First Night on the Job (2)

After Zero saw that I was done, he shifted his attention back to his attackers. The men slashed at him as fast and hard as they could, but Zero dodged them effortlessly. At this point, he was basically just toying with them.

"We outnumber him three to one. If we all coordinate our attacks he'll eventually get hit no matter how fast he is," one of the men said, encouraging the others.

"Looks like we got ourselves a strategist over here. I'm sure that with the new knowledge that you guys outnumber me will really help you out. What's next? Will you tell them that they should not in fact miss their swings, but actually hit them?" Zero mocked.

The men were outraged. I think his words might've contributed to that a bit. Although, I think the real reason was that they still couldn't hit him even working together. This was starting to look less like a fight, and more like a predator playing with its meal. After Zero grew tired of messing with the men he finally started his counterattack.

Sidestepping all of their swords, he got right next to one of the men. Then, as Zero raised his arms the man fell to the ground. It didn't look like he even touched him, yet he was clearly knocked out. I tried to pay more attention as he approached the next man. The man dropped the same way the first one did, but I was able to catch what happened this time.

Zero had simply just jabbed at the men so fast that I could barely see it without paying close attention. His speed was absolutely stunning. As he stepped toward the only guy still standing, the man started to panic and run away. Before he could get too far Zero caught up to him and Instead of going for another jab, he raised his right leg. The kick was almost as fast as his jabs were but the impact was much more apparent.

I was pretty sure that I hear a few cracking noises as Zero's leg hit the man's side. The force of the kick was enough to send him flying a few feet. The man was still conscious though it didn't look like he'd be getting up anytime soon. I now understood why he'd call someone like me "dead-weight". Zero's strength was inhuman I was curious as to why, but honestly, I was too scared to ask.

While I was busy being captivated by Zero's "fight" I just about forgot about the hackers. They were still in the same spot with probably no idea of what had just happened. I untied them and they looked around with fear.

"Please don't hurt us! We'll do anything you ask!"

"Anything?" Zero asked

I smacked him on the back of the head, "Shut up they're already confused enough as is," I turned to the hackers, "Sorry, what he meant to say was that we're not here to hurt you but we're helping you."

"Really? you're not just saying that so you can take us somewhere else and force us to work?"

"Listen, If we wanted to you guys would already be in the back of some van, but you're not. You guys can just leave right now if you really want to."

Two of them really did just leave, but the other one stayed behind.

"Thank you for setting us free. I didn't think we'd ever get away from those guys. My name is Yu and I'm greatly in debt to you."

"That's great an all Yu, but I think right now you should be more concerned about getting home," I said.

"Okay, but if you're ever in need of a hacker come find me and I'll do anything I can to help," Yu said as he returned home.

After he was gone Zero thought for a moment and then turned to me, "You know that was really nice of him to say that. However, he gave us no way of actually finding him if we ever need his help."

"Oh well, it's the thought that counts I guess. Now that the hackers are gone, what are we going to do with these guys?" I said while gesturing to the unconscious men.

"I don't know I usually just leave them there."

"Really? you don't give them to the police or anything?"

"Eh, whatever organization that hired them will usually bail them out of jail within a few weeks anyway so there's not much of a point. All that matters is that we've stopped them from carrying out their plan and changed the future in doing so."

I guess Zero was right though I still felt like I should do something to these guys. After a bit of thinking, I decided to tie them together and had Zero throw the keys to their van as far away as possible. That was enough to satisfy me so we headed back to the Oracle building. One thing was still bugging me though.

"What were they going to use the hackers for anyway?" I asked Zero.

"From what I understood from Lisa, there's some organization trying to hack into the Photon."

"Why would they want to do that?"

"Apparently, once they hack into it, they can cause it to malfunction and damage the brain of whoever's using it. Lisa said that they'll do this so they can threaten people to follow and obey them."

"Good thing we stopped them tonight right?"

"Instead of stopping them, it would be better to say that we delayed them. Just because we stop one event from happening doesn't mean that they're going to give up on their goals entirely."

"So then..."

"We have a lot more work to do."