Hemostasis 3.8
I had to admit, Butcher knew how to move stealthily. It was evening, and the light darkness helped us hide from the guards' line of sight. At the same time, our leader seemed to sense exactly when we needed to duck to remain unnoticed. A silent wave of his hand, and we dropped to the ground, pressing ourselves against the grass.
I was sure it was only thanks to his skills that we managed to reach the fence itself without raising the alarm. But the imminent arrival of the new "patients" also helped, as everyone was busy with other things.
Ahead of us lay a barbed-wire fence and the walls of the psychiatric hospital. It made you wonder why such an institution needed this level of security. But that was the Vought "aesthetic": harsh and cold, yet incredibly effective. I was sure the fence was electrified, too.
We weren't idiots and had approached the section that was least covered by the cameras. Technically, everything we were doing right now was a serious violation of the law, so we were all wearing masks and gloves, but that still wasn't enough. We wouldn't be spotted behind the fence just yet, but to proceed undetected, we had to completely resolve the camera issue. In the technological era of the twenty-first century, problems had to be solved accordingly.
"Your turn now, brainiac," Butcher whispered, still managing to slip in his usual commentary.
Frenchie nodded silently, pulled out his phone, and began quickly typing something into it. A few seconds later, he put it away and gave us an encouraging nod. An instant later, panic gripped the people inside. I could hear their shouts and saw how the clusters of blood began to move actively.
There were no hackers or professionals among us capable of breaching a tech giant's secure servers in such a short time. Even CIA specialists would have needed weeks for a hack like that, but my colleagues possessed different skills. For instance, they had no trouble getting their hands on some low-yield explosives, which had been so conveniently attached to the local power line.
It wouldn't permanently knock out the electricity, but a temporary blackout was all we needed. Even if they had their own generator inside, they were unlikely to be able to power everything with it. Despite all their wealth and resources, Vought loved to cut corners in moments like this.
"Now you, kid. Can you quickly cut us a path forward?" Butcher turned, looking at me questioningly.
I shifted my gaze to the fence, figuring out what I could do with it. I really didn't want to reveal my ability... And that was exactly why I had a few special tricks up my sleeve that would only add more mystery to my powers.
Of course, I had a multitude of questions about Butcher's half-insane plan, which was absolutely riddled with holes, but I hadn't said anything yet. I had no desire to spark a conflict out of nowhere with a man who had obvious anger management issues. Besides, I was confident in my abilities and wanted to test them in practice more than ever. I was sure I could handle it, but I still wanted to see confirmation of those thoughts in person.
With a wave of my hand, a thin black blade flew out from my belt. It was about ten centimeters long and three wide, yet as thin as paper. This was one of the special projects I had developed together with the professor. My ability gave me an incredible level of control over the scarlet liquid, but casually carrying liters of blood around was inconvenient and could lead to problems.
And I couldn't forget about blood coagulation. I didn't want to use my own blood for hygiene reasons and my reluctance to cut myself every time, so I had to carry some reserves.
Blood, crystallized under the influence of my power, was the result of very long and exhausting training sessions that had finally paid off. It was an incredibly sharp blade, honed using my power, which I could control with the power of my mind. Moreover, it was dyed black, making it harder to determine exactly what the blade was made of.
With just a simple thought, the blade instantly flew to the fence, spun in the air, and made a cut. Since I controlled the shape and structure of this dagger, it couldn't be dulled and was exactly as durable and sharp as I wanted it to be. The fence fell into two pieces without any problems at all.
Butcher and Frenchie threw surprised glances my way, clearly not expecting such an approach to solving the problem, but they perfectly understood that this was no time for questions. We had to move.
We headed toward the hospital's back entrance, where there were practically no cameras and where the single lone guard had run inside as soon as the lights went out. Just to be safe, I carefully damaged the only camera there with my dagger. I figured they had other things to worry about right now and wouldn't notice anytime soon.
We managed to reach the door unnoticed, which Frenchie picked open in what seemed like ten seconds max. After checking with my blood vision that there was no one inside, we rushed in. We were immediately presented with an unsurprising sight—a perfectly ordinary hospital.
Dreary blue walls, a white ceiling, and a general atmosphere that suggested this place was mostly staffed by medical personnel. Sometimes we even spotted gurneys used for transporting patients. Taking a quick look at one, Butcher gave us a nod, initiating the next part of the plan.
"Why was I chosen to play the patient!?"
"Shut your mouth and keep quiet, or the doctor will inject you with something so you stop yelling."
Frenchie was lying on the gurney while Butcher and I, wearing lab coats and medical masks we'd found nearby, wheeled him down the corridors. It was a flimsy disguise that even a fool would have seen through under normal circumstances, but right now, amidst the panic caused by the blackout, no one paid us any mind.
It also helped that Butcher was displaying practically superhuman stealth abilities. In an incredible manner, he guided two complete amateurs through enemy territory that he knew practically nothing about, yet miraculously always found the right path to avoid the guards.
Of course, sometimes I was the one giving him hints, making full use of my super-hearing and blood vision, but the main credit for our safe progress belonged entirely to him.
The security here was also worth noting. These weren't some ordinary men in uniform who, at best, carried a single stun gun, but fully equipped soldiers in uniform, wearing bulletproof vests and wielding real weapons. Most often they carried assault rifles, but sometimes handguns as well.
We sneaked successfully, but with every step, it became harder. Doctors in white coats, nurses, and the occasional soldiers flashed by more and more frequently. Panicking from the power outage, they kept throwing thoughtful glances our way. We hurried past them, and they returned to their business, but the tension continued to rise.
Armed guards appeared most often near the rooms where, according to my senses, the supes were kept. It was curious that they all lived behind thick steel doors with slits so narrow that it was impossible to even peek through them.
Absolutely every patient was a supe, but there was something wrong with their blood. I suspected they were all pumped full of so many sedatives that an ordinary person would have fallen into an eternal sleep long ago. However, many of the "patients" also had some other mixtures in their blood that I didn't recognize at all. It was another point in favor of the theory that Vought was conducting its experiments here.
We weren't just wandering aimlessly through the hospital; we were moving toward the place where the information we needed was supposed to be kept—the archives. They exist in all hospitals, and I doubted Vought wouldn't structure its data. That was where we planned to find information on the patients, but...
"Hey, you! I can feel you! I can even see you! And hear you! And smell you, and sense you! Get me out of here! Get me out!! Get me out..."
"You've gotta be fucking kidding me..." Butcher replied tiredly.
"Who the hell are you!? State your numbers!"
No matter how stealthily we moved, it didn't help against morons. As we passed a room with a locked-up supe, the guy suddenly started screaming at the top of his lungs, clearly addressing us. And he was astonishingly loud—so loud that a dozen guards immediately rushed over, aiming their guns at us.
Butcher and Frenchie froze in place, clearly trying to figure out how to get out of this trap, but I just rolled my eyes. For a few seconds, silence hung in the room, which I used to concentrate on my power.
"I knew this plan was stupid," I murmured quietly.
The moment I clenched my hand, the men instantly dropped to the ground, unconscious. My allies clearly didn't understand what was happening, and I couldn't explain because I was busy controlling the blood flows. Halting the flow of blood to the brains of a dozen people for a couple of seconds was difficult, even for a professional of my level. But the effect was worth all the training—an entire group of men instantly collapsed, completely out cold. And no one died.
"Never argue with a healer-supe," I smirked, wiping the sweat from my face. The bearded man shot me a completely unreadable look but quickly recovered, after which we headed toward our objective.
We didn't know the exact location, but after assessing my capabilities, Butcher decided to extract the information himself. Dashing down the corridor, he grabbed a lone passing doctor and pinned him against the wall. It was a man in his sixties, whom our leader immediately began to interrogate.
It didn't take long. Butcher only had to glare at him sternly, and the doctor spilled the location of the archives. Butcher nodded to me and left the man lying on the floor. It took me a mere five seconds to knock him out, after which we headed to the right spot. We were almost there—just a few more turns...
"Well now, who do we have here? I don't recall inviting any guests."
I could see the movement of people behind the walls, which was why we had managed to slip by unnoticed almost to the very end. I had just completely forgotten that supes shouldn't be underestimated and could always pull some kind of trick.
First of all, I somehow wasn't used to the fact that I wasn't the only one with super-hearing; almost every other supe had it too. Second, my blood vision wasn't designed to track extremely fast targets. I was completely unprepared for the woman to instantly cross dozens of meters and appear right around the corner.
A short woman with short dark hair stepped forward. She wore a sparkling smile and seemed genuinely curious about what we were doing here, as if she didn't want to hurt us. But her eyes gave her away. They were the eyes of a true predator that had found fresh prey to tear into pieces.
Never before had I seen such madness in someone's eyes. Even the lunatic Martinez only seemed like an aggressive psycho, but not even he possessed such a burning desire to cause harm.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk," she cooed in the sweetest, most innocent voice possible. "Did someone decide to sneak in on us without asking? Do you know what heroes do to little thieves like you?"
A few seconds later, I realized the source of the strange feeling that had been nagging at me. This was the exact same woman who had that bizarre biology. From a distance, I hadn't been able to figure out what was wrong, but now I could feel it distinctly—she was much older than she appeared.
It was at the very edge of my powers, but I could still sense that her biological age didn't match her chronological one at all. It was the first time I had ever seen anything like it, and my tension only spiked further.
"Terribly sorry, lady, but we were just passing through by accident and didn't mean to get in your way. You understand, just a routine inspection and nothing more..."
Butcher had immediately grasped the situation we were in and started stalling for time, trying to distract the woman. Surprisingly, she seemed genuinely curious to see what he could come up with in such a predicament. She put on a look of utmost interest, nodding her head slightly and even placing a hand on her chin.
Only later did I realize she had done it to wait for the guards to arrive. Ten seconds later, a dozen armed soldiers appeared behind her. All of them aiming their weapons right at us.
"Uh-huh, very interesting," she nodded, watching us intently. "Come on, keep going. I really want to hear what else you'll come up with."
That didn't faze Butcher for a second, and he continued to spin all sorts of nonsense on the fly. Meanwhile, I was using my power to its absolute limit, trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with her. Curiously enough, the blood itself was the answer.
I had known for a long time that the secret to superpowers hid within the scarlet liquid. The blood of an ordinary person and a supe differed fundamentally, but until now, all supes had felt more or less the same. Some more distinctly, some less noticeably.
But this lady was different. It felt as if she stood above even other superhumans. As if her power was... purer, maybe? Using basic logic, it clearly meant that we were facing someone truly special.
"...you know, I always love it when the little mice squeak right before the kitty eats them. Did you get the metaphor, or are you too stupid even for that?"
The woman abruptly cut off Butcher's speech, apparently having had her fill of his ramblings. She adopted a much more serious demeanor and began rolling her shoulders, clearly preparing for something. I wasn't going to fight without using my powers either, so I immediately tried to put all our enemies to sleep. It took just a single thought for all the soldiers in front of us to collapse to the ground, dropping their weapons. All of them, except the woman in black.
"Oooo... Now you shouldn't have done that." She grimaced, clutching her head as if from a sudden spike of pain. Then she shot us a furious glare.
*Right... Do I need to tell her that it's physically impossible to withstand an attack like that?* I had cut off the blood flow to her brain for a couple of seconds, but she barely seemed to notice. I kept trying to knock her out, but her body continued to achieve the impossible.
"I'll tell you right now—I had nothing to do with that."
Butcher managed to blurt out his last words just a second before a bolt of lightning shot toward him. I barely managed to yank him aside at the very last moment, taking the hit myself.
For the first time in this life, I experienced real pain. A sharp, burning sensation and overwhelming shock forced me to freeze in place, while my limbs began to violently spasm. The electrical charge burst from the woman's outstretched fingers, her pupils turning entirely into two black-and-blue circles as a nasty smile shone on her face.
A few seconds later, the charge ceased, and I dropped to one knee, trying to collect myself. It was... painful. Truly, unbearably painful.
"Hah... are you one of the supes?" She raised an eyebrow in surprise, looking down at me. "Now that's a different story! I haven't fought any supes in ages. Hmm, your skin looks white enough. You know, if you're not trash, we might even be able to have some fun..."
She cut off as bullets, fired by Butcher and Frenchie, slammed into her face. They had real handguns, but against the "heroine," they proved completely useless. The bullets simply bounced off her skin as she stared at the men like they were utter idiots. Thankfully, they were smart enough to stop firing once they saw how ineffective their approach was.
"Oh no, by all means, keep going. The longer you try, the sweeter it will be to crush you later..."
She had just raised her hand again, a lilac charge arcing across it, when my dagger slammed into her. It pierced her eye, making her scream instantly and launch a bolt of lightning to the side. The electrical charge ripped across the walls, causing sparks to fly immediately, and the doors locking the supes in their rooms automatically slid open. *Who the hell even added a function like that!?*
But I had no time to worry about that, because the woman had survived my attack and glared at me with a look full of pure hatred.
"You guys are so fucked."
Smirking, I rolled my shoulders and cracked my knuckles, an anticipatory smile forming beneath my mask.
"Bring it on. I hope you don't disappoint. Let's dance."
Read Advanced Chapters on: p@treon/Amiii_
~Every 150 PS = Bonus Chapter!
~Push the Story forward with your [Power Stones]