"You're telling me..." Jason, A.K.A. Quiver, sighed and looked down, head in hand. "You saw Purge?!" Jason slammed his hands down on the round table that resided in the middle of the Briefing Room. Jason looked down at the table, extremely frustrated, his hands still on it. "Why didn't you tell us this before?"
I practically exploded. "Dude, I'm sorry, but I've been under a lot of stress lately. First Flak kidnapping Olivia, then Grimm, and do you know where I just came from? I just had to take down Shadow by myself for the third time this year. I've almost died at least three times this week. I didn't know if I was seeing things or if Purge was really there."
"It's fine Jack, but you should have told us," Arc told me, wearing his common black suit and tie. He turned to Jason. "What's done is done, Jason. Let it go." He gave Jason a stern, but understanding glance.
Jason suddenly snapped at him. "We lost people last time he was around. You of all people should remember. I watched him kill Ronnie, Shane, Jasmine. I was there. Do you want to know what it was like? Our first mission after him, we had an emergency call about a powered maniac trying to drain energy from a power plant." Jason looked at me and Arc as he said this. "Ronnie, Shane, Jasmine, and me were called out there. You gave the order." Arc looked stung by those words. Jason then looked at me. "Jack, you may have known them by Streak, Gunslinger, and Wildfire." I gave him a cold look as he continued. "Within five minutes of the battle, he had killed Ronnie. Beat him to a pulp right in front of us. We couldn't stop him, he was too fast, too powerful. Then he grabbed Shane and drained the energy from his body. He absorbed his life force until there was nothing left. Next was Jasmine. She was lucky, one quick energy blast to the chest did her over. Purge fled like the sniveling coward he was, and I was left there, a broken arm, shattered knee, and down a few ribs. All of them are gone because of him, and others too. We've all seen what Purge can do. Remember Violet?" Jason glared at me. I'd never forget.
His words stung me like a potent poison. I knew he was right, and I couldn't deny it. We couldn't let Purge do anything to anyone. Not again. Arc grabbed Jason, who was unraveling more and more by the second.
"Stop." Arc was gripping the blue cloth of Jason's super-suit.
"No." I gave Jason a reassuring look. "He's right. We can't underestimate Purge if he's out there. If he is, he's planning something."
"I'll try to dig up anything I can find on Purge related sightings, but besides that we have nowhere to look," Arc replied, running his hand through his jet black hair.
"Do you think Grimm, Silverstream, Flak and The Kid teaming up might have any relation to Purge?" I added, searching any possible sources of info.
"Maybe," Jason replied. "I'll take Darkblade and Saber with me to find Silverstream, Flak, and The Kid. We'll rough them up and see what we can find." Jason immediately exited the room and began his mission.
"Good idea." Arc chimed in. "Jack, me and you are going to pay a little visit to Grimm and try to get something out of him."
"I guess. I doubt he'll talk though." I replied, crossing my arms. We had no definite leads, yet a definite problem. I decided to check up on Olivia before Arc and I left to head to the Meta Prison.
It had been a few days since I had seen or even talked to Olivia and I missed her to death. She had helped me cope with Violet's death, stayed by my side for more than a year, and became the most important person in my life. I loved her. This thought raced through my mind as I thought up every possibility of Purge's plan if he was back for real. I thought up every scenario where I fail, and everyone I love dies. Olivia included. I wouldn't have it, I wouldn't lose anyone else to Purge. Not again.
I derailed my own train of thought and snapped back into reality as I approached Olivia's room. Most heroes lived in the gigantic HQ, hidden from the common eye as Arc's main corporation building on the outside, but in reality it was a training, social, and meeting hub for heroes on the inside. I lived on the fifty-second floor and Olivia on the forty-third.
I gave a quick knock on the metal door labeled "Solarflare". I glanced at the door handle where the high-tech keycard reader was, and it flashed green. The door slid open, hands-free, and I walked in. The inside was clean and eye-catching as usual. Olivia kept an amazing room with her own sense of style. Artwork and 80's movie posters hung from the walls. Sofas and chairs were multi-colored, and there was a fish tank in the wall across from the doorway.
The door slid shut behind me and I could smell the sweet scent of cooking apples.
I stepped into Olivia's kitchen to see her standing in front of a fresh apple pie on the kitchen counter. It sat on the smooth marble countertop, steam rising from it, carrying the tasty aroma.
"Well hello, handsome." Olivia smiled and walked towards me. She was wearing casual clothes; a pink shirt, blue jeans, and black converse. Her blonde hair poured down to her shoulders like a golden fountain and her green eyes lit up the room like stars.
"Hey," I replied, smiling back. I gave her a loving hug and began to talk. "I need to talk to you. I need to tell you something that Adam and Jason told me not to tell anyone else, but I love you and I don't care, plus I think you need to know. I just want you to not freak out when you hear it. Can you do that?" I said, walking over to her turquoise sofa in the living room and taking a seat.
"Yeah, you know you can tell me anything." She said and sat down next to me.
"I'm like, maybe seventy-five percent sure that Purge is coming back," I told her, and she gave me a startled look. She placed her hand on my back and scooted closer to me.
"How do you know?" She asked in a slightly nervous tone,
"I had a full on conversation with the guy a few days ago," I replied.
"Well, what's the problem? We'll help you fight him like we did the last time." She said, confident.
"Yeah, I'm not so sure that's the only issue. We think that Purge and the sudden teaming up of villains may be tied into something bigger. Something stronger." I told her and she threw me a confused look.
"And do you know what this conspiracy thing is?" She asked.
"Mmm..." I tried to think. "No, not in the slightest. That's what scares me. We have no idea what these guys could be planning, or what for."
"We'll figure it out and put an end to it." Olivia softly spoke and planted a kiss on my cheek. I wanted to stay there and spend time with her, but I had work to do.
"I'm going with Adam in a few minutes to see if we can get anything out of Grimm, then we'll try to assess any new info we get from him or the other villains." She threw me another confused look. "Jason, Roy, and Saber are going to round the rest of them up."
"Be safe." She told me and gave me a concerned look.
"I will," I replied, giving her a hug and a kiss before leaving the room and heading to meet Arc.
It had been a while since I visited The Locker. It was a meta prison where we kept the most dangerous villains. The ones with powers. It was designed a few years back before I was a member of The Alliance. I hadn't been there since the day after Purge. We had to do a lot of cleaning up, fixing buildings, roads, throwing villains in prison. Purge had done a lot of damage. I couldn't let him rise again.
I had finally arrived at Adam's penthouse on the top floor. I knocked on the metallic door labeled "Adam Arc". The door quickly slid open and there looking out the window, was Arc. He was wearing his usual black suit, always rolling in style.
Adam turned around. "You ready?" He asked.
"Ready as I'll ever be, I guess." I replied and walked towards him. He placed his phone in his jacket pocket and walked towards me.
We met in the middle and shook hands. In an instant, faster than either of us could comprehend, I had teleported us. A mere nanosecond went by, filled with nausea and confusion, but I focused on my destination and after a flash of blue static me and Adam were exactly where we wanted to be.
Our bodies materialized from static in nanoseconds. We were now at the entrance.
I looked to my left to see Adam patting his suit jacket and fixing his collar.
"I never get used to that ride," Adam spoke.
"I'm pretty conditioned for it." I replied and we stepped forward.
We were on the sandy shores of an offshore island in the Caribbean. The ocean roared gracefully behind us as the palm trees swayed in the wind like dancing blades of grass. There in front of us was a remote bunker, guarded by twelve guards. Adam and I entered the bunker and the guards nodded at us, knowing who we were. There in the bunker was a small front room. At a desk there sat a man slightly older than me. His hair was swift and brown, he had a thin beard, and he wore a blue slim suit.
I knew who he was, everyone did. He was known as The Celestial. He was a mysterious inter-dimensional being who was immensely powerful and became trapped in our dimension only a few months ago, stripped of most of his powers. Nearly Godlike where he came from, he was now like one of us. But he was still the strongest in our alliance, and nothing to be trifled with. While he was once immortal, he could now be killed like us, but never aged. His power was immense and his knowledge even more so. H3 was older than our universe. I was suddenly surprised by the fact that I didn't find it odd that Levi was from another dimension. I never even second guessed the idea of other dimensions when he first revealed himself to us. I then snapped back into focus at the sound of a voice.
"Hello, Levi," Adam said with a smile. "We're here to visit an inmate."
"No problem, Chief," Levi responded, smiling and chewing on some gum. He then placed his hand on the left side of his wooden desk, and lights lit up, scanning his hand.
The scan went through and a shelf behind him folded into the wall, forming a doorway into an elevator.
"Nifty," I said, and the other two grinned.
"I hope you find what you're looking for," Levi replied.
Adam and I then stepped through the secret doorway and into the elevator. On the back wall of the elevator were two seatbelts and two chairs that were bolted to the elevator floor.
"Don't forget to buckle up, boys," Levi exclaimed as we took our seats in the chairs. Adam then pressed a few buttons on the wall before sitting down. Levi gave a quick goodbye wave and the doors slid shut. I sat up in my chair and buckled the seatbelt around my waist. Adam sat down and buckled himself up as well. He planted his feet on the ground and grasped the arms of his chair.
In an instant, the elevator zoomed down at speeds that pulled me up in my chair. We were going deep into the earth where the most dangerous beings were hidden behind lock and key.