The Superhero's Son Omnibus Volume 3

Chapter Nine-2

I pulled back behind the rock and looked up at the top of the pass. Incantation peeked her head out and gave me the thumbs up, indicating that she and Hopper were ready to begin the ambush.

I returned the thumbs up, but didn’t leave my hiding place behind the rock until the vehicle was practically upon me. Then I ran out from behind the boulder and stopped in the middle of the road just as the vehicle was about to leave the pass.

The vehicle crashed into me, which would have flattened me if I hadn’t used my super strength to catch it. Its grill crumpled underneath my strength immediately, but the vehicle itself kept pushing against me, its tires screeching against the pavement as its drivers, whoever it was, tried to run me over.

But I didn’t hesitate to immediately smash in the vehicle’s engine with a single strike of my fist, causing its tires to stop screeching and the vehicle itself to go completely silent.

As soon as the engine died, the door to the driver’s side of the van burst open and an absurdly large and muscular man jumped out of it. He towered above me, probably at around seven and a half feet tall, and the G-Men patch on his right shoulder and the massive metal horn sticking out of his head told me that this was the Iron Horn guy that Thaumaturge had debriefed us on earlier. He looked extremely familiar, but I didn’t let myself get distracted by my feelings of déjà vu, because Iron Horn looked big enough to pick me up and snap me in two with one hand if I wasn’t careful. I did, however, wonder how the heck he’d fit that huge horn in the driver’s cab, but decided that that was a mystery I would figure out later.

Iron Horn had been scowling when he jumped out, but when he saw me, his scowl was replaced by a look of surprise. “Bolt? Is that you?”

“How do you know my name?” I said. “We’ve never met before.”

“Yes, we have,” said Iron Horn. “You don’t remember?”

The back of my head ached and I suddenly saw an image of myself talking to a guy who looked an awful lot like Iron Horn outside of what looked like a warehouse, but I shook my head and said, “Stop lying. You’re just like Shade, trying to make me doubt myself. I’m here to save our leader and save the world from the falsehoods that you and your kind spread.”

Iron Horn shook his head. “Shade told me that you had been brainwashed, but I hadn’t realized just how thorough it was. Oh, well. I suppose I’ll just have to beat the brainwashing out of you with my bare hands, then.”

Iron Horn smashed his fist into his other hand, but I wasn’t going to let him get the first hit. I ran at him, but before I took more than a few steps toward him, my body froze.

My mind hadn’t; I still intended to punch Iron Horn in the face. But my body had frozen; I couldn’t even move my pinkie toe. No matter how much my mind told my body to move, it just stayed still.

“What?” I said, looking down at my body. “What’s going on? Why can’t I move?”

“Because I wanted you to stop,” said a voice from inside the vehicle’s cockpit.

I looked over at the open door to the vehicle just in time to see another man step out of the driver’s side. He was another G-Man, based on the patch on his shoulder, but he was much shorter and thinner than Iron Horn, although I supposed that everyone was shorter and thinner than Iron Horn.

Unlike Iron Horn, this guy had long red hair. His skin was tanned, while a pair of sunglasses blocked his eyes from my view. He had a gun holstered at his side, while one of his hands was held out toward me like a king beckoning his subjects to bow before him. He grinned when he saw the shocked look on my face, the kind of grin that makes you want to punch it off his face.

“Who are you?” I said.

“Call me Blood Boil,” said the man. His voice was smug and mocking, which fit with his face very well. “And I just succeeded where Shade failed, by catching you.”

I remembered Thaumaturge informing us of someone named Blood Boil being one of the G-Men agents protecting the van, but unlike Iron Horn, Blood Boil’s appearance wasn’t familiar. “You caught me? Are you behind this?”

“Indeed,” said Blood Boil with a creepy chuckle. “It’s my special power. I can control the flow of blood in other people, turning them into puppets and controlling their every movement. Or just stopping them outright, like I did with you now.”

“Good job, Blood,” said Iron Horn, though I noticed he looked distinctly uncomfortable around his fellow agent, avoiding his gaze. “The Director will be happy to hear that we caught Bolt. I should call Washington and let him know so he can send help to apprehend Bolt right away.”

Iron Horn pulled an oversized smartphone out of his pocket, but before he could call up his leader, I heard something that sounded like a waterfall. Looking up, I saw a huge water ball falling directly toward us.

Iron Horn and Blood Boil also looked up at the water ball in surprise. But it was too late to dodge it; the water ball crashed onto them both with a loud splash, sending water flying everywhere. The water hit me and I was knocked over, which left me briefly dazed before I shook my head and sat up and looked at Iron Horn and Blood Boil.

The two G-Men were lying on the ground, both soaking wet. Iron Horn’s clothes clung to his ripped chest and limbs, while Blood Boil’s red hair splayed out around his head, looking way too much like a pool of blood than hair. Both appeared to have been knocked silly from the impact of the waterfall, although they were both obviously still alive, though probably wouldn’t recover anytime soon.

That was when I realized that I was back in control of my body. I jumped to my feet, dusting off some of the mud that had gotten on my backside, just as a portal exploded open next to me and Incantation and Hopper ran out of it.

As the portal closed behind them, Incantation said, “Bolt, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, rolling my shoulders and rubbing my neck. “Did you drop that water ball on them?”

“Yes,” said Incantation. She swished her wand. “I can conjure water from nowhere. One of the many spells of the Old Way that is at my disposal.”

“Thanks,” I said. “We need to take advantage of this moment to—”

A couple of loud groans caused us to look over at Iron Horn and Blood Boil. They were both rising back to their feet, shaking their heads, their clothes dripping wet and also covered in mud. Blood Boil’s hair, in particular, had some large splotches of mud on it, but Blood Boil hardly seemed to notice it. He just glared at us, brushing back his wet hair, while Iron Horn looked down at his completely soaked smartphone in disappointment.

“Nice trick, kids,” said Blood Boil, “but it will take more than that to defeat the elite agents of the G-Men. Right, Iron Horn?”

“Yeah,” said Iron Horn. He tossed away his phone and raised his fists. “I hate to have to do this, kid, but the Director gave us orders to use whatever means necessary to take you down if we ran into you. And we can’t let you rescue Sagan, either.”

“But there’s no need to fight them,” said Blood Boil. He raised his hands. “I’ll just—”

He was interrupted when Incantation thrust out her wand toward him. Blue ribbons shot out of the wand’s tip and wrapped around Blood Boil’s hands, tying them together so tightly that he actually cried out in pain.

“Oh, no you don’t,” said Incantation. “I saw what you did to Bolt. I’m not going to let you do that to us.” She looked at Hopper and me. “I’ll take on that guy, while you two keep Iron Horn busy. Hopper, use Battle Tactic Alpha.”

“Roger that,” said Hopper.

I raised an idea. “Battle Tactic Alpha? What the heck is that?”

“Oh, right, you don’t remember,” said Hopper. “Well, you see—”

Iron Horn suddenly charged at us, his horn aimed down. Despite his size, he moved as fast as a rampaging rhino, forcing Hopper to grab my arm and yank me through a portal he suddenly opened to avoid Iron Horn’s attack.

In the next instant, we emerged onto a different part of the pass, about a hundred feet away from Iron Horn, who skid to a stop on the asphalt road and turned to face us. A quick glance in the direction of the vehicle showed me that Incantation was fighting Blood Boil, who, despite having his hands tied up, was able to dodge her attacks and respond with kicks that looked like the kind that professional martial artists used.

But I didn’t have time to focus on Incantation’s fight with Blood Boil, not when I had my own opponent to deal with.

I looked at Hopper. “What’s Battle Tactic Alpha?”

“A team tactic,” said Hopper. “You and I work together to beat our enemy. I open portals that you use to jump around the battlefield to attack our enemy, making it difficult for him to figure out where you are and attack you.”

“Ah,” I said. I frowned. “Do we do that often?”

“Oh, sure,” said Hopper. “We did it all the time before your accident. It comes as naturally as breathing, we’ve practiced it so much.”

“Right,” I said, though the tactic didn’t even seem familiar to me.

“Are you two just going to stand around and talk?” said Iron Horn. “Big mistake.”

Iron Horn lowered his head to charge at us again, but then Hopper opened a portal and shouted at me, “Go!”

Trusting that Hopper’s plan would work, I ran through the portal. In the next moment, I appeared behind Iron Horn, who apparently did not notice me. I immediately grabbed him from behind and, with some effort, lifted him above my head. Even with my super strength, Iron Horn was heavy as a boulder, and it didn’t help that his limbs were flailing around as he attempted to make me put him down.

So I decided to put him down, and by ‘put him down,’ I mean throw him. I hurled Iron Horn away, sending him flying into a boulder, which he crashed into so hard that the boulder actually split in half. Iron Horn fell to the ground, but recovered quickly, getting back to his feet like he had just slipped and fallen on a banana peel. He wiped away a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, an angry scowl on his face.

“You throw hard, kid,” said Iron Horn. “But not hard enough.”

He grabbed the two boulder halves and hurled them at me. A portal suddenly appeared in front of me, which I ran into. A split second later, I appeared behind Iron Horn as the boulder halves slammed into the spot where I had been standing a moment before.

But Iron Horn whirled around and slammed his boot into my face. It was like getting kicked in the head by a rhino wearing a steel block. The blow knocked me flat off my feet, and before I could get back up, Iron Horn wrapped his hand around my neck and raised me off the ground, squeezing hard enough to make it almost impossible to breathe.

“I’m not as stupid as I look,” said Iron Horn. “Your ‘Battle Tactic Alpha’ was incredibly predictable. Now give up peacefully or I’ll have to beat you some more.”

“N-Never,” I managed to choke out, even though I was in no position to free myself. “I f-fight for V-Vision …”

Iron Horn shook his head and pulled back his other fist. “Then I’ll just have to knock you out for a little while and then go and deal with your teammates.”

There was no way I could dodge Iron Horn’s fist, at least not as long as he choked the air out of me like this. And I knew that without me, the mission would fail.

All of a sudden, a portal exploded into existence behind Iron Horn. But it wasn’t just a normal portal; it had a powerful sucking force, pulling Iron Horn and me toward it like a vacuum cleaner along the floor.

Iron Horn glanced over his shoulder at the portal in shock, his grip on my neck also loosening. I kicked his arm hard enough to make him drop me, but Iron Horn didn’t fall into the portal. He stamped his feet into the ground, cracking the road’s pavement and planting his feet into it, keeping the portal from sucking him inside.

But I rose to my feet and punched him in the stomach as hard as I could. I hit him hard enough to break his feet out of the asphalt, sending him flying into the portal, which he disappeared into instantly, the portal closing as soon as his massive form vanished inside.

Then I heard a scream above and looked up at the top of the pass to see a portal had opened up there. Iron Horn fell out of the portal and down the pass, falling like a rock until he crashed into the ground hard enough to create a deep crater in the earth, sending up dust and dirt everywhere. I raised my arms to defend myself, but after a few seconds of waiting, Iron Horn did not rise again, which meant that he was either dead or so badly injured by his fall that he wouldn’t be getting up again anytime soon. Either way, that meant he was out of this fight for now.

Then a portal opened next to me and Hopper stepped out of it. The portal closed behind him as he said, “You okay, Bolt?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, rubbing the spot on my face where Iron Horn had kicked me. “Nice move.”

“Thanks,” said Hopper, nodding. He looked at the crater that Iron Horn had made and smirked. “Big dumb oaf didn’t see that coming, now did he?”

I nodded, but then started and said, “Incantation! We need to—”

“Help me?” came Incantation’s voice. “That’s a chivalrous thought, but I’m just fine on my own.”

Hopper and I looked over toward the vehicle. Incantation stood on top of Blood Boil, who was now wrapped from head to toe in ribbons. He was also clearly unconscious, a big bump on his head, which made me relax, because I wasn’t sure if he could use his blood controlling powers while he was tied up or not.

“You beat him by yourself?” said Hopper in surprise as Incantation jumped off of Blood Boil and dusted off her robes.

“Of course,” said Incantation with a snort. “He wasn’t that hard.”

“Well, in any case, with both Iron Horn and Blood Boil down, that means that the vehicle is unprotected,” I said, “which means that there’s nothing to stop us from rescuing our leaders.”

“What if there are guards in the vehicle, though?” said Hopper doubtfully. “Do you really think that they’d just have these two defending it?”

“Sure looks like it, doesn’t it?” I said. “If there were any more guards, they would have come out to join these two and help them beat us. But since they didn’t, that clearly means that only Blood Boil and Iron Horn were protecting the vehicle.”

“If you say so,” said Hopper.

“But just to be safe, you two should stand back when I open the back of the vehicle, where our leader is,” I said. “Just in case the G-Men have another trick up their sleeves.”

Incantation and Hopper nodded and the three of us ran over to the vehicle, its engine still smoking from where I’d smashed it. Reaching the back of the vehicle, I saw that it was only locked by a simple deadlock, which I snapped with a single swipe of my fist. After looking over my shoulder to make sure that Incantation and Hopper stood an appropriate distance away from the back doors of the vehicle, I ripped open the doors, saying, “Leader! We have come to rescue—”

I paused. With the sun’s light shining into the back of the vehicle, I saw that it was completely empty. There was no Visionary, no guards or anyone else. The only thing in the back of the vehicle was a small, beeping steel box, which I noticed too late was wired to the doors.

The steel box instantly opened, unleashing a burst of yellow, foul-smelling gas directly at my face. Incantation and Hopper yelled behind me to warn me, but I yelled at them to stay back and not approach the gas, which was rapidly spreading out all around me.

The gas made me feel incredibly weak, causing me to stumble backwards. I tried to keep my mouth shut and not inhale it, but the gas was everywhere and I had already inhaled a good portion of it before I realized that it was hurting me. This feeling of weakness felt disturbingly familiar, but I couldn’t place it, again due to my amnesia.

Then I heard something shoot from the back of the vehicle and strike my neck, piercing my costume’s surface. I grabbed at my neck, feeling a feathery dart, which made me realize that I had been hit with a tranquilizer.

But that was the last thought I had before I lost consciousness and collapsed onto the road.