Chapter 30: Buzz Biz no Jitsu
The world didn't just go into slow motion. It went into "buffering" mode.
One second, I was looking at a text message from a dead man walking. The next, the front window of *The Golden Griddle* wasn't glass anymore—it was a cloud of shimmering diamonds, pulverized by a volley of .50 caliber rounds that wanted to turn my brain into a Jackson Pollock painting.
In that microsecond—that tiny, razor-thin slice of time where a hero is made or a kid is buried—the diner became a theater of the absurd.
Gwen's hand was already under the table, her fingers twitching toward her backpack with a speed that definitely wasn't "science nerd" speed. Her eyes were blown wide, a mask of sheer, desperate calculation. She was a heartbeat away from doing something heroic or stupid.
Across from me, Rogue's chair didn't just move; it disintegrated. She was already in the air, her green gloves flying toward her face, her Southern drawl replaced by a combat roar. She was ready to take flight, ready to be the shield.
MJ was mid-scream. Liz was mid-mop-drop. Felicia was actually *grinning*, her body coiling like a cat about to pounce on a laser pointer.
And me?
My ear didn't just buzz. It screamed. It felt like someone had shoved a live wire into my spine and turned the voltage to "God Mode."
*I have to get them out,* I thought. *Not just MJ. Not just Gwen. Everyone. Clear the map.*
I didn't reach for the girls. I reached for the *air*. I reached for the very concept of "The Golden Griddle."
*Snap*
**BZZZZT-CRACK.**
A silver-blue dome of quantum static erupted from my solar plexus. It didn't expand like a normal explosion; it *glitched* outward. It was like a frame-rate drop in real life.
I saw Gwen's hand reach out for me. I saw Rogue's fingers an inch from my shoulder.
And then—*Pop.*
The sound was like a giant bubble gum bubble popping in a vacuum.
Suddenly, the diner was empty. And I mean *empty*.
The smell of pancakes was gone. The screaming was gone. The sizzle of the bacon was gone.
I looked around, gasping, my lungs burning like I'd just inhaled liquid nitrogen. I'd meant to just send the girls to the park across the street. But I'd overshot the mark. I'd overshot the damn planet, probably.
The fat guy at the counter who had been halfway through a Denver omelet? Gone.
Liz, mid-shriek? Gone.
The business monkey in the corner booth—wait, was that a monkey in a suit? Doesn't matter. Gone.
The entire waitstaff, the cook, the guy in the bathroom—I'd swept the server clean.
I was standing alone in a ruined diner, surrounded by a cloud of suspended dust and the smell of ozone.
My knees buckled. I coughed, and a splash of bright, metallic-tasting blood hit the floor.
"Too... much... energy," I wheezed, clutching my chest. My heart was beating in a rhythm that sounded like a techno remix.
"Impressive."
The voice came from the sidewalk.
I looked up through the jagged, tooth-like remains of the window frame.
Standing on the hood of a parked car was a man who looked like he'd been designed by a committee of sociopaths. He wore a dark tactical suit, but it was his face that did it—a bullseye tattooed or scarred right onto his forehead.
He held a deck of playing cards in one hand like they were throwing knives.
Behind him, emerging from the shadows of the laundromat and the alleyways like a plague of locusts, were the mercenaries.
Fifteen of them. Full tactical gear. Night-vision goggles in broad daylight. Assault rifles leveled at my chest.
"You're the Ghost Thief, aren't you?" the man asked, his voice smooth and terrifyingly calm. He flicked a card—the Ace of Spades. It hissed through the air and embedded itself three inches deep into the wooden table right next to my hand.
"Kingpin says you're a thief. I say you're a miracle. I've never seen someone erase a whole building's worth of people without a permit."
"I... I have a permit," I wheezed, trying to stand up. "It's... it's in my other pants. The ones that didn't teleport away."
"Funny kid," Bullseye said, his eyes crinkling. He didn't look angry. He looked *bored*. Like killing me was just a chore he had to do before lunch. "I'm Lester. But you can call me the last thing you ever see."
I looked at the fifteen mercenaries. Then back at Lester.
"Fifteen guys?" I croaked, wiping the blood from my chin. "For lil' ol' me? I'm flattered. Really. But I think you're overcompensating for something. Is it the tattoo? It's a bit on the nose, don't you think?"
Lester's smile didn't falter, but the air around him got colder. "The men are just here to make sure you don't 'flicker' away while I'm playing with you. Kingpin wants your head, but he didn't say I couldn't take my time with the rest of you."
He raised his hand. The mercenaries clicked their safeties off in a horrifying, rhythmic unison.
"Wait!" I shouted, my hands shaking. "Before we start the murder-fest... do you know where I sent them?"
Lester paused. "Sent who?"
"The girls. The cook. The monkey. I... I really need to know if they're okay. Because if I sent them into a volcano, I'm gonna feel really bad during the funeral."
Lester laughed—a sharp, barking sound. "Kid, you're about to be a red smear on a linoleum floor. Why do you care?"
"Because," I said, and for a second, my ear didn't just buzz—
I felt the space around the mercenaries. I felt the molecules of the air, the lead in their magazines, the iron in their blood. I was the server admin now. And I was about to ban some users.
"Because they're the only reason I was holding back."
Lester's eyes widened. "Fire!"
**RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!**
The diner exploded in a symphony of lead. Fifteen assault rifles opened up at once, a wall of death meant to shred me into confetti.
But I didn't move. I snapped my finger and a wave of quantum energy surged from me.
I saw the bullets. I saw the brass casings spinning out of the chambers. They were crawling through the air, vibrating against the fluctuating space of my subconscious.
I walked forward.
My sneakers crunched on the broken glass. I passed a bullet an inch from my nose. I reached out and flicked it. It spun off-course, hitting a sugar shaker and turning it into a white cloud.
I stepped through the broken window frame and onto the sidewalk.
Lester was frozen in mid-smirk, his hand reaching for another card. The mercenaries were statues of violence, their muzzles flashing in eternal orange sparks.
"You guys really need a better hobby," I whispered.
I walked up to the first mercenary. I touched his rifle.
The gun vanished.
I moved to the next one. Touched his helmet.
He didn't vanish—just the helmet.
I was running out of energy. My vision was blurring, the silver-blue light in my eyes fading to a dull grey.
The Time stop was failing. It's like the normal world time has caught up with the sudden glitch or can I say, Lag.
"Come on... just a little... more..."
I reached Lester. I didn't want to delete him. I wanted to *break* him.
I reached out to touch the "Bullseye" on his forehead.
*BZZZZZT.*
My hand glitched. Instead of a solid touch, my fingers passed right through his skull.
The world snapped back into full speed.
**CRACK-BOOM.**
My figure was thrown by a powerful force, as if the recoil of a gun.
The sound of fifteen rifles firing caught up all at once, creating a thunderclap that shattered the remaining windows for three blocks.
Lester gasped, stumbling back off the car, his eyes bugging out. He looked at his men. Half of them were holding air. One was holding a sandwich that I'd apparently swapped for his gun in the chaos.
"What... what are you?!" Lester screamed, his composure finally breaking.
"I'm the Mike Tyson, baby," I wheezed, falling to one knee. "And I think... I'm gonna... barf."
I didn't barf. Instead, a wave of exhaustion hit me like a freight train.
The fifteen mercenaries, now mostly disarmed and confused, looked at their boss.
"Kill him!" Lester roared, pulling a combat knife from his boot. "Kill him now!"
They surged forward. No guns? No problem. They were trained killers. They had knives, batons, and fists.
I looked up, my vision swimming. I couldn't flicker. I couldn't push. I was a sitting duck.
"Well," I muttered. "It was a good run. I hope Gwen remembers to delete my browser history."
Just as the first mercenary reached me, a shadow fell over the street.
A shadow that felt like a hurricane.
"STAY AWAY FROM MY NEPHEW!!"
**BOOM.**
A streak of gold and red light slammed into the pavement between me and the mercenaries. The shockwave sent them flying like bowling pins.
Carol Danvers stood there, her fists wreathed in cosmic fire, her eyes glowing with the heat of a supernova. She looked at the ruined diner, then at the blood on my face.
"Leon," she said, her voice a low, terrifying growl. "Where are the others?"
"I... I sent them to the park," I managed to say. "I think. Or maybe New Jersey. It's hard to tell when you're surrounded."
Carol turned her gaze to Lester.
Bullseye, the man who never missed, looked at Captain Marvel. He looked at his knife.
He dropped the knife.
"I'd like to surrender now," Lester whispered.