8

  “YES!! Send Four IMMEDIATELY!!! Why was that even a question?!” Eight exclaimed into the phone before hanging up, groaning in impatience. They should have called him before even calling me!! Agh. Eight sat at her desk, mumbling to herself and taking a deep sigh as she rested her gaze on the rest of the insanely high mountain of paperwork she still had yet to do. Being the president of the Hero Association wasn’t as easy or leisurely as most people assumed, but at least it was just as important and prestigious as advertised. What a strange love-hate relationship I have with this job… Eight pondered, slightly amused by the thought. The Hero Association was, after all, on par with the World State in terms of influence; especially with absolute monsters like the Celestial Ten being part of the Association. Eight knew this, and she took full advantage of it whenever possible. It was also considered a nice bonus by the general public that Delhi, India - the city where the Associations HQ was located - was also Eight’s motherland. Surely such a thing was rather convenient for the hero, right? But she personally considered it a negative for a rather wide variety of reasons.

  She sighed and reached out for the first document in the pile, placing it down on her desk and picking up her pen, fiddling with it as she stared down at the paper. Her brunette hair was braided so as to keep it short, while her otherwise piercing violet eyes scanned the contract lazily. It was for an infrastructure project in Paris to finally finish reconstructing the Eiffel Tower after the incident from three decades ago. “Our business would be most thankful if the Association were to elect us for this project.” I see, they’re offering a bribe. Scum. Eight chuckled and shook her head, slightly offended by how easily corruptible most people and businesses seemed to think she was. Still, she signed the contract anyway with a malicious smile on her face. Not for the money, she couldn’t care less about the bribe they were offering her. What she did care about, however, was that she knew that these same contractors were currently bribing a council member as well. She smirked and packaged the contract into an envelope, very interested in meeting these contractors and personally squeezing as much blackmail material and information as she could on that rat for a president that the Chinese had. She had felt slightly dirty as she signed her name on the paper, but at this point she had grown used to the feeling. No price is too high, not even my own dignity. I'll achieve my dream no matter what. She reminded herself, putting the feeling of shame to the back of her mind where it wouldn’t bother her. She stood up with the paper in her hands, dropping it down the mail-in box behind her on the wall. It was installed there a decade ago when she became the Association’s boss, in order to send written mails more efficiently and waste less time. She returned to her desk and picked up the next paper, this one being about a terrorist attack in New Zealand - probably the usual suspects. Eight was about to begin to write orders for counter-terrorist measures when she stopped right before the pen hit the paper, her eyes narrowing and her entire posture went from relaxed to tense in a matter of milliseconds, her dark violet eyes igniting with light. There’s someone heading here, going up the stairs.

  She could hear the step by step of the intruder, her enhanced hearing making the otherwise unnoticeable sound rather noticeable. Someone was being VERY careful not to be heard, tiptoeing up the stairs leading to the tenth floor of the Hero Association’s headquarters. The only thing on the tenth floor is my office. Eight pondered, her eyes drifting away from the paper and to the door of her office, placing the pen down carefully. The fact that she had only been able to sense their presence after they started to ascend from the ninth to the tenth floor proved how careful they were being. Eight slowly stood up, her movements so precise and delicate that she made no noise at all, manually picking up her chair and setting it down slightly further back to avoid making the chair scrape the ground and generate noise. She made her way to her door stealthily, opening it with utmost care so it wouldn’t creak and closing it behind her just as silently. Eight was stifling a guilty smile the whole time as she made her way to the stairs confidently, still making sure to make her presence as undetectable as possible, putting the stealth of her opponent to utter shame. She flexed her fingers a bit, looking down at her fist. Am I really THIS bored? That the promise of even a slight bit of action has me this excited?? How childish. I’m sounding like Six… Let’s just get this over with. Eight stopped just shy of the stairs, hiding behind the wall and rearing back a fist instead of walking through the gap in the walls and onto the stairway. I’ll make my enemy come to me. The moment the intruder walks past the gap in the walls… I’m going to end this in a single move. She kept using her enhanced hearing intently, listening to the intruders’ careful footsteps and tracking their progress up the stairs. The hero didn’t bother to ponder over who could be targeting her, she had no reason to. She had made a lot of enemies over the years, and had given countless people a great deal of reasons to go after her. Eight regretted none of it, though - it had all been necessary. Or so she told herself, at least.

  She remained perfectly still, a fist readied and poised to strike, not a single muscle in her body even so much as twitching. The steps slowly became more and more clear the closer the enemy was to the top of the stairs. Step by step, Eight’s violet eyes only intensified in color, until finally the millisecond her enemy came into view arrived. Just as she had expected, her enhanced reflexes immediately kicked into action, her fist flying forward and towards her target. The intruder wasn’t able to even notice the fact that she existed - he wasn’t able to perceive her at all, not even on the periphery of his vision, before it all went blank. Her fist connected with his head, cracking through skin and bone alike with such ease it looked like she had struck a bubble, her fist going through his entire cranium and out the other side before pulling back just as quickly and effortlessly. The strike was so fast and perfected because of her enhanced speed and enhanced strength that no blood at all even splattered on Eight, not even a drop landing on the very fist she had used to strike. And yet, said intruder’s body slumped over right where it had been standing, falling over while blood oozed from where the head used to be. Gray matter and blood splattered the wall opposite to Eight like a can of spray paint, skull pieces having been flung so violently they were ingrained on the wall like shrapnel. Eight blinked, sighing while turning around to walk away while reaching into her pocket for her phone so she could call security to clean up the mess. I would say this was disappointing, but it was what I expected after all. At least I can go back to work faster this way.

  She stopped right as she was halfway into pressing the call button on her phone. Her violet eyes intensifying as she narrowed them before turning around to get a better look at the intruder. Something’s off. My instincts keep insisting on it. She crouched down and flipped the body over, getting her hands bloody in the process - though she didn’t mind. She took a closer look at the plastic rectangle she had noticed on his chest earlier, her enhanced vision having allowed her to glimpse it despite it being in view for merely milliseconds before she pulverized his head. I knew I wasn’t seeing things. This… is an ID card. An Association ID card, for the Head of Logistics. The man she had just executed was her very own employee of two decades. A man who worked here, and who had absolutely no experience in sneaking nor had any reason to betray her like this. She knew him personally, and she was VERY careful about background checks on the employees working directly under her. She stepped into the stairway and looked down the spiraling structure, her eyes widening as she saw other staff members slowly make their way up the stairs stealthily, their eyes glazed over, being far too sneaky for people who had no training at all. Eight’s mind began to race, her grip on the handrail of the stairs becoming so tight that the metal bent into the shape of her hand. She quickly went through all the possibilities through her head in a matter of seconds. How long have they been planning this?! No, that’s ridiculous, there’s no way they all collectively planned to betray me. They look like zombies; this is brainwashing! Did Three betray me?! No. It must be someone else. Eight concluded, her grip softening as she looked back down at the corpse of her chief of logistics, sighing as she made a mental note of replacing him. Now that she understood what was happening, she couldn’t just blindly go in and slaughter her entire staff - the Association’s HQ would be left with no one to man it. Best case scenario she’d have to replace hundreds of very talented people with probably much worse alternatives, while in the worst case scenario the entire Association would fall into anarchy temporarily. She could find a way to knock them all unconscious by just hitting the right nerves on every single one… But I have no idea how many were brainwashed. If every single employee is brainwashed, I would exhaust myself due to simple sheer raw numbers. I can’t act rashly before knowing their exact numbers and weighing my ability to knock them all out. She looked down at the spiral stairway, her eyes fixated on the first floor all the way at the bottom. My best shot is to find the culprit and take them down directly.

  She gave up on being sneaky, grabbing the stairway and jumping over it, now freefalling down the center of the spiral. She didn’t bother to look at the staff members as she descended, her eyes narrowed and focused on the ground, her body crouched into the best position to absorb and disperse the damage. She fell the entire ten stories, her expression completely immutable, not a glint of fear in them. Her feet hit the ground with a deafening splintering sound, the marble tiles cracking and creating a small crater where she landed, dust flying into the air like a mist. Eight winced, the damage from the ten story fall made her body recoil in pain, her feet having dislocated and her eyes shaking slightly in pain. Thankfully, her enhanced durability meant that otherwise, she was fine. She inhaled deeply and didn't waste a heartbeat, placing her hands on the ground and pushing against it, getting into a handstand before twisting her body like a whip and kicking the air with her left leg as hard as she could, snapping her foot right back into position. She did the same with her right leg, snapping the foot right back to where it was supposed to be. She then pushed against the floor once more to launch herself into the air, landing back on her feet and looking up at the stairway. Anger filled her as she realized that the stairs were absolutely PACKED with employees of the Hero Association, possibly hundreds of them crammed into the stairs. This many?? My enemy is quite talented, it seems. The zombified employees stopped in their tracks, all of their heads turning in unison to look at Eight for a couple of seconds. Whoever was after her also gave up on being stealthy, the brainwashed people quickly turning around in the stairwell and trampling over each other to reach the bottom as soon as possible. They must have enhanced physical ability. That, or whoever is controlling them can force them to shed their physical inhibitions no matter the damage it causes to their bodies. Eight mentally noted, watching her lead developer for the Association website sprint down the stairs at speeds she would normally reckon to be an impossibility, given his less than ideal physique. Eight sighed and turned around, facing away from the stairwell and towards the rest of the first floor, deciding to not waste her time sitting idly and spectating as the horde descended the stairs to chase her. She crouched down on the floor in a sprinting position, her violet eyes glowing intensely before she launched herself off the floor, flying down the hallway in a matter of seconds. The Association HQ was one of the bigger buildings in all of Delhi, with the first floor being the biggest. And despite this, Eight’s enhanced speed had absolutely no issue in allowing her to zoom through the hallways expertly, only skidding to a halt when she reached the main hub area of the headquarters.

  The structure had to be absolutely massive; it was the literal physical symbol of the Hero Association after all. But this was now being used against Eight, for the bastard who had pitted her against her entire staff could now be hiding anywhere in the damn thing. Despite the disadvantage, Eight had narrowed the location of her enemy to two possibilities. First, that they had to be somewhere on the first floor; because that's where all the brainwashed had come from, as well as the fact that security would have detained anyone without a proper identification almost immediately after entering the building - meaning that the brainwasher must have struck while still being on the first floor. Her second theory was that her assailant was hiding in plain sight among her employees, moving with the horde inconspicuously. Strangely, part of me hopes it’s the second option. Sounds more… fun, I guess. Eight looked around the main hub area, her eyes narrowing as she noticed that the grand majority of her staff were all asleep in their posts; the security guards were snoring on the floor next to the doors, her chief of staff was asleep on a chair with a spilled coffee next to her, and almost all employees were either collapsed on their desks or on the floor in hallways. What’s this? So the majority of my employees aren’t brainwashed? Perhaps my rival’s power can’t control that many people at once… Or there is a certain condition to it, seeing as I wasn’t brainwashed either.

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  She kneeled down beside her snoring chief of staff, inspecting her with narrowed eyes, her mind racing as she ran through all the characteristics that could separate her from the various employees she had spotted among the brainwashed. And then it clicked, her eyes intensifying even further in glow as her otherwise calm expression was twisted into a furious scowl. I understand now. The brainwasher can only control the crippled, they can’t control people who have powers. That leaves two possibilities; either they are not alone and someone else made everyone else fall asleep, or their power makes powered people fall asleep while also controlling the crippled. Eight concluded quickly, her enhanced intelligence letting her draw conclusions in a matter of seconds. “What a disgusting power. It’s even worse than Three’s; at least hers is indiscriminate,” Eight considered out loud in repulsion. She looked at the main doors to the Association’s HQ, surprised at the fact that despite being located in such a massive metropolis, no civilians had entered. As a matter of fact, she couldn’t spot anyone even meandering outside the building. Perhaps the criminal had put something outside to deter people from coming in? She grit her teeth and sprung into action, her enhanced hearing allowing her to notice that the horde was already about halfway down the stairs. Dammit, I wasted too much time. Let’s start with possibility A; the bastard is hiding somewhere on the first floor. She took a deep breath and lowered herself on the floor, her legs tensing before thrusting forward and very quickly picking up momentum. She would run past doors, extending a hand outwards and pulling on the handle with her enhanced strength to just rip the entire thing off its hinges before stepping inside without missing a beat, scouring the room quickly using her enhanced eyesight before running back out and doing the same for the next room. Each room took her about three seconds using this method. This speed is perfect. It gives me just enough time to scan the entire first floor - if I plan my routes efficiently - before the brainwashed arrive at the main hub area. And so, she scanned and checked every single room and crevice of the entire first floor one by one. Her frustration only grew with each failure, biting down on the inside of her cheek as she finished checking the final room only to be met with disappointment. She turned around, the sound of the horde flooding into the main hub of the first floor catching her attention.

  Eight grit her teeth, clenching her fist and splitting a table in half with a punch to vent out some anger, taking a deep breath. Fine, change of plans. The intruder is among the brainwashed horde, which means that I’ll just have to knock out everyone. Now that I know it’s just about 10% of my employees that are being controlled, I can definitely do this. Eight clapped to hype herself up and sprinted back to the main hub area, deciding to just meet her enemy head on. She got there first, taking a deep breath and wiping away a droplet of sweat that was running down her temple, watching in contempt as the horde reached the hub, slowing down as soon as they spotted her and assuming a more organized formation. The hero smirked in amusement, watching as her enemy who had been so desperate to confront her was suddenly being all too cautious. She took a second deep breath, crouching down and placing her hands against the floor as she got into sprinting position again, the horde on the opposite end of the room forming an aggregation akin to a wall of bodies. I see, they’re trying to get packed as densely as possible to make it impossible for me to weave between them. Too bad that won’t work against me. Eight’s muscles tensed, her eyes darting through the crowd that was now slowly advancing towards her until she finally spotted a suitable first victim, jumping off the ground with such speed and power that once again the tiles under her feet cracked, seeming more like a blur than a human being as she met the horde head on.

  She blitzed her first victim, causing the zombified employee to attempt to grab her only for her to dodge to the left and land a karate chop directly to the carotid vein, measuring her strength to hit just right to knock the person out cold without causing too much permanent damage. She didn’t even wait to see if her attack had worked, her eyes darting to her next victim with the deadly precision of a hawk and delivering a whirlwind kick straight to the head. Two employees lunged at her, only for her to dodge under them and place her hands on the floor, doing a handstand to kick each of them in turn on the chin from underneath, doing a backflip to land back on her feet as the two poor men collapsed to the floor. In less than two seconds, she had already defeated four of them. Eight let out a sigh, patting the back of her head to make sure that her braids were still intact before turning back to the stunned horde, seemingly still processing what had just happened. She smirked, her eyes glowing menacingly as she tilted her head and crouched down again, not giving her enemy even a moment of respite as she charged right back in. This time, she outstretched her hands and punched the first two people she saw right on the face at the same time while weaving between them, directly entering the blob of bodies despite how densely packed they were, seemingly having no issue in sneaking through even the narrowest of spaces between people. Better like this. If I’m surrounded, I can attack from all directions. She pondered, doing her best to hold back a gleeful smile. She knew she shouldn’t be enjoying this, but she found herself unable to not find herself at least somewhat entertained between punching someone right on the forehead while at the same time kneeing someone else entirely on the stomach. Working at a desk for so long really does things to people, huh.

  In between her weaving between the masses and knocking out people left and right, there were a few moments she nearly got caught. For example, once when a brainwashed lunged at her with arms outstretched while two others came from the sides, hoping to catch her and pin her down. She jumped up into the air, one of her feet landing on the neck of the employee that had lunged at her, using her as a launching pad to jump once more; allowing the other two to slam against each other while breaking the neck of the poor girl. Damn. I was hoping to keep all of them alive. She lamented with a slight annoyance. She landed back down, quickly doing a sweeping kick and hitting the other two while they were still on the ground, dazed from having hit each other. The crowd of more or less two hundred brainwashed crew members was already thinning, the ground so full of bodies; both from those asleep as well as from knocked out zombified employees that Eight had to kick her shoes off - and in the process use them as proyectiles to knock out another two - in order to be able to better tiptoe around without stepping on anyone and in the process killing them. Eight winced as she pranced around the battlefield, putting a hand to her head while using the other one to slam a random employee into the wall, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. My head is hurting. Am I sick? No, it has to be the brainwashers’ power. They’re trying to knock me out by putting me to sleep. This might be dangerous if I don’t wrap it up quickly. Thankfully, her enhanced mental fortitude meant that mental afflictions like this one would take a while to really take hold.

  Even while concentrating on making sure she didn’t slaughter a substantial amount of her workforce, Eight noticed something rather strange. One of the brainwashed was moving awkwardly, making its way towards her but strangely enough getting cut off by another one before it could get any closer to her… almost as if it was purposely avoiding getting too close to her while trying to make it seem accidental to not arouse any suspicion. The hero’s eyes were set ablaze, a scowl forming on her lips. Found you, bastard. Eight thought, her fist clenching as she did a sweeping leg move to knock three people off their feet before swinging her other leg upward to strike all three in the head as they fell, knocking them out before they even hit the floor. She used the opportunity of having knocked down three at a time to jump through the gap in the horde and make her way towards the intruder, which she recognised to be a male. The intruder noticed he had been caught and gave up on the disguise, turning around in a panic and making a run for it. The brainwashed jumped at her a lot more violently now, no longer caring about each other or about maintaining any sort of cohesion as they just clawed their way through their own crowd to get to her no matter the consequences. Eight grit her teeth, looking around as she tried to figure out a way to stop her enemy from reaching the door, until her eyes landed on one of her security personnel. Yes, let’s do that. The hero nodded at her own idea, her eyes again darting to her enemy as he scurried away pathetically, his eyes shaking and sweat running down his face profusely, having clearly severely underestimated Eight. Idiot. Just because my power isn’t as flashy as the other Celestials, that doesn’t make me any weakling.

  She darted backwards and away from the horde that stood between her and the door, her eyes once more fixated on the sleeping security guard about two meters from her, laying in the middle of the horde. She waited two whole seconds until the horde had rushed past him in their pursuit, taking the opportunity to kick the marble tile between her and her desired object as hard as she could, splintering the marble tile and burying her end of it, causing the other side to lift up like a seesaw and send the gun flying into the air. Her eyes locked unto it, running right past the brainwashed with no regards to the fact that they were clawing at her rabidly like starving wolves, paying no mind to the stinging feeling of nails ripping into her skin or the pain of forcibly separating herself from the crushing grip of someone trying to pin her down. Her eyes never left the gun, jumping up by using two employees as stepladders, grabbing the gun mid-air. She twisted around, her eyes now fixated on her fleeing enemy as he made it past the main door, lifting up the gun and training it on his head. By the time Eight’s feet reached the ground, all of the brainwashed employees had begun to collapse, falling unconscious as the hypnotist’s grasp on them shattered. Eight looked over at the intruder, who was now laying on the ground with a perfect bullet hole going right through the back of his head.

  She sighed, wiping some sweat off her brow and flexing her sore fingers. Writing so much paperwork and then fighting like that has really gone and made my hands ache… And just then the building was stormed by a bunch of professional heroes, making Eight turn to look at them with a raised eyebrow. They came in swinging, swords and guns and fists out, in combat stances, prepared to fight, but were met by a main hub area whose floor was covered by asleep bodies and an enemy who was already dead. One of the pro heroes - a sanguimancy user approaching Eight slowly while looking around at the battlefield apprehensively. “I-I apologize, miss Eight. It seems we were late…” she bowed once she was in front of Eight, afraid that she would punish her. “We barricaded the outside to prevent civilians from coming in once we suspected there was an attack. We were just gathering enough heroes to make sure we’d win-'' Eight hit her on the head with a closed fist, stopping her monologue, albeit not hard or precise enough to knock her out or kill her. “Idiot. If you know something truly important is in danger, you rush in even if there’s no time to prepare. ‘Preparedness even in crisis’ is a privilege given only to that which isn’t essential, understood? If the person being attacked was just some president or idiotic politician, THEN prepare all you want,” Eight huffed, unimpressed, turning around to look at the rest of the team assembled before her. The sanguimancer flinched in pain, “Yes ma’am!” she exclaimed fearfully.

  Eight sighed and approached the nearest desk, ripping out a paper from the notebook on it. She scribbled down the positions in the Association that had just opened thanks to the dead, furrowing her brow before tossing it to one of the other heroes. Eight pursed her lips, looking over at the comical amount of passed out employees laying on the floor, her hands on her hips as she pondered on what to do. Her thoughts were interrupted by the sanguimancers’ voice, making her turn around to look at the hero. “Sorry to keep bothering you, miss. But there's an urgent situation developing in New York,” the pro hero began nervously, a bead of sweat running down her face, holding up her phone gingerly to show Eight the live feed from one of the news-sites stationed in the city. Eight’s eyes widened, her lips parting as the images flashed across the screen, grabbing the phone off the sanguimancers hands roughly, the screen cracking ever so slightly, a scowl forming on her face. One, what have you DONE?! Oh when I get my hands on you… “Make an emergency broadcast NOW!!! Send out a message to gather all of the Celestials, order them to the nearest airport they can find. No- Before that, get me Six on the line immediately!!” Eight barked at the poor sanguimancer, causing her to nod frantically and meekly reach out for her increasingly damaged phone.