With barely a moment’s hesitation, Jordan threw himself out of the window. And activated his second Capacity.

  Time slowed to a crawl as his perception sped up, eyes shining as he stared down into the alleyway below. Three men were now staring up at him, with the remains of a cloaking ability fading from around two of them. One was the wiry man from before, his dark eyes glittering as he aimed a blaster up at the falling Jordan. The original watcher, who hadn’t been cloaked, had a symbol on his forehead that glowed with Psionic light as he also turned to watch the falling Pioneer. In slow motion, Jordan recognized what’d happened here. The watcher had possessed some sort of Capacity that alerted him when he was being targeted. It probably also automatically marked the location of the source of the danger, allowing the other two to attack Jordan the moment he tried to kill the watcher. Either that, or it was some scanning Capacity, but Jordan doubted that. If they had someone with that kind of ability in their party, they probably would have used it in the past. He’d just been lucky enough not to target this guy specifically in his initial ambush.

  As for the attacking duo, they probably didn’t have personal cloaking abilities. If they’d had those, they would have used them before. They probably had someone with a support Capacity that could cloak allies, one that had activation restrictions which would have prevented it from being used to defend against his initial ambush. Jordan learned all of this and more as he scrutinized the criminals below him. His Capacity, Hypersight, improved his visual processing speed considerably. It paired exceptionally well with his Eyes of the Hound, the attribute that improved the quality of his eyesight considerably. Jordan watched as a rope of purple energy slithered up toward him, thrown from below by a tough-looking, dark skinned man who’d been cloaked alongside the wiry man. Jordan recognized that the lasso was exceptionally dangerous. If it caught him, it could prohibit the usage of his Teleport, turning him into a sitting duck. He couldn’t let that happen.

  Jordan took the danger in, then he acted. He couldn’t teleport into the building across from him because he couldn’t tilt his neck up in time to avoid the rope or the explosion. Instead, he flicked his eyes once to the left and then to his right, teleporting onto the side of the building. The Psionic lasso sailed past where he’d been before, while the blaster bolt from the wiry man struck to the left of that. Still in slow motion mentally, Jordan shivered internally. The wiry man knew how his ability worked and had tried to predict his movement. If he hadn’t juked him with his eye movement, he would’ve gotten shot. Jordan was glad he’d taken that precaution. He took the time that they were using to re-target him to look over into the window of the other building, teleporting inside it to ‘safety’.

  Jordan de-activated his Hypersight the moment his feet hit something solid, gasping as his perspective lurched back into standard time. He hadn’t had the time to practice using the ability much, in the middle of all the chaos, but he’d always been a quick learner. He’d like to keep it active for longer, but his Mental Energy was running perilously low. Jordan’s feet were on top of a conference table in the middle of some abandoned office space, and he didn’t hesitate to leap through the opposing door and dash down the building’s hallway. A good thing, too, because another grenade detonated in the room behind him just as he left. A piece of wooden shrapnel whizzed past his head, spurring his legs to pump even faster. Behind him, he heard men shouting and was shocked to also hear the crackle of another Psionic ability right on his heels. His feet had carried him onto the smooth floor of the building’s cafeteria, and they skidded a bit as he stopped and jumped out of the way.

  The whip of Psionic energy passed by him and latched onto a table, and Jordan felt rather than saw the man flying through the air behind him. This guy had used his whip to pull himself up to this floor, and he was now using it to chase Jordan down. The blonde man whipped around, manifesting a high-powered kinetic shotgun and blasting away at the man in midair. The crook manifested a circular shield of purple light, which absorbed the blasts with ease, but Jordan was already teleporting behind him as the shots landed. He whirled around and cracked the enemy on the back of the head with the stock of the shotgun, sending him staggering forward, but before Jordan could finish the stunned man off, he was struck in the shoulder by a blaster bolt. Tears welled up involuntarily from the pain, and he felt his shotgun fall to the ground from his limp right hand. That didn’t stop Jordan from leaping backward, dodging another blaster bolt that nearly took him in the ribs.

  He didn’t need to look down the hallway to know that the wiry man must’ve climbed up the side of the building. He had to be the source of this incoming fire. Jordan cursed himself for not buying an attribute that would boost his defense. As it was, he bruised like a ripe fruit. The smell of the charred flesh of his right shoulder was making him lightheaded. Or was that the pain?

  Biting his lip, Jordan re-tooled his focus and activated his Hypersight. The dark-skinned whip man had recovered from Jordan’s hit and was now turning around angrily to try to kill him. Fortunately, while Jordan couldn’t afford the kinds of high explosives he’d used back in the jungle, he could afford basic frag grenades. He pulled the pin of one of them with his thumb and threw it left-handed at the man’s face, watching as the grenade exploded practically on contact. These badboys were a custom model with a very short fuse, explicitly made for high-speed battles between the Enhanced. One wouldn’t kill most Epsilon Class fighters outright, even to the face, but it would be excruciating. Jordan also hurled another grenade toward the doorway, in anticipation of the wiry man’s entrance. It would pale in comparison to the ordinance the enemy had been throwing around, but at least it should give him pause. Jordan then stabbed a stim into his collar muscle, near the charred area, feeling the pain recede as energy surged through his arm once again.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Just before he dropped his Hypersight, he saw a projectile whistling through the air to his left, taking a curved path as it bore down on him. He gave a sharp exhale as he recognized the Psionic grenade, thrown with sidespin from the doorway. The wiry man had been held back by Jordan’s frag grenade, but he’d guessed the Pioneer’s location and thrown him a curveball. The ordinance glowed as it approached the young man, but he reacted just in time. Jordan disappeared in a flash of light right before the ability detonated in front of his face, choosing a place in midair right in front of him as his destination. From there, he manifested and fired his blaster at the figure that was stalking through the smoke at the entranceway, trying to catch him off guard as he shot downward from above. Jordan watched as the bolts fizzled lividly against hazy purple constructs, the wiry man stepping through the smoke and revealing the large violet claw constructs overlaying his hands. They explained how the crook had climbed up here so quickly and probably added to the dexterity of his throws.

  The enemy manifested another grenade in his paws, watching Jordan carefully as he flew through the air. The young Pioneer called upon his Hypersight one last time, vision fraying at the edges as he felt his Mental Energy dip even further. For a subjective eternity, he turned his head to look at a different door to the cafeteria, right in front of him. Beyond that entrance, a wall of windows marked the building’s exit, but they were far outside the range of his teleportation. If he tried to teleport toward them, another curveball grenade would catch him square in the shoulders. So, he did the unthinkable. He teleported away from the exit. Right at the enemy.

  Looking at the edge of his vision, Jordan targeted the surface of a table in front of the wiry man and appeared there in a flash. Surprise registered on the crook’s face, and Jordan watched as he adjusted his throwing stance, but it was too late. Jordan’s blaster bolt took the crook in the thigh, sending the enemy’s throw wide over his head. The Pioneer jumped off the table and into a combat role as the Capacity detonated in the air harmlessly behind him, dismissing his blaster rifle and summoning twin sapphire daggers with a thought. Off balance, the wiry man tried to swipe at him with his claws, but Jordan parried the attack easily. He struck out, delivering several devastating strikes to the crook’s body. The enemy flinched at the last moment, preventing his heart from being impaled. Jordan withdrew his blades, preparing to go for the throat next, only to be forced to dodge again. The whip man had finally gotten over the pain and confusion of having a grenade detonate in his face, a recently injected stim healing those wounds and ejecting the shrapnel. He’d thrown his whip at the Pioneer who was about to kill his ally.

  Jordan tried to roll out of the way, but it caught him in the ankle. Before he could be reeled in, Jordan popped the pin on another grenade and tossed it at the whip man. The crook’s eyes widened in fear as he brought his shield up to absorb the explosion, which it did so easily. Still, in that precious moment of peace, Jordan cut the whip with his knife before teleporting toward the other door to the cafeteria. His heart pounded at the near miss, and Jordan silently thanked his past self for investing in a good set of knives.

  He wasn’t out of the woods just yet, however. Jordan hadn’t made it all the way to the door with his first hop, so he’d spun around and begun to fire upon the whip man with his blaster rifle. The man was forced to hunker behind his shield again as Jordan backed out of the door. The Pioneer then spun around and sprinted for the window. He heard both crooks running after him, but it was too late. Jordan teleported through the glass before kicking off the concrete face of the building and flying toward the street below. It was a fall that would have shattered a normal man, yet Jordan hit the pavement with two quick rolls before coming up running. He heard the office building's glass break behind him and felt the crook's blasters train themselves on his back.

  Jordan teleported one last time, his vision swimming from fatigue as he appeared and crouched behind a parked car, near the door to the safe house. Behind him, the enemies' blaster fire impotently scorched the road’s pavement, but they wouldn’t miss again so easily. Luckily, they wouldn’t get the chance. Jordan may have been tapped out mentally, but he had something better than Mental Energy. He had friends.

  As if taking a cue, the Pioneers opened the sealed safehouse door and returned fire on the crooks, forcing them to retreat. Jordan dashed inside before any of the other criminals could reach the scene, hearing the door shut solidly behind him as he leapt within. Jordan collapsed on the ground, heaving like a whipped mule and staring up at the ceiling. Physically, he was bruised all over, and his mind was worn out like an old dishrag. Jordan desperately wanted to pass out for the next twelve hours, but that obviously couldn’t happen. O’Riley walked over to him as he lay there, the older man remarking dryly: “They’re probably going to come after us again. Soon.”

  Jordan gave a long groan. He manifested a pillow in his right hand and put it behind his head, too lazy to bring out his full sleeping bag. The tired soldier mumbled, “Wake me up in an hour. Or before we’re about to die. Either works.”

  And with that, he let himself drift off to sleep.