by Lucas Flint
I looked at Hopper. “What’s Battle Tactic Alpha?”
“A team tactic,” said Hopper. “You and I work together to beat our enemy. I open portals that you use to jump around the battlefield to attack our enemy, making it difficult for him to figure out where you are and attack you.”
“Ah,” I said. I frowned. “Do we do that often?”
“Oh, sure,” said Hopper. “We did it all the time before your accident. It comes as naturally as breathing, we’ve practiced it so much.”
“Right,” I said, though the tactic didn’t even seem familiar to me.
“Are you two just going to stand around and talk?” said Iron Horn. “Big mistake.”
Iron Horn lowered his head to charge at us again, but then Hopper opened a portal and shouted at me, “Go!”
Trusting that Hopper’s plan would work, I ran through the portal. In the next moment, I appeared behind Iron Horn, who apparently did not notice me. I immediately grabbed him from behind and, with some effort, lifted him above my head. Even with my super strength, Iron Horn was heavy as a boulder, and it didn’t help that his limbs were flailing around as he attempted to make me put him down.
So I decided to put him down, and by ‘put him down,’ I mean throw him. I hurled Iron Horn away, sending him flying into a boulder, which he crashed into so hard that the boulder actually split in half. Iron Horn fell to the ground, but recovered quickly, getting back to his feet like he had just slipped and fallen on a banana peel. He wiped away a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, an angry scowl on his face.
“You throw hard, kid,” said Iron Horn. “But not hard enough.”
He grabbed the two boulder halves and hurled them at me. A portal suddenly appeared in front of me, which I ran into. A split second later, I appeared behind Iron Horn as the boulder halves slammed into the spot where I had been standing a moment before.
But Iron Horn whirled around and slammed his boot into my face. It was like getting kicked in the head by a rhino wearing a steel block. The blow knocked me flat off my feet, and before I could get back up, Iron Horn wrapped his hand around my neck and raised me off the ground, squeezing hard enough to make it almost impossible to breathe.
“I’m not as stupid as I look,” said Iron Horn. “Your ‘Battle Tactic Alpha’ was incredibly predictable. Now give up peacefully or I’ll have to beat you some more.”
“N-Never,” I managed to choke out, even though I was in no position to free myself. “I f-fight for V-Vision …”
Iron Horn shook his head and pulled back his other fist. “Then I’ll just have to knock you out for a little while and then go and deal with your teammates.”
There was no way I could dodge Iron Horn’s fist, at least not as long as he choked the air out of me like this. And I knew that without me, the mission would fail.
All of a sudden, a portal exploded into existence behind Iron Horn. But it wasn’t just a normal portal; it had a powerful sucking force, pulling Iron Horn and me toward it like a vacuum cleaner along the floor.
Iron Horn glanced over his shoulder at the portal in shock, his grip on my neck also loosening. I kicked his arm hard enough to make him drop me, but Iron Horn didn’t fall into the portal. He stamped his feet into the ground, cracking the road’s pavement and planting his feet into it, keeping the portal from sucking him inside.
But I rose to my feet and punched him in the stomach as hard as I could. I hit him hard enough to break his feet out of the asphalt, sending him flying into the portal, which he disappeared into instantly, the portal closing as soon as his massive form vanished inside.
Then I heard a scream above and looked up at the top of the pass to see a portal had opened up there. Iron Horn fell out of the portal and down the pass, falling like a rock until he crashed into the ground hard enough to create a deep crater in the earth, sending up dust and dirt everywhere. I raised my arms to defend myself, but after a few seconds of waiting, Iron Horn did not rise again, which meant that he was either dead or so badly injured by his fall that he wouldn’t be getting up again anytime soon. Either way, that meant he was out of this fight for now.
Then a portal opened next to me and Hopper stepped out of it. The portal closed behind him as he said, “You okay, Bolt?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, rubbing the spot on my face where Iron Horn had kicked me. “Nice move.”
“Thanks,” said Hopper, nodding. He looked at the crater that Iron Horn had made and smirked. “Big dumb oaf didn’t see that coming, now did he?”
I nodded, but then started and said, “Incantation! We need to—”
“Help me?” came Incantation’s voice. “That’s a chivalrous thought, but I’m just fine on my own.”
Hopper and I looked over toward the vehicle. Incantation stood on top of Blood Boil, who was now wrapped from head to toe in ribbons. He was also clearly unconscious, a big bump on his head, which made me relax, because I wasn’t sure if he could use his blood controlling powers while he was tied up or not.
“You beat him by yourself?” said Hopper in surprise as Incantation jumped off of Blood Boil and dusted off her robes.
“Of course,” said Incantation with a snort. “He wasn’t that hard.”
“Well, in any case, with both Iron Horn and Blood Boil down, that means that the vehicle is unprotected,” I said, “which means that there’s nothing to stop us from rescuing our leaders.”
“What if there are guards in the vehicle, though?” said Hopper doubtfully. “Do you really think that they’d just have these two defending it?”
“Sure looks like it, doesn’t it?” I said. “If there were any more guards, they would have come out to join these two and help them beat us. But since they didn’t, that clearly means that only Blood Boil and Iron Horn were protecting the vehicle.”
“If you say so,” said Hopper.
“But just to be safe, you two should stand back when I open the back of the vehicle, where our leader is,” I said. “Just in case the G-Men have another trick up their sleeves.”
Incantation and Hopper nodded and the three of us ran over to the vehicle, its engine still smoking from where I’d smashed it. Reaching the back of the vehicle, I saw that it was only locked by a simple deadlock, which I snapped with a single swipe of my fist. After looking over my shoulder to make sure that Incantation and Hopper stood an appropriate distance away from the back doors of the vehicle, I ripped open the doors, saying, “Leader! We have come to rescue—”
I paused. With the sun’s light shining into the back of the vehicle, I saw that it was completely empty. There was no Visionary, no guards or anyone else. The only thing in the back of the vehicle was a small, beeping steel box, which I noticed too late was wired to the doors.
The steel box instantly opened, unleashing a burst of yellow, foul-smelling gas directly at my face. Incantation and Hopper yelled behind me to warn me, but I yelled at them to stay back and not approach the gas, which was rapidly spreading out all around me.
The gas made me feel incredibly weak, causing me to stumble backwards. I tried to keep my mouth shut and not inhale it, but the gas was everywhere and I had already inhaled a good portion of it before I realized that it was hurting me. This feeling of weakness felt disturbingly familiar, but I couldn’t place it, again due to my amnesia.
Then I heard something shoot from the back of the vehicle and strike my neck, piercing my costume’s surface. I grabbed at my neck, feeling a feathery dart, which made me realize that I had been hit with a tranquilizer.
But that was the last thought I had before I lost consciousness and collapsed onto the road.
Chapter Ten
Uggh … what happened? My head hurt. It felt like someone had slammed a ten ton sledgehammer in my face. I felt so weak and tired, too, like I’d been working intense manual labor nonstop for a whole week without any breaks or getting a chance to rest.
I tried to sit up, but immediately felt thick braces around my limbs. I o
pened my eyes and looked down to see that my arms and legs were indeed being held down by thick steel braces. I tried to break free of them, but my super strength wouldn’t come to me, no matter how much I focused on it. It felt like someone was smothering my brain with a pillow, though at least the pain in the back of my head I felt whenever I tried to remember stuff was gone.
“Come on, damn it,” I muttered, tugging at my braces. “Let me go.”
“Sorry, but we cannot allow you to be free just yet,” said a soft, gravelly voice I did not recognize but which sounded very familiar. “Not until we fix whatever they did to you.”
I raised my head, looking for the source of the voice, but the room I was in was dark. Aside from the single light shining from the ceiling above me, the rest of the room was in complete darkness. But I could sense someone looking at me just outside of my field of vision, though I didn’t know who it was.
“Who’s there?” I said. “Where am I? Where is the Visionary? Is he safe?”
“Sagan is currently imprisoned in a secret government facility far from here,” said the voice, “in a location only I know, because I do not trust anyone else with that knowledge.”
“So you’re with the government,” I said. “Let me guess, G-Men, right? Where are Incantation and Hopper?”
“They escaped,” said the voice. “Iron Horn attempted to catch them, but they were not hit with the powerless gas like you, so they escaped via a portal. Their current location is unknown, though I will get it from you soon enough.”
“Powerless gas …” That phrase felt familiar on my lips and sent a sense of dread down my spine that I could not explain. “What’s that?”
“A gas created by the Pokacu alien species that temporarily negates the power of a superhuman,” said the voice. “The G-Men got their hands on a few cases of the stuff after the second Pokacu invasion. I thought I would put it to use in order to catch you. It is still in effect, by the way, and will remain in effect for a few more hours.”
“Catch me?” I said. “Why do you want me?”
“Because you are far too powerful to be allowed to roam freely with those criminals,” said the voice. “We’re lucky that Vision did not send you to destroy any cities and that you have not caused much damage with your powers.”
I gritted my teeth. “Show yourself. Or are you afraid of a powerless kid like me?”
A figure suddenly stepped out of the shadows and into the light. He was a man who appeared to be in his early forties, wearing an old-fashioned suit, his jet-black hair combed back neatly. His eyes, however, looked like the eyes of a much older man, which made him look like he had stolen his eyes from someone older than himself.
He looked eerily familiar, but I just couldn’t identify him no matter how hard I tried. Maybe I’d once seen someone like him in the past, although it really felt like I had seen this guy in particular before, even though I couldn’t remember his name or anything else about him.
“Hello, Bolt,” said the man. He stopped beside me at the table, looking down at me, his hands in his pockets. “Do you remember me?”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t.”
“It appears that your brainwashing was very thorough indeed,” said the man. “I wonder if the damage was permanent.”
“Damage? What damage?” I said. “Are you talking about my amnesia? I slipped on some water about a week ago and knocked my head against the floor.”
“Is that what they told you?” said the man. “Well, you sound like you believe it, even though it is a transparent lie. Then again, if you don’t remember the truth, then how can you know when you are being lied to?”
“What are you talking about?” I said. “And who are you, anyway? You still haven’t given me your name.”
“You already know it … or did, anyway,” said the man. “My name is Cadmus Smith. I am the Director of the Department of Superpowered and Extraterrestrial Beings and the leader of the G-Men.”
I would have started on my slab, but I just couldn’t move thanks to the braces around my limbs. “Cadmus Smith? You’re the leader of the G-Men. You’re the enemy.”
“I have many enemies, but most of them are in Ultimate Max or dead,” said Cadmus. “Now, does my name ring a bell? Do you remember anything—anything at all—about me prior to your ‘accident’ a week ago?”
I thought about it. Cadmus Smith’s name and appearance were very familiar, but maybe I’d seen a picture of him on the Internet at some point. It wasn’t like he was totally unknown, after all, because he worked for the government and everything, but that didn’t seem right, either. I knew him, knew him from more than just seeing a few pictures on the Internet, but I couldn’t place where I had seen him before exactly.
I shook my head. “I don’t remember anything about you from before my accident. And why the skeptical tone? You’re acting like I’m lying about my accident.”
“Technically, I suppose you aren’t, because you seem to believe that you did indeed have an ‘accident’ that gave you amnesia,” said Cadmus. “But the truth of the matter is that your amnesia is not the result of an ‘accident.’ It was deliberately inflicted on you in order to get you to ally with a dangerous cult hellbent on destroying not only just the superhero community, but America as a whole.”
“What are you talking about?” I said. “I’ve always been a Visionist. Incantation said so. I even remember when Thaumaturge first offered me membership in the organization along with all of my friends back in high school.”
“Those are false memories,” said Cadmus, “likely placed there by someone within Vision, although unfortunately I don’t know who. Still, I know for a fact that you are an enemy of Vision and not a friend.”
“You’re lying,” I said. “My memories are real. Every last one of them. I may not remember them all because of my amnesia, but so what? That doesn’t make them any less real. You’re just trying to deceive me, like Shade and Iron Horn.”
“No, I am not,” said Cadmus. “I am telling you the truth. You are not, and never have been, a Visionist. In fact, you have been Vision’s greatest enemy, ever since you helped defeat Sagan last year.”
“I … helped defeat Sagan?” I said. I shook my head. “No way. Sagan was captured by the government. That’s what Incantation told me.”
“Incantation lied, as Visionists always do,” said Cadmus. “She lied to you in order to manipulate you into aiding Vision in their quest to rescue their leader.”
“No, she didn’t,” I said, though the words felt false in my mouth. “She’s my girlfriend. We’ve been dating for years. Why would my girlfriend lie to me?”
Cadmus simply looked at me in amazement. “You mean you don’t remember your real girlfriend? Amazing. Whoever they have altering your memories must be incredibly powerful and thorough if you don’t even remember your real girlfriend.”
“But Incantation is my real girlfriend,” I said. “What are you even talking about?”
“No, she isn’t,” said Cadmus. “I happen to know that you are dating another girl entirely, one who goes by the name Blizzard. Do you remember her?”
Blizzard … that name sounded incredibly familiar to me. I felt feelings of warmth and desire when I heard it, but no specific memories came back to my mind. Just like with Cadmus, the name seemed familiar to me, but I had no specific memories to back up that feeling.
“I … don’t,” I said. “I don’t remember any girl named Blizzard.”
“You don’t sound too sure about that,” said Cadmus. “That’s good. It means that your memory was not totally wiped. There may yet be a way to retrieve it.”
“My memory is fine, aside from the amnesia,” I said. “You’re the liar here, trying to confuse me and make me distrust my fellow Visionists.”
“The truth does seem rather confusing after you have lived in a lie for so long,” said Cadmus, “but I can assure you that I am not trying to manipulate you. If I was, you wouldn’t even suspect it.”
“You are Kevin Jason, also known as the superhero Bolt,” said Cadmus. “And you are the leader of the Young Neos, the most famous young neohero team in the country, which is under the supervision of the Neohero Alliance.”
Young Neos … it sounded familiar, but I wasn’t going to say that aloud, because I still didn’t trust Cadmus. “Is that all?”
“No,” said Cadmus. “You are the son of Theodore Ronald Jason, also known as the superhero Genius, who died earlier this year at the hands of your arch enemy, Robert Candle. Your mother is Ashley Jason, a normal human, and she lives in Silvers, Texas, though you and your family are originally from New York City.”
“My dad was a superhero?” I said. “And he was killed by my enemy? I didn’t even know I had an arch enemy.”
“You did, until you killed him,” said Cadmus. “You were also enemies with his parents, Bernard Candle, also known as the supervillain Master Chaos, and Maria Candle, a normal woman who was good with technology. Both are dead after trying to kill you.”
Master Chaos … Robert Candle … Genius … all of those names swam through my mind. They were tugging at my memory, making me see glimpses of things that I didn’t understand; fighting a crazed-looking blond Hispanic guy underwater, flying through the sky with a woman in a mecha holding onto me with a chain, fighting a giant made of boiling water alongside a girl in a white hood who was incredibly beautiful but whose name I could not recall … but they were just flashes. Bits and pieces that were taken out of context, like taking a stack of photographs and throwing them into the air and letting them fall into a random order that made no sense.
The back of my head burned with pain, causing me to cry out. “No! You’re lying. None of this is true. I’m a Visionist, a follower of the Visionary.”