City. Usually the night would be filled with sound, cars bustling, late-night birds chirping, the ever-growing ruckus of the entertainment district. But tonight, all was quiet. There were no cars on the road, no birds in the trees, and no disgusting old men in the red light district. To most people, they'd be confused, but then they'd go about their lives, almost thankful for the silence. However, one man in particular wasn't a fan. There was something wrong and he knew it. He could feel it.

Standing in the center of the city, right underneath the giant golden statue of William Tokata, the founder of the city, he sat with his legs crossed, listening to the void of his city. He wore strange, superhero like clothing but with baggier pants, high boots, and shogun-styled shoulder armor. Over his face was a white mask which bore a resemblance to that of a demon with no jaw, and over the left eye was a strange symbol; A black spade with barbed horns and a devil's tale. It was barely noticeable, but the skin beneath the mask was a pale brown coffee type of color, and over the top of the mask, one could see a small, puffy afro, dyed a piercing white. In a few small spots in the front, small spikes of red stuck up. With the way the light hit it, it almost looked like his hair was on fire. Over his costume he wore an all black, sleeveless trench coat, and on the back was the same symbol, The Horned Spade.

Wilder was furious. He'd been out of commission for two months, but he'd never left the city. He spent his time training himself, his only student, Liz, and fixing his armor. At times he would sneak out and resort to stealthily robbing rich snobs again to keep his street cred. He hadn't noticed that over time, less and less people were coming out. He'd just figured the pool was running dry and he needed to focus on other things, so he stayed indoors. Liz had tried on several occasions to get him to let her go and patrol with him, but he refused. Despite the fact that she had a costume now, he still didn't think she was ready for combat if anything were to happen.

After a minute, Wilder heard something. His ears perked up and he jumped to his feet immediately. It was the only sound he had heard in days. The nights were always quieter than the days, but this was the only time they ever were the same. The days were as silent as the nights. No one was going to work, going to the movies, or anything. The only person Wilder ever saw was Liz, who also failed to notice what was going on. For their training, they'd moved from Liz's apartment to the basement of the apartment complex. It was roomy, insulated so that no sound could be heard upstairs, and it was completely unused. They spent entire weeks down there, practicing precision, speed, and technique. They'd resorted to laying out bedrolls and completely negating personal hygiene, spending every waking second sparring or throwing cards. The few times they did leave the basement, it was just to get food or take the occasional shower before starting up their training again. If either of them hadn't been so blind, they would've realized that the other people living in the complex never left their homes, or that the workers at the top of the building, working on Wilder, or Percy's, penthouse had ceased to work. Now that they'd realized the issue, Wilder blamed himself. His vigilance had dwindled down over the course of the two months, and if he'd stayed alert, maybe he could've stopped...whatever was going on.

Wilder looked around the town center, where a dozen or so roads lead straight to where he was, but he couldn't spot what was making the noise. It sounded like the engine of a car, low and humming, but there was no sight of a vehicle anywhere. After a couple seconds of more waiting, he could feel it now; a vibrating in the ground. Wheels on concrete, coming straight his way. His eyes darted around the center, but still, nothing was there. He cursed under his breath and took a moment to calm himself before darting away and hiding.

Mere moments later, he saw it. Or, them, really. First a single car came rolling into the center, stopping short of William Tokata's statue. It was a simple, all black mustang with two doors. The engine shut off, and a second later, two armored military trucks rolled up behind it. They were all black with heavy duty metal framing around the hull. Out of each armored truck, six soldiers armed with guns and ballistic armor jumped out and formed a horizontal line in front of the trucks. The passenger side door of the mustang opened and someone stepped out. Wilder sneered and retreated further back into the shadows once he realized who it was.

Selofina, dressed in all black with a ballistic vest over her chest and black military boots, stepped up to the line of soldiers. Her hair was braided and hung down her back, and a pistol was in it's holster and her waist, but Wilder knew she probably wouldn't be using it. There were long red scratches on her face, mainly on her cheeks and one long one from her chin up to her left ear. Most people would assume they'd come from a cat, but Wilder knew better. After all, he's the one who scratched her up so badly. He remembered the day perfectly, seeing as he had perfect memory, it only made sense. She'd attacked him at his penthouse, but he escaped and managed to cut her up nicely and break her nose.

She called out orders to the soldiers in some language--french, maybe? She had a french name, so maybe. The soldiers saluted and grouped up in pairs of three, then spread out among the center, going into the shops that lined the circle around them. Behind Selofina, the driver side door of the mustang opened up, and a tall man in a black pinstripe suit stepped out. He easily dwarfed Selofina, who was around 5'6, and stood around 6'2". He wore black boots like hers instead of dress shoes, so maybe he'd been elevated a few inches, but he was still huge. His chest was massive and barrel-like, and his arms were the size of suspension cables. Wilder watched as he slipped his suit jacket off, showing a black turtleneck sweater on under with two pistols hanging underneath his arms. His hands were huge, about the size of your average Harry Potter book, and were covered in black gloves with silver pads on the palms and the fingertips. His skin was dark brown, and his face was chiseled, like he'd been carved out of marble and brought to life. His hair was cut short and shaved close to his head in a regular crew cut, and he had a prominent expression on his face: Pure anger.

He turned to Selofina and motioned her forward. She stepped closer and they looked around the circle.

"Are you sure he's here? I'm sure I don't need to remind you of your previous failure." He said, his voice deep and bellowing, yet he was barely raising his voice. Selofina nodded and followed the progress of her soldiers.

"I have eyes all over the city. The citizens may be out, but my soldiers are wide awake. Every time he shows his face, we see him," She replied. The man seemed to accept her answer and brushed past her, walking forward with his hands behind his back. "I do admit, I have failed once already. But this time, I refuse to accept defeat. You will see, Harrison. We will succeed."

Harrison turned back to face her and a smirk spread across his face. "We will indeed. But that is because I am leading this time," Selofina looked hurt and opened her mouth to complain but Harrison held his hand up, shushing her. "Don't worry. I'll put in good word with the boss."

Wilder was too engrossed with the scene to realize that a small group of soldiers was getting close to him. When he'd first ran to hide, he'd jump into the upstairs apartment of a bakery that he used to go to. They made the best donuts. But now, there was a group underneath him, He could hear their feet on the ground. He turned away from the window and looked around. He was in the living room, an open kitchen in front of him and two closed doors on the left side of the room. The first was a bathroom and the second was a single bedroom. He heard feet pounding up the stairs and he ran into the bedroom, gently shutting the door behind him and hiding next to it, up against the wall. With any luck, they wouldn't check behind the door when they opened it.

The door to the apartment was pushed open, and he heard the scuffling of three pairs of feet, all talking quietly among themselves. Wilder had never been good at translating, but he got the gist of it: Search the rooms, shoot on sight. He first heard the bathroom door open, the shuffling of feet and the clicking of guns, then a low voice. "Clear, move on to the bedroom."

Wilder took a deep breath as the door next to him opened up. It swung inward slowly, and he made sure to put some space between him and the wall so that they couldn't see him through the hinges of the door. He heard two pairs of feet walking into the room slowly, and assumed the third would be waiting at the door. He quickly hatched a plan in his head, and as soon as he saw the first foot around the door, he sprang into action. He jerked back and punched straight through the door, the wood splintering around his arm as his fist connected with the jaw of the second soldier in line. He quickly pulled back and kicked the first soldier, who had rounded behind the door, in the chest, pushing him back into the footboard of the bed. The last soldier, waiting at the door whipped his gun up and fired through the door. Wilder rolled to the side, coming up on one knee with a card in his hand. He whipped his arm forward and struck the wall with the card, shutting his eyes as a blinding flash of light went off in front of him. When he opened his eyes again, the solder was rubbing furiously at his face, his gun in one hand. Wilder jumped up and grabbed the sides of the soldier's head, bringing it down as he slammed his knee into the man's face. Wilder turned back to see that the second soldier had gotten to his feet. He reacted quickly, kicking the soldier in the chest and then grabbing him by his neck and slamming him into the floor. He got up and looked around. All three soldiers were out cold, and he had barely broken a sweat. Wilder grinned. He hadn't lost his touch after all. He quickly rounded up their guns and shoved them in the closet, then hid the three soldiers in the bathroom and lined the door with snare and proximity cards. If they tried to leave, they'd be caught. Wilder peered out of the window to see that Selofina and Harrison were still standing in the center. They hadn't heard the shots. Wilder could only assume the soldiers had suppressors, but he didn't take the time to look. He couldn't see any soldiers, but he knew where they'd be.

Leaving the apartment, Wilder rushed around the backsides of the buildings lining the center. If he'd done his math correctly, they'd have divided the center into four parts for each team. The team he'd just beaten had gone into an old Turkish restaurant first and made their way around that section of the circle. Based on how fast they'd gotten to the bakery, which was three buildings down, Wilder deduced that the second team would be four buildings away from the Turkish place, in an old playhouse used for small shows.

Wilder found a way in through the back, a gated window that he sliced through with a piercing card and hid behind a dumpster before climbing in. He was backstage, where the actors would be getting ready. There were large tables with mirrors to his left, all up against the wall, and on his right, up against the other wall, were smaller tables with various costumes laid out along them, with a few old chests in between them.

Wilder stealthily made his way to the stage, where the red curtain was drawn completely shut, and he could hear feet out in the crowd area. He laid down to gaze out under the curtain to see the group. The rest of the stage extended about thirty feet out, and then rows upon rows of chairs extended all the way up to the doors, with two aisles going down to the front of the stage. One soldier was in each aisle, checking each row of seats before moving forward. The third was in the front, his back turned to Wilder.

Wilder slowly got to his feet again and looked up behind the curtain. There was a set already there, fake trees and bushes big enough to hide an entire group of people with a giant rock out in front of it all. Way up above the set, stairs ascended up to the rafters where the sets would be controlled and moved from. Across the stage, Wilder could see the control panel and he hatched another plan.

Moving as quietly and as quickly as he could, Wilder ran behind the rock and ejected a card into his hand. He stood around the edge of the rock and took aim, tossing the card so that it glided and curved around the front of the control panel. It stuck, and after a second, sent an electric jolt through the system. Lights blared, the red curtain began to pull itself open, and over the loud speaker, a narration had begun to play, though the sound was distorted due to the overload of power. Wilder retreated behind the rock as he heard guns clicking and turning toward the stage. He ejected a smoke card into one hand and a snare into the other. He laid the smoke card onto the floor and tapped on it, causing the smoke to eject and flood the stage.

Then, armed with a newly ejected snare card, he jumped from behind the rock and threw them both. Just as he'd predicted, the two aisle soldiers had climbed up onto the stage. They were taken aback and had no time to react as the cards flew toward them, exploding into nets the clung to them and dragged them to the stage, forcing them to drop their weapons. As the last soldier pulled his gun up, Wilder ejected a piercing card and launched it forward, slicing the gun barrel in half and leaving a nasty cut across the soldier's face. The soldier dropped the gun and reached up to his face, and by the time he looked back, Wilder had knocked out his two friends and stood at the edge of the stage, a card in hand. He scowled and reached to his side to pull a pistol from his holster, but as he aimed, a card struck his hand, exploding into flames. Wilder lept from the stage and drop-kicked the soldier back into the fist row of chairs. He dropped his gun and fell into a chair, just as Wilder was on top of him again, his fist raised high. Wilder continuously punched the soldier in the face until he ceased to move, and then a few more times just because he felt like it. Wilder stood, pulling his mask away to wipe the sweat from his face for a moment before leaving the building the way he came in and proceeding to the next area.

He found the next group in one of those cheap souvenir shops. He dealt with them quickly, setting off the sprinklers and then electrocuting the puddles of water to fry them to a crisp. The next group was in an arcade. Wilder turned on a few of the games to distract them then hit one with his experimental card, the electric explosion, and pinned the others to the floor with snares before knocking them out. When he was finally finished with the soldiers, he found a vantage point in an apartment and looked down into the center. He couldn't hear them this time, but Harrison and Selofina seemed to be arguing. Several times Selofina pulled a walkie-talkie from her belt and spoke into it but was met with no response. Wilder retreated back into t