The Undoing Of Villains | ✓

twenty three

(a/n: thank you so much for waiting for this one guys! dedicated to sushipro for being the first vote on the last chapter <3 much love! xo, cleo)

twenty three

WE SHOT ACROSS the dark night sky of Dynamo, much like two falling stars speeding across the vast expanse of thin air atop the skyscrapers. It was by pure coincidence we'd witnessed the explosion, and perhaps it was a divine intervention - a helpful nudge to stopping Tetra. I glanced to my right, at the confident super speeding beside me. His eyes were slightly narrowed, fists clenched, and I could see his thoughts were whirling just as intensely as mine. 

I had no idea where we were heading, as we steadily moved away from the centre of Dynamo and toward the outskirts of town. It was obvious the area was more industrial, however most of the view was blocked from the plume of smoke rising from the facility which had been bombed. 

The large flat expanse of land around the building told me it had to be a factory or service-providing building of some kind, and I got my answer when we touched down right outside the building. Descending in a blur, my knees buckled and I staggered a few steps when we at last landed on the concrete. 

"Dynamo Water Purification Plant?" I read the sign out loud, confusion tinging my voice. I turned to Vector, finding him looking as troubled as I felt. Then he shook his head, as if falling out of some train of thought.

"Let's put out this fire."

Even if it was summer, the nights usually carried a chill, but the chill had been replaced by a pulsing heat, choking the air around us and turning it brittle and dry. I coughed, smoke spilling out of the building like a waterfall, particles catching in my throat. The fire was high - somewhere on the upper floors, but I started suspecting there was something burning below-ground as well. 

Smoke rises, I thought to myself, watching the growing cloud of dark grey rising toward the moon, but somehow there's more smoke close to us. To the ground. A basement? 

Vector shot off of the ground, heading upwards, towards the burning upper floors. I didn't know if there were people in there - as it was late at night, I hoped most of them had gone home (otherwise they were operating under some seriously inhuman conditions.) as the fire looked nasty. 

The good thing about Vector's powers was the fact that he could pressurize the air, effectively choking the fire in portions, successively working on dousing the whole thing. I should've helped ,really, however ... my conscience was tugged in other directions. 

There had to be a basement. Something was telling me to check it out, that Vector would be able to handle the upper floors on his own, unless Tetra was here, which I highly doubted she was. As far as I could see, there were no lakes or swimming pools nearby either, so hopefully her extraordinarily ugly fish-humanoid friend could keep its ugly scaled hands off of me. 

Our next meeting certainly won't be play out like some prize-winning film, I mused, heading closer to the entrance of the building. The entryway was eerily quiet despite the roar of the fire, the spaces for security emptied out. The emergency lights inside of the building had turned on, casting a ghoulish blue glow across the halls. 

I stepped toward the entrance, reaching out with my palm to fire a blast of energy towards the main doors. They flew off the hinges, skittering across the linoleum floors until they embedded themselves into the back wall with a loud crash.