Chapter Ten

 

Cameras were first. Luckily I didn’t find any in Price’s office, but since there wasn’t a screen he had for seeing all points of view from the cameras’ perspective, I knew a security office wouldn’t be too far from his office. 

I looked down at the tablet and saw there was one down the hall from where I was carted. Guess it made sense that the alarms hadn’t gone off because I hadn’t returned that way yet.

I sprinted in the direction of the door and kicked it down. It was like a video game as the guards in there reacted in slow motion to my barging in. I flash-froze almost all, then proceeded to shatter them with my fists before finding the camera panel’s off switch. There was one guard remaining in the corner of the room, cowering in fear and violently shivering. I approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder. 

“Strip.”

He did as I commanded and he shivered even more as the cold air generating from the frozen corpses lowered the room’s temperature. His guard outfit fit. I lowered the baseball cap over my eyes and smirked at the coward before shoving an icicle through his mouth and out the back of his neck, pinning him to the wall. 

As soon as that was completed, I looked back down at my trusty tablet and made my way to the cells. I passed prison guards that were slightly suspicious of me as I strolled their halls, but none stopped me. It’s possible none of them had gotten accustomed to my walk, body stature, or even my face in my short time here. Imagine that. 

Without a hiccup or fail, I reached the hallway I was escorted down when I first arrived here. There was a different feeling that came over me. I could only describe it as a sense of power. 

As I stood still at the end of the corridor, plotting my course for removing the prison guards of the cells, they each turned their attention towards me.

“Oh, shit. That’s--!”

He didn’t finish his sentence. Not because I killed him immediately, but because I threw up an ice wall behind me that separated us from the rest of the building. Hopefully the entire compound, but I was being too hopeful. I had a feeling this following attack would draw the attention of the rest at the compound, so I would go all out here. My first taste of freedom.

My eyes glowed as I crafted an ice blade with my hand as the handle and on the other hand, I froze over my fingertips. I slid in to the closest guard and used my ice blade arm to stab through his gut before spinning to the next closest guard and sending my fingertip icicles through his throat, eyes, and forehead. 

As the rest of the guards aimed their guns and began to open fire, I removed the guard that was bleeding on my arm and used his body as a shield before charging with it at the next guard, freezing it over as I did. So, by the time I reached the next closest guard, I tipped the frozen block of the dead guard’s body onto the next guard, crushing him. Not a single bullet had hit me yet. And they wouldn’t.

I crafted an ice shield to deflect the oncoming barrage of bullets. I looked at my feet for the bullets that fell to the ground, but none of them had. Instead, my black ice had been eating them. I decided to try something when I saw this, and tapped at the back of my ice shield with such force that it sent the bullets back at the rest of the guards at the same speed they were originally shot at. The guards that didn’t immediately die from the impact of their own bullets, either bleed out or died from shock of the black ice creeping around the inside of their bodies. It froze them from the inside out. 

The corridor fell silent except for the slow, approving applause of the freak at the end of the hall across from my cell. I reinforced the ice wall behind me before I made my way to the first cell. Aura Ray.

“You’re amazing.” Her first words to me.

“Name?” I said, ignoring her compliment.

“Aura Ray,” she responded. 

“Powers?”

“Aura reading. I can read the intentions of the person I see. I also have X-Ray vision,” she told me. Unique. If I gave her a gun, she’d be advantageous to my goal. Especially once I reached Asai.

“If I were to let you out, what would be your intentions?” I questioned.

“To aid you in whatever you need. At least until you felt I paid you back for letting me out this hellhole,” she answered. It almost sounded too good to be true. But if she were to try anything, I would kill her. The same went for the rest. I proceeded to interrogate the rest of the prisoners before letting them out and shattering their collars. One by one.

“Vulcon…Lava generation and manipulation…Help you, like Aura said.”

“Detonade…Self-detonation waves. This suppressing belt helps me regulate the blast…Come with you, I guess. Don’t really have anywhere else to go.”

“Infracon…After image generation, cybernetic arm cannons…Come with you if that’s what you wanna hear.”

At least he was honest.

“Vice…Too many to count, but the most distinguishable are my Hindsight where I’m able to see seconds into the future and my Virtuousium (a super-strong, nearly indestructible metal) Bones from my elbows to fingertips and knees to toes. I also have prehensile wraps…Whatever you need. So long as I can get revenge on the Archs.”

This one was different. His demeanor. Confidence. His unique superpowers. And what was that about the Archs?

“What was that about the Archs?” I repeated aloud. 

“I’ve fought them all before. And won. But, they pulled some bullshit with another Noble that technically wasn’t with them from the beginning. An energy manipulator,” Vice informed.

“This extra person. Could they teleport as well?”

“What? No. His name was Lux,” he said. The name rang a bell, but I don’t know where I’d heard it from. It didn’t matter though. The most important thing was that he said he beat the Archs.

“I’m guessing your Hindsight had something to do with your victory?”

 “Something like that.”

“Any particular reason you’re going after them, or are you just the mustache twirling type?” I questioned.

“They destroyed the city, sent me to the hospital and got the rest of my family killed. Them along with all the other Nobles, but it was to my knowledge that they were the main reasons that the aliens came in the first place,” Vice said. His words ignited a fire in me. Or rather, added gasoline to the already burning flames. I knew I could beat them, but he was proof they could be beaten. And what an original origin for being a villain. I loved it. But, of course, I would never verbalize that.

“Hm. Good,” I said and moved on.

“The Advocate…Fire generation and manipulation…Whatever you need me to do.”

I let him out without saying a word, keeping eye contact. He kept a face that showed he wasn’t aware I was about to test him.

“Okay. Show me.”

His eyes widened.

“W-Why?” he stuttered. “You didn’t ask any of the others to show you.”

“Next time you wanna lie, try picking something that isn’t a carbon copy of Vulcon, over there,” I said. “Show me your fire generation.”

He lowered his head and broke eye contact with me.

“I…can’t.”

“And why’s that?”

“That’s not my power,” he told me.

“Then what is?”

“...Named Power of Persuasion.”

“And what does that entail?”

“I’m…able to tell others what to do based on what I say if I say their full name first,” he admitted. It was specific, like the others, but it could come in handy when we reached the final bosses of the compound. If I gave him a gun, he could be like Aura Ray.

“I’ll give you and Aura Ray guns so you can support the group in some way,” I said. “Sound fair?”

Aura Ray violently nodded. She seemed to be a fan for some reason. It didn’t matter to me. So long as she was loyal. The Advocate solemnly nodded as well.

“Great. Now…” I said, approaching the freak’s cell. “Your turn.”

Ache smiled and proceeded to answer without being prompted.

“Ache…Genius-level intellect and pain inducement enhancement…To aid you.”

I couldn’t trust a word he was saying. At least The Advocate came clean. But with him, I had a feeling he would never reveal his true intentions. I couldn’t take what he said about…Lux! Didn’t Vice just say that’s who beat him? 

I snapped out of it and stepped to Ache.

“Try anything and I decapitate you on the spot,” I said through grit teeth. He smiled and said nothing. I knew I couldn’t trust him and would have to watch my back around him, but we probably could have used his abilities. Especially with what he said he accomplished in the subway.

I tuned my super hearing into the other side of my ice wall and heard no noise. On the way out, we found Aura Ray and The Advocate some assault rifles. The lack of guards aware of what was happening was baffling and it made me wary of what was to come. It felt as if they already knew. 

My theory would be proven before me as we snuck our way to the main entrance of the Prison building without being spotted. Our path was blocked by a single entity. One of the actual Archs. Not an add-on. Not a reject. One of the original seven. And of course it was the unkillable one. The phoenix firebird given human form: Ash.

He stood in the middle of the doorway, the wind gently blowing against his back and towards us, his dark blue hoodie flowing in the breeze. His black, fingerless gloves didn’t make a sound as he clenched his fist and ignited it. At first the fire burned bright orange, as fires normally do. Then, it morphed into light blue flames. Finally, it reached the stage of white flames. I wasn’t aware of what the color changes meant, but I do know that as I tried to craft a weapon from my black ice, it melted before it could form into a coherent shape. 

He saw this and slightly cocked his head to the side, revealing his eyes were burning like his fist. And without a word, the Arch began his charge towards my group.