Cold-Blooded

In the underground laboratory in the Guardians' headquarters. Rick, Ares, Artemis, Neptune and Athena were waiting for the test result. Minutes later, a man in white coat walked out, it was Hermes

"It seems little fellow Roderick was right. The ashes are not from humans, but from beasts. They took away Hecate while leaving the ashes of beats behind to confuse our people and lure all of us into a trap."

"Then we must search the entire island. If they are on Eden then they won't be able to stay in the dark for long." Neptune noticed one less presence in the laboratory when he looked around and didn't saw Rick's figure. "Where is Rick, he is not here anymore."

Neptune's remark made everyone realized Rick was really gone. He was with them moments ago before he vanished.

While they were confused by his sudden disappearance, Rick was standing on top of a energy tower. Staring at the city bellow, he asked. "Are you sure you can track down mother?"

[Huh? Yes, fully sure. But, are we going to do this by ourselves? I really don't care if we are alone or not, but we only have a ordinary human body.]

"Alone is faster, I also have this." Rick took out a little glass bottle with a single pill on it. "1-star Stealth pills. A single one of these will divert others attention from me, making me close to invisible. I stole from the laboratory minutes ago."

Running through the roof, Rick reached the northern sector's Explorers' Guild. There was a different person at the reception, but he didn't care. The blue-haired youth walked forward. "Bronze-ranked explorer, Rick Lawson. I'm here to take my flying bike."

"Oh... The higher ups had told me about it before." The moment the attendant heard his name, she left the client behind before guiding Rick. "The garage in down there. Your vehicle is at the M-corridor, number 2020."

He followed the path he was told and found a black and red motorcycle. It was completely different from before, if you look from afar you would think it is just an ancient motorcycle of the past era, not an advance flying bike. He also saw a black dragon helmet equipped with a quantum visor and 5th generation terrain scanner, surely the guild decided to give it as a small gift. Neptune and the others tracked Rick until the guild, but when they arrived he was long gone.

Artemis sighed while catching her breath. "He's really fast."

Ares just laughed at himself. "I would like to know what he's trying to do."

In the endless ocean, a single black flying bike cut through the air as it headed deep into the enemy's territory. A man wearing a big helmet drove the bike above the ocean. From afar he could detect any bears near by on his visor before changing directions.

[We are in the Fire God territory. Your mother's presence is about fifteen kilometers west. There is a huge concentration of life-force over there, from 30 to 60 beings.]

"Understood." Increasing the speed, Rick wielded the Lightning Hand Blaster in the kilo-mode. He could see the silhouette of a dozen fiery-fur lions glaring at him, three men clad in red were standing behind them. Seeing the men in red made the hostility in his eyes grow by several times.

"Die!" With his eyes shining brightly below the sunset, he pressed the the trigger shooting a highly concentrated ray of light straight into the skull of the first man.

"Intruder! Kill him!" The second man cried out and the lions rushed toward Rick before spatting out a dozen red fire bolts. The rage inside him was so much that he didn't cared about the fire bolts at all, grabbing one with his hand and throwing it back at the mouth of the lion burning him from the inside.

"Urg." The glove on his hand had a hole and burn marks could be seen on his hand. A pain ordinary people could not endure was blocked by him, with the bronze sword he cut another fire bolt in half before it explode in a mass of heat as his glistening sweat fell.

All the beast and humans present here were on the second stage, the humans used the fire the lions spat out to change it into two flame swords before engaging into close combat with the invader.

Shiing! Parrying the first slashed, Rick got back at him by cutting a piece of his shoulder. Then he threw his sword upwards, grabbed his blaster once again and aimed at the man's head.

Bang! With his head disintegrated by the blue ray, Rick put down his blaster seeing all the lions gathering fire element at their mouths.

"It won't be that easy." When a dozen huge fireball came flying at him he knew it was impossible to do like last time. He stared at the back and saw the last man clad in red and thought of something.

"It will be you, Lightning Reinforce!" With his speed increasing by two, he vanished seconds before the fire hit him, appeared behind the last man.

"You!" The man screamed as Rick kicked him in the back, throwing him at the fireballs.

Boom! And the man's heavily injured figure, burnt and with scratches all over his body was lying on the ground.

"Good, he's alive. Now let me finish those beasts. Mega-Mode!" Pressing the trigger, a ray of light three times denser than the previous two was shot at the crowd of lions. Rick searched the bodies of all of them before taking the heavily injured man with him.

"I will want some answers from you." Rick said in a dark voice when looked at the man.