[FILE 027: SUIT BLACK BOX DATA – RECOVERED]
Subject: Kazuki Tanaka (User ID: VELOCITY)
Location: South Bay Bridge (Mid-Span)
Time: 04:58:03 AM
04:58:03 AM — THE IMPACT
Physics is absolute. Newton's Third Law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
When a fist traveling at Mach 2 (1,535 mph) hits a stationary object, the force generated is roughly equivalent to a small anti-tank missile.
If the object moves, the energy is dispersed.
If the object does not move, the energy has nowhere to go but back into the attacker.
CRACK.
It wasn't the sound of a jaw breaking. It was the wet, sickening sound of a hydraulic piston snapping inside the Mark II's right gauntlet.
Kazuki stopped instantly.
He didn't follow through. He couldn't. He had hit a wall.
The shockwave expanded outward a millisecond later, blowing the rain backward and shattering the windshields of fifty cars stalled on the bridge.
Titus Kaine had not moved. Not an inch. His head hadn't even snapped back.
He looked down at Kazuki's fist pressed against his cheek.
The orange veins in Titus's neck flared, turning a blinding, molten white.
[WARNING: KINETIC REFLECTION DETECTED.]
[RIGHT ARM ACTUATORS: CRITICAL FAILURE.]
[HUMERUS BONE: FRACTURE DETECTED.]
Kazuki screamed.
It was a raw, garbled noise inside the helmet. His right arm wasn't just broken; the impact had driven the bones of his wrist back into his forearm. The suit's medical foam immediately flooded the limb, freezing the nerve endings, but the shock made Kazuki's vision grey out.
"That tickled," Titus rumbled.
He grabbed Kazuki's wrist. His grip was like an industrial clamp. He lifted Kazuki into the air as if he weighed nothing.
"You fast guys," Titus sighed, looking at Kazuki's terrified visor. "You always think speed is power. But speed is just... delivery."
Titus's skin glowed brighter. The energy from Kazuki's Mach 2 punch was now stored in his cells. He cycled it, moving the charge down his arm, into his fingers.
"And I'm the return to sender."
04:58:15 AM — THE RELEASE
Titus didn't punch. He didn't need to.
He simply placed his free palm flat against the chest plate of Kazuki's armor.
A casual shove.
BOOM.
The stored kinetic energy released all at once.
The chest plate of the Mark II caved in.
Kazuki was launched backward. He didn't fly; he was fired like a cannonball.
He broke the sound barrier backwards.
He smashed through the center divider.
He smashed through an SUV, shearing the roof off.
He tumbled along the asphalt for three hundred meters, a ragdoll of blue metal and broken bone, before slamming into a support pylon.
The impact cratered the concrete pylon. Kazuki fell to the ground, limp.
[SYSTEM ALERT: MULTIPLE ORGAN TRAUMA.]
[LUNG CAPACITY: 40%.]
[SUIT INTEGRITY: 12%.]
Kazuki coughed. Blood sprayed against the inside of his visor. He tried to stand, but his legs wouldn't listen. The suit was sparking, twitching with dead electronics.
Through the rain and smoke, he saw Titus walking toward him.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Titus wasn't rushing. He was walking with the terrifying patience of a man who knows he cannot be stopped.
"Get up," Titus called out, his voice booming over the wind. "I'm not full yet."
04:59:00 AM — THE REALIZATION
"Aeva..." Kazuki gasped, tasting copper. "Aeva, analysis. What is he?"
"He's a battery," Aeva's voice cried in his ear. She was weeping. "Kazuki, you have to run! He absorbs kinetic energy. The harder you hit him, the stronger he gets. You literally charged him up!"
Kazuki looked at his shattered right arm.
I can't punch him. I can't hurt him.
If I run at him, he catches me.
If I hit him, I kill myself.
"Zero State," a memory flashed. Rina's voice. Physics doesn't care about heroism.
Titus was fifty feet away. He picked up a burning motorcycle and tossed it aside like a toy.
"You broke my arm," Kazuki whispered, the rage building over the pain. "You broke my suit."
"I'm going to break your spine next," Titus promised, stepping over a guardrail. "Unless you give me something better. Come on, runner! Go fast! Make it hurt!"
Kazuki forced his left hand to move. He tapped the suit's emergency override.
[PROTOCOL: SMOKE SCREEN.]
vents on the Mark II's shoulders exploded, filling the bridge with thick, thermal-blocking grey smoke.
Titus stopped, waving the smoke away. "Cheap trick."
Kazuki didn't attack.
He crawled to the edge of the bridge.
He looked down at the dark, churning water of the bay, two hundred feet below.
I can't win.
It was the bitterest thought he had ever had. For the first time since putting on the suit, Kazuki Tanaka accepted defeat.
He rolled off the edge.
05:00:00 AM — THE FALL
Titus walked to the railing. He watched the small splash in the dark water far below.
He waited to see if the blue lightning would surge back up.
It didn't.
Titus tapped his earpiece.
"Vane. The target has disengaged. He's in the water."
"Did you break him?" Victor Vane's voice came through, clear and bored.
Titus looked at his own hand, still glowing faintly with the residue of Kazuki's speed.
"Physically? Yes. He won't be punching anything for weeks."
"Good," Vane replied. "Let him float. Let him feel the weight of being human. Return to base, Feedback. Phase One is complete."
Titus turned and walked away, leaving the burning bridge and the screaming civilians behind.
[FILE ENDS]