Capítulo 240: 3 minutes
After a few quick, brutal rounds, Shadow finally knocked Mari Kijima down. Her movements grew sluggish, her face bruised and bleeding from where he'd struck her. She tried to stand, each attempt weaker than the last, until her legs gave out completely.
Shadow, in control of Felix Grove's body, watched her coldly. "Well, you're one tough customer," he muttered, flexing his knuckles. "But this is about wrapped up. Let's get it over with." He took a slow step toward her, cracking his neck.
Kijima, breathing hard and looking beaten, still managed to lift her head, giving him a defiant glare. "You're just as much a monster as I am," she said, spitting blood.
Shadow raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"
"You don't get it," she went on, her voice dripping with something close to pride. "I've seen what this world is really about. I know the truth now—real freedom. I'm beyond rules, beyond limits." Her lips twisted in a smile that was half sneer, half mania. "You're nothing but a slave to rules you don't even believe in."
She was so wrapped up in her rant she barely noticed him rolling his eyes. "Okay, enough talk," Shadow said, and with a clean uppercut to her jaw, her words were cut off. Her head snapped back, and the rest of her followed, landing hard on the ground, motionless.
Shadow stood over her body, shaking his head. "For some reason, I thought she might actually have something interesting to say," he muttered to himself. Honestly, he just wanted to be done with this and get back to his spicy snacks.
---
Across town, Charlie leaned closer to his screen, eyeing the battlefield with suspicion. He felt like something didn't add up.
"So… that's it? She's just gone?"
"Could be cloaking, teleportation… the data's unclear," Friday's calm voice replied.
The situation felt strange. Just minutes ago, he'd been in the middle of a fierce fight with Ophelia—he and the team hitting her from all angles. But mid-combo, she'd simply vanished.
"Run a scan," he said, flipping through Iron Man's armor systems. They weren't turning up anything helpful, so he switched perspectives to Batman's "detective mode," which allowed him to reconstruct the scene in a detailed playback.
As he activated it, the scene began to rewind in a surreal display: cars returned to their original positions, shattered glass reassembled, and broken streetlamps stood whole again. It was like watching time run backward.
Iron Spider, perched on a nearby lamppost, watched the playback, impressed. "Whoa… it's like a rewind button on reality. Pretty incredible."
Iron Man, arms crossed in his armor, grumbled, "It's not that impressive. I could pull that off, too."
Ignoring the commentary, Charlie zoomed in on the last scene with Ophelia. Something didn't sit right—she looked normal, but there was a key difference. In that last instant, there was no hostile marker on her.
He paused the playback and zoomed in, focusing on her figure. "Friday, why did her hostile tag disappear?"
"It's possible… that wasn't an actual entity," Friday replied after analyzing the data. "It seems to be a projection or hologram—an illusion with no physical substance."
Charlie frowned. "So she left behind a decoy? A fake to throw us off?"
"Not exactly. Until just now, Ophelia was completely real. But the scan indicates she vanished at the last moment, almost like she left behind a stand-in," Friday explained.
Charlie scratched his head, thinking. "A decoy for the escape? And if she had that ability, why didn't she use it sooner, like during the fight?"
"Based on the available data, I suspect… it may not have been her ability," Friday continued. The screen zoomed in on a small, warm-colored shape in the corner of the playback.
Curious, Charlie directed Batman toward the figure, revealing a person crouching in the shadows. The playback showed that he'd been hiding nearby the whole time. The moment Ophelia took her final blow, he stood, and in that same instant, she vanished from detection.
"He was waiting for the right moment," Charlie said, piecing it together. "He must've created a projection to cover her escape."
Friday enhanced the image, matching the crouched figure to Usak, an Elder identified by Layla. "It's likely Usak's ability. He appears to be the one who staged the illusion and pulled her out."
Charlie nodded. "So they're all nearby. Connect to the city's surveillance grid and start a facial scan. Let's catch all three if we can."
"Connecting now, sir," Friday replied smoothly.
Charlie's focus shifted when Friday interrupted. "Incoming call, sir. It's Mr. Chai from the last delegation."
"Patch it through to Mark 43," Charlie said, taking control of Stark's suit.
The call connected. "Mr. Stark? I hope I'm not disturbing you," came Chai's voice. "Our group has discussed things, and we're ready to proceed. When would you like to meet?"
"Now works for me," Stark's voice replied, and Charlie was already firing up the suit's thrusters. "Give me three minutes, and I'll be there."
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