I heard a few thuds as something hit the floor. Before I had even had time to turn around, the entire room became flooded with smoke. The smoke was so incredibly thick that I could not even see the woman that I was protecting.

  Multiple more smashes followed, and the smoke only seemed to get thicker.

  Fuck…I thought to myself. Why can’t I ever just catch a break?

  There was no time to think about that, though. It didn’t matter what came my way, I had a duty to keep moving forward.

  I turned on the spot, unsheathing my swords.

  ‘Aunt Emma,’ I said quietly so that whoever was outside, and now maybe inside, wouldn’t be able to hear me. ‘Stay still. And I’ll pay for the window.’

  I tensed the muscles in my legs and gripped my swords tighter.

  ‘Mist Breathing, Second Form: Undetected Lunge.’

  I shot forward, and the smoke in the room wrapped around my blade, heightening my power. I leapt out of the window and brought my right blade up, hoping to hit someone. I did. Or, to be more accurate, I hit something.

  The sound of two blades colliding met my ears as the smoke began to clear. Without even thinking, I spun in the air and kicked my opponent in the stomach, sending him flying across the street.

  Landing graciously, I began to scan my surroundings. No less than ten people were spread out across the road, all of them holding a sword or two. And every single one of them had their eyes locked on one target: me.

  ‘What in Titan-’ I heard Harvey’s voice begin as he strode up next to me. ‘They brought this many people?’

  He unsheathed his sword and then extended it into two before separating them.

  ‘This should be fun,’ I snarled. ‘Remember to use your powers if you get overwhelmed.’

  ‘You got it, boss.’

  ‘And don’t stray too far from the house,’ I warned. ‘Fight, but don’t leave Aunt Emma unguarded.’

  He nodded, his jaw tight.

  A man charged at me from my right. His piggy little brown eyes were filled with anger, his black hair flying back as he stormed my way.

  His bronze sword was high above his head, and he brought it down towards me with great power. Nothing I couldn’t handle.

  I shot my right arm out, stabbing him in the stomach, and then brought my left blade up and cut his head clean off.

  Roaring, I charged towards the two closest people, who stared at me in horror. They clearly had not heard the tales of the power of Albert Santrrer.

  As I reached them, I flung my arm around as though I were throwing a ball. The corpse of their comrade flew from the end of my blade and slammed into the two of them.

  ‘Ground Breathing, Second Form: Grounded Hammer!’ I roared, leaping high into the air and flipping to generate power in my blade.

  Right before I reached the pair that were still struggling to get up, the heavy body of some six-foot-tall man ploughed into me midair and sent me flying into the tarmac below.

  Looking up through my daze, I saw the enraged face of a blond man. He brought a blade down and took off my left forearm.

  Without even thinking, I brought my remaining blade up to shield my face, which was where he was aiming to strike next. Our blades met one another and he pushed brutally against me.

  Tightening my gut, I manipulated the tarmac to my right and willed it to become a tower of earth. It shot towards my opponent’s neck and dragged him into the sky.

  ‘Santrrer!’ someone screamed as I got to my feet.

  Glancing to my left, I found someone charging in my direction. To my right, three others were doing the same.

  I kissed my teeth. ‘What a pain in the ass…’

  My wings shot out from my back and I gave a great flap and shot into the sky until I was level with the man I was holding captive with a tower of John Street.

  ‘How did you know we were here?’ I snarled. ‘Answer me quick before I squeeze your brain out through your ears.’

  Fear shot through his eyes. ‘I…I…’

  ‘Too slow.’

  With frightening speed, I tightened the tarmac around his neck, popping his head as though it were a large zit.

  The air around me changed. Instinctively, I weaved to the left, just as a bolt of lightning shot horizontally through the space that my stomach had been milliseconds before.

  ‘There’s no way…’ I breathed. ‘Righello, you…you can’t be…’

  Fear coursing through my veins, I scanned the ground beneath me. There was no sign of Righello. But there was also no sign of anybody using lightning. Everybody that was focused on me was just helplessly waving their swords waiting for me to come down to them.

  I scanned the rooves of houses. Nothing. Even with my enhanced vision, I couldn’t see him. Maybe he wasn’t here. But who else would be shooting lightning at me?

  For a moment, I found myself engrossed with Harvey’s fighting. He was doing well to fend off two people on his own. I felt a strange sense of pride.

  In the distance, I could hear police sirens. That’s when real worry began to set in. Human police. They would get hurt. Or, at the very least, they would show up to find a winged teenager and his cousin fighting a herd of people.

  ‘Let’s finish this quickly,’ I murmured.

  Using the wind, I brought my second sword up from the ground and into my regenerated left hand.

  ‘Thunder Breathing, Ninth Form: Crash Down.’

  Electricity ran up and down both my body and my blades. Feeling alive with power, I tucked my wings in tight against my back and dived towards the crowd of people awaiting my arrival below.

  I brought my blades down with absolutely terrifying power. As I did so, lightning struck the ground, using my body as a conductor. The electricity flowing through every cell in my body made me feel powerful. I wondered if this was what the Gods felt like.

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  The bodies of my enemies flew away in different directions and crashed into the street seconds later, smoking. Some of them began to slowly get to their feet, but two or three were already dead.

  ‘Hey, that’s Anna’s boy!’ a voice came from somewhere to my left.

  My head snapped in that direction. A rather short man stood with who I presumed to be his daughter, and he was pointing straight at Harvey, who was locked in a stalemate with someone. The two of them were pushing against one another’s swords with every ounce of strength they had.

  The man’s blond hair was gelled to the left and his wide brown eyes seemed filled with horror. His ginger daughter, no older than seven, looked on in curiosity.

  ‘David!’ Harvey roared. ‘Get out of here, it’s not-’

  I sensed the air change again.

  ‘Thunder Breathing, Second Form: Godspeed.’

  I blitzed forward, jumping as I reached David and his daughter. Lightning struck my back, making my vision flash and my body contort. As this was not my own lightning, it was extremely dangerous.

  Once it was over, I tried to land on my feet in front of David, but I merely collapsed into a heap.

  Groggily looking up at him, I saw fear and worry in his eyes.

  ‘You…did you…protect us?’ he asked shakily.

  ‘Get…get out of here,’ I said quietly as I got to my feet. ‘Show me your house and I…I can…get you there safe.’

  He didn’t say a word.

  ‘This isn’t…a place…for children…’

  The air changed again. I scanned the area to try and see where the lightning was going to come from while simultaneously getting ready to jump to protect the people in front of me.

  But I was too slow.

  Before I could even react, David’s body went limp and his head dropped to the floor at my feet. Blood poured thickly from his open neck and his lifeless decapitated head stared up at me.

  His daughter screamed.

  Without thinking, I sheathed the sword in my left hand and then grabbed the girl. I shot to the right, sensing an attack from behind.

  ‘No witnesses!’ the man that had just tried to attack me roared.

  This man was new. He wasn’t part of the original squad that had arrived. My heart went cold at the realisation that reinforcements were arriving at the second.

  The girl behind me began to cry. And, Gods, was she crying. I wanted to comfort her but I did not see how that was possible given the current circumstance.

  Calm down, I told myself. Keep your breathing steady and don’t fight with your emotions.

  ‘Hey, girl!’ I whispered quickly. ‘Listen! Do you know where your house is?’

  Thankfully, she heard me and nodded. She pointed to my right and said, ‘T-that way!’

  ‘Is anyone home?’

  ‘My…my m-mom is.’

  ‘When I say ‘go’, run towards your house as fast as you can!’ I ordered. ‘I’ll protect you, I promise!’

  I unsheathed my other sword.

  ‘Go!’

  I was surprised at how willing she was to follow my orders. Immediately, she bolted to the right and didn’t look back. Even after seeing her dad killed right in front of her, she still had the energy to run.

  I sprinted after her, noting that five people had immediately picked her as their target.

  ‘Fire Breathing, Eighth Form: Blazing Torches,’ I murmured, coating my blades in flames.

  As two men came into my range, I drove my swords forward into their stomachs and then brought them up, cleaving them in half from the inside. They fell instantly.

  The girl still didn’t look back.

  Person after person charged at her, and I killed each and every one.

  Suddenly, the girl turned and bolted towards a front door. Her house.

  'Get inside!' I roared, blocking a strike from a black-haired attacker. ‘Protect yourself!’

  The girl opened the door and hurried inside. I heard a woman inside begin shouting and hoped it was her mother.

  ‘Now…’ I snarled. ‘Now…we don’t have to be PG…’

  Power surged through my body as I tightened my grip on my blade. Yellow lightning coursed over my forearms and spread over my biceps and shoulders.

  ‘Fire Breathing, Tenth Form!’ I roared. ‘Crimson Rage!’

  The flames on my blade expanded and I sent the man before me flying. Three other people charged my way and I weaved between them before turning on the spot and dishing out horrifying blows. Each one ended up decapitated.

  The road around me was scorching, with towering flames rising high into the air, but I didn’t stop. I ran along the street, cleaving through whoever came into range.

  An enraged soldier darted towards me, two swords raised above his head. He brought them down towards me and I blocked.

  I shot my leg out and kicked him in the shin, driving my blade through his chest as he fell.

  The air changed again.

  I leapt to the right as what looked like a net of lightning shot past me. Then one came from above, causing me to duck. Another from my right, so I rolled across the road to avoid it.

  Someone above me roared. Looking up, I saw a burly brown-haired man swinging an axe down towards me. Not only that but bolts of lightning were closing in on me from the left and right.

  It had to be Righello, surely. There was no way that Maltor had two children of Zeus on his side. I refused to believe it.

  Grunting, I tightened my gut, manipulating the tarmac around me once more. I built walls on either side of me in an attempt to block the lightning whilst grabbing the ankles of my attacker with a tendril of the road.

  Just as his axe reached me, my attacker was hoisted into the air by John Street, yelping. His axe cut cleanly through the fabric of my shirt, but it only grazed my torso. I had lived somehow.

  ‘Albert will cheat Fate more times than you can count,’ Alfonso’s words echoed once more.

  I should’ve died. There was no way I should’ve lived that. Alfonso’s words were only being proven right with every fight I took part in.

  Leaping to my feet, I readied my stance and perfected my breathing.

  ‘Water Breathing, Fourth Form: Striking Tide.’

  I leapt into the air towards my dangling foe and took his head off with a single swipe of my sword.

  Flipping in the air, I dived down towards two other people that had been heading my way.

  ‘Third Form: Split Waves.’

  As I reached them, I swiped my swords out either side of me, separating their heads from their necks before they had even realised I was heading their way.

  Once I had landed, I immediately raced across the street in Harvey’s direction, where most of the enemies were now concentrated.

  ‘Hey, you!’ came a voice from my left. ‘Stop right there!’

  I glanced towards where the voice had come from and found myself staring straight at three police cars and well over half a dozen policemen or women. Each and every one of them was pointing a taser at me.

  ‘Get out of here!’ I barked. ‘This isn’t safe!’

  ‘Don’t tell us what to do!’ a chubby policeman yelled back. ‘Drop your weapons and slowly make your way over here with your hands raised!’

  I didn’t move. My eyes were fixated on the tasers in their hands. The last time I had seen a taser had been in Paris. And even before that, my history with them had not been great.

  The air changed.

  ‘Officer, take-’ I began, but I was far too late.

  Lightning crashed down from the heavens and descended right onto the police force. It was so bright that I instinctively squinted.

  Something was different, however. Unless my eyes were tricking me, there was a new figure in the centre of the lightning. A silhouette wielding two swords seemed to be hacking and slashing at where the police cars were, before disappearing along with the lightning.

  ‘R-R…No…’ I whispered.

  I was in no shape to fight him if that really was who I thought it was.

  The police cars exploded, sending metal flying into the air powered by plumes of black smoke. Any police officer who may have survived the lightning surely did not survive the explosion.

  Somebody stabbed me through the midsection from behind. Without even pausing for a second, I spun my sword in an arc behind me, striking whoever it was that had hit me. I heard their body fall.

  I readied my stance once more, my eyes set on Harvey.

  ‘Thunder Breathing, Second Form,’ I murmured. ‘Godspeed.’

  I darted forward in Harvey’s direction, raising my swords to strike those around him.

  Pain soared through my shoulders, causing me to stop dead in my tracks. I felt blood begin to pour from my wounds as my stomach flipped. My arms were sailing through the air before me.

  They hit the ground in front of me with dull thuds.

  My vision was blurring from a mixture of fear, nausea, and pain. Somebody had been fast enough to completely cut off my arms while I had been using Godspeed.

  I didn’t have time to think. I tightened my gut and manipulated the wind around Harvey. I pulled him into the air and tossed him down the street, screaming ‘Get back to RoCity! Now!’

  I heard footsteps ploughing towards me. I was defenceless. The only thing I could do was use my Titan powers, and that would be a problem given how weak I was.

  Leaping into the air, I unfolded my wings, but that was only followed by more pain. I fell to the ground, miraculously landing on my feet. My wings landed on the ground next to me.

  I could’ve screamed. My wings…cut off?

  Looking up through my daze, I saw the culprit. Anger began to boil in my body.

  He stood there with his back to me, his black swords glistening under the sun. His black hair, too, seemed to gleam. As he began to turn, I found my voice.

  ‘You…you should…be…dead…’

  He didn’t respond. He merely stared at me.

  ‘H-Huh?’ I croaked. ‘Rig-Righello? Are you…are you…missing…’

  As though I had been hit by a blunt object, my body caved in on itself and I fell to the tarmac, completely unconscious.