Lewis turned his head after hearing the metal bang behind him.
The harbor hummed with the rhythmic waves on the shoreline. Each one echoing in unison with every grunt he took to get back on his feet.
"Come on, I need you to work one more time..." His body started glowing once again, dimming and rising with each uneven breath.
Lewis took a few steps back to peek, and saw his pursuer was too close for comfort and was glowing.
"That useless bodyguard! What kind of parents raised such useless a piece of shit! Waste of my fucking money!" He grumbled silently, before shutting himself up as the agent glancing in his general direction.
He placed his hand over his mouth and held the briefcase close to his chest.
With anger fueling him, Felix got back up and took a deep inhale. His blood started to boil, the azure particles coursing through his veins started to shine brighter, creating a blue outline of him.
As his whole body radiated, a thin, spherical blue fire crackled around his body. He shot forward once again, leaving behind an exact blue afterimage of himself.
He made it to the corner in the blink of an eye, and saw Lewis Shaw from the edge of his peripheral vision.
The criminal appeared to run incredibly slowly from his perspective. He felt the wind brushing against his skin, and heard the whistle in his ear. He saw the cracks of dried paint and the bits of rust on the metal cargo. His senses were in overdrive.
Despite this, he was still unable to control his body. He could not stop. As soon as his foot landed on the ground, the rest of his body shot forward.
With another loud crash, and the light surrounding him exploded into countless particles.
The criminal instinctively looked back and saw the blue-eyed agent make a beeline straight into another shipping container, shot forward by his own strange power.
Stunned and stuck on the shipping container's metal dent, Felix's mouth was left agape.
The only thing that moved him was the gentle shore breeze that swayed his hair ever so slightly, and the blood pouring down from his nose, splattering on the ground.
Seeing his pursuer slam himself deep into the metal walls, Lewis could not help but let out a laugh.
"—Lewis…"
It was weak, but as soon as he heard the hoarse voice call out his name, the criminal tensed up. Still in danger, he promptly withdrew.
"... Shaw." The agent dragged himself out of the crater and fell flat on his back. His cheek fractured like glass, little fragments falling down.
In his disoriented state, he stared at the sky, watching the pastel clouds move. As the clouds shifted, they revealed the crescent light hiding behind it. Seeing the moon, he pulled out the four-leaf clover necklace from underneath his shirt, and his fingers let out a blue spark.
"I won't… let you escape…" He breathed in, the fracture on his cheek crackled with electricity, filling it back up and turning into skin.
He toppled over, and shifted his movement and went on all fours like a wild animal. A blue electricity crackling around his body as he crouched, arching his back like a panther ready to pounce. But before he could, something metallic fell in front of him.
His gaze followed the object and saw a black metal rod clatter a few feet ahead of him.
"Oh…BOLLO—!!"
Before he could even finish shouting, the grenade exploded.
Blinding light and deafening sound overwhelmed him. A grin formed on the brown-haired man's face, watching from between the steel crates. "Sorry about this, Felix, but enhanced human means enhanced senses, right? That stun grenade must mean double the damage. Seeing you in action was… educational."
Lewis quietly ran between alleys with weighted breaths as he constantly kept looking back.
With his back pressed against the red brick wall, he noticed that the back entrance to one of the old, rusty warehouses was wide open. He slowly walked inside, checking his surroundings. Old wooden crates and cardboard boxes stacked upon one another, covered in nets and decorated with dust.
The criminal walked closer into the middle of the room and let out a relieved sigh, only to hear the door shut behind him. He gulped and took out the gun in his suit.
"Lewis Shaw." An unknown voice spoke his name, echoing throughout the entire warehouse.
"Who's there?" Lewis whipped his gun forward, cautiously walking backwards, stumbling over wood.
Thunk.
He whipped his head back at the sound of the wooden plank falling he tumbled over.
His breathing grew heavy.
"Otherwise known as the Houdini of the Mafia... or at least, that's what you want to be called, right?" The voice reverberated.
A bead of sweat slid down his face, "Wh-where are you?"
"Two counts of human trafficking and several counts of drug smuggling." His crimes echoed from above. The faint clatter of metal started to fill the silence.
"Show yourself!"
Heart racing, the criminal aimed at the ceiling, only for a chain to dangle from above and around his hand.
"Huh— w-what the fuck?!" Lewis dropped the briefcase on the concrete, and a tuft of dust scattered while he tried to get the chains off with his other hand.
There was a figure standing in the shadows, two red dots piercing through the darkness.
"Afraid? You're all alone now. Your henchmen have been eliminated, your special assassin defeated."
"Who the fuck are you?!" Lewis tugged at the cold iron wrapped around his arm.
From the shadows walked out the man with auburn brown hair, with glowing red eyes piercing the darkness.
"Those eyes…" Lewis grit his teeth, pulling out his stun gun, and aiming for the chain, only for it to suddenly pull him up.
"HAUGH!!"
The stun gun clattered to the ground as he shot into the air.
"Call me… Vermilion."
Outside, still recovering from the flashbang, Felix faintly heard Lewis' cries, limping towards it had come from.
He shuffled the knob to the now-silent warehouse, stepped back, and kicked the door open.
Dust shifted as he stepped inside, gun raised. His left eye glowing in darkness.
But as he slowly made his way deeper, he noticed the moonlight shining directly on a stun gun.
Felix turned his head left to right, then dragged his aching body forward. Under the weapon was a note that had only three words.
Vermilion – Aetherion Energies.
Hearing metal rattle, he looked up and found Lewis Shaw hanging from the ceiling, squirming, wrapped in chains. His lips covered with duct tape.
"Ah… great." He pinched the bridge of his nose, "We owe Aetherion."
The chains creaked slowly as the criminal swung back and forth angrily, unable to escape.