Titus

"Nah, I mean, it's impressive and everything, and green. But I guess, the most impressive thing for me, is how clean the air is. There are places in O.N where there are trees, grass and clean running water; however the air is pretty much the same everywhere. It's taking me a bit of time to adjust to clean air, but for me, that's the nicest thing." Titus replied with a smile, and then took a huge breath, and exhaled slowly.

"Huh? Um, ok." June said, and went back to being giddy with the other 3. Sarah on the other hand looked intently at Titus, and was actually quite impressed with the statement he just made. Although he seemed uninterested most of the time, this guy at least seemed to be the most composed.

'It's almost a shame he's going to die.' She thought to herself.

"Ok guys settle down. I'm about to explain what the job is. We are going to bust into that warehouse over there, kill its' inhabitants. As criminals who live in O.N, I'm sure you don't mind right? Good. I'll need you guys to introduce yourselves, and to tell me what your combat speciality is."

They all introduced themselves, explaining what their powers were, and which form of combat they specialised in. Once they had all spoken, Sarah told them about the formation.

"Ok, The Magician and I will be at the back, providing support. Hernandez and June, as the mid and long range fighters, you'll be in the middle. Joe and Titus, you guys lead the line ok? Everyone understand their roles? Good."

They all ran towards the door, and got into position. Once there, Sarah spoke.

"On my mark, Titus, you smash the door open. Then we all charge in, and kill the people inside ok? The Magician and I will be right behind you guys, so don't worry about being flanked. Just go in there, and fight, understood?"

"Sure thing Boss" they said, and they all nodded. Sarah started.

"3" They gulped.

"2" They strengthened their resolve.

"1" They started charging up their powers.

"GO!"

Titus smashed the door open, and they all rushed inside. All of them, but Sarah, who hung back at the entrance, and observed. Her suspicions were then confirmed when she saw about 8 men, all dressed in black clothes, with red coats, wearing red masks. She then touched the earpiece in her right ear, and spoke.

"The intel we received was correct. In this warehouse, lower members of the mercenary group, Red Death are currently inside. The 5 guys I hired from O.N just busted inside, and are about to get killed. The money is still in the van, and hopefully they can at least wound a few; that way I can kill the rest, and take the surviving ones in for questioning. Uh huh. Uh huh. Yeah. I agree, but we don't have enough members for us to go risking if it may be a trap. These guys are nothing but low-level thugs, who no one will miss. It's better they die, than one of us, especially if it's just for recon and such. Yeah. Yeah ok. Ok. Well it appears that the Red Death members are about to attack, so I'll contact you once it's all over. Ok. Yeah." Sarah looked back into building, and saw the massacre happen, as the Red Death members started fighting. Before the thugs could even get in a single hit, it happened.

"Red Flames; Wave!"

A huge wave of scalding hot red flames washed over the 5, who were still running in, and Sarah heard their screams, and cries of agonizing pain, as they burnt to a crisp.

"Shit!" Titus said, as he saw the tidal wave of flames descending upon them. He looked to see if anyone had started to evade, but saw as they continued to charge ignorantly to their deaths. He bent down, placing his right hand on the ground, and pushed off, as the flames hit the 4. He flew towards the wall, and as he heard their screams, he noticed that Sarah was missing.

'It's unfortunate, but those 4 are goners. Maybe I can still get my cash, along with theirs. If I do that, I won't have to work for months! But first I have to get out of here. Maaaan, what a pain!' Titus thought to himself, before turning in midair, landing on all fours against the wall, and pushing off, flying towards the direction of the guy spraying the flames.

He landed behind the guy, crouched down, both hands on the ground; he stuck his right leg out straight, and swept it around, tripping the guy. Another guy came flying in from above, and his fist shone in the light.

'Shit. He's got some kind of rock hard barrier type thing covering his skin.'

Titus sprung back, his body almost horizontal to the ground, stuck out both his arms, palms making contact with the ground, sliding. He brought his legs over his head, and bent his knees as his feet touched the ground, hands and feet on the ground, sliding backwards. The guy followed him and swung again, this time though; Titus skilfully slipped to the side, and tried to punch him in the gut. This resulted in a 'Dong' sound echoing throughout the warehouse.

"Oooooowwwww!!" Titus whined, gripping his hand

Hard guy laughed, and another guy came from behind, but was caught by a heel to the cheek, as Titus leapt slightly, bending his left knee, straightening his right leg, and swinging it a around in the air, doing a spin kick. As his heel made contact with the guys face, hard guy threw a punch that he caught in his right hand, placing his left palm on the back of his right hand for support. He then grabbed his forearm with his left, and as he continued his spinning motion, spun with hard guy, letting him go, and having him fly into the wall that Titus pushed off of earlier, while the guy who tried to get him from behind, went flying in the opposite direction, hitting the wall at the same time as hard guy.

Flame guy had by now recovered from being tripped.

"Red Flames; Rapid Fire!"

Balls of red flames started shooting at Titus. He dodged the first few, ducking below one, doing a back flip over another, pushing one shoulder back, causing his body to twist to one side, doing 3 continuous flip flap back flips, as 3 balls hit the spots he vacated. After landing, he started running towards the source of the fireballs; fireball dude. As he approached, he just moved his body the required number of cm to avoid getting hit by the flames, as he got closer; he started lowering his torso, making it perpendicular to the ground.

"Lightning; Speed!"

With this, a golden glow enveloped Titus' feet, with white and golden lightning streaks coursing from them. He then disappeared, moving at, ironically, 'lightning speed', almost disappearing completely from sight, becoming a blur of lines. He then came back into view, turning his hips, and sliding sideways, until coming to a complete stop. When he stopped, almost as though he had a delayed reaction, the flames dude doubled over, floated in midair for a bit, before falling to the ground, with blood leaking from his mouth.

Titus looked up to see the remaining guys all bearing down on him from different directions.

"Lightning; Reflexes!"

The same golden glow surrounded his entire body, with the lightning streaks coursing from his arms and legs. As they surrounded him, they started swinging. He leant his torso back, avoiding a hook, did the torso twist to avoid a punch to the gut, crossed his arms in front of his face to block an incoming kick, leapt up, bending his knees to avoid being tripped, whilst still in midair, he smacked both palms onto the temples of the guy directly in front of him, dazing him. Elbowed the guy behind him in the nose, brought both palms to the guys on either side of him, butting their noses from a downwards angle, pushing up, hearing them break, and seeing blood flow out, and finally elbowed the guy behind him, slightly to his left. All 5 of the men were now stunned, and all Titus needed was one second. As his feet touched the ground, he crouched down into a squat, and crossed both arms across his chest.

"Lightning; BURST!"

As he said this, he stood up, uncrossing his arms, and pointing them straight up. A sphere of the gold light, started swirling and growing from Titus. As it grew, lightning streaks darted out from it in all directions, and eventually, the sphere came into contact with all 5 men, sending flying in 5 different directions, while the lightning streaks danced around their bodies, as they screamed and flew off in their respective directions. He heard all 5 men crash into walls, and looking up, he saw hard guy running towards him, screaming. Titus lowered him arms to his sides, turned his head to the right, and looked at the oncoming man.

"Lightning; Strike!"

Suddenly, one HUGE lightning bolt, crashed through the roof of the warehouse, directly onto the hard guy. Titus heard his protective barrier shatter, and it sounded like shattering glass. He then heard the guys scream echo through the warehouse, and eventually stop as the lightning stopped. Steaming; black, and almost burnt to a crisp, hard guy fell onto his knees, and then onto his stomach.

Letting out a sigh of exertion, Titus brought a forearm to his forehead, and rubbed it across, although he didn't even break a sweat, he used more energy that night, than he usually did in a month.

"Now, to go find that Sarah woman, tell her that we did the job, but suffered 4 casualties, and get paid. Then I can go home, and get that fucking rat out of the fridge!"

The moment he turned to face the exit, he saw Sarah standing there, flabbergasted.

"Shit..."

"1 long range specialist, 6 close combat specialists, and 1 defence specialist, all obliterated; all this done by a low-level small time criminal, who used multiple lightning techniques, one after the other? Who are you?"

Titus just sighed, scratching the back of his head, grimacing at the fact that she just saw him fuck up 8 guys he had right to fuck up.

"I'm just some guy, who you hired to do a job. That job was to kill everybody is this room. Well, only 1 guy is still alive, so I'll take a pay cut, but that was the job. My job was not to answer your questions. Just give me my cash, and drop me off back at O.N, and we can both carry on with our lives."

Sarah had to agree that the job was done, well mostly, and that he had earned his pay. As she stepped out of the door way and nodded at him, she watched him walk past her and head towards the van. She touched her ear piece again.

"Roger? I need you to pick up one of the Red Death for questioning. He will be in the warehouse, and be pressed against a wall. He'll be the one who isn't burnt to a crisp."

Sarah also headed towards the van. As she saw him at the back, he took his bag with 5 grand and opened it. He then took Hernandez' bag, took 4 thousand from it, and put it in his bag with a sigh.

"Sorry Santos, I'll be taking this from your pay, seeing as you said that you don't need money from Sarah or anything."

With that he closed the bag, and was about to hop in the back.

"Wait. Why don't you dome sit up front with me?"

"Huh? Why?"

"The job is finished right? Besides, it'll be lonely and uncomfortable in the back. We got a 2 hour drive ahead of us."

"Hmmm, ok thanks. Getting a stiff ass is a pain anyway."

"I agree. Come on." Sarah said as she opened the door for him. Once he was inside, she closed the door, swung around to the drivers' side, and got in. She started the car, and started driving back.

"So what did we have to kill those people for? In fact, what did they do? What do you do?" Titus asked, being unusually inquisitive

"The answers to all those questions, are unfortunately, strictly confidential, and I can't tell you yet, sorry. But I get the feeling you'll be finding out soon enough."

"Hmmm, ok then." Titus said, going back to being his uninterested self.

The rest of the drive back, was done in relative silence; however a few attempts at small talk were made. As they approached the old school, Sarah offered to drop him off at home, but he declined, stating that he preferred to walk.

"Ok then Sarah, thanks for the job. This should keep me going for a while." Titus then undid his seatbelt, and opened the door.

"Bye Titus, I'll see you soon."

"Huh?" Titus said, before closing the door, and watching as Sarah drove off.

"Hunh." Titus said, quickly losing interest, and walking back to his apartment.

A week passed since his job, and Titus looked at his clock.

"20:30 huh?"

He remembered how George shat him out for not visiting the bar more often, so he got dressed in a plain white tee, blue jeans and black work boots. He grabbed his jacket, and made his way over towards the Dragon. As he approached the bar, he wasn't hearing the regular sounds that he was used to hearing when he approached. The lights were on, and he could people were inside, but still, he heard nothing. He got to the front door, and opened it, as he had already lost interest in why it was quiet. As he walked in, every single set of eyes turned to him, however, not a single word was spoken. He saw George staring at him intently, so he made his way over to the bar. As he got, he sat on a bar stool.

"Hey George, why is it so quiet in here?"

"Everyone's been waiting."

"Waiting? Who or what's everyone been waiting for?"

"YOU!!"

"What the fuck, why you guys been waiting for me?"

"Because I've been coming here every night for the past week, looking for you Titus." said a familiar sounding female voice, coming from behind him.

"No way, that voice." He said turning around "Sarah?! What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to offer you another job?"

"What? Another job? Thanks, but I'm still good. I still got a tonne of money left from the las—"

"This isn't some once off job again. I'm offering you a position in the organization that I work for; a permanent position in New Nexus."

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!" Everyone in the bar screamed in unison.

Titus just looked at Sarah with that same uninterested look he always had plastered on his face, as she looked at him with a smile on her face.

To be continued...

Yo! So this is the beginning of Titus' story. What you guys think? Leave a comment or whatever. Personally, I really like the ideas swimming around in my head with regards to this one.

Anyway, thanks so much for reading this.

Peace.

FriedChickenK...I mean DionysosK.