The Reincarnated Hitman

"Got you," Zero said with a smile, despite the speedster’s hand being so close to grabbing him.

The yellow-haired speedster suddenly stopped in his tracks...not by choice, of course.

"What the hell?" He let out as he felt something tightly restraining his body.

"I call it the spider web," Zero explained, seeing the confusion on the Splinter’s face. "I got the idea from a bounty hunter who was kind enough to show me."

Currently, keeping the yellow-haired Splinter in place were multiple strings that were almost completely invisible.

Of course, if the speedster were faster, he’d have avoided getting caught in said strings, but with the hitman’s previous attack, his mind had been clouded with anger, which caused him to not notice the strings until it was too late.

"Now then," Zero continued as he extended his hand and removed the speedster’s mask, "shall we put you to sleep?"

The last thing the speedster remembered was a pair of grey, glowing eyes before he was swallowed by darkness.

***

Titan frowned as he looked at the unawakened human before him.

By all means, this grey market agent shouldn’t have stood a chance against him; that was even more the case now that he had on the amplifier tech.

So how the hell was this man standing up over and over?

Sable, on the other hand, frowned as he looked at Titan. As much as he was managing to keep up for now, he was painfully aware that no amount of training could bridge the gap between him and someone with a Factor.

It was only a matter of time before Titan took advantage of that difference, and Sable knew it.

"Why don’t you give up?" Titan said, "After all, you have no way of hurting me."

"But I can!"

BANG!

Something heavy slammed into the Splinter’s head, causing him to slide a couple of steps backwards.

Since the attack had been an unexpected one, his Factor didn’t get the chance to activate, so he was forced to absorb the full brunt of the attack.

Still, he quickly recovered and looked back at his attacker, noticing that it was the white-haired kid.

Titan then turned towards the direction where Zero was previously fighting the speedster, noticing that he was now completely passed out.

"You look terrible," Zero said as he looked at Sable.

"You don’t look much better either," Sable responded, letting out a sigh.

He was relieved that the kid hadn’t ended up dying, especially after that explosion he heard earlier.

"Yeah," the hitman said with a shrug, "I spent a great deal of Pragma creating that gift."

Sable didn’t understand what gift he was talking about, but he guessed that it was what helped him win the fight against that speedster.

They couldn’t relax just yet, though; after all, there was still one more problem in front of them.

"I see you took care of the kid," Titan said while looking at the two, "that’s quite surprising."

"Is it?" Zero muttered with a hand on his chin, "Didn’t I also win against you the first time we met?"

This caused Titan to chuckle before nodding, "I guess you’re right, but today will be quite different from that day."

Instead of a reply, Zero simply looked at Sable and said, "His Factor only activates on attacks he’s aware of, so we’ll be using you as bait."

"..." Sable stared at Zero for a moment, wondering if the kid was actually serious.

"Don’t look at me like that," Zero said, "you’ve been tanking his attack so far; a couple more should be no problem."

"Good luck."

Before Sable could understand what the kid was up to, he suddenly jumped back, and the agent’s instincts suddenly went haywire.

Sable quickly lifted both hands just in time to block the first aimed at his face.

The force of the attack launched him backwards, but he managed to steady himself just in time.

"It seems you two are relaxed enough to converse in the middle of a fight," Titan said as he sent another punch towards Sable.

BANG!

Before his own attack could land, something slammed into his head again, but this time, his Factor activated.

However, the force still moved him a distance away from the agent.

"I really expected that to work," Zero said as he regained his balance after the kick.

It seems the amplifier allowed his Factor to activate against attacks even if he was only vaguely aware of them....which was quite annoying.

A knockout gas could’ve easily solved this.

However, the hitman couldn’t use his own Factor right now; after all, even with his Pragma battery, he had ended up using a bit too much Pragma.

It’ll take a while for his natural mana to regenerate before the battery can multiply it, so until then, he would be using whatever little Pragma he had to maintain his connection with the clone at the birthday party and his reinforcements.

"Well," Zero let out, "we can only try to overwhelm him; after all, his Factor might not be able to focus on multiple things at once."

Sable simply nodded, and the next second, the two launched themselves towards the Splinter, who was a bit surprised at their sudden approach.

He then pulled his fist back and launched it at Zero, who was the closest; unfortunately, he seemed to forget that the kid was a lot faster than he was, even before the body enhancements.

Zero looked at the slowly approaching fist before dodging it quite easily.

He then slammed his own fist into Titan’s chest, but fortunately for the Splinter, his Factor was a lot faster than he was.

Sable quickly followed up with a punch that landed cleanly on the Splinter’s chin, knocking him even more off balance and causing him to fall.

The hitman didn’t let that chance pass him.

Zero stopped the pragma, reinforcing his muscles, and created a katana. He then jumped and landed on Titan’s chest whilst the splinter was mid-fall.

Without hesitation, Zero drove the katana into Titan’s neck before they both finally landed on the ground.

The hitman suddenly jumped back and looked at his katana, noticing that it had broken, which meant that Titan’s Factor had activated before the blade could pierce his neck....which was quite disappointing.

Titan quickly stood up with disbelief evident on his face. He really would’ve died just now if it wasn’t for his Factor.

"..."

He then looked at the disappointment on the kid’s face before letting out a chuckle, "I guess that’s what I get for underestimating you.... It won’t happen a—"

Before he had the chance to complete his words, a frown suddenly appeared on his face as he tapped a device in his ear.

Titan then put his hand down, looked at the two and said, "We’ll do this another time."

With that, he slowly walked towards the unconscious speedster before crouching down and picking him up.

"And where exactly do you think you’re going?" Sable asked as he watched the Splinter walk away.

"Back to base," Titan simply replied, "would you like to try and stop me?"

Sable went silent, and Titan took that as a response, so he calmly turned around and walked away.

THUD.

Sable turned around and noticed that Zero had completely passed out, probably from emptying his Pragma reserves.

The agent was glad this didn’t happen mid-fight, else they’d truly be at a disadvantage.

He let out a sigh, pulled his phone out of his pocket and placed it on his ear before saying, "I have another job for you."