The Superhero's Son Omnibus Volume 2

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

I have to admit, I found it hard to focus on my duties as leader of the Young Neos over the next few days while I waited for Valerie to find and access the server with the information about Grandfather on it. I didn’t really know what to expect when Valerie found it, but I figured it had to be important, otherwise Dad wouldn’t have left me that video telling me about it.

Speaking of that video, I was thinking more and more about what Dad had said about Grandfather on it. If Dad was telling the truth—and I didn’t see any reason for him not to be—then Grandfather was an absolutely crazy guy. He might have even been evil. I mean, gouging out his wife’s eyes in order to take away her powers? That was not your normal kind of crazy.

It just seemed so strange, because Grandfather had appeared like such a normal guy when I met him. Okay, he had seemed a little mysterious, maybe even a little strange, but I would never have suspected him of being that level of crazy. It made me wonder just what Grandfather was really hiding from me and what other kind of dark secrets he had. It also made me wonder if Grandfather had been lying about Grandmother being sick; what if there was another reason she wasn’t doing well and couldn’t talk to me?

In fact, I was actually kind of afraid of Grandfather now. That seemed kind of silly, of course, given that I was much stronger and more powerful than Grandfather, but that didn’t change the fact that Grandfather clearly had a screw loose or two. I was almost ready to just let the Test Subjects have him; whatever knowledge Grandfather may have had about neogenetics did not seem worth risking my life to protect, given how crazy he obviously and clearly was.

On the other hand, I had no idea what the Test Subjects were actually after. Sure, Twinfist and Sight had told me that they wanted revenge, but I suspected there was more to their plans than mere ‘revenge.’ Maybe they even wanted to take over the world. Who knows? I certainly didn’t.

Regardless, I put that thought aside in order to focus on the most important issue in my life at the moment: My date with Blizzard.

Yes, I had actually asked her out. I had done it the day after I watched the video. Why did I do it? Because I had gotten sick of not asking her out. And I wanted to focus on something a bit lighter than the knowledge that Grandfather was apparently completely insane and had gouged out Grandmother’s eyes when Dad was a kid. It helped that Carl informed me that there were no restrictions against dating teammates in the Neohero Alliance Constitution, which got rid of some of my last reservations.

It really hadn’t been as hard as I thought it was going to be. I just went to her room, knocked on the door, waited for her to answer, and then asked her as soon as she opened it. She seemed really surprised when I asked her, but she accepted the date anyway. We were going out to a movie next week. Which movie, we hadn’t yet decided, but that was irrelevant. The fact was that I was actually going out with her, which still amazed me whenever I thought about it.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t until next week, which meant I had to wait for that whole time. That meant I had two things to wait for, and I hated waiting, which meant that I was going to have to find something else to do until Valerie got back to me with her findings and my date with Blizzard happened.

Then again, it wasn’t like I had nothing to do. There were my tutors hired by the NHA to teach me, who gave me homework to work on while I was at the base. And, of course, there was also a whole bunch of day-to-day things, too, like training, doing whatever missions Mecha Knight assigned to us, and so on. We didn’t have very many interesting things happening this week, however; like I said, I had noticed a slowdown of major supervillain or super criminal attacks over the last month since Robert Candle’s death.

But then something happened two days after I asked out Blizzard that meant I wouldn’t need to just sit around and wait for the things I was looking forward to.

It was after a training session in the Training Room, shortly after lunch, that I was returning to my room to take a shower and rest. I also planned to get to some of the homework that my math tutor had left out for me; I hated math, but it was something I needed to get to anyway and I couldn’t put it off forever.

But as soon as I entered my room, I realized that I was not alone.

I wasn’t talking about Carl. I had asked Carl to stop monitoring my room after Valerie went to find the server, because I wanted to keep my privacy and I didn’t think there was any need for Carl to monitor my room all day every day.

Nor was I talking about Valerie; again, she hadn’t come back yet and I had not heard from her since she went to look for the server.

No, I meant that someone else had been in here. Or maybe still was in here. How did I know that?

Well, I noticed that the door to my bathroom was open. I had closed it earlier when I got up this morning and took my shower. There was no way I could have left it open accidentally when I left. That meant that someone had been in my bathroom, but when I looked around my room, I didn’t see anyone in here besides myself.

Of course, if there had been someone in my room who shouldn’t be here, that wouldn’t make sense. None of my teammates ever entered my room without my permission. And if someone outside of the team or NHA had entered the House, Carl would have alerted us right away.

I considered just leaving my room and alerting the rest of the team that someone had gotten into my room without me noticing before a voice said, “Hello, Bolt.”

I looked over my bed, where I had heard the voice come from, and as soon as I looked over, a person materialized into view. She was a young woman wearing ninja clothes, a young woman who I had not expected to see so soon.

“Emma?” I said. I tensed. “How did you get into my room? And what are you doing here?”

“I’m a ninja,” said Emma, as if that was all the explanation she needed. “Getting in here was easy. But it doesn’t matter how I got in here. What matters is why I am here.”

“To kill me?” I said. I took a step back, intending to fake out running away only to attack her when she let her guard down.

Emma frowned. “Kill you? Why would I do that? You are my employer’s grandson. I would never harm you, not unless you were a threat to my employer, anyway.”

“So why are you really here, then?” I said. I lowered my hand and covered my suit-up watch, pressing the button on it that would allow me to record our conversation without Emma noticing, because I had a feeling that it would be helpful to have a recording of it for later.

“Because I need your help,” said Emma, putting her hands together like she was a beggar. “Actually, I should clarify that: Your grandparents need your help.”

“Why?” I said. “I thought they had run away and didn’t need my help. Has something happened since I last saw them?”

Emma nodded. “Yes. Your grandmother was captured by one of the Test Subjects and they are now holding her hostage. They are demanding that my master give himself up in exchange for your grandmother’s life.”

“What?” I said in shock. “How did they get grandmother? Weren’t you protecting her?”

Emma’s head fell onto her chest. “I tried my hardest to protect her, but the man they sent was too powerful. He managed to find us when we were on our way to our next safe house and he kidnapped your grandmother before we could stop him. He would have killed my master, too, but I managed to fight off the man before he could harm my master. The man fled, but he still managed to take your grandmother with him, despite my best efforts to stop him. That was a couple of days ago.”

“Do you know where he went?” I said. “Where he and the other Test Subjects are hiding?”

“Yes, because I managed to track him down while he was escaping,” said Emma. “But I can’t save your grandmother on my own. The Test Subjects are too powerful. I am a skilled fighter, but I cannot match their sheer strength and I am also outnumbered. They have at least four powerful superhumans on their side, while I’m just on my own.”

I nodded. “I see. I’d love to help, but I need to tell my team and supervisor first. They need to know where I’m going to be.”

“No,” said Emma. “You must not tell anyone where you are going or what you are going to do.”

I paused, my hand on the door. “What? Why not?”

“Because this must be done alone,” Emma insisted. “My master does not want the NHA to know about him or his whereabouts. He only trusts you to help.”

“If you want me to keep this a secret from my team, you’re out of luck,” I said. “You should have gone to Triplet instead. He doesn’t mind keeping secrets from everyone else.”

I was just about to turn and leave, but then something flew past my face and struck the door. It was what looked like some kind of metal clamp, its sharp tips sinking into the door’s surface and also covering my hand, which made it impossible for me to remove it from the door. Well, I probably could have ripped it off the door if I wanted, but the sudden appearance of the clamp had taken me by surprise.

I looked over at Emma again. She was standing now, her hand already reaching for another metal clamp.

“I cannot allow you to do that,” said Emma. Her voice was tense and serious. “I know what my master wants and he does not want anyone else to know about this.”

I thought about just ripping my hand out of the clamp, knocking Emma out in one blow, and then telling Mecha Knight and the team about what Emma wanted me to do. I could do it pretty easily; Emma may have been a ninja, but I was a speedster, and I could probably easily take her out with no problem if I wanted.

On the other hand, it sounded to me like time was of the essence. I knew, from experience, just how brutal the Test Subjects could be towards their enemies. And that was how they treated me and my friends, who were all strong superheroes in our own right; given that Grandmother was likely a frail old lady, even with her own powers, I couldn’t imagine what they’d do to her if we didn’t save her right away.

So I looked over at Emma and said, “Okay, Emma. I’ll go with you. I want to save Grandmother.”

“Finally,” said Emma. “All right. I will tell you where we need to go.”