Chapter 22 : The Hunter Returns
The notification appeared while I was making coffee.
[EXTENDED INACTIVITY DETECTED] [PP DECAY INITIATED: -10 PP/DAY] [EXTRACTION REQUIRED TO HALT DECAY]
I set down the mug and stared at the interface hovering in my peripheral vision. The system had issued penalties before—the fifty-point loss during my two-week hiatus—but this was different. Active decay. A timer counting down my accumulated resources.
Twenty-one days since Nighteye. The system is done waiting.
Caitlin slept in the next room, her breathing slow and peaceful. We'd spent the past week in a bubble of domesticity—dinners, movies, conversations that meandered past midnight. The "I love you" still echoed between us, reshaping every interaction.
I'd been happy. Actually happy.
The system didn't care about happiness.
[PP: 370 (-10 TODAY)] [DECAY CONTINUES UNTIL EXTRACTION CONFIRMED]
I pulled up my target files on the laptop, keeping the screen angled away from the bedroom door. The list had grown during my operational pause—names and abilities cross-referenced with criminal activity, sorted by extraction viability.
One entry caught my attention.
"Ironhide." Real name Marcus Chen. Enhanced durability and pain resistance. Currently employed as protection for a logistics operation running out of the warehouse district.
The logistics operation moved people.
I dug deeper into the file. Police reports, witness statements, fragmentary evidence that never quite coalesced into prosecution. The operation trafficked women and girls from Southeast Asia, processing them through Central City before distribution to various "clients" across the Midwest.
Ironhide made sure no one interfered with the shipments.
[TARGET IDENTIFIED: "IRONHIDE"] [ABILITY: PAIN RESISTANCE/ENHANCED DURABILITY — C-TIER] [EXTRACTION COMPLEXITY: MODERATE]
The system assessment was clinical. Objective. A C-tier power with moderate extraction difficulty.
I saw something else entirely.
This one deserves worse than I'll give him.
Two nights of surveillance confirmed the operation.
The warehouse sat at the edge of the district, surrounded by similar structures in various states of decay. Trucks arrived after midnight, their cargo transferred to waiting vehicles by workers who moved with the mechanical efficiency of people who'd learned not to ask questions.
Ironhide supervised everything.
He was big—maybe six-four, two-fifty—with the thick build of someone who'd never needed to fear physical confrontation. His power let him shrug off pain that would incapacitate normal people, absorb impacts that should break bones.
I watched him backhand a worker who dropped a crate. The man crumpled. Ironhide didn't even seem to notice.
Monster.
The shipments happened twice a week. Thursday nights and Sunday mornings. I observed both—counting vehicles, mapping routes, identifying vulnerabilities in the operation's security.
The human cargo was harder to watch.
Girls. Young women. They emerged from containers with the hollow expressions of people who'd stopped expecting rescue. Some walked on their own. Others were carried. All of them disappeared into waiting vans without a sound.
I could have intervened immediately. Called the police, triggered an emergency response, saved whoever was in that night's shipment.
Instead, I watched. Waited. Calculated the optimal moment for extraction.
Tactical patience, I told myself. Maximum impact requires proper positioning.
The justification felt hollow even as I made it.
Night three. The extraction.
Ironhide separated from the main group around 2 AM, walking the perimeter while his associates handled the loading. Standard patrol pattern—predictable, routine, the complacency of someone who'd never faced a real threat.
I intercepted him behind a stack of empty containers.
"Who the—"
My first punch caught him in the solar plexus. Enhanced strength, full force, the kind of blow that should drop a normal man instantly.
Ironhide grunted. Didn't fall. His pain resistance absorbed the impact, processing agony that would have paralyzed anyone else.
He swung back. I phased through the punch, letting his fist pass harmlessly through my torso.
His eyes widened. "What the hell are you?"
"Something worse than you."
I solidified and struck again—kidneys, throat, temple. Each blow landed with enhanced force. Each blow was absorbed by his resistance.
Can't hurt him conventionally. Need another approach.
The phasing technique came to me mid-combat. A memory of Ghost's extraction, of the power slipping through my grasp like smoke.
I phased my right hand.
Drove it into Ironhide's chest.
Solidified inside his ribcage.
The scream that followed was unlike anything I'd heard before—not the pain of external damage, but the wrongness of something occupying space that should be solid. His resistance couldn't compensate for an internal invasion.
He collapsed. I maintained my grip, palm pressed flat against something wet and vital.
[EXTRACTION INITIATED] [MAINTAIN CONTACT]
The fire came. Ironhide convulsed beneath me, his pain resistance finally overwhelmed by stimulation it was never designed to handle. Fifty seconds of agony—for both of us—while his power flowed into my system.
[EXTRACTION COMPLETE — 50%] [POWER ACQUIRED: PAIN RESISTANCE] [SYNC RATE: 12%]
I released him and stood. My hand phased out of his chest, leaving no visible wound but permanent damage to whatever had existed there before.
Ironhide was alive. Unconscious. Depowered.
I pulled out the burner phone I'd purchased for exactly this purpose and dialed 911.
"Anonymous tip. Warehouse district, building fourteen. Human trafficking operation. You'll want to move fast."
I hung up before they could trace the signal.
The sirens started wailing ten minutes later. I watched from a rooftop three blocks away as police flooded the area, as workers scattered and were caught, as the vehicles were stopped and the cargo—the human cargo—was finally rescued.
Fourteen victims. Six arrests. One trafficking ring dismantled.
I'd waited three hours for the optimal extraction window. Three hours while those people sat in containers, not knowing if help would ever come.
The math made sense. Maximum impact required proper positioning.
Tell that to the girl who spent three extra hours in darkness.
I went home and scrubbed my hands until the water ran cold.
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