Capebreaker first chapter complete first draft edited

The earsplitting ring of their alarm woke him up fast enough to spring up from his bed, at least only with his upper body. The incessant ring surged through the walls. The door to his room was shut, and he could still hear it loud and clear. If it were a regular alarm next to his bed, this wouldn't have been unusual. But this one in particular was in the living room, downstairs. He slammed the door open with one kick, strong enough to launch it open, but light enough not to damage it. With the handle still in his hand, he swung around and dashed off, letting go at the exact time necessary to launch himself through the hallway to the stairs. He jumped onto the railing and glided downstairs. A normal person doing this with his socks on would have slipped over and gotten into an accident.

But what he had, was more than the mere routine a normal person went about in their home with. He was abnormally adept in broader motions like this. And yet, he was nothing compared to his father, whose inhumane speed and ability to fly, saw him down here faster than him, and from a bedroom higher up at that.

The alarm that woke them up in the middle of the night, wasn't an ordinary alarm. It was attached to a special phone in the main hall, the living room in the estate they lived in. Hidden behind a panel in the wall that had slid down to reveal it. A safety measure in case their family had guests. Not that there was much of one left. Only Blake and his father lived here now. Even his big brother had moved out half a year ago. Which was all the more of a reason for Blake to be up on his feet at a time like this. It was his turn to pick up where his brother left off.

Within seconds, they both had gotten up and were down here, in position to pick the vintage phone off the hook and answer the call. And 'them' answering the call of course meant his father doing that and Blake standing there. "Greetings, citizen!" Of course he opened up with his nigh-comical, overly dramatic 'hero' voice. "Metanaut at your side and to the rescue!" That's right. His father was a superhero. In the flesh. Supernatural abilities, costume, a pseudonym, everything. So was Blake, to a lesser extent. Their whole family had always been gifted with abilities beyond those of regular citizens, which they used to fight crime, in a city - no - a world full of quirky criminals with fake names and costumes of their own.

Now came the time when Blake had to be patient. His father was the one to take the call, and listened to the agitated voice on the other end. All Blake could do, was wait. Among other things, he could hear extraordinarily well. If this had been a regular phone conversation, he could have listened in. But his father had the phone set up to be extra quiet. He was told this wasn't done because of him, and he used to believe that as well. It was only recently, that he started to have doubts about it.

"Do not fear!", his father continued with his voice. It was so exaggerated, it may as well have been straight from a decades old cartoon. "Just tell me the names of those scoundrels and Metanaut will come to the rescue!" Blake always bemoaned how cheesy his father sounded when he spoke like this, but whenever he did, he was told that brand recognition was crucial to gaining and keeping the citizens' trust.

"So, where are we going?" he finally asked.

Because of the supposed value on keeping 'Metanaut's name as a known and trusted one, the dismissive handwave he was met with, confused him all the more. "Nowhere. The police can handle this one. Time to go back to bed."

"No way." The person calling - probably a 911 call relayed to them by a trusted officer, sounded way too terrified for it to be some minor, petty criminal just any police officer could deal with. His father, calm and collected since the moment he closed the call, wandered right back up the stairs, and his son followed along closely. "You can't be serious."

"We don't have to take every call. I've always skipped a call here and there." No, he didn't! Blake remembered exactly how things were when Mom and Jason were still here. He never missed a call. Never. Not until a few months ago. And it's been happening more and more often ever since. "You know how the saying goes. Evil never sleeps, but sometimes, we have to." No! He was lying. He was lying through his teeth. Blake remembered the saying the way his father used to repeat it ad nauseam, for as long as he could remember. He knew it off by heart, word by word. It used to be 'Evil never sleeps, and neither shall we'.

But he couldn't just let himself get carried away into an outburst the way he felt like by this point. Besides, he was cut short from doing so, even when he considered it. Before they even made it back to the first floor, his father's cell phone rang. He had it on him at all times for emergencies. When he answered it, his son could hear a very angry, strangely distorted voice shouting at him from the other end. His father was startled for a moment. It was clear to Blake that he didn't expect this call in the slightest.

The moment the great and heroic Metanaut wrapped his head around who was calling him though, he zoomed away at a speed Blake couldn't hope to keep up with. Up the rest of the stairs, down the hallway and straight out the window. He ran after him. After all, his father wasn't as fast as in the movies. But he still vanished in a flash.

He considered climbing out and going after him, but he wasn't wearing his gear. He had been looking forward to putting it on right after the call, but that had fallen flat now. He had abilities of his own. He could climb along the trees outside the estate, or jump straight forward, but how did that even compare to the maneuverability and infinite momentum of someone who could fly? It didn't. All he could do, was go back downstairs, wait in the living room with all the hidden compartments and closets and hope. Hope that his father would change his mind and take him along to go back to keeping a clean crime fighting record.

He sat down on one of the sittees and couches surrounding the enormous flat-screen they had for a television. But he didn't turn it on, and he didn't fetch his own phone to distract himself. He waited, staring at the removable wall which hid his and his father's costumes. And this must have been one hell of a phone call. He gave his wrist watch a look every thirty seconds and his father didn't come back for almost ten minutes. What was so urgent that needed a lengthy conversation at 2AM in the morning?

When he finally came back through the front door he took his time, turning on all the lights on his way back into the hall. And when he came up the stairs, to where Blake sat, he froze with widened eyes. "You're still awake?"

Blake smiled. "Sure. So? Got a new target?"

"Yes." Going by the look on his face, his father was halfway not even there mentally, his mind was elsewhere. It took him going half-way to the hidden wardrobe, before he realized what he had just said. "I mean no."

That brief moment of hope Blake had, was gone again. Just like that. "Right...sure. Doesn't sound like it."

Calling the bluff didn't get through to his father either. It spurred him on into taking on a more stern tone and speeding up with pulling the hidden lever and removing his costume from the rack. "It's - it's not that simple. Yes, there is something to do. But this is dangerous. I have to do that myself."

Bullshit. This screamed bullshit so much, Blake sprang right up. "Didn't stop me before. What about Drip Mine? He was dangerous. Gatekeeper could have crushed either of us. And the whole point of Spearhead was that he could kill anything and anyone. 'Dangerous' didn't stop me before."

"Look, son." Finally, he was getting somewhere. His father had already taken off the costume, but hung it over the lean of a nearby chair, before sitting down next to him. "Son...you're not ready for this. You're not prepared for something of this scope. Go to bed. I'll be home tomorrow morning."

Blake kept quiet. He knew by now, that arguing this further wasn't going to get him anywhere. His father's mind was made up, and it sounded more like outside circumstances forcing him than some judgment of Blake's experience. He got up and made for the stairs, quietly doing as he was told.

There wasn't anything he could do to persuade him. But like hell if he was going to just sit down and accept this. He did go up the stairs, he cranked the handle of his bedroom door and listened closely. He listened to the sounds of his father using his speed to put on his costume, rush out the front door, lock it and dash away. Blake even walked into his room by a few steps just to be sure, until he was sure that his father was gone. But he definitely wasn't going to sleep.

No. He had a different idea. He spun right back and made for the hall. The panels were still slid aside. His father's gear was gone, but his own was still there. His suit, weapons and and his intel-band were up and ready as always. All he had to do, was put on his suit for crime fighting. It was a black, full-body suit, but segmented into three parts.

A pair of trousers, with the boots seamlessly integrated in it, a chestpiece and a mask. And they had a special mechanism where each part ended and the next one began. He didn't understand how it worked, but it allowed him to latch and seal them together, so that it all, once together, acted as though it was one single piece wrapped all around him. And it wasn't just in uniform black. It had dark red, and dark blue components to give it a bit more of something to show when in the spotlight, but it never strayed too far away from black. A deliberate choice, which made it better to blend in in the dark.

With jacket, trousers and shoes on, it was time to pull his mask over his head. It had a wide, see-through visor installed in the front, designed for the whole thing to look a bit like a biker's helmet, but less solid all around to soften up blows should he be struck to the head. And most importantly, his suit involved no cape. Because when dressed up and out in the streets, he was 'Capehunter', Metanaut's sneaky sidekick who stole the capes of every criminal who wore tone. They had half a closet full of capes in the basement at this point.

Then came his weapons. A long bo staff that matched the colour of his suit. And a gladius. A sword, but shorter than a one-handed longsword. Not good for fighting at range, but he had his staff for that. It was primarily for cutting objects and inflicting wounds if and when that was necessary.

With all else set, the only thing left was his intel-band. The handy organizer they used to monitor their missions. A specially designed electronic device, not cutting edge, but it certainly would seem cutting edge to the average citizen. It was attached to an armband which allowed him to wrap it around his left forearm. With that done, he reached to it with his right hand and pushed the button in the front. This caused it to project a two-dimensional, holographic display. When held up against a surface - or anywhere without interfering lights for that matter - he could read off of it, as though it was a real screen. Through movements of his fingers above the motion sensor, he could even interact with it the way you did with a touchscreen.

But most importantly, his mission display - the interactive map they used to navigate their exploits - was directly linked to his father's. All he had to do, was go to the settings and set his intel-band to not broadcast his location to the map. And ta-da, now he could track his father's location, the location of all the target addresses and locations he had set, without showing up on it himself.

Those markers were set based on addresses. His father had set specific targets all over the city. Twelve in total, and he was moving to one of them. To one of the two outliers closest to where they lived. Just going by the arrangement of his targets, and which one his father was going for first, Blake could tell roughly what order he was planning to visit them in. Outlining a serpentine arc around the city to pick them off one by one, with the last one closer to home again like the first one.

To him, this was no longer about getting in on the action. His father had been skipping calls more and more often, but outright forbidding Blake from accompanying him on a night of crime fighting - or a mission, as they liked to call what they did - that was a first. No, he wanted to know what was going on. And to find out what exactly the nature of this mission he was supposedly not ready to tackle, was, he just had to get to one of those targets before his father did. That way, even the head start and the speed that carried him ahead wouldn't stop Blake from seeing what this was about.

He knew where they all were, he knew in what order they'd be visited. All he had to do, was head straight to the very last one. So he did just that.

He was ready and set to go, to investigate what was so important and 'dangerous' that he couldn't see it. And if he really thought about it, this was the very first mission in his life that he went on all on his own, without his father looking after him.

_______________________________________________________

Mission 1

Search and Destroy

_______________________________________________________

He went back up the stairs and to the open window his father had vanished through to take that strange phone call. This was where he had to start using his full skillset.

Not all superheroes and villains had special powers. Some merely had some piece of tech for a gimmick. Others acquired their abilities through seemingly supernatural tech not known to regular people, yet others through outright magic. And then, there were people like Blake and his family. They were born with it. He never saw anyone in his family need to do something to make their powers possible, they all just had them.

And Blake specifically was born with a range of abilities. Unusually fast reflexes, an above-human degree of precision in all his movements that he could maintain with little effort and heightened senses, allowing him to see where others couldn't, hear things more clearly, and and aid his motor skills through improved touch receptors. But a more skeptical person, with a little imagination, would have still filed all those under 'very talented' rather than a full-blown superpower. But, he had one, fourth ability that was beyond any reasonable doubt, an ability that defied regular human limitations.

He stepped out of the window, grabbed the upper end of the frame by the outside. Once he hung outside by arms and legs, with one decided thrust, he launched himself up into the air next to the roof, stayed in the air next to it, and used that time to grab onto the upper end and climb up that one as well. That was made possible through this ability of his. Telekinesis. He could exert force onto any given object around him, with only his mind, including his own body. The force itself was limited. He couldn't just launch several-ton objects around. But it was enough to make for a wide range of uses.

One such use pertained to speeding up his travel through the city. With another look on the map, he reassured himself of what direction his target lay in, ran across the roof and jumped. Putting all the force of his ability into lifting up his body. It allowed him to counteract gravity, make climbing ludicrously easy, slow down his fall when jumping or even prevent himself from falling entirely for a limited time. Doing that allowed him to traverse the distances and heights necessary to leap from building to building. Routined and precise use of it allowed to soften up his fall to not damage the next roof he landed on, or get hurt himself.

The mask and the visor built into it made seeing through the air pressure easy. He may not have been able to outright fly, but skipping roads and streets by keeping to the rooftops made for a damn good alternative.

The location he was headed to was in the industrial district of a run-down part of town. He could see the apartment complexes and discount stores from the very start. Yes, a run-down district, right near the wealthy hillside Blake lived in. The empty, decaying single family houses littering the streets told a sinister tale on why. It was once a beautiful place full of intact, middle class families. Not rich, but wealthy enough to afford their own homes. Those homes were now all in ruins, with the homeless hiding away between the heaps of rubble inside. Rampant organized crime and a booming legal industry destroyed places like this. Now it was an empty shell, as hollow as all the talk of how the past wasn't better.

Of course it was. People saw right through that. Crime was never as normal as it became a few decades ago. And it showed. It was the reason why 'villains' and 'heroes' existed in the first place. Under the shifting style and direction of local governments, life as a professional and organized criminal became so devoid of challenges, so free of pushback, that it became too boring to continue on its own.

So the criminals began designing identities for themselves. Making up catchy names and fashioning flashy costumes. Rehearsing intros and exits as though they were actors on a stage. They turned crime into a spectacle: Half whatever method they employed to make or steal money, half entertainment for themselves and any surviving onlookers. This was the reason why subsequently, 'heroes' emerged. People who saw how crippled the police force was who rose to the task to take action against crime on their own.

The defunct factory and manufacturing halls in the outskirts and the offices originally built to manage them, were among the only businesses left here. When he arrived, it was clear from the get-go, where he was to go. There was only one place with the lights on. Office space in the second floor. The vertical sign on the ground floor read 'Veil R&D'. Some private institute, situated here, where the rent was cheap. The entire building belonged to the company from the looks of it. There was no indicator for it to be segmented in any way. The second floor was just the only one with any light.

He jumped onto the wall and climbed up. And then along the width of the windows. Scanning the inside on his way. It took a while and a lot of repetition until he found something stirring. Behind the many tables thrown over as covers towards the windows, there was a person cowering with a pistol pointed outward. Most importantly, a normal person. No mask, no costume, so Blake made no more efforts to avoid sight. It was a slightly overweight man in his fifties, with short hair and dressed in a white collared shirt with suit trousers. As soon as Blake was spotted, he came lumbering to the window and opened it to let him in. "Oh, thank god!...you, a friendly face." Blake took note of the shivering man recognizing his costume, but not remembering his name. But it was okay. It was Metanaut that was called, not him.

This person was very expressive. Even when leading him further inside between the tables, he accompanied everything he said with hand gestures so as to assure himself that he really was talking out loud. "I'm in trouble. Big trouble. We all are. We got involved with some bad people. Well - maybe - not sure - doing business worked most of the time. It's just - we had a falling out. An incident. Guy who usually delivers our results bagged them and the money and took off and sold it to - that doesn't matter. It's bad blood, that's what matters. We had an agreement that they get exclusive..."

They stopped in something of a makeshift base for defense, with heaps of laundry making for a seat, bullets for the weapon, and any food or water gathered together. There were tables with high precision equipment, some automated, all pushed aside or thrown over. Finally with a moment of clarity, he shook his head. "I'm getting ahead of myself." It was only now that he thought to shake Blake's hand. "Hi. I'm Bob Hensley. I work at - well - here." Blake continued to be silent and nodded.

"Me and a few others worked on improvements to a multilayered - a thing. Let's keep it simple. I mean I could go into it, it'd take an hour or two..." Blake saw fit to raise his hand to gesture him not to. "We were never sure who exactly we're working for, but we know they're serious business, they always paid and they paid big. It was all reliable until tonight. One of us turned on us. We had to promise that we won't share the blueprints and any new data from testing and optimizing with anyone else. You know, so they have no competition making money off of it. But now things went bad and I keep getting these..."

With a very unnerving buzz , almost a scratching sound, a phone began ringing. And it made the poor guy panic even more as he pulled it out of his pocket. "There it is again!" The metallic scratching was followed up by a few shrill scratching and beeping sounds. It took Blake a few moments to register, but it was that characteristic series of noises old 56k modems used when dialing into the internet. Bob was bibbering and nigh whining when he threw it on the floor and pointed at it, his hand shaking like that of a cocaine addict. "That is NOT my ring tone! I never installed it, it was never on it! Why is it doing that?"

Without a word, Blake carefully picked the phone off the floor and slid the dial on the touchscreen to the green end to pick up the call. And there it was again. That distorted, angry voice from when his father was called earlier. Loud and clear, now that he was listening from up close, with a phone not set extra quiet to keep him from listening.

"THE BLACK TULIP SPINS THREE TIMES IN THE EAST!
THE SQUIRREL'S SKULL ROTS AS IT READS FROM THE BLADES
AND THE WIND CARRIES THE PATTERNS OF ITS DECAY!
AWAIT THE BLADE MADE FROM FLESH!
FEAR THE RODS OF THE NIGHT AS THEY PLAY WITH THY CORPSE!
DRINK THY BLOOD FROM THE GOBLET OF DESPAIR!
AND DISCARD THE COINS THAT SPILL!"

The moment the voice was done, it closed the call. By the time it did, Bob had long retreated away from it by a few steps and was cowering against an inside wall. "They're coming for us. Aren't they? The others have been getting these phone calls - speaking of, I better check on Jim." He took the phone back and called someone else. "Hello? Yeah it's me. It happened again, it - oh god." He froze for a few moments and when he resumed motion, he began stumbling backwards. "Oh god, keep trying. It can't...look, we got help, okay? Metanaut's sidekick came over, so Metanaut's gotta be out there coming to look after us...Capehunter, yeah." Well at least his colleague remembered his nickname.

He had himself sorted out a little more by the end of the call. "Oh god. Jim's been keeping tabs on the others, but he can't reach Diego. I got a bad feeling about this. What do we do now?"

For a start, they were in a bad spot. Hensley was trying to use the tables as barricades that was immediately obvious to Blake, but in the mess of tipped furniture and heaps of machines, circuit boards and other electronic components, he created a maze of corners and angles perfect for sneaking up to kill him. All in a place that whoever he was so worried about presumably expected to find him would know instantly from the running lights. There was one good thing about all this. From what it seemed at this point, it looked a lot to Blake like this special mission his father was on was one to protect these researchers. He just had to get him to a safer location. Something less chaotic. With fewer entry points, at least less entry points that someone entering could see through. A solid wall didn't stop everyone, but it was a deterring factor since you never really knew who or what was on the other side.

He had to get him out of here, so he waved for him to follow and proceeded to sneak into the also lit hallways in the centre of the building, revolving around the elevator. He didn't know what he was dealing with, so the elevators were right out as a route. If it was any villain that affected ele tonics in some way, then they would be sitting ducks. Instead, he led Bob into the staircase on the side. Down, back to the first floor. As dangerous as escorting him through the street was, it beat keeping him in this building. If the villain they were dealing with prepared themselves by giving the layout of the building a good look, or by mapping it out electronically, they would know every entry point for every room and to bypass any obstacle.

He also knew that the faster he got him out of here, the more time he had to find a hiding spot for until either the police got to them, or until the next morning. And there was one good thing about all this. From what it seemed at this point, it looked a lot to Blake like this special mission his father was on was one to protect these researchers.

He just had to get him to a safer location. Something less chaotic. With fewer entry points, at least less entrypoints that someone entering could see through. A solid wall didn't stop everyone, but it was a deterring factor since you never really knew who or what was on the other side. And even on the way down, on regular intervals, he froze, to listen closely in case someone already arrived. Luckily, the citizen he was escorting picked up on that and froze along with him. He made sure to turn the light on in every room they came across. For now, that was bad, but once they slipped out of the building, it would draw attention to where they no longer were. Turning the building into a decoy.

He grabbed a towel he found in a bathroom downstairs and brought Bob to the exit, never allowing for him to be exposed towards too many angles as he did. Even outside, he forced him to stay in a corner within the frame between the glass wall and a solid outside wall. He had both of them hide in place. In the rare case that the villain they dealt with was a sniper, he had to wait, for tension to build up. And when he decided it was enough, he threw the towel. The sudden motions sometimes coaxed a shot out of enemies you didn't see, but no such shots happened. The coast was clear.

He already had a good idea where to take him. Opposite from the street building and a few similarly sightly ones stood, was the compound of a warehouse. A field filled with a white mix of concrete and small rocks. With more small rocks littering the surface. And in the middle of it, a wide open and empty warehouse. And the fence around the compound was torn. If he just brought him into a corner in here, then there were few angles from which to attack at range, and even where it was possible, an assailant would have had to come into the open area, exposing themselves completely.

The building he led Mr. Hensley to, came close to a football field in width. Come to inspect it closer, the many wide open entrances and their size and width made it appear like it was in part a garage, for people to drive trucks inside and unload and load them from there. Dark, wide open in the only angles that were open, this was perfect. He could hide Bob in a corner here until his Dad arrived. Near the exits, it was so wide open, their steps didn't echo through the hall until they were further in the back. He led Bob to a far off corner to the side. Specifically a walled off, deserted office within, which made for additional cover. You could only get to said office from inside here, and the only ways in were the long broken office window and the empty doorframe, but even if someone came in, Hensley could still take cover below the window.

Now with Bob safely settled in his hiding place, all they could do, was wait. Wait until either the next day dawned, or his father arrived. From time to time, Blake checked the time and wandered along the walls of the empty compound, but never too far from the office. That was all he could do. That and rest against the wall, hit the button on his intel-band and check on his father's location to watch him move from one target to the next, checking each off after he visited it. Thinking about it now and seeing as he checked them off rather than keeping the markers on at all times in case he had to go back to defend one against an unexpected attack, made Blake nervous. Did this mean that there were twelve actual enemies to deal with rather than twelve citizens to protect?

That would have meant that they were either dealing with a villain that could split himself into twelve, or with an organization sending out twelve villains. Which meant that there was one that was going to look for Bob as well. All he could do, was be on high alert at all times. Always listen closely to the sounds of the night, while making none of this own.

There were the usual noises. The cicadas outside never stopped chirping, even here. On the other side of the wall he was leaning against, there was some small critter, maybe a squirrel, rushing back and forth anxiously moving away from whatever was the last thing to startle it. And of course Bob didn't remain completely quiet either. But he had gotten used to using his hearing while lying in wait. He had practise doing that and concentrating for extended periods of time.

And he really needed it, because his father sure was taking his time. What was taking him so long? A look at the map showed he was nearby. In fact when zooming closer, he could follow his movements as he flew to the 'Veil R&D' building Hensley worked in. This was it. It was time. He ran to the exit closest to the wall the office lay at, past it and onto the compound. He saw his father fly around the building, searching for Bob, and figured to rattle a loose segment of the outer fence to draw his attention. Which he did, but something was wrong. His father only briefly glanced his way, and then turned around and flew away.

Blake immediately opened up the map again, only to see his father's signal vanish. Instead of coming to pick up Bob, he had set himself to be hidden the same way his son had before. He was gone. Perhaps for longer than he should have, Blake stood outside, confused beyond measure. It was very clear that Dad had spotted him, why did he act this way? He eventually settled on all he could do, being to go back and keep an eye on Bob until the next morning. Either that, or...a better alternative. The police weren't full-blown heroes, but their protection warded off the less dangerous villains. He approached the citizen and had him make another 911 call. To ask to be picked up.

While he was still talking to the police, Blake heard something out of the ordinary. Steps. Clumsy steps. Human-sized steps. Right behind him. Outside. Someone was on the compound right outside the hall. And they were moving about closely and loudly enough that he could follow their every move. They walked over to the corner where Bob was. But then they jumped up in place and landed back on their feet for no reason, followed by them turning right around. They began walking along the wall. To where the exits were. Blake couldn't let them get too far away and followed the steps. Whenever the person on the other side of the outside wall wandered a few steps closer to the entrances, he followed them.

The steps were originally so slow, the other person's feet were half dragging themselves across the gravel-laden ground. Then they accelerated and began to spurt onwards, forcing him to speed up as well. When he was a little more than half-way on the other side, they began running and he made sure to keep up. Mid-motion, he reached for his staff, slid it out of the holster on the back of his costume, and got ready for a fight.

He got ready to see his opponent and meet them right outside, but something was wrong. The moment he got past the solid wall that separated him from his opponent, his left hand, the one further ahead in that moment, was suddenly caught in a thin loop of black leather. And it was tied around his hand tightly. It came from a woman dressed all in a suit of black leather, wrapped so tightly around her that it didn't leave an inch of her form to one's imagination. Her black mask covered only the upper half of her face. Allowing him to see the lower half, including the black lipstick. She wasn't holding the string of leather before, but she grabbed it now.

This was Striplash. A small-time robber and burglar he had only ever seen on pictures and footage. All from cases pertaining to missions his father refused to take on. Her entire suit consisted of layered straps of leather, which she could command to remove themselves from her and sling themselves at her enemies. Even forming nooses and lassos like she had. For a moment, they both stood in place. Struggling back and forth as he tried to free himself with the one hand that was free, while she tried pulling him closer. As long as they weren't this far into a fight, he could still try to somehow wrestle his hand out, at least he hoped so. But his struggles were in vain.

If she could react this quickly, then any sudden move from him would worsen his situation. Just reaching for his sword would have been self-defeating, she just would have shot for his other hand then. And his staff was blunt, he couldn't do much about the strap holding his arm with it.

Unless...

He spun his staff around in his hand to allow to catch the bottom end with his already caught hand. As he predicted, she threw another loop to catch his staff. In one sudden motion he swung around his whole body, pushing his staff against the strap holding his left arm. Now he was the one pulling her. She could either let go or come closer, and she did the latter. If he could spin his staff around and wrap her straps around it, he could wind it and reel her in like a fish on a fishing line. He just had to stay in place with his legs so she couldn't catch his feet and cause him to stumble.

Unfortunately, apparently alarmed by his resistance, she put an unexpected amount of force into pulling him by the two straps she had to do so. He almost lost balance, and could just barely slide his feet along the rough ground into a more solid stance to stay in place. But she was pulling at his left arm and his staff with an increasing strength. She was stronger than she looked. She must have been able to make her straps pull him all by themselves as well to increase the force she pulled him with.

Which gave him an idea. He resisted her attempts to pull him away from the exit for a little longer. He started to purposefully try to coax her into applying as much force towards pulling at his staff as possible. If his idea worked, that was his ticket towards getting away from her, but he had to get it right in a single try. He paid attention to gauging how strongly she was pulling him. But he was distracted.

In the distance, she heard Bob talk and sound very relieved. "Oh thank god, Metanaut...good you're here." Dad was here! Things were looking up. But he was going to get this done on his own. He just had to get her to try a little harder.

Eventually he decided that the moment was there. He let go of his staff with both hands and used his mind to apply as much force as he could muster towards pushing and accelerating the staff even more towards Striplash, straight to her head. With a single shot, within less than half of a second, the back tip of it crashed against her temple on the right side with a more than painful sounding noise.

She was knocked out in a single shot. He did it. He beat Striplash all on his own and kept Bob safe for until Dad arrived.

Mission accomplished.

Except that something was wrong. "Wait...what are you - what?" Bob was choking. Blake thought his father was behind him, but he could only assume otherwise now. He was saving his short-sword as a last resort to cut the straps so Striplash wouldn't pull it away, but now he had to use it. As quickly as he could, he cut off the strap holding his left hand, pulled his staff back from the distance into his open right hand, while within the same motion, he swung around his sword and cut through the leather band holding his staff. Like this, he could spin around and rush back inside to face whichever villain had snuck by him.

"Please - what's going on! I can't breathe!" But what he saw inside was too much to not make him stop and stare. He failed to wrap his mind around it. The 'villain' that had pulled Bob out of the office in the back further into the hall, holding up and choking him by his neck, was none other than his father. Floating half way into the height the ceiling far above them allowed.

It definitely was him. At least going by his costume. It was his blue-red-golden suit. Several protective layers woven and merged together, but flexibly wrapped around him, with only his red boots, red elbow pieces and golden collar standing out, besides of course the red cape that hung loosely off his back. His father had the hand that wasn't occupied with holding Bob in place, was raised, opened up like a claw. Blake could see from the tremors that he was tensing it up and then in too fast a surge to follow, plunged his hand through the poor man's shirt and into his chest. Blake could hear his ribgage break, and all that came with his father ripping the terrified engineer's heart out of his chest and squashed it.

Then with his free hand, he dug his index finger into the either dead or dying engineer's forehead and began carving along the surface of his skull. By the end of it, bits and pieces of it splintered out, spilling out even more blood than opening his chest and pulling out his heart did. He then let go of the now lifeless corpse. It sagged down, fell on its side, crushing it even even more and left Bob's husk lying flat on his face.

It took Blake this long to take in that this was really happening, just enough to be able to whisper: "Da...Dad?"

Slowly, his father's helmet turned his way. It was the only rigid component he had, fitted tightly around his head and wrapped over at the neck by the collar of his suit. With a wider, more bulbous visor, covering most angles around his eyes, deliberately modeled to resemble that of a space suit. He said nothing. He only stared back at his ghastly son, before he suddenly sped away through the air, out of the hall and back into the sky.

What was this? What just happened?

Blake refused to believe what he had just witnessed, but in the distance near the office he had hidden Bob in, his corpse still lay. When he approached it to inspect it from up close, he half expected it to vanish. He still hoped this wasn't real. He had rather if he was having some kind of mental episode for the first time in his life, and Bob's death was a hallucination. But it wasn't.

It kept laying there, the blood spilling out further and further. Carefully, Blake lowered himself and reached out for the body to grab it by its shoulder. No, it was real. He could grab it and pull around at its fabric. This was happening. This really just happened. His father just murdered a defenseless citizen and with a brutality he had rarely ever seen - even in any of the villains he faced before. He tried turning Bob around to see his front side. He couldn't without some of the blood on the side of his chest getting onto his suit's arm. And doing so only made this even more disturbing. His father had carved a spade symbol onto Mr. Hensley's skull. A symbol from playing cards.

Murdering people by cutting out their hearts and carving playing card symbols into their corpses was the MO of a serial killer - a villain that always managed to elude them, going by the name of 'Chipper King'. That only brought up more questions. For the time being, he fumbled the dead man's phone out of his pocket, unlocked it with the numbers he saw him use to do so several times, and tried calling his friend from earlier one more time. Nothing. It rang and rang but nobody answered.

This was crazy. Too crazy for anyone to believe. His Dad must have been working with Striplash. She distracted him by pulling him out of the storage hall while he went in to do the deed. The only part they didn't expect was that he'd beat her this easily. If he was working together with one villain and had twelve targets - and there were at least two villains involved - what if this was a whole organization? If so, who knew what they were capable of?

For all he knew, by the time the police arrived - if they bothered at all - they could make Mr. Hensley's corpse disappear somehow. No, he needed something. Something that in the worst case, he could use as proof that Bob at some point existed. He knew his father would deny what happened here somehow. If necessary, even claim he imagined it like. How could he blame him, Blake wished that this was just in his head, too. But he didn't see anything indicating as much. He rolled over the body and looked through the other pocket and as he expected, found Bob's wallet. . He didn't have to take anything essential - or any money for that matter. He just needed some piece of ID. Something that identified him. He took the guy's driver's license but left everything else untouched.

He wanted to know what to do. He wanted to take a step back and calmly overthink his next step, but he had neither the time nor the nerve. He didn't know how far Mr. Hensley had gotten with his original call, so for all he knew, the police was on the way. If they found him dead and Blake smeared in blood looking over his corpse, of course they would assume he killed him.

All he thought to do at this point, was to speed back outside, assure himself that he had both his weapons safely strapped onto his suit, and climb up the roof. He could jump from roof to roof just fine, tracing his way along the rooftops came naturally. But he was stuck in a cold trance. Questions over questions rushed through his mind on what he had just seen. Was this the first time? Or did his father murder more innocents before this? Were all the Chipper King murders him and his way of framing someone else? Did Chipper King even exist? Was it just an identity he made up to blame for whatever atrocities he committed before all this?

But what filled his mind so much it pushed away all other questions: How was he going to confront his father about this? Could he even? Or would his father find some way to turn this back on him for not staying at home as he was told?