Chapter 172: Invisibility

A determined Scarlet was fine and all, but that didn't mean that he no longer had to hide. Every time he came any closer than six feet to John, he quickly hid his presence, an innate skill that he perfected after robbing multiple big name places. It's basically a skill that's untraceable. Like, many people tried to locate him but always failed to do so.

The skill was nothing Earth shattering. Neither wasn't a superpower like the ones Wadorians had. It was more like a characteristic feature of the Crimson planet residents. They usually had one of the three skills—nimble hands, fast footwork, and invisibility. If it feels like the third skill is far more overpowered that breaks the balance between the three powers, that's exactly the case. The invisibility skill is a rare one in the Crimson planet's history. Only one out of a million received this power.

Even though it might seem like a moderate number of people received the power once you calculate it out, there's always the matter of talent. Some might receive invisibility but not know how to use it, while others might be pretty much adept in using such a skill had they received it in the first place.

Scarlet was a rare case, though. He was in that elite hundred or thousand people who mastered the invisibility skill. However, only few people knew about it since neither he nor his mom were open about his powers. Hence, no one was aware of the fact that the youngest one to master the invisibility skill wasn't some random twenty-year-old, but Scarlet at the age of ten.

This proficiency is the reason why Scarlet was scouted in the first place. Even though Scarlet's mom tried hiding the skill, nothing went past Carmen.

Anyhow, the same skill that he used to plunder various places was now used totally differently. In both the cases, he was supremely confident that no one's gonna find him out when he was invisible.

Unlike other people who blatantly exploit the skill for what it was, Scarlet was different. Along with polishing the skill in itself, he also polished himself. He repeatedly trained holding his breath and walking nimble footed until he finally blended in as one with the environment.

... Or so he thought until recently; until he went toe to toe with the man named John. Scarlet often got weirded out whenever he was close to John. It was as if he could sense Scarlet's presence even when he was perfectly hidden. Like, he would often scoff about how it stinks whenever he was somewhere around Scarlet.

The Crimsoner thought it was a weird coincidence and tailed John to see if he does that anywhere else as well. However, never did he do that again, up until that one moment when Scarlet got a little too close to John, when he uttered the same words yet again. It was as if he had a smell sensor set for Scarlet. However, the thing he didn't understand was why John found his smell disgusting.

Anyhow, it simply wasn't just the smell sometimes. There was a time when John straight up stared into Scarlet's eyes and looked into his soul. It was as if John knew he was there at that moment. He really wanted to suspect John for his actions.

But the thing is, even when John does all of these things, at the very next moment he would be as if he did none of that in the first place, which made Scarlet think it wasn't intentional to begin with. It was more of an innate animal instinct that made him realize his presence. And this made him Scarlet's natural enemy.

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"What happened?" Thankappan asked as he saw Scarlet deeply thinking one fine evening..

"Is this how you feel when you finally get a worthy opponent?" Scarlet mumbled.

"What happened? What the hell are you talking about?" Thankappan looked kinda concerned by Scarlet's words. It somehow sounded a bit ominous.

"John… He can sense me." Scarlet replied.

"What?" Thankappan literally screamed for the entire town to hear his beaming voice.

"Shit! My ears! Calm down for a moment, will ya?" Scarlet sounded annoyed as he said that.

"How can I even do that? It's my right to freak out when I hear shit like this! I mean, if he can sense you, doesn't that mean this is the end?" Thankappan sounded concerned, before barely bringing back his sanity. "By the way, since when did he start noticing you?" He asked.

"Hmm, I guess from the beginning." Scarlet replied after thinking about it for quite some time.

"WHAT THE HELL?" This time around, Thankappan screamed louder than before, roping in some annoyed neighbors.

"Stop, stop. I feel like you just had some kinda misconception, now that I think about it." Scarlet spoke, trying to salvage the situation.

"What misconception, huh? You just said John can sense you and you didn't report it to me, even after all this time. Had you talked to me about this even a bit earlier, we could've done something about it. However, it's a distant and distinct memory at this point. I can't wipe that out without going into some extremities. Anyhow, if he knew about it, then that means he'd be calling for the HQ right now—hell, he might've called for it long before. Shit! This sucks! What are we even supposed to do right now?" Thankappan hyperventilated and breathed into a paper bag that Scarlet brought for him.

The Crimsoner waited for quite a few minutes for the fiasco to end. "Are you done now? Calm enough to listen to what I have to say?" He asked.

Thankappan took a deep breath before throwing away the said paper bag.

"What is it?" The MIB agent asked.

"Okay. What I said right now, it might not be true after all." Scarlet replied.

"What?" Thankappan meant to scream this out as well, but after the hyperventilation event, he didn't find the strength to do so.

"Look, he IS noticing me, but he's not." Scarlet spoke while scratching his head, not knowing how to explain what he meant.

"Okay, that did nothing to help. And if you're trying to riddle me with it, please stop. I do bad with riddles." Thankappan requested.

"Wait, it wasn't a riddle or something. I simply didn't know how to explain the shit to you… Give me a minute." Scarlet requested back to which Thankappan nodded his head. After that, Scarlet thought of ways to explain what he meant before finally finding the right words—or at least, the words he thought were appropriate in this scenario. "Here's the thing. John noticed my presence every time I got close to him, but he never found me. He can't see me, so he'll never catch me for sure. But this animal instinct that the guy possesses is honestly terrifying." Scarlet replied.

"Is that so?" Thankappan was relieved just a tiny bit. After all, John sensing Scarlet even with his instincts is still a dangerous situation.

"Yup, that's it. You don't have to freak out now." Scarlet spoke.

"Yea, no. That's still worrying. But wait a minute! Just a few minutes ago, it seemed like you were enjoying this shit." Thankappan looked suspiciously at Scarlet as he spoke.

"What do you mean?" Scarlet, who forgot about what he said previously after the freakout that Thankappan just had, asked.

"Well, you asked if this is how it feels to have a rival or something along those lines." The MIB agent replied.

"Did I really say that?" Scarlet asked.

"Yup, you did. Your inner thoughts leaked out back then, huh?" Thankappan asked.

Scarlet chuckled. "I guess you could say that." He spoke.

Thankappan sighed. "Listen, I'm fine with whatever you do, but don't deliberately expose yourself to John for the thrill, because the dude's strong. Really strong. I guess he got the brawn more than the brains. So, if you pulled out some crazy shit before him, you're gonna get punished and you're gonna get punished like crazy." Thankappan warned.

"Is he that dangerous?" Scarlet asked with disbelief in his eyes.

"Oh, my goodness. He's a straight up brawler! Do you even know how long it took for us to stop him?" Thankappan asked.

"How long?" Scarlet asked back.

"Well, it didn't take much now that I think about it, but that was basically Taro putting a stop to him back then. If it wasn't for him, we would've suffered badly." Thankappan spoke the truth.

"It's like that, huh? Anyhow, I wasn't planning to mess with him anyway, since anyone who sees through my facade even by sheer luck is supposed to be strong. I mean… I'll show you." Scarlet got up and turned himself invisible and ran towards Taro, who just arrived with his fists clenched, fully meaning to hit him.

Although Thankappan couldn't see where Scarlet was, he knew the intention behind his run. After a few seconds, he heard a loud thud on the ground after Taro punched the thin air. It revealed that it was Scarlet gasping for breath.

Scarlet knew Taro was strong but didn't expect him to beat him down on one strike when he rushed towards him. It seemed like there was still a lot for Scarlet to go for perfect invisibility.

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