Gifted | Sleepy Bois Inc

Chapter Ten

The guy was good, I had to give him that.

Even though I was more athletic and clearly had more stamina, he still managed to stay ahead of me. He didn't have speed or the leg muscles, but he had the brains. As my respect for him went up, so did the level of difficult my task now possessed.

I just had to wear him down. If we kept going for long enough, he'd have to tire eventually. No matter how smart he was, he wouldn't be able to keep up his pace with me right on his tail forever.

My target dashed down an alleyway, probably hoping to evade me there. A smirk made its way onto my face as I followed after him. I knew the city well enough to know that it was a dead end. He was trapped.

"Come on, Goggles," I called as I slowed down to a walk. "There's nowhere to go."

A rattling sound alerted me to his position through the darkness. I unsheathed my sword and glanced around, looking for signs of movement. Nevermind what I had said about rain. The mist was starting to make my job a lot harder.

I bit back a gasp of surprise as a shape charged at me through the dust, the rattling louder than ever. The thing had no form, just the skeleton of a body that had disintegrated a long time ago. I raised my sword as it swung its skeletal arm at me, blocking the blow from hitting my head. It was tall --- seriously, who even grew to such heights? Maybe it was the skeleton of Tommy from the past. Knowing the powers that Gifted had, I couldn't put it past them.

"Goggles!" I shouted as he ran past me, narrowing avoiding my hand as I reached out to grab him. "Dude, are you just going to leave me here with a freaking skeleton?"

The guy slowed down for a split second, turning to face me. His eyes were hidden behind his white goggles, his hair matted down by the rain. Water soaked his parka jacket, making the blue seen closer to black than it probably was. Despite the darkness, I could clearly make out the gloating smile on his face.

My sword was knocked out of my hands by the skeleton. It lunged at me again, its claw-like hands raked across my neck. I gritted my teeth and grabbed the skeleton's shoulders, twisting them around and kicking its legs out from underneath it. My grip switched to its head, popping it off with one swift tug.

The skeleton didn't seem fazed. Of course it didn't. How would I know that taking off its head would do anything? It's not like I've fought a skeleton before!

A necromancer Gifted. Because that was exactly what I needed.

But it did confirm one thing... Goggles wasn't a pyro-Gifted. The fire he had been photographed in front of hadn't been caused by his powers. There was still possibilities that he had set the fire, but somehow I doubted it.

I ducked underneath the corpse's arms and rolled the head away, mildly freaked out by the skeletal grin. My fingers curled around the hilt of my sword and I brought it up, slicing the skeleton in half at the torso. As it fell down to the ground, my sword took off its arms, then the knee joints.

"I hate you," I muttered down at it as I sheathed my sword, kicking its arm for good measure. I pranced away from it as it tried to grab me, backing out of the alleyway.

Goggles had had a good head start on me, but I could see the distinct trail of his shoes on the wet ground. People always assumed that water would wash away their tracks, but shoes with rubber bottoms left a path of bubbles for me to follow. Even after fighting a skeleton, I was still in decent shape. I could still outrun my bounty.

I followed the trail of bubbles, blinking the rain out of my eyes. It had picked up a lot. Now, instead of a nice, peaceful shower, it felt like the sky was trying to drown me.