He didn't even see either of the two people moving to stop her. But he had been distracted with climbing and trying to get a connection. Did he just miss an attack?
A crackling sound suddenly erupted in his ear, bringing him back with a jolt that almost sent him tumbling off the building. Only his slime tendrils, still stuck to the crumbling brick wall, kept him from falling.
Faint static poured through the headset as Mateo struggled to decipher the voices. It sounded like... panting? In the background he could hear yells and crashes. Were Henrik and Akira in trouble too?
"Henrik, Akira, can you hear me?" He whisper-yelled into the connector. "We need backup near the Cemetery. You can find our location with the trackers."
No response. Only static, and the growing sounds of yells and shrieks. Mateo's stomach clenched. They had their own hands full, and he couldn't go rushing to their side because of the mess Alex had gotten herself into.
"Akira, if you can hear this—send whatever recon you can. I'm going in blind here," he added desperately before the static swallowed his words completely.
He finally reached the rooftop, careful not to let the obviously-not-allies see or hear him. Below, the woman in the chrome tech suit was already walking toward Alex's motionless form, picking her up like dead weight. Alex didn't move a muscle in her grasp.
Mateo's heart hammered against his ribs. Is she breathing? He couldn't tell from this distance. No. He had to believe Alex was too tough to die so easily. With Reeves too far away and Henrik and Akira occupied with their own danger, Mateo was alone.
He had to save Alex.
The two strangers finished their conversation and began walking away, the woman carrying Alex over her shoulder while the man in the white coat led the way deeper into the ruins. The woman moved with the casual confidence of someone who'd done this before—too many times. The man walked with clinical precision, like he was conducting an experiment rather than a kidnapping.
Mateo had preserved his element of surprise—now was his time to use it before it was too late.
He shot two tendrils from his palms, anchoring them deep into the rooftop. Jumping backward and retracting some slime into his skin, the tension in the tendrils grew tremendously. By secreting fluid from his feet to the ground, he anchored his lower body, keeping the organic cables taut. He crouched forward like a cat ready to pounce, continually adjusting his position until he had aligned with where the man in the white coat would be in the next five seconds.
"More than enough time," he whispered as he prepared to use his signature move.
Slingshot.
He released the slime from his feet. The tension from the tendrils snapped forward, slinging him through the air like a stone from a catapult.
The white coat's head swiveled back at the whooshing sound of Mateo cutting through the air.
But that won't matter, Mateo thought as the distance between them shrunk rapidly. He was already moving fast enough that he was sure they wouldn't be able to react properly before he hit.
Or so he thought.
While absorbing the intense g-forces from his sudden acceleration, he could clearly see the man's eyes—calm, calculating, and locked directly onto his own. Those weren't the eyes of someone caught off guard. They were the eyes of a researcher observing a predictable lab rat.
As Mateo raised his arm to deliver a hydraulic punch that would neutralize the threat quickly, his muscles suddenly failed him.
What the hell?
Mid-flight, he suddenly couldn't control his arm anymore. Or the rest of his body. Panic clawed at his throat as he realized he was still hurtling forward, completely helpless. Move, damn it! MOVE!
Before he could even comprehend what was happening, a flash of lightning erupted from his left.
A literal bolt of electricity shot toward him. Am I going to die? The thought hit him with brutal clarity just before the crackling energy slammed into his midsection.
The electrical force neutralized his forward momentum, sending him crashing into the dusty, debris-filled ground.
"Why are these Academy brats always so predictable?" the woman said, planting her armored boot on Mateo's cheek and grinding his face against the concrete through his mask. Her voice carried the bored cruelty of someone pulling wings off flies. "They get pushed through the Atlas Academy meat grinder and think they're ready for the real world. It's almost insulting."
Mateo tried to move, but all his limbs remained completely paralyzed. I can't even scream. The thought sent ice through his veins. When the woman saw the defiance burning in Mateo's eyes through his visor, she pressed down harder with her foot.
"Still got some fight in those pretty eyes. Let's fix that."
The air crackled, smelling faintly of ozone and burning fabric as thousands of electrical volts coursed down from her leg.
I'm going to die. I'm actually going to die. Mateo's world exploded into white-hot agony as he convulsed from the sudden electrical discharge, his limbs flailing wildly from the current flowing through muscles he still couldn't control. The mysterious paralysis remained even as electricity forced his body to spasm. Every nerve ending in his body screamed as if he were being turned inside out.
A second later it stopped, steam rising from his costume as the final sparks died out.
"Specimen integrity compromised," the man in the white coat said, his tone carrying the same inflection he might use to note a coffee stain on his lab notes. "Excessive electrical exposure reduces quirk extraction viability by thirty-seven percent."
"Don't worry, Doc. This one's got more juice than he looks." She grabbed Mateo by the horn on the side of his visor, hauling him upright.
Still alive. Why am I still alive? Mateo's slime had activated automatically when his body failed—a survival instinct that had released protective layers when it sensed mortal danger. The woman's casual mention of "specimen integrity" sent fresh terror through him. His slime had absorbed most of the electrical current, with only a fraction actually reaching his nervous system. Still, his nerve endings felt like they were on fire. The protective slime was scalding against his skin, and being unable to move only made it worse.
The paralysis had to be the man's quirk. But how was he doing it without even touching him? Focus. Figure it out or you're both dead.
"Quirk extraction requires living subjects," the man continued, making notes on what looked like a tablet. "The King's specifications were quite clear on this point. Damaged goods are... problematic."
"Leaving all the heavy lifting to the lady again. Chivalry truly is dead." The woman sighed as she slung Alex over her shoulder and began dragging Mateo across the bumpy ground by his horn.
Alex. Through his panic, Mateo strained to catch any sign of life from her. Please be okay. Please just be paralyzed like me. He couldn't see her face from this angle, couldn't hear her breathing over the scraping of his body against debris.
Is this how it ends? Before I even get started?
The man in the white coat continued walking deeper into the ruins, leading them toward some unknown destination. Each step took them further from any hope of rescue.
Think, Mateo. There has to be something.
As his mind scrambled for answers—for anything that might save them—something flickered at the edge of his vision.
A bright-green butterfly with black and pink spots, about the size of a dollar coin, fluttered past with noticeable urgency before rising toward the woman carrying them.
Wait. Something about it felt familiar, but his scattered thoughts couldn't piece together why.
"Oh, hey there," the woman said, pausing to observe the butterfly. Then her eyes narrowed as she scanned the ruined cityscape around them. The place was a desolate wasteland of isolated or destroyed buildings. Not a single shred of life remained in this sector. No greenery. No flowers.
No reason there should be a butterfly here.
"Doc, we've got—"
Her words cut off as realization hit. The butterfly had already landed on her exposed neck, and in a single fluid moment, it transformed. Its delicate wings dissolved as the butterfly's head shifted from a tiny black dot with antennae into something far more dangerous—the compact, deadly form of a blue-ringed octopus, its rings pulsing with lethal warning colors as it latched onto her throat.
Akira.
Her hands shot up like lightning, but the creature had already detached and transformed again—this time into a sparrow that darted away from her grasp. The damage was done.
The woman let out a strangled cry as she suddenly collapsed, her limbs going completely rigid. Mateo and Alex tumbled to the ground as her grip failed.
"Fascinating," the man in the white coat said, spinning around. His clinical detachment hadn't wavered even as his partner writhed in paralytic agony. "Blue-ringed octopus venom. Tetrodotoxin-based neurotoxin. She has approximately four to six minutes before respiratory failure, assuming standard body mass calculations."
He didn't even move to help her.
Mateo still couldn't move his own body, but something had shifted inside him. The crushing weight of despair lifted just enough for him to think clearly.
Akira had gotten his message after all.