The intruders stepped inside.
Their movements were clumsy, overconfident. The front door had been quietly jimmied open. They thought they were slick, whispering commands to each other under their breath as they entered the living room, spreading out to search the small apartment. Flashlight beams swept over Marcus's carefully arranged space—minimalist, organized, with too few personal touches to give anything away.
Marcus was already in position in the shadows of the hallway, half-concealed by a coat rack. He held the enhanced pepper ball gun low and steady. His heart rate was steady, breathing slow, eyes calm. He could see everything—the muscle twitches in the men's arms, the sheen of sweat on the one at the rear, the glint of metal in the hands of the two gunmen.
He didn't hesitate.
Pop-pop.
Two shots fired in rapid succession—so fast and smooth it sounded like one. The rounds screamed through the air with frightening precision. The first gunman yelped, the weapon flying out of his hand as the shot shattered bone and sent him crumpling against a wall. The second spun in confusion—too late.
Pop.
The second round struck just above the wrist, pulverizing tendons and forcing him to drop his weapon with a scream that tore through the apartment.
But it didn't tear through the neighborhood.
Marcus had padded the interior walls of his home with high-density sound absorption panels. Not for decoration. For moments like this. The screams of pain echoed dully, muffled to silence beyond the apartment's exterior. No neighbors stirred. No lights flicked on across the street.
He stepped forward from the darkness, his footsteps still soundless. "Gunmen down," Marcus muttered under his breath. He was surprised how calm he was in this kind of situation. He was a peaceful man in his previous life, and though he had been dragged into a couple of fights in his previous life, he was never that calm.
It seemed like his own bodily enhancement came with other perks too. The two unarmed thugs froze. One looked at the destroyed weapons, the writhing men on the floor—and bolted for the door in blind panic. He didn't make it.
Crack.
One more shot—this time aimed lower. The reinforced pepper round smashed into the door handle, obliterating the lock mechanism with a violent puff of synthetic dust and metal shards. The man stumbled back from the wreckage, crashing into his friend.
The front door was now fused shut.
Marcus strode into the open, the gun aimed casually, unshaking, still deadly.
"Sit down," he said.
The two standing men hesitated. The taller one looked like he was thinking of trying something stupid. Marcus aimed the gun directly between his eyes.
"Try it," he said flatly. "Give me a reason."
The wounded gunmen were still moaning, one holding his shattered hand, the other rocking slightly as he clutched his bleeding wrist. Marcus approached them without pity, eyes scanning each man like he was analyzing prey.
"Guns first. Bold move. Means you were here to kill, not to scare."
"We—we just came for money! That's all, I swear—!"
"Shhh! I didn't allow you to speak yet. One word more and I will send you to Hell. This is home invasion and I have the right to hurt you or kill you. Besides I am still a teenager, living alone. The judge won't even bother a second look at the case if I kill you. So don't make my hands shake. Throw your phones across. All four of them."
The taller one fumbled nervously into his pocket, pulling out a battered smartphone. The others followed, tossing their phones toward Marcus like offerings to a god. Marcus picked them up and tossed them into a nearby metal bowl. He fired a shot into it.
The phones exploded in a flurry of sparks and smoke. The intruders flinched as the mini-detonation lit up the room for half a second. One of the wounded men whimpered again, louder this time, but Marcus didn't react.
"Now," Marcus said. "You can speak. Slowly. Choose your words carefully."
The taller of the two standing men—skinny, nervous, a scar cutting across his left brow—nodded jerkily. "We—we didn't mean to hurt anyone, man. We were told—told it'd be an easy job."
Marcus raised an eyebrow. "Told? By who?"
The man hesitated. Marcus angled the gun slightly in his direction. The man's knees buckled as if gravity suddenly remembered him.
"A guy named Corvo," he blurted. "Runs with the Eastside Spikes. We're not even full members, alright? We just do odd jobs. Someone said your truck was making serious bank. Always busy. Always new faces. The kind of traffic that makes people think you're either laundering or sitting on something bigger than burgers."
Marcus frowned slightly. "So someone watched me. Decided I was easy money. That about right?"
"Y-Yeah," another one of them added. "They said you were alone. Said the place was low-risk. No dog, no security system, no backup. Just a dumb cook who knew his way around a grill."
Marcus laughed once—a sharp, humorless sound. Well, he could see why he gave that vibe. They had all the correct assumptions, and if he was a normal guy, today he would have been robbed for sure. But luckily, he wasn't.
He began to pace, slowly, his gun still in hand but lowered. His enhanced mind was running through dozens of possibilities. Who the hell was watching him? Was this just an isolated gang taking a shot in the dark—or was this something more? He couldn't help but think but couldn't come up with an answer. His past of this world from what he could remember was clean. So the probability of a normal home invasion was most likely the case.
"Now what should I do with you four? If I leave you to go back, you will probably hold on to the grudge and might invite your friends or other gang members to try and kill me. Maybe I should kill you 4 and then take the truck to dump your bodies. There are no CCTV cameras in my home so I wouldn't be implicated either." Marcus said.