by Lucas Flint
“Yes, that is an important clue,” said Mecha Knight at last. “I will make sure to share it with the rest of the Leadership Council once they have all recovered from the sonic blast.”
“I will let Mr. Apollo and Blood Boil know about it as well,” said Porter. “Thank you for sharing, young lady.”
Treehugger nodded, but now she was trying to remember where she had seen those purple eyes before. They seemed so familiar to her, as if she had seen them under different circumstances before, but her head hurt so much that she didn’t spend much time thinking about it. She decided that she would ask one of the others about it later when they left the auditorium, because she vaguely recalled that she was not the only member of the team to have seen those strange purple eyes before, although she hoped that the other teammates would remember better than he.
“Anyway, the security guards will transport Bolt to a safe location,” said Arnold as he rose to his feet, dusting off his pants as he did so. “He will be bound in chains and kept separate from the rest of the school, just in case he’s still under the control of whoever possessed him. As for Strike, he should be at the school’s medical station by now, though I suspect he will need more serious treatment than what the school nurse will be able to offer him.”
“Healing Touch is on the campus somewhere,” said Mecha Knight, looking around. “I’ll ask him to stop by the school’s medical station to heal Strike later.”
“What are we going to do for now?” said Treehugger. “Are we going to find the person who did this?”
“There is no need for that, young lady,” came a soft, but menacing, voice from the shadows. “For I have already found and apprehended one of the person’s helpers.”
From out of the shadows of a nearby corner of the stage came a tall, caped being in pitch-black armor, two red eyes glaring out from his demonic helmet. The figure towered over Treehugger, Mecha Knight, Arnold, and Porter, looking more like a living shadow than a human being, although if the rumors about him were true, then that might very well be what he was.
“The Midnight Menace,” said Mecha Knight, no fear or hesitation in his voice. “I was wondering where you were. When I passed the INJ’s box, I noticed you were missing.”
The Midnight Menace merely grunted. “As soon as I heard the sound blast go off, I vanished into the shadows to find the person responsible for it. And I am pleased to announce that I found someone who may know a thing or two about what happened.”
“Where is he?” said Mecha Knight. “I do not see him.”
The Midnight Menace chuckled. He reached into the shadows behind himself and pulled someone out. He tossed the person onto the ground between him and Treehugger and the others as effortlessly as if he was throwing a sack of potatoes. The man lying on the stage in a quivering ball wore a simple gray janitor’s uniform, with a cap under which stray hairs poked out. The man was quivering on the stage as if he had just been through a traumatizing experience. Given how he had apparently been captured by the Midnight Menace, Treehugger couldn’t blame him for his trauma.
“This is one of the janitors of the auditorium,” said the Midnight Menace. “His name tag says that his name is Joe. I found him trying to sneak out the back entrance. Luckily, he was not very difficult to apprehend.”
“What makes you think that Joe has anything to do with what happened to Bolt?” Mecha Knight questioned. “Perhaps he was trying to escape from the auditorium because he did not want to get attacked by Bolt.”
“Because I also saw him talking to someone on his phone,” said the Midnight Menace. “Here.”
The Midnight Menace drew from his cape a small smartphone, which he threw at Mecha Knight. Mecha Knight easily caught the phone and looked at it. “Who was he talking to?”
“I don’t know,” said the Midnight Menace. “I didn’t ask, nor did I bother to check the phone. I just attacked him as soon as he let his guard down, because I didn’t want to give him even one moment to escape justice.”
“I will study its contents later,” said Mecha Knight as he put the phone into a compartment in his chest armor. “Right now, let’s talk to Joe.”
Joe the janitor still hadn’t looked up or done anything except quiver and shake. Treehugger guessed that he was a grown man in his thirties, though he looked rather weak and pathetic despite that, although given how terrifying the Midnight Menace was, she really couldn’t judge him for his own obvious fear.
Mecha Knight walked over to Joe and, kneeling over him, said, “Joe, I am Mecha Knight, one of the members of the NHA Leadership Council. Can you hear me?”
But Joe still didn’t respond. He looked totally traumatized, even though he had likely only been in the Midnight Menace’s shadows for a few minutes at best. It was like he hadn’t even heard Mecha Knight speak.
Mecha Knight looked up at the Midnight Menace. “What did you do to him?”
The Midnight Menace shrugged. “Nothing … well, nothing I don’t do to most criminals and supervillains, anyway. Normal humans like him typically can’t handle my powers very long without losing their minds. I believe he is still sane, but probably won’t be very talkative for the next several hours. He will also have a fear of the dark for the rest of his life, too.”
Treehugger remembered the rumors about the Midnight Menace being a creature of shadow made by dark magic, rather than an ordinary superhuman like everyone else. She never really gave them much credence in the past, but given what the Midnight Menace just said, she was starting to wonder if there was more truth to those rumors than she initially thought.
“We don’t have ‘several hours’ to wait,” said Porter in annoyance. “By then, the person behind this attack might be long gone, if they haven’t already destroyed this man’s memories to make it impossible for him to tell us who he really works for.”
“You sound frightened, Porter,” said the Midnight Menace in an amused voice. “Guess you’re getting scared in your old age, huh?”
Porter stepped forward, as if he actually intended to fight the Midnight Menace here and now, but Arnold stepped in between them and held up his hands. “Hold on, you two. Arguing won’t get us to the bottom of this mystery any sooner. We must not let our tempers get the best of us.”
Based on the way the Midnight Menace and Porter glared at each other, Treehugger wondered if they had some sort of history together. But she shook her head and stepped toward Mecha Knight and said, “Mecha Knight, sir? Can I try to get the man to talk?”
Mecha Knight looked over his shoulder at her. “What makes you think you can snap him out of his trauma?”
“I don’t know if I can,” said Treehugger. “But I do have experience with calming down people who freak out. Had a lot of experience of it while growing up. I might be able to calm Joe down long enough to make him tell us what we need to know.”
“I see no harm in letting the young lady do that, Mecha Knight,” said Arnold in a friendly voice. “She seems well-intentioned; besides, I doubt Joe could hurt her with all of us around. It couldn’t hurt to let her try.”
Mecha Knight stood up and stepped aside. “All right, Treehugger, you can try. But try to be quick about it, because the more time we waste here, the less time we will have to find the person who he is working with.”
Treehugger nodded and walked over to Joe. She got down on her knees and looked over the quivering man, who still seemed entirely unaware of his surroundings. She felt pity for him more than anything, despite the fact that he was a grown man and she was a teenage girl.
“Hey, there,” said Treehugger in her most soothing voice. “Joe? Can you hear me? It’s all right. You don’t need to be so scared.”
To her surprise, Joe seemed to hear her, because he stopped quivering. He didn’t look at her, though; he kept his head down and his knees against his chest. Still, at least he wasn’t shaking anymore, which Treehugger considered a victory.
“Now, Joe, can you tell me about who you are working for?” said Tre
ehugger. “Or, at least, who you were calling on your phone?”
Joe didn’t react at first. Slowly, however, he looked up at Treehugger. He had large brown eyes, which made him look scared and confused. But he didn’t seem nearly as traumatized as before, though that was probably because he was hiding his fear more than anything.
“I was just calling my girlfriend,” said Joe. His voice was slightly shaky, but at the same time, he was at least speaking, so Treehugger didn’t mind his shakiness. “T-That’s all.”
A deep shadow suddenly appeared over Joe and Treehugger, causing Treehugger to look up and see the Midnight Menace standing over them. The Midnight Menace looked even more intimidating up close; indeed, he seem more like a living pillar of shadow than a human being. Joe also looked up at him and froze in pure terror, as if he was unsure whether to get up and run or curl back into a ball.
“Liar,” said the Midnight Menace. His voice, as soft as always, was threatening even to Treehugger. “I overheard you on your phone. You weren’t speaking to your girlfriend. You were speaking to someone about the ‘success’ of the ‘mission.’ Tell one more lie and I’ll make sure you go to Ultimate Max without your legs.”
Treehugger found the Midnight Menace’s threats rather gruesome. But she was too scared to confront the Midnight Menace herself or contradict his threats, so she looked at Joe to see what his reaction would be.
Joe was still frozen solid. It looked like he had had a heart attack and died on the spot, but he immediately shoved his hand into one of his pockets and produced what looked like some kind of gray pill which Treehugger got only a glimpse of before he stuffed it into his mouth and swallowed in one gulp before anyone could react.
A second later, foam began appearing in Joe’s mouth and he began choking and flailing on the stage. Treehugger immediately backed away, wondering what had happened to him and also trying to make sure that she didn’t get hit by his flailing limbs.
But Joe didn’t flail very long. A few seconds later, Joe lay extremely still on the stage, his eyes glassy and lifeless. A quick glance at the disgusted expressions Porter and Arnold’s faces told Treehugger that Joe was dead and that he had killed himself, likely to make sure that he didn’t reveal any secrets to them.
CHAPTER FOUR
About an hour later, Treehugger and the other Young Neos stood outside of the cell in which Bolt was being kept. It might have been strange for an ordinary school to have cells for prisoners, but Treehugger had been informed that the ‘cells’ were merely rooms for keeping potential supervillain or criminal threats to the Academy in the event that the school was attacked. They were to be kept inside the cells until they could be transported to Ultimate Max for proper containment.
The cells were located on the eastern side of the Academy, just outside of the campus’ limits. They were deep underground, accessible only by elevator, which was only accessible to school faculty. As Treehugger and the Young Neos were part of the NHA, they had been given the password, although Mecha Knight had said that the password would be changed on a weekly basis in order to make the prison cells harder for people to get into.
The cell in which Bolt sat was but one of a dozen identical jail cells lined up next to each other in a short hallway. They looked like typical prison cells: Small, cramped, with a simple cot for sleeping and a toilet and sink in one corner. The biggest difference, as far as Treehugger could tell, was the pipes poking out of the corners of the ceiling, from which powerless gas could be poured to quickly de-power a captured supervillain. The metal bars of the cells were also made of Indestructonium, the super hard metal created by government scientists that even a superhuman as strong as Bolt couldn’t break. That was to ensure that prisoners held within such cells would be unable to escape if for some reason the pipes were unable to negate their powers with powerless gas. And the whole place smelled like metal and dirt, hardly an appealing smell to Treehugger, who liked the smell of roses and buttercups better.
As for Bolt himself, he looked worse than he usually did. He sat on the cot, his hands tied behind his back and his head down and didn’t seem to have noticed Treehugger or the others yet. He seemed to be normal, though; at least his eyes weren’t purple anymore. But he suddenly looked up at them, although he didn’t smile.
“Hey, Bolt,” said Blizzard, wrapping her hands around the bars. “How are you doing? Are you, uh—”
“Normal?” Bolt finished for her. “Yeah. I’m not about to get up and try to kill you guys or anything like that. Not that I could even if I wanted; I think these chains are also made of Indestructonium. Anyway, I heard a janitor killed himself or something?”
Treehugger grimaced. She couldn’t get the images of Joe the janitor killing himself via cyanide pill out of her head; it was just too much for her to handle. She hadn’t broken down crying when it happened, but she had been so stunned by the sight that Mecha Knight had had to take her back to the Young Neos box himself and she’d needed help from her friends to get to the jail where Bolt was being kept.
“Yeah,” said Stinger, nodding. “Treehugger said that the Midnight Menace caught a janitor who was trying to run away, but the janitor killed himself before they could make him talk. Mecha Knight is analyzing the contents of the janitor’s phone, but he didn’t sound very confident that he would find any useful clues.”
“There’s no need for that,” said Bolt. “I already know who made me try to kill Strike.”
“You do?” said Treehugger, temporarily forgetting about Joe’s suicide. “How? Do you remember who took control of you?”
“No, but based on what I was told by Mecha Knight, I know exactly who is behind this,” said Bolt. “The purple eyes, in particular, confirmed it for me, though the fact that I don’t remember anything after sitting down in my chair on the stage is evidence enough, in my opinion.”
“Tell us,” said White impatiently. “We want to catch the person who made you do that.”
“All right, then,” said Bolt. He grimaced. “It was Volto, the leader of the Venetians.”
Treehugger covered her mouth. Suddenly, she remembered where she had seen those purple eyes before. They had been on that garbage creature in the Genesis Institute, the creature that Volto had possessed in order to destroy the Young Neos. Treehugger had never seen Volto himself before, of course, but she would never forget that creature’s purple eyes or its strange voice and way of speaking.
“Are you sure?” said Stinger. He looked around, like he expected Volto to jump out of the darkness and attack. “Because if you’re right, doesn’t that mean that Volto is somewhere close by? Possibly even on the actual campus?”
“Maybe,” said Bolt. “I don’t know the range that his soul projecting powers have. I doubt he’s actually on campus, though. That would be too dangerous, what with all of the NHA and INJ members walking around, not to mention the presence of the G-Men and the Vice-President.”
“Now that you mention it, it does make sense,” said Blizzard. “You did look like you were possessed by Volto.” She suddenly looked over her shoulder at White. “White, weren’t you briefly controlled by Volto back in the Genesis Institute?”
White shuddered, but nodded. “Yes. Bad times. Don’t like to remember.”
“It’s pretty obvious what Volto was trying to do,” said Bolt. “He wanted to frame me for murdering Strike, most likely to either provoke some kind of conflict between the NHA and INJ or scare the parents of the students to keep the students from coming here.”
“Why would he do that?” said Treehugger. “Granted, he probably does hate you, since you and White beat him that one time, but I don’t see how the Venetians or John Mann benefit from either of those things.”
“I do,” said Shell, who was leaning against the back wall of the hallway with his arms across his chest. “If the NHA and INJ are at each other’s throats, it would make it much easier for the Venetians to do whatever it is they’re trying to do. It might also ruin Bolt’s reputation, wh
ich would also help them.”
“Okay, but why would John Mann want the Academy closed?” said Treehugger. “The Academy doesn’t hurt him, does it?”
“Maybe not, but there’s still a lot we don’t know about Mann and his plans,” Stinger pointed out. “It’s possible that the existence of the school might somehow get in the way of his plans. Heck, maybe he’s planning to open his own super school and he just wants to get rid of potential competition. Greed is a pretty common problem among those really rich supervillain types like him.”
“If Mann was planning to open his own super school, I think we’d know of it by now,” said Talon. “By the way, Bolt, have you shared this suspicion of yours with Mecha Knight?”
“Yeah, I did,” Bolt said, nodding. “When Mecha Knight came down here to talk with me earlier, I told him about Volto. He didn’t seem surprised.”
“He never is,” said Stinger. “For that matter, I don’t think he ever feels any other kind of emotion, either.”
“This time was different, though,” said Bolt. “He told me that he had been expecting the Venetians to attack the school and that he would inform the NHA, INJ, and even the G-Men about my suspicions.”
“Really?” said Treehugger. “Why did he expect the Venetians to attack the Academy?”
“He didn’t exactly say, but I’m under the impression that he learned something from the G-Men that made him think that,” said Bolt. “My theory is that the G-Men found out something about the Venetians’ plans from the ruins of the Genesis Institute. Remember how they took control of the place after it collapsed?”
Treehugger nodded. “Yeah, I remember that. Are you thinking that the G-Men found out what the Venetians are planning and perhaps shared this information with both the NHA and the INJ to help them prepare a defense for the Academy?”
“Probably not the Venetians’ full plan, but yeah, I think something like that is going on here,” said Bolt. “I mean, why else would the Vice-President himself be here? I know the Academy is a one-of-a-kind institution, but it seems to me that they could have sent Cadmus Smith instead and achieved more or less the same effect.”