The Superhero's Son Omnibus Volume 3

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Rime and I dashed out into the hallway outside of the room. We ran over to the railing that separated the second floor from the first floor and looked down to see that the windows on either side of the entrance had indeed been blown inward. It looked like someone had tossed a rock through them, but I didn’t see any G-Men agents below. Perhaps they simply hadn’t gotten in yet.

At any rate, we needed to be down there anyway, so I jumped over the railings and landed on the floor in a three point landing, while Rime created an ice slide that he used to get down to the ground floor with me.

As soon as we reached the ground floor, the front door was smashed open by a force from the other side. The door fell forward with a great, loud crash, allowing two people I had never seen before to enter the mansion.

I had no trouble identifying them both as G-Men; they had G-Men patches on their right shoulders, but aside from that, I did not know who these particular agents were. One of them was a man with wings like an angel, except his wings were metallic and had sharp tips, while the man himself looked kind of like a bodybuilder.

The other agent was a woman who looked pretty normal; at least, she didn’t have any physical abnormalities on her body that might hint at her powers. She did, however, have a gun at her side, though I didn’t think it would be of much use against us, so I wasn’t very afraid of it.

“Who are you two?” I said, holding up my fists.

“We’re G-Men,” the man replied, his voice deep. “We are searching for a Japanese man in a bloody trench coat. You wouldn’t happen to have seen him come this way, would you?”

The woman peered at us closely and started. “Enoch, I know who these two are. The young man is Bolt, while the blue-skinned man is Rime. They’re a couple of the Ultimate Max escapees that we were told about.”

“Really?” said the man named Enoch, looking at his partner in surprise. “I recall being told that we should keep an eye out for them, but I didn’t know that these two are the Bolt and Rime we were told about.”

“I am sure of it,” said the woman. “That means there is a possibility that the other escapees are here, as well.”

“Then we will need to call in backup,” said Enoch.

He reached for a walkie talkie at his side, but Rime pointed a finger and a beam of ice shot out and instantly froze the walkie talkie. The freezing effect began to creep over onto Enoch’s body, but Enoch ripped the walkie talkie off his belt and tossed it aside before it could spread over his torso.

“S-Sorry,” said Rime, “but you’re going to have to deal with us on your own.”

The woman shook her head. “How annoying, but very well. I’ve defeated worse enemies than you. It shouldn’t take much to take you two down. By the way, you can call me Move.”

“Move?” Rime repeated. “Why do they call you that? It’s such an uncreative—”

Move raised her hands and shoved them forward. Immediately, Rime and I were sent flying by a force we only sensed a second before it hit. We slammed into the floor hard enough to crack it, the impact briefly dizzying us before we shook our heads and scrambled back to our feet. I grabbed my head because it was hurting from the impact of the crash.

“They call me ‘Move’ because I can make anyone move with my mind,” said Move. “A useful ability for getting through crowded spaces, I can assure you. Or recapturing escapees and criminals like yourselves.”

Annoyed, I decided I wanted to end this quickly. I activated my super speed and sped toward Move so fast that I knew she wouldn’t be able to stop me, but then Enoch flew in between me and her and raised his wings to block my incoming fists. But that was fine; I’d just smash his wings and take him out, too.

But when my fist crashed into the surface of the metal wings, there was a loud clang, but the wings didn’t even shudder. They held strong, like a mountain planted into the earth, despite the fact that my fist had been driven by my super strength.

Then Enoch swept back his wings, sending me staggering backwards. He aimed his wings at me and started firing metal darts, but an ice wall erupted between me and the darts. The darts stabbed into the wall with shocking speed, but the wall was too thick for them to punch through.

I looked over my shoulder at Rime, who was now approaching me with his hands held up, probably because he was maintaining the ice wall.

“Thanks,” I said. “I would have been Swiss chess if you hadn’t saved me.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Rime.

But then, without warning, the ice wall shot toward us like someone had pushed it. Rime and I jumped to either side, just narrowly avoiding the wall, which flew into the living room behind us, tripped over the lip of the living room entrance and slammed into the floor, where it shattered into a million pieces.

I looked back over at Enoch and Move, but Move was already aiming her gun at me. She fired several shots, forcing me to duck and dodge, but one of the bullets grazed my side. My suit protected my skin, but the impact of the bullet still made me stagger, causing me to lower my defenses long enough for Enoch to soar toward me.

Enoch grabbed me by the shoulders and threw me over his shoulders. I went spiraling through the air uncontrollably for a second before I smashed through what remained of the windows and slammed into the ground outside, rolling across the paved path to the garden until I came to a halt.

Shaking my head, I looked up in time to see Enoch soar through the shattered window. He landed on the ground and immediately began firing more metal darts at me.

Without thinking about it, I jumped up and ran away, barely outpacing the darts that were just an inch or two behind me. I dove behind a tree and heard the metal darts embed themselves in the tree’s surface, but thankfully the tree was thick enough to catch the darts.

Panting, I stood up and peered around the side of the tree to see where Enoch was, but to my surprise, Enoch was nowhere to be seen. It was like he’d vanished into thin air, but then I heard a flap of metal wings above, followed by a large shadow, and looked up just in time to see Enoch soaring toward me.

Metal darts shot out of Enoch’s wings, but I shot into the air to avoid them. I flew high above the trees, while Enoch followed, flapping his wings that somehow allowed him to fly. He was actually gaining on me, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to lose him.

I turned around in midair and flew straight toward him, but Enoch just rolled out of the way at the last moment, causing me to go straight past him. And before I could correct my course, Enoch landed on my back, his sudden and unexpected weight causing me to fall straight down to the mansion below.

We crashed into and through the roof of the mansion and ended up inside what appeared to be the mansion’s attic. But I didn’t spend any time looking around; instead, I threw Enoch off me and stood up while Enoch also stood up.

“You’re good,” I said, panting hard. “Few people have been able to trick me into falling out of the sky like that.”

Enoch shrugged. “Comes from all my years in the Air Force. I learned how to do many things there, including how to kill an airborne enemy.”

“Well, this isn’t the Air Force,” I said. I slammed my fist into my other hand. “And you’ve never fought an airborne enemy like me before.”

With that, I tried to run toward him, but Enoch started firing more metal darts at me. As a result, I ducked and jumped to avoid the attacks, but they were just a distraction, because Enoch flew toward me and slapped me in the face with his wings.

The wings hit me harder than I expected. I was knocked off my feet, but rolled away just as his foot came smashing down on the spot where my head had been moments before. Rolling back to my feet, I grabbed Enoch’s large wings and tried to yank them off.

But instead, something slid off their quills, causing me to look down to see that I had instead removed what looked like the metallic ‘skin’ of the wings. Despite being metal, it was kind of gross, but I didn’t have time to think about that because Enoch slammed me with his wings, which sent me flying again.

I crashed into a covered sofa, knocking it over, but I rolled with the sofa and got back onto my feet just as Enoch soared toward me with his wings. But I ducked, allowing Enoch to fly over me, and then grabbed his ankles and hurled him to the other side of the attic.

Enoch spun crazily through the air until he crashed into the floor, bounced once, and then slammed into a chest of drawers. He fell off the chest, but it teetered and tottered from his impact before pitching forward onto him with a loud crash that made me jump.

I expected Enoch to throw the chest off himself and resume fighting, but the longer I stood there waiting, the quieter things seemed to get. That meant that Enoch was either dead or unconscious; either way, he was out for the count.

But the fight wasn’t over yet. Move, as far as I knew, was still around and still fighting Rime below. I couldn’t hear anything from below me, but the mansion was pretty huge, so the sounds of fighting below were probably obscured by the wood and rooms between me and the entrance.

So I flew out of the hole in the ceiling and toward the front door of the mansion below. Landing on the front steps, I noticed that the door was coated in ice and snow; no doubt from Rime’s ice powers, but I didn’t hear the sounds of fighting within. Hoping that meant that Rime had won, I dashed inside and shouted, “Rime! What’s going on? Did you—”

I stopped speaking as soon as I saw Rime lying on the floor, his body as still as a rock. He was still breathing, thankfully, but his legs appeared broken and he himself appeared unconscious.

Then I heard movement to the side and looked over to my left just in time to see Move jerk her hands toward me. Immediately, I was sent flying by a force that I could not see and landed with a thunk on the floor, where I was briefly dazed before recovering and scrambling back to my feet, while Move stepped toward me, a smirk on her face.

“I knew either you would come back eventually or Enoch would come back dragging you behind him like a corpse,” said Move. “So, after beating this prisoner, all I did was wait for you to show up, which you did.”

“How impressive,” I said, raising my fists. “You do realize that I’m stronger than you, right? If you want to be able to keep walking, I think you should just leave me alone.”

“And get the Director angry at me?” said Move with a snort. “No way. The Director gave us orders to capture Triplet, though I’m sure he won’t be angry if we catch you and Rime instead.”

“Then you’re an i***t,” I said. “Cadmus isn’t a good guy. He’s the real villain behind all of this.”

“I know he isn’t a saint,” said Move, “but he is my leader, so what does it matter? I desire to only follow my orders, regardless of who is giving them.”

I could see that Move was clearly not going to listen to reason, so I shot a red lightning bolt at her.

But Move jumped to the side, allowing the lightning bolt to fly past her. She shoved her hands forward again and, once more, I was hit with a force I couldn’t see.

This time, it shoved me back against the wall so hard that I actually smashed through it, sending chunks of wood and bits of wiring everywhere. I slammed into the hard wood floor of the next room, stumbling head over heels until I came to a stop at the foot of a coffee table. Shaking my head, I looked up and realized that I was in the living room.

But then Move jumped through the hole in the wall that I’d created, but I didn’t give her a chance to use her powers. I grabbed the leg of the coffee table next to me and threw the entire thing at her, but Move just shoved her hands toward it and the coffee table flew past me and smashed into the back wall, where it exploded into pieces.

That, however, was just a distraction. I fired another red lightning bolt at her, but my aim was off and I hit the floor at her feet instead. The lightning bolt exploded against the floor, sending Move flying through the air. She let out a scream of surprise, but I flew toward her and, catching her in midair, threw her down onto the floor below me.

Move crashed against the floor so hard that she actually created a small crater where she’d fallen. A loud crack followed, which sounded like her back or skull breaking, but in any case, when I looked down at her, she looked pretty much beaten. Her eyes were closed and she was very still, the only movement being a slight trickle of blood leaking from her crown.

Sighing in relief that the battle was finally over, I lowered toward the floor. I left the living room and walked over to Rime, who still hadn’t moved from where Move had left him, and bent over him.

“Rime?” I said. “Rime, can you hear me? Rime?”

Rime’s eyes flickered open. He looked up at me with dull eyes. “Bolt? What happened? Is Move—”

“Defeated,” I confirmed. “Both Enoch and Move are down. I don’t think they’re dead, but they probably won’t be coming after us again anytime soon.”

Rime sighed in relief. “Good.”

But then he suddenly groaned in pain and clutched his legs, prompting me to say, “What’s wrong with your legs?”

“They’re … not broken, but close,” said Rime, his voice tight with pain. “I don’t think I will be able to walk by myself.”

“Then I will carry you,” I said. “And we can follow Ivan and Blizzard out of here before more G-Men show up.”

“You aren’t going to abandon me?” said Rime. “Even though I killed your friend’s father?”

I hesitated for only a split second. “That’s in the past. What matters is that we keep going. I’m going to need all the help I can get if I’m going to figure out what is going on here and stop Cadmus. And that includes help from you.”

“Fine,” said Rime. “Lead the—”

A small beep interrupted Rime, causing us both to look around until I spotted a small phone on the ground a few feet away from us. It looked like it belonged to one of the G-Men agents who had attacked us; likely one of them had dropped it during our fight. Its screen was glowing, showing a notification that said that Cadmus Smith was calling.

“What is that?” said Rime. “Something one of the G-Men dropped?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Let me check it out.”

I walked over to the phone and picked it off the floor. It was indeed Cadmus Smith calling; I could tell, because it had his name on it, though I didn’t recognize the number. For a moment, I considered just smashing the phone and leaving it here, but my desire to confront Cadmus made me tap the screen.

“Agent Enoch,” came Cadmus’s voice, a voice that made my blood boil. “I am glad you finally answered. I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for the last five—”

“This isn’t Enoch,” I said, interrupting Cadmus. “It’s Bolt. You know, the guy you put in jail for no reason?”

Cadmus went silent on the other end. I couldn’t tell if he was surprised or simply thinking of a good response; in any case, I didn’t care. All I wanted to do was get some answers and Cadmus was going to give them to me whether he wanted to or not.

“So,” said Cadmus, “you defeated Enoch and Move.”

“Yeah,” I said. “And pretty easily, too. Perhaps you should have sent Shade. She would have been a tougher challenge.”

“Shade is …” Cadmus’s voice trailed off. “It doesn’t matter. I know about the breakout and Glass’s death. Are you still with the other escapees and Triplet?”

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not,” I said. “That’s irrelevant either way. What matters is you telling me why you betrayed me at the last minute and put me in prison.”

“That’s classified information,” said Cadmus. “You are not authorized to know it.”

“Yeah, right,” I said. “Listen, Cadmus, I don’t know what game you think you’re playing or what your ultimate goal is, but I’m going to uncover it, and when I do, the whole world will know what you really are.”

“What are you talking about?” said Cadmus. “I’m playing no game. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, I do, actually, even though I don’t know all the facts yet,” I said. “But I don’t have time to waste on idiots like you. Once we meet face-to-face, I’m going to punch yours in.”

With that, I crushed the phone in my hands before Cadmus could respond and tossed it aside. The crushed phone clunked against the floor and rolled for a bit before stopping, but I already forgot about it as I turned and walked back over to Rime to carry him.

I suppose I should have talked with Cadmus a bit more, but if he was going to give me the whole ‘classified’ bull or play dumb, then I didn’t need it. I would get to the bottom of this one way or another, whether Cadmus wanted me to or not.