Without warning, the Blood swung around to sock him with two arms, one arm barely brushed Tim’s right shoulder. Tim had scrambled backwards in time to prevent a full blow, but winced in pain as a miniscule needle stabbed his shoulder. Without wanting to waste a point-blank opportunity, he fired his sixth shot, which hit Wazp’s left shoulder. A fizzling sound could be heard as a blue bruise with a frosty white rim appeared.

A hit! Tim cheered mentally.

“C-cold-z!!”

It was time to reload. Tim pulled out a cartridge from his double tube dispenser, which contained extra chamber cartridges for his LRP65. The cartridge flew out of his hand as Hyssss violently swatted at Tim from his blind spot, causing him to crash backwards into the wall before falling to the ground. He yanked out another cartridge from the dispenser as fast as he could and reloaded, firing just as Hyssss spun at him for a tailwhip.

SPLAT!

CRASH!

Tim ducked as Hyssss’ tail obliterated the wall behind him. Bits of rocks and debris crumbled to the ground.

The shot had hit its mark on Hyssss’ torso, fizzling as it reacted to the Blood to create a similar bruise to Wazp’s. The round partially stunned him, making his movements very sluggish; however, it didn’t stop his advance. Tim quickly fired another shot, hitting Hyssss’ stomach to freeze him completely.

“One down, one to—whoops!” said Tim, diving out of the way as Wazp clumsily attempted to stomp on him.

“Hold-z … ztill-z … inzect-z!” gasped Wazp, making another clumsy stomp attempt. The round had made him listless.

“Huh? But aren’t you an insect?” asked Tim, easily rolling out of the way.

With his annoyingly smug look, Wazp replied sluggishly, “Eumenez … fraternuz …” He lost sight of Tim momentarily due to the distraction.

Tim jumped off a ledge, catching him by surprise. Wazp did not have enough time to react. All he could see was Tim’s evil grin and right foot before he was kicked in the face — more accurately, his left eye. To Tim, it felt like he had just kicked a metal pole.

“HA! In your face!” Tim shouted enthusiastically as he back flipped off of Wazp. “That’s for trying to stomp on me!”

It was an immature act of revenge, one he would regret soon after. His leg was already screaming in agony. The Blood held onto his eye in pain while buzzing angrily. In the air, Tim froze him with one final shot to the torso before crash landing; his right leg had buckled beneath him.

Patting dirt and grime off of himself, he hobbled his way towards the frozen ruags and cuffed each of them with a Fractite Cuff. The cuffs were single unit rings and looked like thick bracelets. They contained a diluted vapour of Fractite gas, which was slowly released when in use. Fractite Cuffs were created to keep Blood in a frozen state, preventing them from liquefying and slithering away.

Ooooh … that flying kick was a bad idea … Tim rubbed his throbbing leg. It looked so cool on TV …

A few Keepers and Gardios ran past him. Backup had finally arrived. One of them patted Tim’s back as he passed him. “Good job, son,” he praised him proudly.

No one noticed the dark figure in the shadows slithering away into the mesh of alleyways.