Chapter 2 | James
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The shooter had taken hostages. I had made it there just in time for that at least. I really needed a car of some sort. The cops had made a perimeter around the hotel, a skyscraper for wealthy playboys looking to have a party in many of its penthouses. I watched across the street, preparing a plan in my head of attack. The scanner had lied, there were more people involved in this heist than they thought. I listened as the shooter paced back and forth in the front lobby. He held a gun in the air, probably an assault rifle. I took notice of a lady relatively close to him, her heartbeat was not what I was expecting of a hostage, slow and steady. It crawled as he stood above all of the people on the ground. Static played in her ear, and I listened closer.

“Vault’s open, grabbing the cash,”

A mole, there was probably more than one, seeing as the police knew of one shooter and not the whole team of robbers. I started to slowly scale the side of the building, going down to the sidewalk. Once I made it down, I continued to the side of the hotel. I clicked my tongue, searching for an extra door, but it echoed through the streets and hit a random hospital four blocks away. I looked closely and found a small window about fifteen feet up. There was no way I could scale the side, it was bricks and there were no hand-holds. I took attention to a building next door, with a fire escape on the side. I ran to the wall, kicked off of it into the air and pulled down the ladder from it. It slid down, banging into place from the force. I climbed up and tried to calculate the trajectory I would need to make it through the window. It was too bad I was a freshman and hadn’t taken trigonometry yet. I would just have to wing it this time. If I didn’t, I could possibly break a bone or two, and even if I cleared it to the window that was a possibility. I made it to the third level of the fire escape and decided that to be the location of my jump. I tried to think of a certain way to jump in. Head first would be too risky, feet first would be too difficult to manage, but I had to find some way in.

I prepared myself for the worst, slapping like a bug against a window of a hotel, and getting my identity leaked amongst the public. I started to run, jumped to the railing, and pushed off as hard as possible, leaning back and jutting my feet forward. Glass shattered two seconds later and I landed on a staircase landing. Lucky.

My back ached from sliding across the floor, but I thought the pain away and continued down the stairs. I heard gunshots from the lobby, listening closely to find out it was the gunman. If I didn’t hurry, his intimidation might turn into unnecessary casualties. I hurried through a hallway with multiple elevators, it led directly into the lobby. Straight ahead was a few hostages on the ground, the front desk, and a few windows on the other side of it. Cops on the other side hadn’t seen me yet. A door banged open to the opposite side of the building. SWAT. I ran silently forward and slid behind the desk. The gunner peered in my direction, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. I had access to a room behind the desk, which led nowhere, or could turn to run and alert the gunman of my location. If I did, who knows how many moles were in that room. Oh wait, I did.

I listened for more static, hearing at least three earpieces counting the gunman. I inched further to the end of the desk and didn’t have much choice. I had to fight through them. I prepared for as much pain as it would bring me.

Jumping out into view and running at the gunner was my first idea, after that I was hoping for all hell to break loose. I kicked his back leg and he fell into a kneel. A punch landed on the back of his skull and my left hand grabbed him by the throat, lifting him and throwing him down to the solid floor. The other moles ran at me, ruining their plan. One leaped, causing me to duck. I peered at another and tripped them as the one flew through the air over my head. The last one put me into a headlock from behind. I threw them over my shoulders and landed a swift punch to their face. One down.

The others had already recovered and were ready for more. One threw a punch to my right, which I blocked with my forearm, and the other a high kick. I gripped their ankle and raised my knee, jerking the leg down onto my own. It didn’t break, but I did pull the ankle out of place causing enough pain for them to be incapacitated. Now for the last one. He flipped towards me with two kicks that I dodged. I punched, but he caught that quickly and kicked at my legs. My right knee buckled and bent, causing me to fall slightly. He had me in a kneel, I couldn’t let him get anything else on me. He punched, but I caught it this time, squeezing as hard as I could down on his knuckles. They popped and he groaned slightly, but that wouldn’t do much but make him sore. I stood slowly, and then bent his wrist back the wrong way. I then twisted his arm around his back and bent his wrist further and further up his back until I heard a snap. He clutched his hand and fell to his knees, grunting in pain. I kicked the back of his head for good measure, and started towards the vault. The hostages scrambled around me.

I made my way through a hallway, and then another before finding a room with bars on either side of a huge vault door.

“We’ve got all of it, now let’s move out people,” They said, not seeing me in the doorway. “Hello? Send confirmation immediately,”

I jumped to the wall beside the door and waited. There were about eight of them in there. I didn’t think I was gonna be able to fight all of them. I tried to think of a plan of action, but I was all out. The buzzing of electricity in the walls became louder than usual, my head spun trying to think of a way out of this. They definitely had guns, each one of them. The buzzing became overwhelming in my ears and then popped. Lights out. I could still see, but all the ceiling lamps had gone out, including the ones in the vault room. I don’t know who did it, but my guess would be the cops in an attempt to go in with night vision. I knew that because of my powers I would be able to see perfectly clear, but they wouldn’t. I heard a few fumbles for flashlights and rushed into the room. I waited for the perfect moment to attack, as one of the goons pointed a flashlight at me. I smiled at him and leapt onto him, landing multiple punches to his jaw. The others heard the hits land and pointed their flashlights to the body. I moved around them, and clocked one in the head with the butt of a rifle. Attention started to be directed around the room. I rushed to another one and tripped him with a sweep of my leg. I continued this until each had been knocked down. I grabbed a flashlight, then I walked out of the room and continued back towards the staircase I had entered through. I flipped my hood up, just now realizing it had fallen and turned a corner towards the lobby. I was met with multiple lasers at my chest.

The SWAT had made their way through the building and was going towards the vault. I saw the night vision goggles on each of them and raised my hands in the air.

“Freeze!” One shouted in the center, two others moving slowly towards me. “Make a move and we shoot,”

Their barrels were trained on me. I tried to think of a solution that didn’t end with me in handcuffs, and I had one. It was probably the worst idea I ever had, but I had to do something. I felt the flashlight clipped against my hip. If I could get a hold of it fast enough, then I could blind them before they got too close. I made my move quick, flicking it on and ducking as I shone it in each person’s eyes quickly and then bolted forward at the middle one. His hands went to his face and a bullet went off to my right. I kept going, tackling the lead officer. I didn’t want to hurt them, so I started running and kept on until I had made it to the staircase. I slipped through the window, grabbed my backpack from under the fire escape, then left the scene. 

 

I had taken a break from running in an alley, face dripping with sweat as I took the mask off. It was starting to get dark, so I began walking, then tripped onto the ground. I peered at my leg and saw a small gash from a bullet. One of them grazed me. It wasn’t bleeding, but it probably would’ve hurt if it wasn’t for my powers. I reached into my bag and wrapped some sports tape around it. Good as new. After changing clothes I started my trek back to the apartment.

 

Raymond

I tore through the eggs with my rubber spatula as they slowly cooked into small yellow curds. It was the afternoon, and I was preparing another meal for myself. I heard a fly buzzing from across the room, his wings flapped in the wind. I picked up a metal dart from the counter, and threw it, skewering the fly immediately. I continued to scramble the eggs and emptied the finished product into a bowl. I then continued over to my computer at the other end of the room. I pulled the dart from the wall and placed it on my desk as I sat, stuffing a considerable amount of eggs into my mouth.

I clicked open a window to see police reports from the past hour. In these reports, I noticed a report of a shooter at the Western Plaza Hotel. I typed in a few things and pulled up the camera feed of the lobby. Multiple hostages, one main shooter. Now I just had to wait for him to arrive. James would never pass this up.

After ten minutes of watching carefully, a black figure quickly slid behind the desk at the far end of the room. Sloppy, but nobody noticed so he was fine for now. I thought he might have an extravagant plan, like to throw some supersonic device and incapacitate the gunman and possibly any moles. I was disappointed to see that all he did was jump out and choke slam the enemy. Multiple others stood and attacked him, but he fought them off as well. He confidently walked towards the vault, and I looked on the other cameras to find that there would be eight other people waiting for him with big big guns. I peered at another camera to find that SWAT had entered and were sweeping the building. James jogged his brain as he stood by the door of the vault. I could tell he was racking his brain, but couldn’t think of anything.

I turned to another monitor and typed away, trying to find a backdoor into the Hotel mainframe. Once I had found one, I found which electrical company supplied the place, Maximus Electric, and then made my way through their website to cut the power. I looked back at the cameras and the lights went dim, the cameras changing to black and white. James peered around curiously, but then ventured into the room and preyed on each of the criminals. After he had his fun, he started back towards the lobby, but wasn’t paying much attention as he walked directly into a few SWAT officers. I pulled up another window and worked my way into the SWAT’s radio system.

“Vigilante sighting at the Western Plaza, anybody got eyes?” I said, trying to deepen my voice.

The officer reached for his ear, distracted enough for James to shine a flashlight into their faces and then tackle him. He ran and I could only assume he left through the way he came in. Sloppy, but he was the only person I could find so far that was like me, besides her. Another fly buzzed in the corner of the room and I chucked the dart at it again, this time extra hard in frustration. The dart sunk into the wall next to it. I clicked through cameras, until I had pulled up Jerry’s Coffee. Behind the counter stood her, the other person I had found who had powers. She had long blonde hair, and blue eyes that resembled ice in a bird bath on a cold winter’s day. I sensed them on her one day when I was in the shop, but I could never figure out what they were. I continued to look in concentration, but nothing out of the ordinary happened. Absolutely nothing.

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