Prologue.

Hu! Hu! Hu!

Leo was caught between taking further steps and steadying his uneven breathing. He was panting heavily due to how tired he was. His legs barely held him up and even his knees were shaking. His arms felt numb due to swinging his sword too much. He had been fighting for a long time and he was covered in the blood of both his and his enemys'. However, his enemies just kept on coming and coming.

There were burning jeeps, dead bodies being burnt and blood splattered everywhere, and Leo was standing right in the middle of all the chaos. Tracy kept urging Leo through the comms in his ears, to escape but he couldn't find the right opportunity.

He stood in one place with his hands resting on his knees, trying to catch his breath. Three black vans came to the scene, followed by two Jeeps, however, there was a cannon with a long hexagonal-shaped muzzle, like that of an armored tank on top of these two jeeps and they were manned by two people, standing in the van and controlling the cannons. On one of them, stood a tall and muscular man. His hair was slightly longer as it touched his shoulders and his mustache was cleanly cut and kept low enough. He would've looked like an ideal businessman if he was wearing a tuxedo but he wasn't. Instead, he wore a pair of black trousers with a leather jacket with golden lines running laterally on it. He looked Asian and with the way, his clothes looked a bit different from the others, he seemed to be the leader of this team.

The jeeps parked and surrounded Leo. Lots of men came out of these jeeps and rallied themselves around Leo, aiming their guns at him.

"Give it up Crimson Phoenix, you've been cornered," the tall and muscular man said.

A guy wearing a black hoodie with a red bird outline on his chest and heavily armed sighed. He was already tired and needed time to recuperate but his enemies kept on coming and coming like cockroaches.

He stood upright tiredly. "You know..." Leo said with a hoarse and disappointed tone, "This is a bad way to introduce yourself. Why don't you start with your name first." The leader of the squad laughed helplessly at Leo's stupid sense of humor.

'How can you be in such a state and still have time to joke? Are you Deadpool now?' the man thought to himself.

"I am Kazuma Hashimoto, leader of the Golden hands' mercenary squad." The man introduced himself with a proud tone. Leo, despite feeling tired, was still able to force out a burst of laughter. Kazuma glared at him as he didn't like being laughed at.

"I'm sorry, you call this a squad," Leo laughed, pointing at the men aiming their guns at him and those he had killed. "It's more like an army. And I've always wanted to say, you guys have a bad sense of naming. How will an organization call itself the golden hands? Are you guys gold diggers?" He was joking on the outside, but he was actually trying to kill time and recover part of his energy. The men pointing their guns at him turned to look at each other and gave confused faces. A few of them believed that considering what their organization was involved in, they definitely shouldn't be called 'Golden hands'.

Tracy however, from the underground base, kept warning Leo of the impending danger of staying there any longer.

"Leo, you have to get out of there. Those cannons are not something you can handle," she warned. She was in a state of panic and fidgeting. This was a case of the life and death of her boyfriend and she just couldn't sit still.

Hearing her, Leo decided to scan the cannons. They looked scary but he didn't know their use so he decided to ask.

"If I may, what's with the overbearing metal rod?" He asked, with another attempt at humor. Kazuma smirked.

"If you wish to know what it is, why don't you try it out and see what it can do," Kazuma said as he powered up the cannon. Blue light could be seen inside the muzzle of the cannon as it gave out a humming sound.

Leo gave an embarrassed smile, "I think I'll pass." he was wearing a black hoodie that had a red bird outline on it, and a mask so those around him couldn't see the nasty expression on his face. 'I've been surrounded, what do I do? And this man doesn't look very forgiving' he thought to himself as he scanned his surroundings.

"You don't have a choice. It's time for you to pay for not minding your own business." Kazuma blurted out again.

"You guys do illegal business and you kill innocents. I don't think I will ever stand by and watch you hurt innocent people." The Red Phoenix insisted. His voice was deep and resolute, and so was his will. He unsheathed his sword and took a fighting stance.

"In that case, prepare to be 'frozen' to death!" Kazuma exclaimed. He then signaled to everyone to fire at will and also fired his cannon. A chilling smoke flowed out of the cannon's muzzle before a stream of icy substance flew out, heading towards Leo.

He was both surprised and confused when he heard the word 'Frozen' but seeing what came out of the cannons, he understood what Kazuma meant and also knew that this was very disadvantageous for him.

Gritting his teeth, he quickly sheathed his katana and rhythmically swayed his hand, turning the fire that was burning a jeep into a flaming dragon. He controlled this dragon and used it to block one of the cannon's shots then ran to dodge the other cannon, but what he saw stunned him for a moment. The flaming dragon was frozen and he lost total control of it as it dropped and shattered to pieces. 'Not good.' Leo thought with a deep frown which came from total fear.

"Whoa!" Mason was surprised by what happened. He could see what Leo was seeing through the camera he put inside Leo's mask and he quickly used his computer to analyze the cannon. "This is insane!" He yelped. Tracy and James quickly looked at what he saw on the computer screen and Mason explained further. "That's an Ice cannon. It uses a micro engine based on cryogenic technology and it generates a beam of energy with a temperature of absolute zero." Mason explained with bewilderment. Tracy quickly rushed to the microphone and yelled.

"Leo..." she wanted to warn him but Leo interrupted her.

"Yeah, I heard it all," Leo said as he was forming flame dragons and controlling them. There were a total of three giant flame dragons. Two were attacking Kazuma and the other man shooting the second ice cannon while the other one was swaying around, consuming those shooting bullets.

The first two dragons would try to dodge the cannon blasts but they would get frozen the moment they got very close to the cannons. Leo himself wasn't idle either and he used his sword to kill anyone in his path. The pain he was feeling was excruciating but he endured it as much as he could. He had many lacerations on his body, due to cuts from knives and bullets that missed him but scratched him.

He used his dual katana to slaughter but he was still on the passive side. If things went like this, it wouldn't be long before he gets killed. He jumped on one of the rovers and chopped the head of one of the machine gun shooters, dodged a gun point blank at him, grabbed the gun, and stabbed the shooter.

With that, he used him as a meat shield to block the other bullets. The bullets penetrated went into the dead guy's body like needles penetrating a cushion. Leo threw the body down and slashed at the other shooters, but he was outnumbered thirty to one with more men that kept coming. This would normally not be a problem for him but the presence of the Ice cannons changed his odds.

The flame dragons were all extinguished and there was no flame around for him to use. He had to create a spark using the gadget in his hands and amplify it to become a huge flame. Weapons like grenades and rocket launchers were prohibited from being used to fight him because he could use them to his advantage thus, the people fighting with him chose to bring Ice cannons.

After some time, Leo killed one of the ice cannon shooters but the beam of the other cannon was headed towards him. He used the headless body of the dead guy as a meat shield but he was blasted away together with the body.

"Aarh" he groaned as he felt excruciating pain on his left side and hand. The pain was biting and extremely cold which caused him to shiver. He tried to circulate his power within his body but it only relieved him of the cold slightly but it didn't stop the pain. His hand wasn't iced completely, yet, but he felt cold and it was painful. He was freezing but the cold couldn't get any worse unless he was being shot again.

There were just four men left, including Kazuma. The rest were dead. Some were either singed to death or stabbed while others had incomplete bodies. The whole place was filled with the gruesome odor of blood, it was a very nasty sight.

Kazuma ordered the rest of the men to stop firing and he got down from the armored, cannon jeep. He carried a mini version of the ice gun and walked towards the groaning Leo. Leo was still shivering from the cold and tried to reach for one of his swords nearby but Kazuma stepped on his hand with his hard boots.

"Aaah" Leo screamed with pain. Tracy was already crying and praying for Leo while Mason and James were thinking about what to do. Leo tried to build up temperature in his body but it was to no avail. The lighters in his gloves had been damaged so he had to depend on himself for making the flames.

Kazuma smirked, "You should've just enjoyed your miserable life at home." He said as he punched Leo in the face. He then took off the hood and mechanical nose mask that Leo was wearing but what he saw was totally out of his expectations.

"So it's been a stupid kid that has been causing us soo much trouble." He saw a young and handsome eighteen years old boy and said disdainfully, "Let me finish this fly." he pointed his Ice gun at Leo's head.

"Screw you" Leo blurted as he gritted his teeth in pain. Kazuma smirked. Leo started to have many thoughts in his head. 'looks like this is how it ends. The death of the Phoenix.' he thought as he closed his eyes. Kazuma was just about to pull the trigger when he received a call.

"Sir... yes... but he's just some kid... he can do it... okay... we'll bring him in." he uttered with respect in his voice. It was his boss that called. After receiving a few instructions, he hung up. He didn't look too happy.

"Looks like you're very lucky. The boss wants to see you," he said. Then he raised his fist and punched Leo right in the face and knocked him out. Leo could hear Tracy screaming in his ears as she was crying,

"Leeooo" Tracy yelled. She was being pulled back and consoled by James as she was making a fuss out of anger and sadness. Mason's face was solemn but tears trickled down his eyes. Leo felt lightheaded and then blackness as consciousness dived into a dark abyss. He was then carried away.