Taking advantage of the sudden appearance of a bloodied Sanit, the four being held hostage looked at each other.
The boy was the first to leap into action and pulled the girl with him, along with the third member.
The three of them left the specs dude to fend for himself, his previous betrayal not forgotten nor forgiven.
The injured guy first stared at their running figures in aghast before screaming at the distracted mercenaries, "hey they're getting away, they're getting away!"
Abbas jerked towards them as did his men who fired their guns in their direction but by then they had already passed a corner.
When Abbas saw his goons look at him blankly he spat at them, "the hell are you looking at me for? Go! Go! Go! Get those bastards."
He turned his shoulders twice to let his men run past him as he eyed the newcomer who was looking at them with an obviously perplexed look.
The specs guy struggled to hold his bleeding hand from shivering as he adjusted his specs on his nose and gave a weak smile, "hey so I helped you and warned you right? Doesn't that–"
Abbas pulled out his handgun and shot a round right into his eye through his glasses and silenced him as his body slumped back dead.
"Piece of shit," he spat on the ground and aimed the still smoking gun at Sanit.
"Who the hell are you, chote?"
To anyone with a brain the situation wouldn't be too difficult to understand.
For Sanit at least it wasn't.
The gunman had just killed a guy in cold blood, right in front of his eyes and was not likely to let a witness live.
So a fight it was then. Not what he had wanted but he didn't have much choice.
He just didn't know how he fared against humans compared to beasts. Not after the recent days he had and the new feats he had seen his body accomplish.
Muni took a step back to where Abbas was, his eyes still trained on Sanit, "you go, this guy's mine."
"You sure?" Abbas didn't get an answer but he holstered his gun anyway, "any particular reason why you want this?"
Muni smirked, "He's an inborn."
Abbas immediately knew to clear out once he heard that and backed away, "we'll be waiting for you."
But just then something rushed past the both of them and they turned to see Sanit behind them, blocking their way.
"Where to murderer?" he asked with a snarl.
Abbas's hands were on his holster but he dared not bring it out now, not after what had just happened, "fuck, that was fast."
"Too fast, even for an inborn. I'll cover you, be ready," Muni's words were accompanied by a slight squeeze on Abbas's shoulder and the mercenary leader nodded. Not sure about what the Awakener had planned but he agreed anyway.
In the next moment Muni had reached where Sanit was, his sword fully out and swung neatly but Sanit had shifted his motion and evaded past him to reach for Abbas who had now turned tail and was fleeing the place.
With his gun sticking out of his hand that was twisted to aim from his back, Abbas squeezed round after round which Sanit took on with a wince and aimed his fist at the man's face.
Or at least tried to.
"As expected of inborns to go after civilians," Muni grabbed Sanit's leg and dragged him down with him as they rolled on the ground.
Abbas slowly crept away from them, hugging the wall and kept his gun trained on the pair of them.
Muni was suddenly flung towards him and Abbas turned tail to run across the corridor but he stumbled and rolled over a rock pillar.
"Aaaggghh…."
Muni and Sanit broke into a race to reach Abbas who was whimpering on the ground and trying to reach for his gun that lay a few feet away but his shattered pelvis allowed him to do fuck all at this point.
Sanit was about to concentrate on Muni when he saw something on Abbas's shoulder. A very familiar black symbol etched into his skin.
Those smugglers had the same thing too!
Sanit, while his arm still being pinned down by Muni, reached over with his leg and slammed onto Abbas's ankle making it crush and twist, causing the older man to yell in pain.
"Damn it, are you even trying to stop him you…you…aaghh hell!" Abbas clutched his leg and tried to crawl away.
"This weak trash is behaving like an animal, grab your gun or something," Abbas heard Muni's voice still struggling yet advising him despite it all.
"What do you think I'm trying to do?" Abbas muttered under his breath as his finger coiled around his knife and he turned with glee on being suddenly freed from Sanit's crushing grip on his ankle. Thinking he was finally going to win the day.
His wide bloody grin was cut short when his face saw Sanit's tightly enclosed fist come down on him from above.
Only one thing was running in Sanit's mind when he went through the motions of the punch.
That he had to stop this man from escaping and ask about his past. How much more he knew about what had happened to him.
I just need to know for sure.
But it turned out that he had misjudged his own strength. By a huge margin.
Muni who had been kicked in the face by Sanit glared up, ready to pounce on the inborn who had dared to kick him so unceremoniously.
But instead his eyes popped out when he saw Sanit's fist deep inside Abbas's face.
Not hovering, not by the side. But actually embedded into the mercenary leader's face.
And as Sanit withdrew his fist, his bloody fingers brought with it trails of his squished out brain matter and flesh that should never leak out of a body in that manner.
Sanit stared at the caved in man's face and then at his own bloody fist with a very confounded expression.
Where a man's cheeks bones, nose and forehead were supposed to be. There was only an uneven, gaping hole full of fused in brain matter and blood.
Why was that so easy?