[ 𝑅𝒾 𝓁 𝑒𝓎 ]
Riley ignored Dahlia's words in favour of scrutinising the people before him. Of course, he knew who they were as well. It would be unreasonably ignorant not to. Albino and Jellyfish, members of the Fiendish Five—stupid name, by the way—with the ability to teleport and induce electric shocks respectively. Jellyfish wasn't that big of a deal, but teleporters were always annoying to deal with.
If nothing else, Riley was impressed by Dahlia's decisiveness, even if her actions weren't particularly effective. The mushroom man too, was quick to launch its own attack from underground, latching onto Albino's leg with purpose. How it knew what was happening above ground, Riley had no idea. Vibrations? Or maybe it was something else entirely. He never thought that he'd bemoan his lack of knowledge of fungi, but here he was. He had to rectify that soon.
What happened next was embarrassing in more ways than one. Sparks danced between Jellyfish's tendrils and for a moment, his eyes were instinctively drawn to them. By the time he realised what was happening, Albino had already left his previous position. Now, he was holding a knife to Dahlia's neck and threatening them.
Riley couldn't believe he just fell for that. His fingers twitched and another crystal crunched in his mouth.
Then that homeless guy showed up and tried reasoning with them as if that would work. And the giant lady apparently agreed with him. Riley was of a different mind. Sad backstories were an all too common excuse for turning to a life of crime. No one would ever catch him trying to justify his actions that way. Life sucked sometimes, but that didn't give anyone the right to take their frustrations out on innocent people. Everything they did was a choice, no one forced them into it. Riley understood that better than most.
"Negotiating with them is pointless," he said nonchalantly, "In my experience, the only language their kind understands is violence."
After letting his thoughts be known, Riley raised a finger and stepped closer to the hostage-carrying mercenary. He was curious to see if he could alter something from this distance at his current level of power, and there was no time but the present to learn. Fortunately, he was already pretty familiar with all sorts of knives, so it was easy enough to accomplish. There weren't a great many metals they were likely to be made from in his experience. Regardless, it would be child's play to simply cause the knife to decay in Albino's hand and restrict the aftermath to him alone. It would be a terrible look if he killed a teammate this early in his career, after all. All that would be left after that was to–
What the heck?
Before Riley could even decide on his next course of action, something that could only be called an abomination emerged into his range of vision. It was an impossible, bulbous, misshapen amalgamation of flesh warped beyond all logic. Its body was covered in twisted mockeries of teeth, limbs and chitin. When it spoke, its voice was a cacophony of sounds. It was horrifying. It was wrong. It was.... so. freaking. cool!
Riley shivered and his eyes widened, but it wasn't fear that had his heart pounding.
He wanted to take it apart.