Anyone nearby had only to close their eyes to pretend nothing was happening. Before the Runners was a scene of horrific and bloody dismemberment, but it was all completely silent. A single group was converging on a single target, who slashed the oppressors to ribbons with the efficiency and accuracy of a machine. No one screamed, or grunted, or even made a footstep. They just died, and not even the splashing of blood on the ground made a noise. Raille stared, petrified. Menniker gagged. Erg squealed with twisted glee. Twitch simply stood silent and still, like a guardian. The last of the doomed figures fell to the ground in pieces. The solitary slaughterer crouched, and did not move for a very long time.
"Oy!" Twitch called. The figure then bolted and literally disappeared down the street.
"Where is he, Twitch?" asked Raille.
"I-do-not-know," Twitch replied. Menniker emptied the contents of his stomach and then turned to Twitch.
"You mean you have x-ray vision and heat vision and sonar vision and God-knows-what vision, but you can't track that guy?" he asked.
"'es not invis-bul," Erg interjected, "'es jus' tha' fast!" he then turned his nose skyward and sniffed a couple of times. "Follow," he said, and took off down the street, running on all fours like an animal, and skidding a bit on the wet blood. Twitch followed, cloaking himself and loosing his claws, just in case. Raille grabbed the still-ill Menniker, slung him over her back, and began bounding across rooftops, keeping the others in sight. Menniker did his best to control his insides, and given the circumstances, he did very well.
"So," began Twitch, easily keeping pace with Erg and deciding to strike up a conversation, "where-are-you-from?"
"Stree'," was Erg's only reply.
"…Is-it-possible-for-you-to-speak-like-a-normal-person?"
"'m not normal!" Erg shot back, with more than a touch of pride.
"I-know-but-can-you-at-least-attempt-to-speak-coherently?"
"Whu's this…co-hee-rint-lee?" Erg asked. Twitch shook his head and decided to stop trying for the time being.
"So…" Raille yelled to Menniker, "how often do you guys do this sort of thing?"
"Too often," he replied. Then something occurred to him.
"My stuff!" he yelled.
"Huh?"
"My RV! My drones! This guy's a world-class killer, and I don't have any of my weapons!" he thought a bit, and then added, "And they're really expensive, too."
Raille stopped on a rooftop, and the two silhouetted perfectly against the crescent moon. He looked down into her eyes, and she into his. They shared a kiss.
"So how about we go back and get it?" she said after they had finished.
"I love you," Menniker said, and they turned and went back the way they came.
Meanwhile, Twitch and Erg, having stopped all forms of communication, were hot on the trail of the death dealer. After spending a long time in complete silence, Twitch finally spoke up.
"Erg," he said, "use-your-powers. We-need-every-possible-advantage." Much to his surprise, Erg complied. His flesh began to glow as the magic flowed through his veins. His speed nearly doubled, and Twitch, drawing and cocking his shotgun, kept pace.
Menniker and Raille arrived back at Raille's house, where the RV was parked outside. They got in and were ready to go when it occurred to Raille that they had completely lost Twitch and Erg.
"What do we do now?" she said.
"Well…" Menniker started, and then realized that there was nothing they could do. Twitch and Erg moved far too fast and were definitely not stopping. "I don't know." He said.
"I suppose we could just wait inside…" Raille said, and the two began leaning toward each other, lips at the ready, when a bullet bounced off of the windshield.
Twitch and Erg followed the trail to the middle of a heavily wooded park area. Erg summoned some wolves to patrol the area. Twitch stood extremely still, looking around. Without so much as a whisper, a tree fell toward Twitch and Erg. They sliced through it easily with their claws and stood face to face with the object of their pursuit, who stared back with unfeeling, orange eyes, holding a katana at the ready. It was clad in a black suit with long, whitish blond hair streaming from the back of a full-face mask. The gauntlet had been thrown, and Twitch and Erg, with a blur of deadly motion, readily accepted it.