A hero standing over 2 meters tall. Just by standing, the hero is already looming over the redhead.
"Bulking." Makoto clicked his tongue in annoyance.
The hero is none other than bulking. One of the heroes who Karen had fought during the day.
Unexpectedly he is still able to do hero work despite Makoto having blasted him with a powerful air blast this morning. For normal individuals, being blasted with such air blast would be enough for them to lay on bed for a few months.
"You, I know you." Bulking narrowed his eyes as he looks down on the hooded figure, "You're the kid who saved that vigilante this morning."
The sound of a motorcycle approaching is heard.
Karen can be seen riding a bike at a high speed in the distance.
Karen ignore any formality and continue riding the bike at full speed. Suddenly, he jumped off the bike.
Crimson strings gleaming under the moonlight shoot out from the tips of Karen's fingertips. The crimson strings wrapped around the bike in an instant.
Karen flicked his wrist, throwing the bike towards the hero.
All of this happens in one second.
Bulking wasn't able to react when a literal motorbike crashed against his head.
Kaboom!
The bike crashed against his head. reinforced metal againsr reinforced bones and flesh and the pieces of the bikes flew all over the place.
Bulking was forced a few steps back.
Karen landed on the ground.
"Whitereaform." Bulking's face turns serious the moment he recognised the white haired boy.
Both looks up, gazes meeting mid air.
Bam!
Karen's figure vanished.
Both of their fists collided.
Bulking grinned, "You two pesky little bastards were able to run away because -"
A punch landed on Bulking's jaw, cutting him off. His head was tilted to the side from Karen's punch.
"Less talk," Another punch landed on the hero's jaw, "More action."
Karen's voice cut through the air like blade.
Bam!
Another punch landed on Bulking's jaw.
"You're just another kid I've defeated once," Bulking glared at him in anger.
Crimson strings suddenly shot out of Karen's fingertips and wrapped around the hero's neck.
Karen flicked his wrist, pulling the hero closer.
"And you're just an unskilled fighter who overly reliant on his power."
Bulking tried to resist the pulling from the strings, but Karen's physical strength simply far surpassed him.
The moment the hero's face was close, Karen's knee shot, kneeing him across the face. His knee landed on his nose and what followed soon is quite the brutal beating.
"Your stance is flawed"
"You have all the strength but none the brain."
"A monkey with strong body, but even apes are better in using their brain."
"All the strength, not even a little skills."
"You punch is like the punch of a little girl with the body of a boy."
"Even a gorilla with your aspect would be able to use it better than you."
Cybercity is a busy place. As a micro nation, it's streets are never empty.
Therefore just the sight of a top hero getting his ass kicked is enough to have a crowd gathered around to record the scene.
Makoto who had hidden himself amongst the crowd can't help but winced seeing Karen's brutality.
[ Junklovetowrite: LMAO! Is this real? a hero getting beaten by a kid? ]
[ Penguinz_Hro: Bro, this lil'guy is a menace. ]
[Love-in-star: *laughing emoji* ]
[ JellyInKrag: Lolololol! a kid! Got beaten by a kid! ]
Before everyone knew it, Bulking was already laying on the floor, beaten like a ragdoll.
Noticing everyone now staring at him while recording him, Karen frowned.
Luckily he had melted a part of his mouth to form a black face mask that covers the lower part of his face.
Pulling out a gun from his pocket, Karen aimed a gun into the air.The crowd grew silent.
The trigger was pushed.
The bullet flew through the air.
There was a deafening silence.
And in the next second a thunderous bang exploded across the street.
The entire crowd immediately flew into panic.
Karen casually emptied the magazine as he approaches the unconscious hero. Then he casually shoved the gun into Bulking's mouth.
"Where did you even get the gun?" Makoto jogged up to him.
The two together walked to the truck.
"Stole it from one of the bikers."
The truck drove off.
Seeing a truck in such states - with holes and dent all over it - should be enough to attract the road users' attention. Not to mention two underage kids are driving the truck.
Luckily Makoto knows the streets of Cybercity at the back of his head. He simply drove the truck through the streets that would usually be silent this late hour.
"Weird," Makoto suddenly said as he drove.
"What?" Karen who is eating a bar of energy food suddenly asked.
Makoto did not reply to him. Instead he turn on the radio in the truck.
[ Breaking News! The number one hero of Cybercity Vioflare had challenged the number one hero of Maphilindo Alliance! ]
[ According to our sources, the number one hero of Malaysia, Adi Wira had refused the challenge as he was busy with his family ]
[ Is the hero really a family man? Or is he a fraud hiding behind facade of righteousness? ]
"It's almost an hour and not even a single cop is chasing us." Makoto suddenly questioned.
The redhead grinned in excitement, " That mean we can just sold the truck on the black market."
" Can you imagine it? This is a truck belongings to the Hummingbird Corporation! One of the biggest in this city."
"Each parts would cost hundreds of thousands!"
"Money? That means badget for good food, cost for repairing our gadgets and maybe even new gadge!" Like an overexcited kid, Makoto started listing all the things he was already planning to do with the money.
"Or we can just keep the truck and use it for future missions."
"But keeping the truck will cost us money. The maintenance will cost a lot and we don't even have any source income to take care of it. Not to mention, anyway to hide this thing." Makoto complained.
"Besides, these things should have a lot of trackers placed all over it. We make it quick, find someone we can trust and we can sell it off and gain a quick cash." Makoto explained with a grin, " And I know Wak Tolak kno-."
"This thing has trackers all over it," Karen said leaning against the seat, "They even added a few recorders and have been recording our conversations."
"Hang on what?!" Makoto immediately pulled the brake. He turns to Karen demanding an explanation.
Karen casually pulls out a recording device from his pockets before casually dumping out a bunch of trackers into existence.
The trackers are too many that some simply felll scattered all over the truck.
"It seems those bastards of the Hummingbird Corporation sure knows a few tricks up their sleeve." Karen can't help but be amused, "Luckily I've noticed something was wrong when we boarded the truck and have been fingering around all over the truck searching for these bad boys."
"Of course," Makoto started the engine and drove off, "Those corpos knows how to make us mercs lives harder."
"So here is the plan. We find somewhere to hide the truck, in the meantime try to find someone to sell some parts of the truck and replace them with lesser quality but with good pricing."
"Rent some place somewhere to hide the truck and all the batteries and in a few days we give the battery those idiots needed and can keep the rest to sell them or whatever." Karen explained slowly.
A good idea really.
But Makoto can't help but side eyeing him with a weird look.
"You've sounded experienced. Have you done this before in Samara?" The redhead can't help but questioned.
"Are you once again connecting deserts with violence? Come on it's the 29th century. I thought now it's Uncle Sam the media is portraying as the barbaric violent idiots considering they've accidentally nuked themselves and the rest of the world. You know, the Great Cataclysm started because of them."
"They won't dare."
"Why?"
"My mother came from a distant relative of Jews. Calling me out would make you an antisemitisic."
"You have a mom? Tell me more about her." Makoto said trying to lighten the mood."
"She neglected me for my entire life because I'm the biggest mistake in her entire existence of being a hero and she left me to die in a burning mansion. A few years later I found out she's married to some rich dude with good aspect so I suppose my future half sibling would have a powerful aspect themselves."
"Oh wow, that's dark."
"It's thing in the family. Her parents 'trained' her and her twin without any care for their well being and in exchange I got the bad end of her rejection and here I am, going from a war torn country to a corrupted sovereign city while she is probably busy making baby with powerful aspect for the sake of the family line."
A few hours later, they finally boarded all of the batteries inside the truck.
Good news for them, the batteries are quite small, each placed inside of a small metal container that can fit on the palm.
Bad news, the truck is loaded with these batteries.
It took them hours just to load these bad boys because these metal containers are heavy.
"You sure this place is safe?" Karen asked while looking up to the rundown warehouse located in the middle of Undercity."
" Relax. I've rented this place for a few months now. The people here knows when to zipped their mouth and won't even care as long as we don't cause much ruckus for them." Makoto assured him.
Makoto stretched his body.
"Come, it's midnight already and it's time for use to rest."
Makoto walked passed him.
Karen followed after him only to halted his steps.
The white haired boy looks, only now noticing the rundown ad boards on one of the nearby rundown building.
It depicted a woman. A heroine in red witch themsed costume. The heroine held a canned drink in her hand.
An advertisement for an energy drink.
'Crimson Drink, Burning your energy'
Karen's eyes dimmed slightly, hands clenching and jaws tightening.
"Oh right, Samara doesn't really have much contact with the outside world, so you probably doesn't know her."
"She's Crimson Witch, publicly known as the strongest fire aspect user in the world. A few years back, she was married to the number one hero on charts of global heroes, Supersurya."
"That drink? It's the drink from the company that she had founded, Crimson Snack, a brand known as Crimson Drink, well known globally and quiet popular among kids." Makoto rant like a fanboy.
"You looks like you're a big fan."
"Absolutely. I mean she's beautiful, smoking hot, a well known hero, born with a powerful aspect and has a business of her own."
"A hypocrite." Karen suddenly said, cutting him off.
"What was that?"
"She's just another hypocrite. Nothing more, nothing less."