Break: An Urban Hero's Journey

by Wes Grant

  Von replied, “OK Mr. Attitude, if you want to do this on your own, I’ll log off and leave you to it.” Nick replied, “I’m sorry man, I’m just a little on edge. Just search and see if you can find anything about Shrink breaking out of prison.”

  After some searching, Von said, “I don’t know what friends this guy has, but there is nothing on him escaping.”

  Nick said, “What do you mean?” Von said, “I mean, it’s as if he never escaped. There’s some news on a riot that broke out at the prison, but nothing on his escape. It’s like he’s still locked up or something.”

  Nick said, “So what’s that mean?” Von said, “That means he must know someone with high connections because no regular person could keep something like this on the DL.”

  Nick mumbled under his breath, “Mr. Platinum.” Von said, “Mr. who? Nick replied, “Oh yeah, I didn’t have a chance to tell you and Neil I found out that the person behind all the psychos coming after me is Midas Platinum. Even more important, he was the guy over the guy that had you shot, and I almost had him. . . Well, thanks anyways, I’m out.”

  Von said, “Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, you don’t drop a bomb like that and say I’m out.”

  Nick looked at Von and said, “Why, what’s the problem.” Von responded with, “You just tho ught you had a hunch it might be him...Whoa, mind… blown… Finding out that someone successful you semilooked up to is really a villain is allot. I’m sorry but it’s like I just swallowed the red pill and know the world is completely different to me.”

  Nick replied, “Well, welcome to the rabbit hole. Now you know. But I do have to go, you know, superhero stuff.” Von said, “You do know it’s probably a trap, right?” Nick turned and said, “Yeah, probably… but what choice do I have? He’s holding the city ransom… But look on the bright side, he was the first psycho with powers I fought and I’m a hell of a lot better and stronger than I was back then. Let’s just hope he hasn’t gotten any better, but even if he has, I got this.” He then began to chuckle. He then said, “If you see Dean, tell him I need to talk to him.”

  Von said, “OK, man, if I see him, I’ll tell him. But why do you need to talk to him, he’s just a regular military person. I don’t think he can help you that much with your problem.”

  Nick said, “You’re pr obably right, but still I need to talk to him. See ya.” He then left the house and headed home to think of a strategy.

  NEXT SCENE The next night Nick called Dean but it went to voice message. He mentioned the bombs and that he might need his help with Shrink. He got ready and headed out to the meetup point.

  Spear arrived to the spot designated on the letter. It happened to be an electrical power plant. His instincts told him something was wrong. He had a really feeling about how quiet it was. He knew Shrink was there, but it felt there were multiple Breakers all around him. He thought to himself,“Is Shrink messing with my head. Could this be one of Shrink’s new powers? The power not only to hear my thoughts but also to mess up my senses?”

  Shrink’s voice came over the loudspeaker saying, “Well, it’s nice to see you’ve arrived without any trouble and all alone at that. Did you find the place OK, because I’m pretty bad at giving directions? The last time I gave directions I—”

  Spear interrupted and yelled, “Did you have me come all the way over here to talk or to fight?!”

  Shrink said in a calm, smugsounding voice, “Hey now, aren’t we anxious? You’re correct, let’s not waste any time.” A shadow began to walk toward Spear. Spear thought to himself, “Get ready to go super fast because there’s no way Shrink can keep up with his speed now even if he knows what moves he was going to do.” He then said, “Finally… you ready to get your butt kicked?” The shadowed figure got closer, but it looked bigger than he remembered Shrink to be.

  When the figure stepped into the light Crank said, “Sorry little man. It will be you that gets the butt kicked.” He had this silver device on his temple and looked as big as ever.

  Spear saw the silver device and yelled, “What is this, some sort of mind control or do you just get others to fight your battles now?”

  Crank swung at Spear, and Spear dodged while backflipping away from him. Crank then said, “Quiet Little Man, no one controls Crank. This lets me know what you doing.” He then pointed to the device.

  Spear replied, “So now you can read my moves with that thing on your head. Please, it doesn’t matter. I’ll just beat you the same way I beat him. I’m down for a little warm-up before the main event.” He then went into a fighting stance.

  Crank responded, “Little man has big eh. You got lucky in our last battle and now you think Crank is warmup. I will enjoy breaking you. And when I’m done… I will break you again.”

  Spear replied, “Okay… this just got real personal.” They both stood still and stared at each other for a few seconds, waiting for each other to make the first move. Spear thought to himself, “I guess it’s now or never.” Then he leaped at Crank. Crank did the same. Their fist clashed midair and created a small shockwave. Theypushed off each other’s fist and backflipped away from each other.

  Crank said, “Little Man has gotten strong I see.” Spear said, “You and I both know that was nothing. Now go big, I don’t have time to waste playing with you, there’s a show on TV I need to catch.”

  Crank said, “OK, if Little Man’s in rush to die, Crank has no problem doing so.” He then went big and looked even bigger than the last time they fought. They both moved super fast to the point where they were just a blur. Crank swung at Spear but he dodged and countered with a punch to Crank’s gut and a left hook to the face. Crank swung at him again but Spear flipped over him and punched down into his muscle between his neck and shoulder to paralyze his arm. When he came down, he landed behind Crank, so he elbowed him in the kidney. Crank belted in pain and swung a back fist at Spear, but once again Spear was too quick to hit. Spear followed up by jumping and punching Crank in the face, then kneeing him in the solar plexus, a left hook, a right hook, then flipped over his shoulders as Crank tried to get him in a bear hug. When he flipped over his shoulders, he finished off with a roundhouse back kick to the side of Crank’s head. Stunned Crank stumbled to the side after the last attack and turned his head to look behind him. He saw Spear standing, taunting him with the hand gesture to come closer.

  Crank turned around and tilted his head to the left to crack it, then to the right cracking it again. Spear said, “You might have get your new toy fixed cause if you could read my mind, you wouldn’t be getting your but handed to you like this.”

  Crank replied, “I was letting you get free hits to test your strength.”

  Spear in a condescending way replied, “Yeah… I’m sure you were.” They both went into fighting stance again and began to run at each other, but out of nowhere an electricity ball landed in between them. They both jumped back. Another electricity ball flew toward Spear, and flipped out of the way as the ball hits the ground dispersing the electricity. A figure stepped out of the shadows, revealing himself to be Voltedge.

  Crank yelled, “What are you doing? This is my fight!” Shrink talked to Voltedge in the head and said, “Yes, what are you doing? We had a plan.”

  Voltedge said, “Hey, Doc, I’m getting tired of waiting on the sidelines while Big Man over there gets his butt handed to him.” Spear in surprise said, “What is this, a PA meeting, Psychos Anonymous?” Shrink said over the speakers, “This wasn’t the plan ;, I was hoping to tire you out with eachfight. Oh well, looks like I’ll have to improvise. I guess there’s no point in keeping the rest of them hidden in the shadows.”

  Spear thought to himself, “Rest of them?” One by one the last two stepped out of the shadows to reveal themselves. First, Ignite tossing a fireball up and down in his hand, then M Wave with a glow in his eyes stepped out of the darkness.

  Spear, in a panic state replied, “I didn’t know you could bring multiple dates to this thing. If that was the case, I would have brou
ght some girls to this sausage fest.”

  All four began to move towards Spear but suddenly came to a halt. Shrink through the devices on their temples had told them to stop.

  Shrink said over the speakers, “You’re funny, but those jokes can’t hide the fact that your scared and you have no idea what to do. And trust me, I know. You are so naive. Did you really think I would go one-on-one with you? I know all about your accomplishment after I was locked up. I knew with the progression of the level of your fighting skill, I had no chance and neither did any of these guys alone one-on-one with you. But together with each of our unique abilities along with my MST [mind speech technology] invention keeping us working as one, and our common goal of annihilating you, we have come together to create a force unlike anything anyone can imagine. We will rain with a supremacy that not only surpasses that of the United States government but that of which will start a legacy. We are the five structures that will be the foundation to a new empire I envision for us. We are the Five Pillars.”

  Spear said, “I know you didn’t put this together on your own. Sure you’re smart enough to put this whole strategy together, but you don’t have the connections to cover up the fact that you guys broke out of jail. No, you know someone high up on the connection list, and I think I know who it is. Mr. Platinum. Only someone like this could make all this happen . . . Well, am I right?”

  A moment of silence passed, and Shrink said, “I guess you’re sharper than I had originally thought. I was told you were clever and not to underestimate you, but I learned that from our first encounter. You’re still nowhere near my level of genius—”

  Spear turned to Voltedge interrupting Shrink and said, “Does he always talk like this? You guys know if I’m going down, I’m going out fighting.” He then leaped out at Voltedge. Voltedge shot electric balls at Spear, but he dodged each one. Voltedge shot one more, but Spear took out his rods and snapped them together into a spear. He spun it in front of himself dispersing the electric ball. He continued towards Voltedge ready to take him out first but right before he got to Voltedge, he got got hit with a burst of energy wave. Spear jumped back with smoke coming off his clothes from the attack and saw M Wave walk right next to Voltedge.

  Spear said, “How are you not getting burned?”

  Voltedge said, “I’ll answer only if you tell me how you’re not affected by my electricity.” Spear said, “After our fight, I put a rubber coating on my weapons and some of my clothes just in case I ran into someone like you again. . . so what about you?”

  Voltedge said, “Doc explained to me that if I keep a low electrical field around my body, then it will disperdespa, . . . It’ll make me microwave proof.”

  Shrink told everyone to attack at once. Voltedge shot more electric balls at Spear; he dodged them. Crank tried to land an attack, but Spear dodged it. Ignite began to rapidly throw flaming balls at Spear then they all at once began an onslaught of attacks at Spear. Spear managed to dodge the attacks, but Shrink began to read his thoughts and relayed them to the fighters below. Shrink was looking through the window of the main electrical building at a safe distance. Spear did his best to dodge the attacks, but little by little the attacks came closer to having contact. He dodged Crank’s attack but was hit in the back by one of Voltedge’s attacks. In the middle of that attack while he was a little stunned, he was hit by one of Ignite’s fireballs knocking him off of his feet, which was then followed up by a hard punch from Crank, and though he braised himself for the attack it sent him slamming of the ground. Spear caught himself and slid to his feet, but when he looked up, he saw four powerful attacks coming at him.Injured he knew he wouldn’t be able to dodge all the attacks at once so he crosses his arms in front of him and braised for impact. Just then something landed in front of him caused a big explosion, negating the attacks and filling the area with smoke.

  Spear thought to himself, “What just happened?” When he looked up a black figure landed in front of Spear. The person looked back at Spear and said, “What’s wrong, you should have been able to take out these guys already.” Spear replied, “Ice… is that you?”

  Dean responded, “Who else is gonna save your butt?” Spear replied, “You look different.”

  Dean replied, “Got a new suit upgrade, and it’s Black Ice, not Ice. Anyways, these guys should be a piece of cake for you, what gives?”

  Spear responded, “I had it han dled, but Shrink is reading my thoughts and telling the rest of them, so every move I make they’re one step ahead.”

  Black Ice said, “Huh, excuses” he then tossed Spear a device and said, “Put this on, it should jam the area around you so he can’t read your thoughts.”

  Spear put it on and asked, “This ain’t gonna kill my future kids right?”

  Black Ice said, “Shut up and just put it on.”

  Spear replied, “So I see you got my message. Thanks for coming.” Black Ice replied, “What message? Remember, it’s my job to capture Breakers. You’re just lucky I managed to track them down to this location before they put you down for good. I had no idea you would be here. And that raises another question, how did you find them before me?”

  Spear looked away from Black Ice and said, “Yeah, umm, I was kinda invited.”

  Ice looked back and said, “And you came! How stupid are you!” Spear said, “Hey, be easy on me, I don’t have your resources. I didn’t know all of them were out, I just thought it was only Shrink.”

  The smoke started to clear, and from the window Shrink saw Spear and some unknown guest. He went over the speaker and said, “It seems you did bring a date to the party after all. Who is he?” He then tried to hear Spear’s thoughts, but he couldn’t hear a thing. He then said, “It seems your new friend has a few toys. One of which keeps me from hearing your thoughts. Nevertheless, I always have a plan.” He then said through his MST device to them, “Gentlemen, move to formation B.” Crank jumped over to Ignite, and Voltedge teamed up with M Wave.

  Shrink then said through the MST, “Remember, gentlemen, I had them make those outfits to accommodate your abilities to their fullest so your powers won’t hurt one another. So if we stay according to plans, the two of them still won’t be a match for you.”

  Shrink then said through the speakers, “Are you two gentlemen ready to begin?” Spear said, “Now that this guy is here, you guys have no chance.” He looked to Ice and asked, “Your not gonna to kill them right?”

  Ice replied, “No, my instructions are to bring them in alive. Besides, most of them are class C Breakers, so they shouldn’t be that much trouble.”

  Spear yelled out, “You heard that! You guys are only class C Breakers, you don’t have a chance now that we’re fighting together.”

  Ice looked at Spear from the corner of his eyes and said, “Uh, I wouldn’t brag if I were you, you’re only a class D.” Spear said, “What! How am I only a class D? I beat all of them. I demand a recount!” Ice replied, “Your classes are based on the potential damage you can cause, and I’m sorry, but seeing how most of them have projectile abilities, that makes them a higher class than you.”

  Spear said, “Well, at least Crank is at my class, right . . . right!” Ice didn’t say a word. Spear said, “Are you kidding me? We havethe same abilities, how is he a higher class?”

  Ice replied, “He’s a lot stronger than you and can cause more destruction in a shorter time.” Spear responded, “Whatever man, let’s just take them out and we’ll talk about my class afterward.” They both went in fighting stance and said, “I’ll take the fat guy and ladyboy, you take the big guy and fro hawk over there.”

  Voltedge began to drain energy from the electric generators, and electricity began to surge all around the area. Spear sprinted at Voltedge and M Wave; Ice ran toward Crank and Ignite. Ignite shot a barrage of his fireballs at Ice. Meanwhile Spear flipped all over the place trying to dodge all the electricity being shot at him. Ice was holding his own against Crank and Ignite, but it was proving to be more difficul
t for Spear considering he couldn’t get close to them with M Wave’s field protecting them. The two teams worked perfect together, every time Spear or Ice tried to attack one specific person, the other interrupted. Ice was flipping and doing continuous aerial moves to combat Crank.

  After more than enough attempts at trying to get an attack on Voltedge, Spear yelled out to Ice, “Yo, do you think we can switch?”

  Ice yelled, “OK.” They both stopped attacking their enemies and ran past each other to the opposite group. Doing this Spear seemed better equipped fighting Crank and Ignite. He went after Ignite first and tried to take him out, but Crank stayed close to him. Their teamwork was as if they had been working together for years. Crank was Ignite’s shield and Ignite was Crank’s long- range sword with the flame attacks. Spear pulled his staff apart into two rods and swung at Crank, but he dodged. Ignite shot a fireball at Spear, but he dispersed it with his rod. At the same time Crank tried to attack and Spear blocked it with the other rod. He ducked down and swept Crank off his feet, flipped up to attack Crank on the ground. Before he could land an attack on him, Ignite shot multiple fireballs at him, making him cancel his attack. He jumped back and went on the attack at Ignite, but right before he got to him, Crank appeared in front of him and slammed the ground. That attack made the ground break and crack in front of Spear. Spear jumped back to avoid the ground. Crank then grabbed a chunk of ground, broke it in two, and chucked it at Spear. Ignite from behind set the two pieces on fire, creating two large solid masses of fire. Spear at first was going to attack the two boulders, but when they were set on fire, he realized it would be a bad idea. He then realized it might be a good thing, so he leaned back in the air and landed on one of the flaming boulders then kicked it off, launching it back at them. Crank saw it and punched it, shattering it into hundreds of pieces. Spear threw some of his smoke bombs at them, but Ignite shot fire at them causing a huge explosion. On the other side of the area, Voltedge began to shoot electricity at Ice, but Ice threw down some devices on the ground that pulled the electricity toward them instead of him. He pulled out a small tranquilizer gun and shot at Voltedge and M Wave, but the darts burned up before reaching them. M Wave began to give off a burst of microwaves to keep Ice at bay. The microwaves disrupts the frequency jammer Ice had protecting him from Shrink’s powers. Shrink began to hear Ice’s thoughts. Spear tried to fight off Crank and Ignite with his staff. He jumped in the air as Ignite shot a large stream of fire at him. Spear spun the staff in front of himself like their first encounter, to disperse the flames, but while in the air, he turned and saw M Wave keeping Ice busy while Voltedge began to open his hands, drawing electricity into him. He then began to pull his hands together, creating a ball of electricity. He did it again, making the ball the size of a kick ball; he did it again, making the ball the size of a medicine ball. The flames began to melt the rubber coating off Spear’s staff. He saw Ice was to distracted by M Wave’s attack to notice Voltedge charging up this new attack. Voltedge fired off this huge electric ball attack at Ice, but Ice didn’t see it in time. He tossed a bunch of his electric devices to draw the electric out of the attack, but it didn’t work because the attack was too powerful. Spear thought fast and threw his staff down between Ice and the attack. The staff stuck in the ground, and because the fire melted the rubber coating off, the electric ball struck the staff and was redirected up into the sky up toward the mountain in the distance. Some of the electricity reached Ice and gave him a shock. When the attack hit the side of the mountain, it disintegrated a large patch of trees, leaving a clearing with a ring of fire on the side of the mountain.