behind him, solidifying into flesh and bone, his crimson aura casting long, jagged shadows against the jewelry cases.

  "Red, wait for me!" Angelo’s order barked in their shared headspace.

  Red ignored it. He wasn't waiting for daddy's permission.

  He cupped his palms, crimson energy building between them with a high-pitched whine. The criminal froze, catching the reflection of red light in the glass case.

  Without warning, the thief spun around, a yellow aura igniting around him.

  "Surprise, motherfucker!" Red yelled.

  BOOM!

  The crimson blast caught the thief square in the chest. He flew backward, smashing through his own ice wall and tumbling out onto the wet pavement amidst a shower of shattering ice and scattering jewelry.

  "Hahaha! Get wrecked!" Red crowed, stepping through the broken window frame.

  "Woah!"

  Red twisted violently as a high-pressure water jet sliced the space where his head had been, obliterating the shop counter behind him.

  The thief scrambled to his feet, rain sluicing off his jacket. "Who the fuck are you? How did you get behind me?"

  "You're under arrest, right to remain silent, blah blah blah," Red waved a hand dismissively, assuming a battle stance. "Who cares? You ready to throw down?!"

  The criminal ground his teeth, his aura flaring. "Didn't know the Auron division was hiring circus clowns now."

  He raised his hands, and the heavy rain around him obeyed his will. Droplets coalesced into liquid serpents that struck with the speed of cobras. Red dodged weaving through the strikes, laughing as the water smashed into the shop behind him.

  "Not just any clown!" Red declared, vaulting over a combination of water whips and razor-sharp icicles. "For I am the one and only, Angel of Death! Hahaha!"

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  He fired a barrage of crimson blasts in return.

  "Red, I'll murder you!" Angelo cursed in his mind, getting closer.

  The water Auron swept his hand, freezing the rain into a solid barrier of ice that absorbed Red's attacks with a dull thud.

  "You? The Angel of Death?" The ice barrier liquefied instantly, reshaping into a massive blade of water that sliced horizontally through the air. Red was forced to dive into the mud to avoid decapitation. "What a joke!"

  "Yes! What a great joke!" Red agreed, springing back up, mud staining his uniform. His voice dropped, losing its humor. "Time for the punchline."

  He lunged forward, fists wreathed in crackling crimson energy. "Hahhhhh, die!"

  He closed the distance in a heartbeat, but the water Auron was faster. With a dismissive swipe of his arm, a dense wave of water slammed into Red like a concrete wall, knocking him away like a fly.

  Red crashed hard into the storefront, cracking the brickwork. He scrambled up, looking absolutely livid.

  "HEY! You were supposed to take that blow!" he demanded, offended that his opponent hadn't cooperated with his assault.

  "Pfft. Moron." The water Auron dismissed him, zero respect in his eyes.

  He raised both hands to the sky, and then clenched his fists. The falling rain around Red froze in mid-air. Thousands of droplets turned into thousands of needles, all pointing at the crimson Auron.

  "Fuck!"

  The needles converged.

  There was no blood. No scream. Red's body didn't fall, it popped like an overfilled balloon, bursting back into crimson mist.

  The water Auron blinked, thrown off by the lack of a corpse. He tracked the crimson mist as it shot upward, swirling into the stormy sky until it disappeared into a dark figure perched on the edge of the roof above.

  Darkness swallowed the rooftop, broken only by twin points of burning orange light piercing the gloom like hot coals.

  The thief reacted on instinct, sweeping his arms in a jagged arc, sending sharp icicles toward the figure with the hiss of slicing air.

  The figure moved—a blur of orange motion that side-stepped the barrage with contemptuous ease, landing silently on the wet gravel behind the criminal.

  The water Auron spun around, his rough features twisted in confusion. "I could have sworn I just popped you like a balloon. You got a death wish, kid?"

  "No." Angelo’s voice was colder than the ice shattering against the chimney behind him. "I am the true Angel of Death."

  The water Auron scoffed, water swirling around his boots. "At least you sound the part. Let's see if you can walk the walk!"

  He thrust his palms forward. The gutters overflowing with rainwater erupted, sending high-pressure geysers screaming toward Angelo like liquid battering rams.

  Angelo leaped, weaving between the torrents, his fists wreathed in crackling orange energy. He closed the distance, cocking his arm back for a strike—

  WHOOSH.

  A secondary geyser erupted from a storm drain to his flank—a blind spot. It caught him mid-air, slamming him sideways with the force of a wrecking ball. He crashed through a decorative festival tree planted on the sidewalk, snapping the trunk like a twig and tangling himself in a mess of wet branches.

  "Dodge," Blue’s warning came almost a split-second too late.

  Angelo scrambled free as water jets sliced the festive wreckage into mulch. He fired an energy tether, anchoring it to a nearby lamppost and swinging wide, barely staying ahead of the relentless hydro-cannons that pulverized the shopfronts behind him.

  "Maybe come out and help instead of just yelling 'dodge'!" Angelo snarled internally, the mental shout raw with frustration.

  Blue let out a long, suffering sigh in the back of his mind. "Very well. But I shall strictly cover your blind spots. I am not validating this rampage."

  Azure smoke seeped from Angelo’s body, hovering above the street like a spectral sentinel.

  The world expanded. Suddenly, Angelo wasn't just seeing with his eyes—he was perceiving the battlefield from above. He felt the water pressure building behind him, saw the arc of the attacks weaving between the buildings before they materialized.

  He re-engaged. He dipped under a frontal wave that was merely a distraction, sensing the real attack—a pressurized blade of water coming from the alley entrance to the right. He slid across the slick asphalt, the water blade carving a deep gash in the spot he’d occupied a microsecond before.

  "What?!" The water Auron stepped back, unnerved.

  Angelo rose from his slide in a fluid motion, launching a snap kick that grazed the thief’s chin. He didn't let up. He spun, momentum building, delivering a double spinning kick that forced the criminal to stumble backward toward a display window, his guard broken.

  Angelo fired a tether, reeling himself into the opening. His fist, glowing like a branding iron, connected squarely with the thief's nose.

  CRACK.

  "Yeah! Right in his stupid ugly face!" Red cheered, breaking his sulky silence. "Break him!"

  But one hit wasn't enough. The water Auron roared, rage overtaking shock. He slammed his hands together, and the rain pouring between the skyscrapers turned into a weapon, slicing the air in a chaotic whirlwind of liquid blades.

  Angelo danced through the storm, countering with rapid-fire energy blasts, but the water swallowed them up, hissing as it extinguished his fire.

  Then, through Blue's perspective, he saw the shift in the water's density.

  "He is attempting a repetition of his previous technique—" Blue warned.

  "I know!"

  The raindrops around Angelo paused, hanging in the air between the buildings like diamonds. The "Needle Rain."

  But Angelo wasn't Red. He didn't wait to be impaled.

  He exploded forward, diving through the suspended droplets just as they hardened into ice and converged on empty space behind him. He rolled through the mud, came up sprinting, and dodged a second wave of spikes.

  He was fast. But the water Auron was desperate.

  The criminal swept his arms wide, gathering the pooling water on the street into a single, massive jet as thick as a tree trunk. He fired it point-blank.

  There was no room to dodge in the narrow street.

  The blast hit Angelo in the chest with the force of a freight train. It lifted him off his feet and launched him down the block. He smashed head-first into the concrete wall of a corner shop, the impact sounding like a gunshot.

  He crumpled to the sidewalk. Blood—dark and warm—trickled down his forehead, mixing with the muddy rain.

  "Get up, Angelo!" Red yelled, his voice frantic. "Don't you dare stay down!"

  Blue's smoky form vibrated, hovering closer, ready to intervene, to pull the body to safety. But then he paused.

  The link between them flared hot.

  It wasn't just pain Angelo was feeling. It was memory.

  The shove in the playground. The laughter. "Freak." The cold eyes of the orphanage staff. Adults looking through him like he was glass. And then, the file. The black ink on yellowed paper. Murder. Abandonment. A life of hell because someone decided his parents didn't deserve to live.

  The file wasn't just paper. It was the root of the rot.

  Angelo’s eyes snapped open. The orange light in them had darkened, shifting from the color of fire to the color of dying stars. Pure, cold murder.

  He tilted his head just as a giant ice blade impaled the wall where his skull had been.

  The water Auron clenched his teeth, water swirling violently around him. "Just die already and leave me alone!"

  Angelo rose. Then launched himself, driven by pure fury.

  Water jets smashed into him. He tanked them. He took hits he should have dodged, trading health for position, pain fueling the engine of his rage.

  He closed the distance.

  His fist buried itself in the thief’s ribs. Crack.

  The thief gasped, trying to swipe with water claws. Angelo ducked, delivering a brutal uppercut to the gut that lifted the man off his feet.

  He jumped, dodging a desperate leg sweep, and drove his knee into the thief’s face on the way down. He leaped back, fired a point-blank energy blast into the man's chest, then reeled himself back in for another strike.

  He was a blur of violence, a machine running on hatred.

  "ENOUGH!"

  The water Auron screamed, terror finally breaking through. He summoned a tornado of ice shards and water, a chaotic barrier designed to shred anything that came close.

  Angelo leaped straight up, soaring above the writhing mass, illuminated by the neon signs of the Jewelry District.

  His hands converged at his chest, orange light gathering, condensing, brightening until it was painful to look at.

  "I'll give you one chance," Angelo called down, his voice booming over the storm. "Surrender."

  "Never! I need those rings!" The thief screamed, forming a thick dome of ice above his head.

  "Then you have sealed your fate."

  Angelo stretched his arms forward, palms facing the ice dome.

  "ENERGY WAVE!"

  A beam of concentrated power erupted from his hands, lighting up the narrow street like a second sun. It screamed through the air, hitting the ice barrier with a deafening hiss of steam.

  The ice held for a fraction of a second before evaporating.

  The beam engulfed the thief.

  "OOOOOOHHHHHHH!"

  The scream was swallowed by the roar of energy.

  When the light faded and the steam cleared, the water Auron was sprawled on the scorched asphalt. His aura flickered weakly—a dying light bulb—before snuffing out completely.

  Blue’s azure smoke swirled down, disappearing back into Angelo’s body.

  "He is incapacitated," Blue concluded, relief coloring his tone. "Threat neutralized."

  "Like hell he is!" Red’s voice dripped with venom. "You said he sealed his fate, right? Own up to those words, Angelo!"

  Angelo walked toward the groaning criminal. He didn't pull out handcuffs.

  He extended his hand, and orange tethers shot out from around him, wrapping around the thief’s limp limbs and hoisting him into the air, suspending him like a broken marionette above the street.

  Just then, Mike ran around the corner, panting, magenta sparks dancing round his limbs. He froze at the sight.

  "Wait... isn't that... Angelo...?"

  The water Auron’s eyes fluttered open, unfocused and filled with pain. They met Angelo's unyielding gaze and widened in sudden, lucid terror.

  "Don't..." he wheezed, blood bubbling past his lips. "Don't do it... Don't kill me... I still need to—"

  "You looked into death's face and your heart was unwavering," Angelo cut him off. His voice wasn't human, it was the verdict of a god. "You are beyond redemption."

  His right hand began to glow, humming with lethal intensity.

  "Angelo!" Blue shouted in panic. "Think about this!"

  "NO MERCY!" Red roared, drowning out logic.

  "DON'T DO ITTTT!" Mike screamed reaching forward.

  "Wait! I can still—ARGH!"

  Angelo drove his glowing hand forward. It pierced the thief’s chest, exiting through his back in a spray of blood and steam.

  The scream died instantly. The thief’s body went slack, hanging heavily in Angelo's grasp.

  Mike lowered his arm, his mouth opening and closing, soundless. All he could do was stare in horror at the silhouette of the Angel of Death, standing over his prey in the pouring rain.