Higgs barely flinched. He had seen the man's anger coming, he had smelt the ozone warping around John as he drew power. He felt the crackle of fire on his skin before John had thrown his first punch.
Higgs simply waved his hand over his face and the gold skull mask appeared.
"Well now, John. This wasn't the turn I saw this little conversation taking." He grinned, the amusement palpable on his voice and timbre. Black tar seeped from under his feet and spread quickly over the floor, coating the entire room they stood in in ankle deep black liquid. Whilst this pooled around John and soaked into his clothes, Higgs stood delicately atop it as though it were a complete solid.
To those observing this little conflict between the pair, John and Higgs' minds blinked into darkness. Probing further into their heads left a sickly tar and oil feeling that coated every inch of their skin.
With the same lightning crackle, Higgs disappeared and reappeared about 20 feet away from John. "Now I get it, you want a little break from the grind. This is what you've been waiting for the whole time... So I'll ask you one last time before you cast the first stone, John. Is this really what you want to do?"