(In a city, at night)
A combat helicopter hovered in the sky, flying very low, almost directly above his head.
There was a soldier on the side of the helicopter aiming a heavy machine gun at him, along with two other armed soldiers.
"Do not move, in the name of Vought," one of the soldiers said through a loudspeaker.
V-25, meanwhile, just stood there, observing the irritating situation he had gotten himself into.
Should I take the helicopter down? he thought.
But to be honest, he didn't really want to do that. He didn't like killing. He preferred not to kill anyone if he could avoid it. Only in extreme cases did he feel it was necessary.
I'll just run away. Eventually they'll stop, V-25 thought.
Without waiting or caring about what the soldiers in the helicopter were saying, he simply started running.
Yes, he ran.
So fast that, in an instant, the soldiers in the helicopter had no time to react.
He stomped the ground with all his strength, creating a crater around him—
—and ran.
Wherever he ran, he left a trail of destruction behind, cracking and breaking the ground.
"Shit, he's escaping," said the helicopter pilot.
"He's running! Go after him!" shouted one of the guards.
Down below, V-25 ran at high speed through the city.
Up above, the helicopter began the chase.
They had his location through a tracker, so they always knew where he was and where he was going.
They followed him from a distance.
"He can't run forever," said one of the armed soldiers inside the helicopter.
The pilot, meanwhile, thought to himself as he listened:
Can't he?
V-25 kept running across the city, jumping between buildings and slowly getting used to his powers.
He could clearly hear that the helicopter was still following him.
Even when he tried to lose them, they were still right behind him.
That started to irritate him.
Are they never going to stop following me? he thought.
Even he would have to stop eventually to rest.
He kept running and running, almost reaching the edge of the city, heading nowhere in particular.
That was when he decided to rest on top of a building.
He jumped and climbed up.
After reaching the top, he sat on the edge of the building.
He focused and tried to listen.
Using his super hearing, he heard the helicopters.
Yes—plural.
Before, there had been only one. Now there were at least three, all heading in his direction.
But he heard something else.
An unknown object was moving at high speed toward him.
It wasn't a helicopter.
It was faster.
And louder.
Using his vision and reflexes, he saw it in the distance—a combat jet flying straight at him.
"What the hell is that?" he exclaimed, feeling a bit of fear. After all, he was still human.
But he didn't even have time to fully feel afraid, because the jet fired a missile at him.
"Shit!" he shouted as he leapt off the building and jumped onto another one.
He dodged the missile, but it still hit the rooftop where he had been.
There was a loud explosion, and the roof collapsed.
After the collapse, he heard crying and screams of fear.
He was standing nearby, on top of another building, watching everything unfold.
Meanwhile, the jet flew rapidly over his head and disappeared into the horizon, probably repositioning to fire again.
At the same time, he could hear the helicopters getting closer.
But something strange happened as he stared at the newly destroyed building.
His eyes began to see through the walls.
Yes—he could see inside the building from the outside.
"Mama, it hurts," said a little girl inside.
The building that had been hit by the missile caught fire and began to collapse further.
There were many injured people inside.
"Someone help me," a man cried out from the rubble.
"Please, someone help my daughter!" screamed a woman, covered in dirt amid the debris.
"Fuck…" V-25 said, his eyes filling with tears.
He jumped and grabbed onto the building, then punched through the wall and went inside.
Once inside, he began helping everyone.
He lifted debris and rescued a man who had been buried. Carrying the still-living man, he jumped out of the building and placed him outside.
After saving the man, he jumped back inside through the same hole.
Luckily, not the entire building had collapsed—only a few floors.
He landed and slowed his movements, first using his hearing and vision to make sure no one was beneath him.
On the floor below, there was a family.
A mother and her daughter.
The daughter was very young and trapped under debris. The poor girl had one of her legs crushed.
The mother was lucky—but the daughter… she might not survive.
The woman was trying to help her daughter when suddenly something happened that startled her.
Someone descended from above.
She didn't even care that someone had come down from the "sky." She only wanted help for her child.
"Please, help her," the woman said through tears.
The girl was already unconscious.
V-25's eyes were also filled with tears.
Using his strength, he easily moved the debris, picked up the girl with one arm and the mother with the other.
He moved fast. As soon as he freed the girl, he grabbed the mother and jumped out of the building, placing them outside.
He laid them down near a group of people who had escaped from the lower floors.
He left the two of them close to those people—they probably knew them and would help.
Before leaving, he took off his shirt and made a tourniquet around the girl's leg to stop the bleeding.
Then he left them there.
As he was about to leave and deal with what was happening, he heard:
"Thank you, thank you so much," the woman said, hugging her daughter.
Maybe the girl wouldn't survive. With that leg, she would certainly never walk again—but at least she was alive, he thought.
After that, he jumped away and landed on top of another building.
And waited.
It didn't take long before he saw the helicopters approaching.
The closer they got, the more anger he felt.
He could still remember what had happened.
And technically, it was his fault—but how could he have known?
Even so, he blamed himself.
The helicopters came close and shone their spotlights on him, repeating once again:
"Stay where you are. Don't move. We don't want to hurt you," said a soldier through the loudspeaker.
V-25 listened.
He thought.
Should I go?
No. I don't want to go. I don't want anything. I want to be free. I'll make these bastards pay and leave me alone.
"You can all go to hell!" he shouted.
Inside the helicopter—
"He doesn't seem willing to come, captain. What are the orders?" a soldier asked through the communicator.
"The orders are to capture him by any means necessary. Open fire," said a captain who wasn't in the helicopter.
"Copy," replied the soldier.
The soldier turned to another one.
"What are the orders?" he asked.
"Permission to fire. Open fire," the other soldier said.
Down below—
V-25 waited. For a moment, he believed things could be resolved peacefully.
But he was wrong.
Machine-gun and heavy rifle fire rained down from the sky.
Heavy machine guns mounted on the helicopters opened fire on him.
Hundreds of bullets flew toward him.
They struck his body, causing no pain—
—but fueling his rage.
He remembered what had happened to the girl, and his mind was flooded with anger.
"You can all go to hell, you bastards!" he screamed.
Then he jumped toward one of the helicopters and grabbed onto it.
"Oh shit, shoot him!" a soldier screamed in fear.
Bullets were fired again, hitting his body, but nothing happened.
Instead, his rage grew even stronger.
Without mercy or hesitation, he used his strength to destroy critical parts of the helicopter.
The helicopter began to fall, and before it hit the ground and collided with a building, he jumped away.
He landed in the street—
—and before he could even think, bullets rained down on him again.
That reignited his fury.
"You assholes really want to die?" he shouted.
Then the fire of his anger transcended.
He felt something strange in his eyes, but didn't think much of it—or rather, he didn't have time to.
He stared at the helicopters with bloodlust.
The next instant, his eyes glowed red, and a beam of red energy sliced through the helicopters and everything in its path.
BOOM.
One helicopter exploded and crashed into the city. The other had its rotor destroyed and fell.
"What the—?" He didn't even understand what had just happened.
One moment he wanted to destroy the helicopters, and the next—it was done.
He didn't understand it at all.
That was when he heard the jet returning on the horizon.
You again… he thought.
He was already preparing to jump and attack, but the jet flew high above and kept going.
It only scanned the situation and retreated.
Coward… he thought.
He stood in the middle of the city. Two helicopters had crashed. Everything around him was chaos.
Probably some innocent people had been hurt—but he didn't care.
He was too tired to care.
So once again, he ran.
This time, he would go much farther away.
And of course, some people had filmed everything that had happened.
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(Author's Note), This chapter caused me a lot of anger. I lost a good portion of the final part and had to rewrite everything all over again. Also, Merry late Christmas