Powered Individuals

Chapter 21 - Inciting Incident

The five of us ran onto the scene only for there to be no fighting taking place. I had to admit that I was happy there was nothing to fight because I was still in that disgusting janitor's outfit that would have hindered my performance by a lot. The lab building was on fire again and there were many different water-based supers trying to put it out. Aer ran over and made small vortexes to suffocate the fires.

Tristan and Ruby ran around to try and calm hysterical people down. From what it looked like, barely anyone got hurt. I saw a group of kids by the wall of the agency and went over to see if they were okay.

As I was about to ask if anyone was hurt, I saw they were all hunched over a phone that was playing a video over and over again. I tried to get closer to see, and when I did I wish I hadn't at all.

There was a picture of Dead Bolt holding none other than Miles in a tangle of blue electricity. He wore a devilish smirk and his blue eyes glinted with something sinister. The labs were behind him in flames and Miles gave the camera a desperate look.

"Hello, guardians of Cardinal City," Dead Bolt spat out, almost like he had tasted something bad. "I'm sure you are curious as to what I am doing with your precious inventor here."

Dead Bolt tightened the lightning around Miles and he cried out in pain. This caused Dead Bolt to laugh cruelly and look back at the camera. "He will be coming with me until further notice. If I can't take you down with combat, perhaps I can take you down psychologically. The longer you leave him in my hands, the more I will hurt him. I will give you a week until we are to meet in Cardinal City. You either have to turn Merlin over to me, or I kill this man here. What will it be, Cardinal Guard?"

Dead Bolt cackled and then the screen went black. I backed away, feeling sick. This couldn't have been happening. I had just saw Miles not even a few hours ago and now he was getting tortured by an evil supervillain.

When I turned around and the others saw me, I was sure that I looked absolutely sickly. I swallowed and pulled myself together.

"We need to talk to Merlin."

——

"No."

"But sir-"

"I said that you could not. It's much too dangerous. We are working with hostages."

"Sir, you've given us many other, more dangerous missions. What makes this one anymore different?"

"We have an important man's life in our hands, that's what makes it different. If we aren't careful, he could very well die a terrible and painful death. Now, I will contact the more experienced heroes to take him down while you five stay here and further your training."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. We had gone up against Dead Bolt before and we took him down. How would this be any different from when we did that three weeks ago?

Esa stepped forward and took a pen from his pocket, writing on a stray piece of paper. He carefully wrote "PLEASE" and slid it toward Merlin. He looked at it and shook his head, but it wasn't saying no.

"Alright," Merlin concluded after a while. "You have one week to get yourselves together and prepared."

I almost exploded with happiness. I was going to get Miles back if it was the last thing that I did.