Bryce stood up on her feet.

“Monsters?” she shouted.

“We should get out of here,” she turned to Jason who was still deboning the drumstick within his mouth.

She couldn’t believe how calm this man was. But considering how he single-handedly killed all those monsters back in Veteran Park, it made sense on how he behaved. Then loud gunshots trailed behind the explosion. From the sound of it, something else was going on.

“Relax, it’s not the monsters. Probably a heist or something,” said Jason.

“More reason for us to leave, don’t you think?” she leaned forward at Jason with both her hands on the table. As if telling him, this wasn’t a discussion.

“Fine,” he got up.

Bryce picked up her coat preparing to leave.

“If the restaurant’s staff ask me where I am, tell them I went to the toilet,” his answer wasn’t what she had expected.

“What?” she thought they were going to leave.

But then in a blink of an eye, Bryce saw him vanished into thin air. She literally jumped on her feet and fell down on the floor. Her capability of withstanding surprises was rather low and pathetic.

“Stay here,” a whisper fleeting into her ears.

“Jason?” she called out to him but there was no more response. She turned left to right like a clueless child.

--

A man walking by the aisle, his eyes were darting around the retail stores to his sides. A few things piqued his curiosity while his mouth was still chewing the food he had from the buffet. The source of the noise was becoming louder as his steps brought him closer. He was nonchalant as if taking a stroll in the park. With hands inside his pocket, he came down on the escalator. Standing there while staring at the people downstairs.

These people were dressed in a street gang like attire with their face covered by skull masks, by the look of it they were doing more than just a heist. It was a raid.

These guys got balls.

It wasn’t a measly number of six people heist but a raid made by more than a hundred gang members. With more than just handguns, a quick scan showed one-third of them were holding on to submachine guns. These people were going through one store after another with a three-man team. They were divided as the hundred men spread throughout the floors of the mall. For a bunch of fake street gang, they were quite organized.

A few gang members were in the vast area of the mall. Making noises and shooting indiscriminately in the air. The ornaments hanging on the ceiling fell one after another. The sound of those ornaments breaking into pieces pierced the air of the mall. Visitors fled in a hurry as they fear these dangerous men. Jason had his own suspicion but did it even matter?

He just stood there on escalator waiting for the man-made invention to bring him down on the lower floor. He wasn’t in a hurry as compared to monsters, men felt too easy. One of the reasons for his overconfidence was none other contributed by the active energy guard as well as him being invisible. He doubted whether they had infrared or thermal vision goggles. Besides, do they even work on him?

He reached the lower floor and immediately stumbled upon a team of three street gang members. Looking at how they moved and positioning themselves, only raised his doubt even more. With them coming right in front of his doorsteps, he ain’t going to be rude to his guests. In a blink of an eye or to be more precise, in less than four seconds, three punches went digging into their abdomens. Those three flipped their bodies like boiled shrimps and the moment the fell to the floor, they blacked out. A non-lethal punch, it was Jason's first time doing it, and he pulled it off quite well.

Three down and more to go…

He was about to activate the skill but he stopped himself as he saw the reflection of a mirror just in front of him.

I’m still invisible? That isn’t possible.

But as he stood there thinking. He remembered when he kicked the nuts out of the rapist doctor and realized he was still invisible afterward. The only time he realized his invisibility was off was when he was fighting against those hobgoblins. It got him thinking.

Does it only happen because of the hobgoblins? Or is there something else I’m missing here.

A gunshot and a scream made him snapped out of his brainstorming session. It was loud and it was close. He made his way to a Gator retail store, a footwear brand that was famous selling ugly footwear. Standing in front of the store, he saw a bloody scene.

“Why the hell did you shot him?”

“I… I…”

“The heck man, Cap isn’t going to like this.”

The three-man team was bickering with one another over a mishap.

I guess killing isn’t one of their MO.

“It’s not my fault man, I thought he was taking out a gun from under the counter,” the man who shot the bleeding Gator’s worker tried to defend himself.

“It’s a sock. He pulled out a freaking sock, damn it,” judging by the harsh tone, his team member wasn’t going well with this.

“So. Do we kill the other one?” the gruff like member spoke out. His words freaked out the cashier.

The female cashier was trembling shaking her head side to side while mumbling ‘no’ all the time.

“No, you idiot. We’re just here for the freaking money, not kill a bunch of people,” it seems the only rational member had his hands full dealing with these two numbskulls in his team.

The gruff like member snorted.

“Money? Shouldn’t we go to a bank or something? Who the heck raid a mall?” the gruff member spoke out his opinions.

“It’s the Cap’s decision. Don’t judge him. Besides, he probably has his own reasons,” a loyal and good man indeed.

But Jason who was standing there listening to their conversation wasn’t pleased. He too felt it was stupid of them raiding a mall for money. The bank has a lot more, no doubt. It was either the Cap was an idiot or he has other motives in regard to the location. He came here hoping for a nice time of relaxation and shopping, after an endless time of killing monsters. He deserved a break, he was just an ordinary man with a blue window.

I had enough of this.

Three men suddenly sprawled on the floor shocking the female cashier who had already soiled herself. She was dumbfounded seeing these men fainted on the floor as if all three had a cardiac arrest at the same time.

--

Time passed. Jason was moving at breaking speed while hiding himself in plain sight. He was hunting down these fake street gang members, fainting them one by one. From floor to floor, he was ending this little raid of theirs. Then there was only one floor left.

“Team leader G, respond, over,” someone was talking through the walkie-talkie.

Yet no voice comes out from the other end.

“Damn it,” he threw the walkie-talkie to the floor.

“Cap, the others won’t respond,” said another member of their five-man squad.

Different from the rest, these fives were on a task far from the simple looting of money through the stores. Down at the underground floor far from the parking lot. These fives were in front of a vault hidden within the area that only allowed for securities and specialized personnel. No one knew about this place existence except for the owner and a few, until these five found them.

“How’s the vault?” Cap asked glancing towards the man who was trying to open the vault.

“Needs time, and silence,” Cap ground his teeth with a rigid expression. He disliked this man who was given to them by the informer.

An informer who gave a precious intel that tugged the greed of this Cap.

“Hello, this is team Z over,” a voice came through.

“Cap, someone’s responded,” one of the fives relayed the event to Cap.

“Ask him, why the hell is no one responding,” Cap was fuming as he tried to keep his hot temper in check.

“Roger that,” the team member asked team Z as they waited for a response.

“This is team Z, requesting your current whereabouts, over,” the voice came.

“We’re currently within the underground security inner facilities, what’s your-” the team member responded as if it was not a big deal.

But Cap who was trying to cool down, blew the top of his lid as he listened to this underling of his.

“Why the hell do you give our location away?” Cap shouted and ran over kicking the walkie-talkie in the team member’s hand.

“But Cap, he’s one of us,” said the team member.

Cap grabbed on to the walkie-talkie.

“Team Z, what’s your status, over,” he waited.

“Team Z responding to immediate threats from store workers, over,” the replied was making Cap’s cautious nature itching.

He didn’t know why, but the way Team Z responded was rather odd. It wasn’t wrong per se, but his gut feeling was telling him something.

“Team Z this is an order, make sure to reduce civilian casualties and report immediately about any presence of police force,” Cap calmed himself down while telling himself, that he might be just too paranoid.

He already had intel that the police force around the mall, as well as the whole region, was focused on securing the bridges and tunnels connected to New York. More of them were sent to patrolled the shore area for any sign of monster activities. They had an assumption that those creatures might cross the bay.

To be frank, he was sure of this operation since he only needs the thing inside of this vault. The thing inside could fetch him a hefty sum of money. Ten million? That’s too little for the value inside this vault. The Cap didn’t even care about the money stole from the retail stores. The rest of them who were stealing upstairs are just collateral.

Cap glanced at the vault hoping it to be open sooner.

--

Meanwhile, an invisible shadow was making his way to the underground staircase. The moment he heard about the location, he pressed the button on the walkie-talkie and replied.

“Roger that, over.”