Chapter 1

He crept up to the mansion slowly, staying hidden inside the forest for as long as possible. None of the guards had yet spotted him, and were still performing their normal routines. No one expected a single man to actually attempt to take on a main base of the Supernus, of course. The only kind of attack that could hope to breech the base would be an army of massive strength to punch through the defenses- or an attack that was never known.

He darted from the trees, leaping onto the fence leading to the mansion, and climbing over. He feared using any telekinetics to help him along, as they would immediately be sensed. The guards, however, weren't searching for Norms- they were sweeping for telepathic emissions of some sort. They didn't see him even as he raced across the grounds, right up to the front door.

The guard standing in front of the doors didn't have a chance. Paul leapt out from behind a nearby tree, already in mid-spin, his sword flashing out. The guard's head fell against the porch, the rest of the body soon following.

Inside the mansion

"So, what's going on with you, Joe?" Adam asked.

"Ah, nothing man." Joe responded.

"Come on. I know you better than that. We killed a good ten Norms yesterday. You're normally excited after a good killin' spree."

"Man, it's that Lauren chick." Joe answered. "I tried to ask her out yesterday, when I was taking my third kill. She refused me! You know, I'm starting to think she's an Imperium spy. She never kills any Norms, and she won't do anything with any of our guys. I mean, even Commander Tarlas asked her out, and he got rejected! He's the most powerful man in the whole damned squad."

"Please, Joe. You think every girl that won't lay you is a damned spy." Adam rolled his eyes at his friend.

"Listen you damned son of a..." But Adam never found out what he was the damned son of, as the door chose that instant to explode inwards, hurling both of them backwards with more shrapnel in them than humanly possible to remove.

Paul walked in casually, his katana's handle spinning expertly between his fingers. "Yoo-hoo... is anybody home?"

As he expected, several guards walked into the room, their leader's eyes going wide upon seeing him. He noted the reaction, and filed it away in his brain. Then he drew the grenade that he had been hiding, a wire trailing from it to his pocket.

"So, how's everybody doing today? Good? Good. Just so you know, this is not your average grenade." Paul practically radiated with confidence. "Do I have your attention? Well, if I don't then your evidently not getting the picture here. You see, this grenade is filled with Semtex, and the wire trailing from it goes to my trenchcoat, as you can see. Oh, did I mention that the coat was lined with five pounds of C4? So, let's do the math- five pounds of C4 and a grenade full of Semtex. Enough to put a hole in the world. So I suggest you all back off, or be blasted off."

The guards all looked to their leader, a rather attractive female. Surprisingly, he found a light touch from her mind snake out to him- not enough to be an attack; just a message. He cautiously lowered his defenses, letting her communicate with him.

My name is Lauren... I'm the local Imperium plant. I wasn't supposed to be here when you arrived, but I am constantly monitored, unfortunately. I need your help to get the hell away from these murderers.

Paul raised an eyebrow. Oh? And how do I know that you're an Imperium spy, and not a Supernus Guardmember?

Lauren rolled her eyes. To be or not be is not the question. How to be is the question.

Recognizing the code phrase, Paul nodded. His katana flew from his hand, guided by telekinesis. It flew into one of the guard's throats before he could react, the other four around Lauren immediately throwing kinetic shields around their bodies.

Paul, working in sync with Lauren through telepathy, ran at her as if to attack her, then leapt up, propelled by her and his kinetics, landing at over sixty miles an hour on top of two guards. They were dead before their bodies impacted the floor.

Lauren flew at the other two, her sword flashing from her back into the first guard's face. She then twisted her torso around, slashing across the other's chest before he had a chance to swing his own sword out. Paul and Lauren caught each other's eyes, and winked.

Paul sent a burst of telekinetic power from his body, flinging him up past a banister to the second floor. He quickly kicked in the door in front of him, two guards awaiting him, and Commander Tarlas standing behind them, a triumphant smirk on his face.

"Boys, take him." Tarlas commanded.

The two guards flew at Paul before he had a chance to raise his sword. He leapt upwards with his body while ducking his dead down at the same time, sword attacks from the two passing underneath and above him. He twisted hard, his brain slowing time down to a crawl for him, letting him see his targets plainly. His legs flew out, telekinetically aided, catching both guards in the small of their backs, and flinging them over the banister railing. They came down neatly upon Lauren's sword.

Tarlas whipped out his broadsword, and swung it towards Paul's face- but stopped as the grenade Paul held was moved to the path of the sword.

"So, you must be the commander of this base," Paul stated rather casually, "Good to meet you. As you can see, I do possess high explosives so powerful that no kinesis shield would be able to protect against your body splitting into no less than five hundred separate pieces. Henceforth, we both already realize how this is going to work. You'll drop your sword, and any other weapons you may be carrying, or your precious base is going bye-bye."

Lauren came up beside Paul, a submachine gun pointed towards Tarlas. "Hello, sir. How are things going?"

Lauren smirked, and fired a shot into Tarlas' foot before the man could raise a shield. He cried out in pain and fell to the ground, holding his foot as tears escaped his eyes.

"Pathetic," Paul grumbled. "You guys can dish out pain, but you can't take it."

Tarlas' grimace of pain changed to a look of fury in a heartbeat. He lashed out with his telekinetic powers, slamming them into Paul so hard that it flung him straight through the banister's railing to smash hard against the tile floor below. Unfortunately for the commander, he dropped his guard by a fraction too much during the attack- three shots from Lauren's submachine gun rang out, boring into his skull and implanting themselves deep into his brain.