Fast sat on his bed, leaning his back against the wall, finding some comfort in the coldness of the Zero bottle in his hand. Lena sat in the chair next to him, her exhausted yet resilient state evident despite the bandage around her head and her usual energy. There was a brief silence between them as the sound of the television in the room buzzed like a low murmur in the background.
"I still can't believe it," Fast said, giving the bottle a light squeeze. "Everything happened so fast at that moment. When I saw how Sard gathered that energy at his fingertips, it felt like a lock clicked open inside my brain. I saw it and I just... did it. But there was a difference. Sard's energy was ice cold and sharp. Mine was... as if filled with an uncontrollable rage. I copied it, yes, but it felt like something of my own got mixed into it."
Lena looked at her friend in astonishment. "Everything is a complete blank for me from the moment I closed my eyes. Still, the fact that you copied the technique of someone like Sard is truly incredible."
A sharp siren from outside suddenly tensed the air in the room. The television screen was abruptly covered with a red emergency warning, and the siren cut through the silence like a knife. A shadow appeared on the screen among the city's modern skyscrapers. It was a massive creature resembling a giant crocodile with shimmering scales; standing a third of the height of an ordinary skyscraper, it let out a roar with a low-pitched growl that shook the buildings.
"Again?" Fast muttered, unable to take his eyes off the screen. "For these monsters to be out while the sun is up... Normally, portals would only open at night. Seeing these creatures in the streets at this hour should have been impossible; for the past year, every logical rule has been collapsing one by one."
Lena focused on the images on the screen in horror. "The strangest part is, usually, the portal closes and everything ends the moment the leader is defeated. Now, they are leaking into the city at the crack of dawn."
During a close-up shot of the crocodile, Fast noticed the wetness on its scales. He thought to himself: Its scales look like it just came out of the water.
Dropping her shoulders, Lena said, "I hope higher-ranking heroes handle this before the city takes more damage. This monster looks too powerful for us; there's nothing we can do."
At that moment, the door burst open. Sard walked in, his shoulders squared and his face as expressionless as ever. Fast immediately spoke up: "Sard! We have a theory about my power, I think I can copy and—"
Sard cut Fast off with an icy voice: "Took you long enough."
The room suddenly fell silent. Fast stared at Sard in shock. Sard took a step closer. "I expected you to have it figured out by the second time you used it."
Sard turned his gaze toward the television. "Very strange. These creatures are nothing like the others; they move intelligently. Instead of mindless destruction, they are insistently pushing toward the city center. As if they are looking for something there."