5 Years Ago…
The
early spring breeze blew in refreshing warmth that brought promises of sunshine
and summer fun. Matt sat back in his desk, looking out the window at the
blossoming flowers and wispy clouds in the distant skies. Just last week he had
touched those clouds for the first time; breaking his altitude record and
looking down on the world from astonishing heights. He wanted so badly to
escape back into the wild blue frontier and leave all his doubt, regret, and
woe behind. But as the school bell rang, he was forced back to reality. With a
sigh Matt stood up and gathered his books, filing out of the classroom with the
rest of his classmates. High school is never easy, but the personal walls Matt
threw up around him made it unbearable, never allowing him to get too close…
“Oof!”
Matt grunted as he walked right into someone. The girl fell backwards, but he
caught her arm with trained reflexes. “I’m so sorry!” he said, his face
blushing. The girl looked up at him, first a little dazed but then a cute grin
appearing on her face.
“It’s
ok,” she replied softly. Her jet black hair had fallen on her face, and she
daintily brushed it aside, blushing as Matt looked at her. She was over a head
shorter than he was and petite, but her eyes shone with an eerily captivating
light. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
Matt
tried to reply, but stammered first. Finally, “No, it was my fault. I didn’t
even see you there.”
The
girl giggled, jostling the book she held under her arm. “Well I am kind of
short.”
The
two laughed at that, the awkward tension of a surprise encounter heavy in the
air. After a silence that felt too long, Matt let out a breath. “I’m Matt,” he
stuttered, embarrassed by his shyness. The girl smiled again, her white teeth gleaming
and her face blushing even more.
“My
name is Jasmine, and it’s very nice to meet you Matt.”
Present Day, August
– Metalock Prison, Two Hours from the City of Hopling
“Slop
again.” Brian Brewer, otherwise known as the supervillain Sewage, plopped down
on the plastic cafeteria bench across the table from a few other criminals.
They looked at him with mixed emotions; some bewildered, others sullen, while
one or two shot him hateful glances. The new collar on his neck signified he
was a powerful metahuman, whether they knew of him personally or not. The
collars were designed to neutralize any attempts at aggressive behavior or
escape, and would start to tighten and cause blistering pain throughout the
body if any metahuman powers were used. Brian had already seen one or two metas
strangle themselves, thinking they were strong enough to break the collars. He
was smarter than that; an opportunity for escape would present itself
eventually, and he would be ready to take it the moment it did.
As Brian
was eating his meal, he heard the rustle of bodies moving quickly out of the
way. The table was cleared in seconds, and a solitary figure sat down across
from him. Without looking up, Brian responded, “Can I help you?”
“Yes,”
the hoarse voice from across the table said. Brian looked up and saw the super villain
Volt sitting across from him, a collar around his neck as well. “And I’m
positive you’ll enjoy doing it as well.” Volt cracked a smiled through his
scarred face, which was matched by an evil grin from Brian.
“Why
not? It can’t get much worse than this.”
Volt
chuckled at the remark, his laugh containing a dark tone to it. “Oh, it can,
Sewage. There’s a place underneath us all that houses the nightmares of our
world. We think of ourselves as the strongest villains around, yet they can
stop us with a simple collar.” Volt tapped his collar and gave a shrug. “But there are those of us who cannot be bound
by anything less than Pandora’s Box. Those metahumans are the reason this
prison was built; to hold them, because it is impossible to kill them. They are
few in numbers, but each has the power to destroy this world.”
Brian
had stopped eating to listen. “If these metas are so strong, how do they hold
them?”
“Constant
monitoring and high levels of drugs to pacify them. Everyone has a weakness,
and the GMA exploits the hell out of it for them. Plus there’s only three
locked up here, and two of them are in, what’s the word, self-sustaining areas.
No way in or out, and only hand-picked workers are allowed anywhere near these
areas, and their entire lives revolve around making sure the sleeping giants
don’t wake.”
“Well
that’s good to know, I guess,” Brian said returning to his food, “but how will
they help us if we can’t get to them?”
“Only
two of them can’t be reached. The other is many floors beneath us, but
accessible.” At Brian’s questioning glance, Volt continued. “I don’t know why,
but that’s how it is. Hell, the GMA doesn’t even know much about the third. Word
is there hasn’t been any physical activity from this one in years; no eating,
no moving, nothing. Just silently waiting.”
“Waiting
for…what?”
Volt
cracked another smile, this one revealing his stained teeth. “A reason to wake
up.”
The
prison sirens blared throughout the complex, alerting every staff member of the
riot. Each prisoner was up in arms and causing chaos, and the warden had
already sent a message to the GMA headquarters in Hopling requesting back-up.
As the flood of criminals crashed through the hallways, two moved quickly through
the din to a specific cell holding a super-genius named Richard Roxxan,
otherwise known as the super villain Obliterator.
“Took
you long enough,” Richard said as Volt and Sewage pushed the cell door in, the
hinges destroyed by the stolen tools. Richard was older than the two men, thin,
average height, with white ruffled hair and a clean-shaven face; but even in
his mid-fifties he was still a deadly foe. Numerous run-ins with Frontier had
left many members critically injured and put him on Frontier’s top list of
powerful enemies.
“It
would have been easier without these damn collars,” Volt said as he pointed to
the neutralizing collar around his neck. “Hurry and get it off so we can move
on.”
Richard
snorted as he went to work, quickly disarming and removing the collars from
their necks. “They really aren’t that difficult to remove.”
“If
you’re so damn smart than why are you still here?” Brian snapped as his collar
fell to the floor.
Richard
grinned, and in that smile Brian could see the evil mind within. “I’ve been
waiting for my chance to shine, my boy. Waiting for my chance at revenge with a
plan that won’t fail to create the kind of damage I am known to cause.”
“So
this is where you got all your info from, huh?” Brian asked Volt as he cocked
his head towards Richard. “Figured you weren’t smart enough to learn all that
on your own.”
Volt
ignored Brian’s taunts and followed Richard out of the cell. From over his
shoulder he called back to Brian. “We still have work to do. You coming?”
“Guess
so, I’m in this now.”
“Oh
yes, you should,” Richard said, putting his makeshift tools in the pockets of
his white lab coat the prison allowed him to wear. The trio hurried to the
stairwell and started to descend. “Personally I wouldn’t miss her awakening for
the world.”
Despite
the chaos ten floors above, the guards on the lowermost levels were still
there, standing watch over those objects or people they were ordered to guard.
At the sound of gunfire and fighting, the guards inside a room dubbed “the Dark
Room” lifted their weapons and stood steady, waiting for the intruders. There
were six heavily armed guards in this room, all ordered to defend the metahuman
within at all costs.
The
quick-fallen silence outside the room increased their fears, and most of them
held fingers on the trigger. A muffled explosion sounded, and then the door
opened slowly. The guards held their breaths, waiting for the attack. But once
the door was completely open, there was no person standing in the entrance. The
guards stayed put, radioing their supervisors about the situation. Suddenly the
foremost guards started choking, dropping their weapons and reaching for their
gas masks. Three fell before they could put them on, and before the remaining
three could fire a shot, bolts of electricity ripped throughout the room,
frying the equipment along with the people.
“Well
you two sure know how to kill things.” Richard looked over the dead bodies with
a smile as he entered the room. “That makes you okay in my book.”
Brian
looked back out into the corridor at the carnage they made. “Let’s just get out
of here before they find some way to stop us. We’re very far away from freedom
right now.”
Richard
walked up to a glass box at the far side of the room. Though he knew the walls
were transparent, he could see nothing inside but a wall of darkness. “So this
is why it’s called the Dark Room,” Volt said walking up next to him. “Sewage,
get your ass over here. We got work to do.”
“No
need,” Richard said staring into the blackness. “She’s awake.”
At
his words, the glass cracked. The two men took a few steps back as the cracks
grew, spreading over the glass wall. Finally the glass shattered, flooding the
room with a darkness that made them all feel an instinctual fear in the pit of
their stomach. The tendrils of the shadows crawled out of the broken box and
worked their way around everything, adding an icy touch to the atmosphere.
Unseen by the three villains, a petite form floated out of the box, the shadows
hiding her body perfectly. Obeying her whim without hesitation, the shadows
rushed back into her body. With the shadows receded, the room was lit once
more, and the men saw what they had come for.
“We
ask a favor of you,” Richard spoke, his voice steady and strong. “In return, we
will help get you anything you desire.”
The
girl made of shadows looked at him with a blank stare, a face slowly forming
from the mask of darkness. “Anything I want?” she asked softly. At Richard’s
nod, her eyes grew narrow, and anger flashed across her face. “I want Matt.”
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