dedicated to unflowerings for all the luv & support :)
• not edited - let's just assume that none of these chapters are edited until i'm done w everything •
Okay, so maybe the game plan does include enjoying shrimp cocktails and flirting with hot girls, except the girl I'm charming right now is a brunette, not a blonde, so there is that.
"You're a great guy, Cash," the girl is saying between giggles and sips of champagne. We may not be legal to drink yet, but hey, we're rich and powerful. What can the authorities do? Even if they did have any kind of power in this city? "How come you've never had a girlfriend?"
I lean into her and cock my head to the side in a way that I'm told is endearing, and I grin when I see her lean closer to me and tilt her head up wistfully. "I'm not big on commitment."
Somehow, that makes the girl melt. You'd think I had said "I love you" instead of basically saying I have commitment issues. Girls are weird. It's a good thing I don't have enough time for them.
The girl opens her mouth to say something, probably something cute and sweet in hopes of "taming the bad boy with the trust issues", but I'll never know because the ear nub crackles to life in my right ear and I hear Frank's beautiful voice instead of the girl's.
"Subject has just entered the ballroom, Cash," Frank notifies me from all the way back in the BatCave. "Your two-o'-clock."
I flash the girl my usual crooked smile, hoping whatever she said was not a question, and subtly crack my neck, letting my eyes sweep over the parameters as I do so. I easily locate the group of black-clad bodyguards surrounding the small lady dressed in a navy pantsuit. Even when she's more or less kidnapped and held hostage by strange Men In Black, Elena Kingsley still somehow manages to get her hands on one of her ugly trademark pantsuits. All self-proclaimed workaholics really need to up their game.
These men are dressed like her usual bodyguards, and I hope they really are, and not actually people I have to take down, because they look like they've come straight out of the Expendables movie. And although I have a body that's fit enough for me to take pride in, and superpowers to match, I'm not quite sure I can take Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in a fight.
"I've got eyes." I murmur, mostly for the Gladiator and not Frank, because he can see through my contact lenses, which act as a videocamera that projects the feed back to the monitors in HQ.
I look back at the girl in front of me but follow the senator with my peripheral vision.
"And I hope I'm not being too forward but-" the girl is saying, but I interrupt her with a hand on her arm when I catch sight of the senator and her entourage moving a little too quickly towards the stage. That's not part of the game plan.
"I'm sorry, love," I say distractedly, already moving towards the exit beside the main stage, where the emergency stairwell is. "I have to do something really quick. Be right back." I throw over my shoulder, making sure I'm going fast enough to get into position, but not fast enough to arouse suspicion from any peering eyes.
I deftly weave in between the crowd of graduates, evading greetings and attempts by people to pull me into their conversations or embraces. My real job has officially begun, and the familiar sensation of adrenaline buzzing all over my body welcomes me.
"Do you see this?" I mutter, directing my question at both Frank and the Gladiator.
Frank affirms that he's seeing the senator make her way up to the stage, as confused as I am, and the Gladiator merely grunts, "Stay in control. Just get to your position, Cassius."
What the hell is Senator Kingsley going to do? If she's in danger - enough to be going into hiding - she definitely should not be giving any public speeches on a big stage. I look at the guards suspiciously and see them talking into their suit-lapels, where their mics are most likely attached to. Okay, looks like I do have to fight the Terminator himself. Great.
I push through the exit doors and as soon as the door closes behind me, I bound up the steps until I find the trashcan that I hid my Super-suit in earlier tonight.
"I'm picking up radioactivity in the area." Frank says, the beginnings of what seems like concern trickling into his voice.
I quickly finish suiting up and pull my mask on my face, making sure everything is sealed and attached, and that my gadgets are clipped on and ready. Wasting no time, I sprint up two flights of stairs and reach the top floor. The exit stairs are directly connected to the door of the roof, and I lean against the doorway and whisper, "I'm in position."
Almost immediately, several grunts on the other side of the door tells me that the Gladiator is at work. A short moment later, he confirms through the comms, "All clear."
I open the door and slide through it just as the Gladiator brushes past me and down the stairs, but it's enough time for me to see the ridiculously bright red and golden Super-suit he's sporting. I roll my eyes as I slink towards the electricity box in the middle of the large roof, on the edge of the huge dome glass window that spilled light from the party below. "You had to choose the gold suit, huh? Very inconspicuous." I mutter sarcastically.
"Another snarky comment and you'll be sitting this one out." the Gladiator shoots back as he thunders ungracefully down the stairs. My father, mask or not, is not the stealthiest man. Even my strung-out-on-drugs-and-alcohol mother could always tell when he was... entertaining some guests.
I refrain from snapping back immaturely and instead focus on my task. I place my gloved hands on the door of the metal box and glance at the Gladiator's glittering form, sneaking out from behind the door of the stairwell that I'd escaped to earlier.
"Alarms are down. Whenever you're ready." Frank informs us through the comms.
I inhale slowly and look back at my hands on the box. "Ready?"
"Let's go." the Gladiator replies.
In my mind, I see the picture of the insides of the metal box - or what it should look like if the hotel's engineers didn't try to change the model's design. When the picture is clear enough in my head, I let a little power seep through my finger tips and into the box.
"Remember," Frank murmurs in my ear, "it's the big red one."
Pretty obvious, but I don't sass him. I focus on the lever in the middle, the conspicuously big red one, and imagine that it's being pulled downwards. My power works with my imagination and I feel the tug of the lever following in my command. The lever pushes through the heaviness, and slams down, and suddenly the weight on my power is lifted and the glowing dome is dark.
I can hear the buzz of confusion through my ear nub as the Gladiator takes a running leap into the air and flies towards the stage. He looks like a giant, moving disco ball, and I can tell that people are starting to recognize the man in the red and gold suit because the crowd is suddenly surging forward. I can even hear some indecipherable sentences, but it sounds like many of them are asking for autographs from the Gladiator himself. Argent City's saving grace.
Crawling back to the edge of the glass dome, which now has a hole in the middle the size of the Gladiator, I hover my hands over the glass while keeping my eyes glued on the Gladiator's imposing figure on the stage.
Elena Kingsley is gaping at the Gladiator in shock, and her mouth is moving but I can't hear what she's saying. Probably something along the lines of, "Get the hell out of here before the Expendables kill us both!"
Said Expendables are reforming their tight circle around the senator, who they let be seen by the public earlier when she stepped on stage, ready to give whatever speech she's probably being forced to give. The men whip out their guns, training them on the Gladiator's expansive red and gold chest, and that's when the crowd realizes that real shit's about to go down, and start freaking out. As the guests all charge towards the exits like swarms of screaming ants, the Gladiator remains calm as he walks forward until one of the men's guns is pressed up against his chest.
In the crowd of frenzied graduates, I spot Myra and Austin grabbing hold of each other's hand just as they're swept towards the main entrance of the ballroom with the ocean of people. I tear my eyes away but crack my suddenly tense neck. Hopefully the Men In Black don't shoot at the crowd.
"What in the name of hell is he doing?" Frank says incredulously, watching through my eyes and the security cameras.
I let out an annoyed but shaky sigh, "Testing me."
Just as the words leave my mouth, the Gladiator shoots out a hand and grabs the gun on his chest, and I just about have a stroke by concentrating so hard. Gunshots go off, but none of them find their mark as I all but burst an artery focusing on maintaining the force-shield I've quickly thrown in front of the Gladiator to keep my father from bleeding to death on the nice redwood stage.
The bullets bounce off the shield, but just like last night, the shield weakens quickly with each emptied mag. "I can't... hold it... any longer!" I grit out, feeling beads of sweat tricking down my neck.
"Just a sec," the Gladiator breathes out, absorbing a blow to the stomach and rebounding with a swift roundhouse kick to the head. The last guy drops to the floor, but not before firing a round into the air.
I spot the issue too late, and realizing too late that the gun is aimed not at the shielded Gladiator, but at the completely vulnerable senator Kingsley. My stomach knots as the red blooms in her arm, and the old woman howl in pain.
The Gladiator kicks the gun out of the way and whirls around to find the senator clutching her left shoulder while stumbling back towards the wall. Seeing the bloody wound, the Gladiator whips his head up to meet my eyes and glares at me. I suck in a sharp breath. I'm getting my ass beat tonight.
"Grab her now." the Gladiator says, sticking to the plan. He then runs to the senator and smoothly stick a concealed needle into her neck. I wait until the senator's shrieks have been cut off and her eyes have drifted shut before thrusting my hands out in her direction and start willing her to float up towards me.
The Gladiator guards her limp and unconscious body until she's twenty feet away from the hole in the glass dome. I vaguely hear him communicating with Frank, talking about the extraction point and see him throwing an unconscious and smaller bodyguard over his shoulder, but I focus my attentions on the senator, who's floating out the hole and over the dome towards me. As she settles gently into my waiting arms, I'm relieved to see that the jagged glass didn't scratch her, but her shot shoulder is another story.
It's oozing blood but I haven't learned how to re-attach broken veins and skin with my telekinesis yet so I resort to ripping off the bottom half of the senator's blue dress shirt and wrapping the cloth around her wound to try to stop the bleeding. I spare a quick glance back down at the carnage in the ballroom to see that the Gladiator has disappeared with one of the bodyguards, but the others are getting up and regrouping. Not good.
The sound of whirring turbines makes me look up and see an invisible hovercraft - basically flatter, prettier, helicopter with built-in turbines - flickering until it's fully visible in its ugly gold-colored glory. Frank's head pokes out from the open window, and he beckons me over.
"Hurry! The men who took the senator are entering the building, and the cops are being gunned down." Frank calls, not bothering to land the jet but staying hovering right next to the edge of the roof.
I pick the still-unconscious senator up and run to the slide-open door. After buckling in, we sit and wait for a minute, and then a minute longer than we're supposed to, but I can already sense that something's off even before the comms crackle to life.
"Hello, superheroes," an unfamiliar male voice sneers through the comms, his voice grating against my ear. My eyes widen and my heart races. How?
Frank voices my shock by spluttering, "How- what? Who-"
The voice chuckles, sounding both smooth and cracked at the same time. "Your technology is nothing compared to mine, Franklin Carmichael. I will-"
The line goes dead and my eyes dart to meet Frank's in the reflection of the windshield and I see his right hand clutching onto his ever-present tablet in his lap.
My face is probably as pale as his, despite my golden tan from many days out in the sun doing football training and superhero training. "What was that." I ask quietly.
Frank lets out a shaky breath, but says firmly, "We've been hacked, but it's okay because I've just shut down the whole comms system. Now whoever that was won't be able to track us, but that also means we won't be able to communicate with your father."
Despite his level voice, I can tell he's spooked. More so than I've ever seen before, probably because Frank is a genius and no one should have been able to hack into our communication system, unless they're not short of genius, either. And the guy also knew Frank's name, which means he definitely knows the Gladiator's and mine.
Yeah, this graduation is not going as well as I'd planned.
Frank turns back to the controls in front of him and after a few systematic button-pushing and lever-pulling, the hovercraft is lifted off and flying away. From the window, I see the small, wing-shaped extensions where the turbines are housed on each side of the body flicker until I can see nothing but the glass-domed building surrounded with cop cars and gunfights growing smaller as we speed away in the night sky.
Suddenly, I see the entire hotel collapse into the ground, as if it's sinking into an early grave. I hear the boom immediately after, and feel the aftershocks that are sending the hovercraft lurching to the side. Frank accelerates the hovercraft and we zoom away from the scene, but I yank my gaping stare away from the window and the destruction below to look at Frank in disbelief.
The cold dread has evaporated, replaced with panic, and I unbuckle my seatbelt to rush to the pilot's seat in two short strides. "What are you doing?" I demand, "The Gladiator's still there! We have to find him."
Frank doesn't look at me as he growls, "Sit down, you're going to hurt yourself. The Gladiator will have to follow the contingency plan and go to the safe house. Hopefully the hacker can't track him there with the system down." he mutters that last bit, but that doesn't slow my racing heart.
"We can't just leave him, how's he going to fly all the way downtown with the guy afterwards? And what if he didn't survive that explosion?" I argue, aware of how hysterical I was beginning to sound. I grip onto the leather upholstery as Frank narrowly misses a skyscraper. He can act calm but I know he's nervous. Anyone would be, with the horrible screams from below reaching even our heights.
"Cash, your father has super strength and he can fly. He can just about do anything, so stop worrying and focus on not letting the senator bleed out on my nice leather seats." Frank snaps. "You and I both know there's nothing we can do now. We have to wait until he reaches one of the safe houses before we can plan what we're going to do next." he emphasizes the word "plan" to ensure that I know he's not going to allow me to charge into battle as soon as I know the Gladiator's location. As if he can stop me.
"And of course he survived. He came out earlier than the other guests, and they're all alright."
I peer back out the window and clench my teeth when I see my graduates, huddling together in fear. Frank is right - the people outside are all unhurt. The bomb was probably planted in the basement, which is why the building sunk a few stories. But the people in those lower stories. They're definitely not alright.
I shudder in fear and anger. It's the voice. He made this happen. He killed all these people - and for what? Just for kicks? Just to mess with us? He's obviously targeting us - the Gladiator, Frank, and me. But why?
Frank looks over his shoulder and when he sees me still standing frozen behind his seat, he hisses, "Sit down, Cash."
Muttering a begrudging consent, I grab the first-aid kit and sink to the floor. Mechanically, I start treating the senator's wound as best as I can with only the help of my basic paramedical skills that my father had forced me to train throughout the past four years. The familiar procedure of fixing a bullet wound soothes me enough to not think about the hacker and what that means for us, and about my father, and about the chaos below us. But cleaning a simple bullet wound can only take so long.
After I've taken the bullet out, cleaned the wound, and stitched her up, the senator still hasn't woken up - thank God - due to the tranquilizing dart. I sit back and try not to feel frenetic, and instead force myself to rest for the rest of the ride back to HQ on the very northern edge of the island-city.
My stamina has increased since when I was fourteen, but they still drain me after I do anything with it. It's different from my father's powers, which are all actually a part of his physiology, and so doesn't drain or need to recharge like an unstable iPhone. Like me. I loll my head to the left and look out the window at the blinking lights of the Sin City of the East Coast below. I'm glad my father won't need to recharge. He needs all the help he can get, now that our super-villain has decided to make an introduction.
We return to HQ fairly quickly and after landing underground, I carry Senator Kingsley to one of the bedrooms to rest. We never really sleep down here, but my father thought it was better to be safe than sorry, which is why we also have an indoor jacuzzi by the bathroom in the living quarters. As if any of us will be thinking about lounging in the hot tub during a nuclear apocalypse or something.
I return to the "command center", as Frank likes to call it, where all the screens and the small couch and coffee table are, and sprawl out on the couch, ripping off my mask. I take out my phone from one of the utility sashes I have strapped on me, containing other important gadgets like grappling hooks, smoke bombs, and breath mints (the mask is completely sealed. I need to have fresh breath or I'll gas myself to death), and start checking my unread texts and missed calls.
"You better keep the mask on, in case the senator comes wandering out here." Frank warns me from his perch on his big office chair, sipping on a cup of coffee.
We're both trying a little too hard to pretend that my father's not in danger. We're in uncharted territory right now - none of our contingencies cover what to do if we're hacked and are forced to shut down communications. We've grown soft. Having a genius as our resident Alfred / Mr. Fox has made us careless.
But Frank's right. Again. There's nothing we can do until one of our safe houses are activated and we can go there for back up. In the mean time, we have to sit tight and try not to worry at the fact that its been half an hour and the nearest safe house to the Kingsley Hotel is only ten minutes away. Walking distance.
I glance at him and run my hand through my short, ruffled post-mask-hair and throw him a winning smile, hoping it doesn't look as tight as it feels. "That's what you're here for, Frankie." Even though the tranq dart should be strong enough to last half a day.
Frank flips me the bird, which is very mature for a thirty-six-year-old man, and turns back to the monitors, searching for any signs of the Gladiator on his many video cameras all over the city. I type back a quick reply to Myra and Austin's frantic texts, wondering where I am. I tell them that I caught a cab home as soon as the Gladiator entered the scene because I had a feeling something was going to happen.
I finish up texting people back and pretending that I'm just as confused and scared as all my fellow graduates are, like a normal teenager, which is admittedly not that hard to do because I am confused and scared, but for completely different reasons.
After a few painful seconds sitting around in complete silence save for the grating sound of my jaw cracking, I grab my discarded black mask and pull it back on. Even though its only been a few minutes since we've gotten back, I'm already tired of waiting. I want something to happen soon, and I want to be prepared.
Right on cue, a loud beep sounds from Frank's multiple computer screens, and I whirl my head in his direction just as he turns to look at me with a hopeful and determined expression.
"A safe-house at the northern docks by Staten Island was activated." Frank informs me. "It's the old UPS warehouse."
I sag in relief. He's safe.
"That's not far." I say, excitement laced with anger shooting through my veins. It's time for payback, mysterious-hacker-man. I jump up from the couch and start moving towards the opening of the underground cave, where the vehicles are parked.
"Alright, Frank, open up some sesame!" I call over my shoulder, not waiting for an argument about having to plan ahead.
"If you're going to use dumb idioms can you at least not screw it up so horrifically?" Frank yells back. "And wait for me! You can't pilot on your own."
I turn but continue running backwards towards the entrance. "I'm not piloting anything. I'm taking the bike."
Frank sputters at me to slow down and get back so we can draw out a safe and solid plan, but the adrenaline has already taken over my bloodstream, and I can feel my powers humming in my veins. I'm not about to sit around with my thumb up my ass when my father is clearly in trouble.
I run up the stairs and get to the mouth of the bunker, surprised and relieved to see that Frank has decided to listen to me for once and open up the gates. The sleek motorcycle parked in the corner by the hovercraft is black, instead of the gaudy golden my father has trademarked, indicating that the bike is mine and mine alone.
My mouth twists into a determined grin and I swing myself onto the bike. I lean forward until I'm practically lying face-flat on the seat and reach for the handles. The engines purr, sending more adrenaline sparking up and down my spine. Good. I need as much energy and adrenaline as I can to do this. The delay my father took to get to the nearest safe house is a definite indication of trouble, so I have to be ready.
Without another moment of hesitation, I gun the engine and race up the ramp and out the bunker, bursting onto the lawn of the large estate.
What's more superhero-esque than rescuing the king of all superheroes? Looks like I'll be graduating after all.
• • •
wowow how cocky is cash ahahha and a little reckless?
QOTC: if you were cash, would you wait until you've drawn up a battle plan to ensure success or just jump right in to not waste time?
also i promise i'm not trying to copy everything from batman D: it's just that i recently rewatched nolan's batman trilogy so i can't get the references out of my head but TRUST ME i have swerved and stopped as many references as i can from entering the final cut xD
remember to vote & comment if you like :)
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