PROLOGUE

"Run, Son. Get far away from here"

Neil had a lot going on his mind right now. Firstly, his Dad has for the first time in his recent memory called him son. ( And he has an excellent memory, unfortunately..)

Secondly, why did his father seem to be having a hard time dealing with a group of mid level assassins. Not that assassins were a daily occurrence at their home, but being one of the Great Elders meant that the attempts on Neo Randolph's life were one too many. Even his children had some sort of danger alarm ringing in on their head anytime they are faced with dangerous situations.

But this was weird. Six masked men had formed a semicircle around his dad. Each of them were firing some sort of energy beams from their hands. One man stood at the door emitting a pulse that formed an energy barrier that covered the expansive hall.

Gifted.. All the assassins were gifted.

Gifted, the name given to people with supernatural powers. Their powers, however, could be anything, ranging from Nuclear explosion to supersonic speed. There was a rumor once of a person whose Gift was playing cards. There are a whole lot of low and mid tier Gifted but In his entire life, Neil had only seen four high level Gifted. His father being one of them. Each and Everyone of them were seen as invincible, indestructible.

But before his eyes now were 7 gifted out of which he could tell at fist glance that two were high level. Two high level gifted..

Suddenly, one of the assassins broke off and started walking towards him.

"Run. Neil, get out of here. Go find help. Just go..."

The voice of his father seemed to be coming from faraway. Neil, no matter how much he tried couldn't get himself to move his feet.

The assassin laughed..

"Neo Randolf.. The great Psy King... Hiding behind a barrier like a coward"

"I'll drop the barrier, I'll do anything. Just leave my son out of this."Neo pleaded.

Neil watched as the assassin got even closer. His dad's voice seemed faint and faraway. The annoying ever present voices in his head had finally become comprehensible as they kept chanting "NEIL"

He watched as the assassins chipped off his dad's defensive barrier piece by piece, but the Psy king didn't mind that. Though Neil couldn't hear the words drowning in the unceasing chanting, he could still make out from His dad's lips the words "Run.....Get help...Son"

The assassin brought out a knive that seemed to devour light itself, as he approached Neil.

Neo's face changed, fluctuating the barrier for a split second.

At that moment Neil realized that he was powerless. In every situation, He had learned to escape or stubbornly outlast opposition

He had talked his way out of many situations including live threatening ones. A little mind reading and you could be able to present the most favorable offer.

This was different though. The assassin's head gear kept blocking out any attempt at mind reading. It was all hopeless, futile.

"NEIL!!.."

Damn voices..

"What do you want from me?" Neil asked the voices.

"NEIL!!!.."

"I need power, can you give me that??

"NEIL!!!!.." The voice kept replying monotonously ..

"ARGHHHHH!!!!.."

The assassin walked even closer, dagger in hand. He had killed more than his fair share of people so far in his career. Rich, poor, Gifted, even obnoxious folks. The Psy king was just another name to check off his group's list of targets. The kid's arrival was not part of the plan, but it didn't in anyway disrupt the sequence of events. They had taken all eventualities into consideration, including the young Randolf. Seeing this kid screaming now though seemed to send some kind of delight creeping up his veins.

The assassin chuckled " Don't waste your breath, kid. I don't want you to be short of breath later when you scream your last."

Neo Randolf saw with his own eyes the assassin walk towards his son, murderous intention oozing from his every step. He hated this... All of it. The barrier he was inside was an invincible barrier, it encloses the person inside for a period of time. And cannot be turned off until the time limit is up. The assassins knew this but kept attacking because they knew that the more damage an Invincible barrier receives the lesser the time limit. He couldn't call for help because one of the assassins was using some sort of barrier to block off signals from his phone and even his soul-device. These assassins were well prepared. Too professional, extremely careful, took everything into consideration.

My son..

The man in the mask got closer to Neil while his father looked on. Neo closed his eyes opting not to see the final moments of his son's life with hot tears running down his cheek.

He could feel it. The agony, pain. Dark emotions seemed to overflow from his son.

These bastards. I'll kill them all.

"ARGHHH.."

That scream..

Neo opened his eyes... And for the first time in a long while doubted what he was seeing..

The assassin saw it all. They had researched. He and his team spent countless nights thinking about every possible thing that could go wrong and planned counter measures for them all. But this.. This was unplanned for. He had thought of the boy, actually. The kid's gift was supposed to be telepathy . He wanted to finish him off quickly though, to avoid any shenanigans. What then was that pulse of energy. It felt like mental energy but at the same time, not.

Whatever that shit was, it was not part of the schedule at all.

Pain. The feeling was one of extreme pain. The tattoo he had always had on his back seemed to glow faintly, restricting something and at the same time seemed to draw out something else. It seemed almost.. Alive.

Thank god it didn't wiggle though..

With the pain came another feeling, one of strength. Neil could 'see' the whole room, the aura's of all the assassins even, with his mind. That last scream of pain had sent the assassin sprawling. He felt powerful. For the first time in his life he was confident in winning.

The other assassins stopped attacking the barrier and rushed over to help their comrade.

"What happened??" One of them asked.

"I don't know" he replied "Let's kill the boy first before the barrier expires."

Another assassin rushed towards Neil.

"DARK BALL EXPLOSION"

He shouted loudly, bringing his hands together. A dark beam of energy shit out if them towards Neil who still has a faint smile on his face. Neil knew what he had to do. He would show these guys how powerful he is now. The beam wasted no time getting to its target.

BOOM.. "ARGHHH.."

Silence... Even as they watched their comrade writhe on the ground breathing his last, the assassins still could not comprehend what went on just then.

Where was boy? How did he get hit by his own strike?

"Looking for me?"

The one assassin using the barrier shouted "All of you kill him now. There's not much time left"

That seemed to unfreeze them. "KILL HIM.."

Neil did a stunt flip avoiding a blade thrown at him. His eyes flashed as he calculated his next move. There were 6 assassins left, with one busy maintaining the barrier. He dodged a dark beam aimed for him, another one missing by a hair's breadth. One of the assasins threw a poison bomb at him, the dense fog covering a small area around the evading kid. The others rushed in covering their faces with masks.

"Gotcha.." One of them said aiming for him with a flying dagger, seeing only a silhouette hunched in the dense fog. The dagger hit home with a sickening thud, the assassin stabbing him twice more with another. Extreme speed and precision, an assassin's way. The man heaved a sigh of relief. The job was done. As he started to think about dispelling the poison, suddenly the body on the ground flashed, turning into a desk lamp.

What...!!!!!

"An illusion??!! But no, I felt my dagger enter the body, I felt life bleeding out from him."he thought

**woosh woosh** the assassin used some light footwork to avoid some blades thrown at him, before realizing that his comrades had thrown them. They obviously couldn't see him clearly in the fog and had mistaken him for the kid.

"I have to get outta here".. The assassin determined. Just then he felt a cloth cover his face, befuddling his sight for a moment.

During the time he spent removing it, a few more knives were thrown at him, making him loose his focus as he tried to dodge them all.

His helmet was nowhere to be found, he held his breath, evading while trying to leave the fog. The others seemed to have intensified their attacks as blades seemed to come in from every angle. The Assassin employed every move in his arsenal, even using his gift, burst acceleration but to no avail. He tried using a special signal known only by their organization to stop the others but it felt like this part of space was out of phase with the real world, even his voice couldn't go through.

Dodging, running around, the whole thing seemed to never end, until...

"Beam of destruction!!!"

And everything went black...

"You got him right??" The one holding the barrier asked the assassin who lay on the ground, weak from having shot that deadly beam from his dagger, which had now disintegrated from the sheer amount of energy used to power the dark beam.

"I think so" he replied, his voice muffled by the helmet. "You guys say it right?" He looked towards the others. They refused to meet his eyes, their hooded heads facing every direction but his.

"Where did sarr and Jim go?" One of them asked, trying to change the subject.

As if on cue, two objects flashed into existence in front of them. One was an amethyst ring, cracked almost in half. It glowed dimmly, flickered at irregular intervals like a dying ember. The other object was a corpse of one of their members. The rooms temperature instantly dropped twenty degrees. The corpse was stabbed at the back, the weapon still inserted in his body. It was a dagger, one of their custom made ones. If they had been shocked by the death of one of their comrades, then this definitely had set their brains on overdrive.

"Hahahaha.." The weird laughter seemed to come from everywhere at once sending chills up the spines of the assassins. "No screaming? Hehe.. Good. I don't want you wearing your chords out before the main event"

The one holding the barrier drooped it , his face changing color underneath the mask. "Backup's dead everyone. Abandon mission. Abandon mission!!.."

"Too late. MENTAL BARRAGE!!!.."

The assassins who had started to fade out of existence once again took form as if they were dragged out of space. Their helmets simply melted from overload, trying to resist was futile. They all had a taste of the pain the young boy felt, the humilation, the frustration, the shame. One after the other their feet failed them, knees making intimate contact with the floor. The experiences kept on looping in their heads, each emotion magnified thousands of times. It was too much.. Too too much.

And so began the screaming.....