Alantian Doomsday Plot! (Double EXP)

It was a degree under a hundred, the sun was high in the sky, the wind blew whispers that swept across the faces of men and women of all ages; providing one of the few great feelings one could experience on a hot summer's day. The seagulls cried as they circled, the beaches were packed full of people. Be it to get a tan or to play some volleyball these people were experiencing a truly wonderful and beautiful day. It was the kind of day that reminded everyone of just how perfect and peaceful a normal life could be on a good Sunday off.

And Matthew was stuck inside....

Rubbing his eyes and letting out a slight groan in annoyance he looked about the small area he was in. A desk top that was literally a touch-screen computer, a laptop stationed up on it for a secondary display. Polished and properly waxed linoleum floors that seemed to shine at just the perfect angle. it was an open-floor layout with a few observation rooms and some lab equipment scattered about; something Matthew hadn't really been able to do much of on his own. Of course there was also a little "acquaintance" working alongside him in order to keep things working optimally; however the ever so slight contrast of ideology and the clash of wits made things often....strenuous. Of course the strain was only upon Matthew, as he was the only one who was aware of just how much he despised and protested the "Rehabilitations" and "Everyone gets an award for trying" mentality that the other members seemed to embrace with rainbows and unicorns.

"Did you hear me?" The voice came again, snapping Matthew from his thoughts. He played it off gently, nodding up and down slowly, as if he had been thinking about what they had said. "Are you alright? Maybe I should take the helm for a bit. You seem a bit....off."

"No. I'm good. " He said before waving them off a bit, Matthew then leaned down and pushed down on the blue button to access the communicator on Bolt's person. Or at least it should have been on Bolt's person. He was instructed to keep it on his person. Matthew swore to himself as he listened to it ring. IF that boy put his communicator through the washing machine one more time...he's show him what a real villain looked like. Finally the communicator got through and locked into communication.

"Hey Bolt, we've got wind of a small problem." That seemed to be how most of his conversations started anymore. When he agreed to be the supporting "over watch" type of helper to Bolt he never actually imagined himself with a small set-up behind a desk with another person wandering about and helping him. It also wasn't easy to dictate and keep the hero on the field informed of what was going on. Monitoring cameras was boring as all Hell. He hated doing it when he had to do it on his own; but the promised reward of enduring such a punishment was the promises of ending the existence of some filthy degenerate. When he had to do this for Bolt, there was no such reward. The closest thing he got was maybe, MAYBE getting to watch a good chase; or maybe getting to see the scum before Bolt locked them away.

"There's been some irregular activity going on around the beaches. People are turning up missing." He concluded, he wanted to wait and see just how Bolt would react before he broke the news of exactly what was happening.

The life of a hero was something that never really ended, there were only small lulls within great swells of action, and Bolt was on the edge of said swells. For the moment however, Alex was just enjoying the day despite how hot it was. With an annoyed sigh, he dragged the back of his hand across his forehead, looking to the sky blue and clear as the sun continued to beam down upon the poor windy city of Chicago. Today was the day he would spend a little time with his friends, a few kids he knew from school that really enjoyed skateboarding, and so that was what they were doing.

Sure, he had to pretend he had almost no idea what he was doing, but then again that was something that came pretty easy. Falling down a bit, though the whole durability thing made any ouchies a lot less bothersome than it would normally be. This little distraction however was fun, so he just enjoyed himself while it happened until the inevitable happened. That being the communicator he had been given going off, making that noise that was rather disctintive. Turning his attention from his friends going about their business, he answered the communicator and stepped behind...well what looked to be some kind of wall.

It was his friend behind the desk Matt, someone who made actually catching the criminals a lot easier than usual. Adding direction to an otherwise likely directionless crusade for  order within the world, not that he had any illusions that he was doing any greater good. ”People going missing around beaches? Are there any beaches around Chicago? Because….I don’t actually know if there are.” He asked, thinking now on that small fact which was pretty important to the whole job. After all, if it was going on somewhere else, he would have to actually run there and that was just so much annoying leg work to do.

Leaping over a railing overlooking what looked to be a parking lot, he sighed. ”Doesn’t matter. Tell me where I need to be and i’ll be there….as soon as I can.”

Matthew chuckled a little when he heard Bolt's comment about beaches in Chicago. Of course there were beaches in Chicago, but there weren't any connected to Oceans. So in that respect he was partially correct.

"Hehe, no. You're right. But unfortunately this would pull you away from Chicago." Matthew said with a slight shake of his head as he looked over the information. Bolt replied as he always did, always and forever the hero's hero. One of the reasons Matthew even half bothered to help him. "You're headed to Florida. Port Orange, it's about an hour from Jacksonville. I'll bring up the GPS on your phone. Make sure you look at it every so often to make sure you're not over-shooting anything. It'll take it a while, but you'll get there. With any luck we might see you there." Matthew said before leaning back and sighing, wishing that were true. He wanted to go to Florida too, maybe see his grandmother or help out on the glorious adventure. However that wasn't his place anymore. Now he was condemned to the life of serving others. The old Matthew wouldn't have minded it. But this one.... not his style.

"Wait, what are we going to do about his parents?" A voice piped up from behind him, Matthew barely twitched before scoffing and chuckling. It seemed as if he found it to be playful banter, but truly in his mind Matthew was just thinking of how many different, and horrific ways he wanted to deal with his "partner" in the hub.

"Leave that to me, I'll be able to distract them long enough. But I need to focus on a few other things first." Matthew said as he sat back in his chair, eyes peering from behind his thick rimmed glasses, eyes tracing over the laptop screen as he waited.

Bolt would arrive in Florida at his own pace. Matthew calculated the distance between the cities to be roughly 1,160 miles apart. That being said he knew that Bolt's prowess at current would cap him somewhere around Mach 2, which was well over that distance in an hour. He pushed himself away from the table and stood up, announcing his departure to go get something to eat. He also dropped a hint that it wouldn't take long for Bolt to reach Port Orange.

"It will take him 45 minutes.... I don't believe he's familiar with Florida much. He'll make frequent stops. Maybe second-guess himself on one." But by time they finished explaining their thought-process they turned back and Matthew was already gone, not caring to listen to their explanation. "or yeah...you know. Not like I was talking or anything."

Port Orange was an unimpressive place, large enough to get it's own sign and name, but small enough that it wasn't anywhere to overly care about. However it would be easily noted that there were no immediate beaches in the area, none of them overly popular at any rate. Yet there were several good beach-front locations that were popular with the immediate residents. Especially ones that were only 5 or 10 minutes away. The streets were littered with posters for missing peoples, and it seemed to be nothing but a regular day. but where would Bolt start his lucrative investigation when he first arrives?

”Port Orange, gotcha. I’ll be there in like an hour I guess. I’ll see ya there.” He said, already imagining how the place would look before he even got there, though that was just his overactive imagination playing a part. Maybe after this he could actually go to a beach, take in the sights and just enjoy the scenery. The idea of doing a bit of swimming about in the ocean was something he really wanted to do, but heroism took center stage now. His mind sorta brushed off the fact he was here with people, as he took of at impressive speeds to gather up his costume and then from there he would be off.

Bolt slipped into his costume, flexing his fingers a couple of times to text the gloves, along with the other joints before he was satisfied. Despite how uncomfortable his suit looked like it would be for long runs, it was actually fine with them. He was expecting to see Matt there, or rather hoping that he would see his friend there. Sure he had other friends, but just having one that he didn’t have to play normal around just made everything so much better.

Looking down at his phone, Alex sighed and prepared himself for the run. Judging from the distance given, he could probably make it in less than an hour if he ran as fast as he could, unless he was growing slower without his knowledge. Regardless, he stared down at his phone and memorized the first few directions as best he could before giving the sign that said one was entering Chicago one last glance. ”I wonder if it's this hot in Flordia...probably is.” He muttered to himself, shaking his head to clear his mind and then taking off in a dash.

The sonic boom came and went, causing the usual distortion of the area around it. Everything became a sort of blur before coming into focus, vehicles and everything looking as if they were moving in slow motion. The trip itself would still feel like it was taking an eternity, mostly due to the feeling of actually running for a consistent amount of time at full speed. Anyone he ran past would likely have only seen a blur, but that required them paying attention, honestly his influence on the environment around him would have been more visible than Bolt himself.

Time dragged on from there, Bolt occasionally checking his phone to make sure he was going the right way but he did eventually reach Port Orange around forty minutes. Once he arrived, he decided to change into some more civilian looking clothes to let him blend in, considering that he honestly only wore his hero costume there since having his shoes burn up would have been a pain.

His investigation began with checking on the missing poster, finding out who was missing and finding out if there was anything the people had in common. That mostly came with all of those cop dramas he ended up watching when he wasn’t buys with other things. Well his mother watched them, but he happened to watch them as well. From there it was checking up on the most popular beachfront locations, trying not to draw too much attention to himself, but still try to get enough info without having to be obvious about it.

There weren't too many clues to be had in the missing persons poster, there were certainly similarities. All of the missing peoples had been surfing, and all of the missing persons were under the age of twenty. All of them surfing, all of them under the age of twenty, and a weird little detail was the fact that all of them had blue eyes. Of course that was likely more of a coincidence, but it was something that could be noted. The beaches they vanished from had been random, the times were all over the place, no pattern to any of it that they could see.

"Hey it's me. Cypher here. The system says your already in Port Orange, any truth to that?" Cypher asked through their modulator. They weren't trying to hide from Bolt, but they insisted on it, due to as many superhumans have super-human hearing and could pick up and remember a voice. "Proxy went off to deal with your parents. Trying to keep their suspicions at bay; doing whatever it is....Proxy does." Cypher gave a half-hearted shrug, though they doubted Bolt would be able to hear that.

"Give me the low-down, how can we help?" The question was posed quickly, hoping to garner more intel.

Nothing really stuck out about the people missing, aside from them being surfers and under the age of twenty. Something about that was strange but nothing that really stuck out to him. ”I...am really not good at this detective thing.” He muttered to himself, Cypher making their usual sudden appearance. Alex jumped for the second that fright flowed through him, before turning. ”Yeah, i’m actually here. I guess i’m faster than we thought I was.” Bolt said, with a shrug not really thinking into their disposition. The were offering help however, so he would accept whatever it was that they could give him.

”Haven’t found anything really useful. Guys under twenty, all surfers but nothing else aside from that. I guess any other info you guys can get me on that would be good. It looks like it has something to do with the water, so something tells me it might be some kind sea creature….like a shark I guess. ”  Now he was blabbing more than anything else but then again that was just him.

"Okay. W-wait. When you say "guys"; is that a gender specification or a relative pronoun describing the people in general." Cypher asked for clarification; that being because in the modern slang "guys" could be used to address a group of people. Of course in this situation either was true, however it was a detail important to their specifications. Cypher was leaned forward, looming over the desk as their fingers tapped, eyes shifting back and forth as they tried to pull up any and all information on the suspects.

The rapid thudding of their finger's tapping against the plastic-glass covering was enough to mask the incoming footsteps of Cypher's co-captain and the resident lazy guy; Matthew. With Matthew back he sighed and walked around the table, heading straight for the lab set in the corner, seeming to observe a few things before standing upright and running a hand through his hair, looking back to see Cypher talking to Bolt.

"Ok, so we're only positive about three of those right now. Who would target this kind of person though? Could it be a shark attack?" Cypher asked as they talked to Bolt, running a facial recognition scan throughout the beach cams and trying to find any form of footage involving these people.

"Hey Bolt; your parents think you're at my house working on a school project. Now hopefully they don't decide to go over and check it out. Because if that happens then we're going to have to explain why the can't find us." Matthew said as he sat down at the secondary chair, moving his laptop with a glare at Cypher before continuing to work in haste. His fingers produced loud annoying little clicks as he punched in a few words on Google that brought up the several known victims names.

"So...all of them were surfers. All of them physically fit. All of them vanished. All of them also lived in an Orphanage, St.Meyers. Though two of them were adopted into foster care.... so now that we've got a place-" He was hoping Bolt would be smart enough to finish the sentence for him and know what to do....but to be honest.... he was also expecting Bolt to ask him to finish talking.

”I mean guys, dudes, bros, people who aren’t chicks.” He explained further, though most of those could be used without any gender specification as well; if he was a skater anyway. That was followed by the sounds of keys being typed on, likely Cypher looking for a bit more information about what was happening. ”Sounds a little too specific to be a shark, unless they are some super smart evil sharks swimming around I mean” Honestly, it was a contribution to the conversation that added nothing at all beyond the over the top mental image of evil sharks.

That being until Matt added himself into the small conversation, saying something about having an excuse for his parents. They worried about him, so any excuse was enough, though having someone else come up with the excuses was a lot easier than his own. ”Sounds good.” He said, , still trying to think of something that made more sense than super evil sharks looking for handsome surfer types for….food maybe. Unless things were delving into crazy scenarios beyond the simple eating that animals did.

”So it’s go something to do with that orphanage?” he asked, hoping that Matt would have more to work with than just that. It sounded suspect enough to be worth looking into again, though where he would find said orphanage was another story entirely. Alex did trust his friends to help out in that regard, so he wasn’t too worried about not knowing where to go. ”I mean there’s probably some paperwork about them lying around, so I guess that’s a place to start….right?”

Once pointed in a direction Bolt would do what he did best, run really fast.

It wouldn't take long at all before Bolt had reached the old orphanage. The place was looking a little run-down on the outside, but St.Meyer's was still well lit on the inside, bookshelves and proper drapes on the inside. It was a deceptive little place, well...it wasn't really little. It had more than it's fair share of land and walls; however the point remained. Bolt would find himself able to knock on the front door, or sleuth the way he wanted to, it really didn't matter to Matthew or Cypher. All that mattered was that he get inside and look for any form of documents on the missing persons.

   The building was a rather nice interior, dark hardwood flooring, unscratched and regularly maintained, cream colored walls with trim to match the floors. Couches with matching wooden arms and dark red cushions, matching loveseats and deep-seat chairs. The bedrooms were well made, several dark metallic bed frames and crisp white sheets folded military style.

  The children were all outside when Bolt would have arrived, their matrons and patrons outside watching over them, all save for perhaps one or two that were working randomly inside. The inner workings of the place weren't so interesting. However; it might have been interesting to note that the security cameras were stationed systematically throughout the building, and several of the choke-points of the building were quite narrow. It was up to Bolt to decide how he wanted to go about things. The Sleuth hero, or the direct one.

  "I'd think sneaking in would be better. Give you some time without distractions....or red tape." Matt said the last portion under his breath before Cypher spoke up in protest, as Matt assumed they would.

 "Woah, Ma-ah-i mean Proxy. We can't condone him sneaking around. This isn't like the comic books. If we wanna help people it's got to be by the books. A clean operation." Cypher's voice was stern, which was almost a little uncharacteristic of them as a being. Of course this only sparked a little more of a conflict.

 "If a costumed freak walks up and asks to see private files, protected by government regulation, without identification and without a court order he is ASKING to be investigated. If he's investigated he could be hunted, tracked down and this entire thing we have going is kaput. So we can do this my way....or we can do this "The right way" and watch as this whole thing unravels right in front of us." Matthew said as he looked to Cypher, his eyes not displaying the smug and rather pompous superiority he was feeling right now, though his factual argument seemed to make sense. Of course he was suspecting that Bolt would stick to his goodie two-shoes way and actually take the direct method. If that were the case he'd need a back-up.

It took less than a minute once the directions were given for Bolt to find this orphanage he was supposed to be finding. The building itself didn’t look that impressive in size, but he wasn’t worried about how the thing looked really. His interests were more in the people that stayed there, or rather stayed there before suddenly disappearing without any real explanation. All of the people were outside, doing something with the lilely important matronly types which meant that no one should be inside. That made being stealthy viable, considering that he was too fast for any of them to follow with their eyes, but that was just an assumption.

Matt made a compelling argument about not going through the direct route, but that went against the whole heroism thing. ”I mean by the books sounds nice, but my whole heroic thing isn’t exactly by the books either is it? It’s why I wear the mask.” he asked, whispering just loud enough that the two could hear him through the communicator. His friend had made so many points, despite how much it went against his heroic pride, being thrown in jail would have just not looked good in the long run.

Hopefully this didn’t end up putting any negative marks on his her card. Taking off at quick enough speeds, he decided to move through one of the windows, that being until he noticed a camera. So the step before that was to make sure he didn’t have to deal with being recorded, and so Alex thought of something. ”This place has some kind of security system. Seems a little weird for an orphanage, but could you guys do something about it?” Okay, so Bolt imagined that they could just hack things as if it were magic, but that may have not been how things worked, and if not he would go with breaking them on his way through.

Regardless he would search for anything that would give him information, whether it was some kind of computer or file cabinet that he would have to flip through.

Matthew was more than satisfied with the answer he had received from Bolt, smirking and saying nothing as he felt Cypher's disapproving gaze. Of course Cypher could see the logic behind the thought process, however it just didn't seem right with them. Something about this was all wrong. Matthew heard his comment about a security system, though he simply blinked and looked down at the microphone, shaking his head as if the answer should have been simple.

"We don't need to. Just run very fast." He said as he began typing on the computer, starting to run some software that would help him out here in the long run. Unfortunately on his laptop it was going to take some time. Cypher already had gone to work on infiltrating the orphanage's security access. Of course there had been some snags here and there, but Cypher proved to be too much for the system, cracked the code and placed the cameras on a loop.

"Cypher cracked the code. Alright Bolt, you've got thirty seconds. Get in and get out." They alerted Bolt, Matthew looked back over his shoulder and closed his eyes, obviously physically exhausted by the display. It was going to be difficult to teach this kid to be a self-reliant hero when he had a posy of people doing his every bidding to make it easier on him. In the end they were distractions. They were going to get themselves drug in too deep and then the rip-tide would pull them under faster than they could scurry off.

"Hurry up Bolt. gotta go fast." Matt said to himself with a little smirk, watching as his software had only initialized by 4%.

Run very fast, well that was something that he could do without issue.  There would be time to think things over, but now all he could do was move quick, avoid getting caught. Alex took a deep breath, clearing his clustered mind as best he could, which didn’t go as well as he hoped that would go. Just as he was preparing himself for the run, Cypher chimed in that he had broken in and given him thirty seconds where the cameras wouldn’t be a problem. ”That’ll be plenty of time.” Bolt responded, but didn’t say anything else beyond that as he ran fast.

The very world blurred around him in the usual manner, though his mind was focused on one thing which was finding the office. That involved running through the building until he came upon what looked to be some manner of important looking room. let’s see if there’s anything useful in here. Alex thought to himself, taking in everything around him.

It didn’t look overly ornate, with a large wooden desk with a few scattered papers along with what appeared to be some books and a laptop still casting a faint glow on the wall. A few large metal file cabinets stood in the corner, none of them opened though that could be remedied quickly enough. Breaking into an orphanage, this just feels all levels of wrong. He thought to himself, but peoples lives were at risk. If it could save people without actually hurting anyone, well he would be willing to do it. However, he was only looking for a few names, and so he looked for them in particular.

After a few seconds of speed reading, he had the files spread out across the desk, examining everything as quickly as he could, which made not missing details difficult. Still he had managed to find something that caught his interest rather quickly, that being mostly something that didn’t feel right for an orphanage to have. Phone records that looked rather recent, recent pictures of them but the angels of them were what really made it all seem off. It looked like someone was stalking these guys, and as far as Alex knew, orphanages did not stalk people that used to live in them.

”Wow this all looks really weird. They have phone records of these guys and really stalkerish looking pics, along with….well just other stuff I don’t think orphanages are supposed to have.” Bolt gathered up everything he had found, nervously chewing on his lower lip as if being in this place was only making him even more uncomfortable. ”This place definitely has something going on, but I don’t exactly know what that something is.” He stated, though that was more obvious with everything considered. Regardless he had a feeling he needed to leave soon, and so he would, only after he looked through everything he could however.

"What in the?" Matthew asked as he looked to the microphone, then to Cypher with an inquisitive look. Of course they were both clueless as to why an orphanage would have these things. Matthew shook his head a little before crossing his arms and slouching down into his sear, returning his back to Cypher and the microphone.

"Uhm...ooookay so why would they have this information?" Cypher asked to both parties present. They were equally quiet for a moment.

"There's a lot of possible reasons. The building director is a rapist, takes to blue eyes and dark hair. The head is launching his own investigation. Of course there's always the off possibility that it's planted. In which case someone wants to get this guy in a lot of trouble." Matthew said in a rather bland tone as he continued to stare at his monitor, bringing his knees up to his chest and just watching the screen with a desire and longing for this long-ass loading screen to finish. Cypher looked at him and then looked down to the microphone.

"Okay, well Bolt get out of there. The last thing we want is for you to get caught."
"Too late. BOLT ON YOUR SIX." Matthew yelled over his shoulder. Hopefully Bolt heard him, because right behind him there was a man with blonde hair throwing a full-powered fist into the back of his head, with impressive speed. Inhuman speed actually, and equally inhuman strength. Cypher looked to the cameras and jerked back before looking to Matt and then back to the camera.

"H-how did you-?" They asked, though Matt just ignored them, watching as his screen read 15%

If anyone could think of a reason why an orphanage would have info like this, it was likely the two behind the communicator. Bolt was trying to think of a few ideas on his own, but none of them felt like they would actually be true. If this info was planted, then that meant they were delving into something far more dangerous than simple creeps keeping tabs on people that used to live here. ”Sounds like some kind of conspiracy to me.” Cypher would say something about  getting out of there, but he vaguely caught the sound of something rushing towards him pretty quickly. At that point all things moved slowly, as Alex tried to move out of the way of the fist barreling towards him.

The movement was minimal, a quick twist as he attempted to move out of the way while getting a glimpse of the person attacking him. However, all he was met with was a force slamming into his face with an impressive amount of force that sent the world spinning and him flying into the wall. Dry wall and wood gave way under the force of his body colliding with it, leaving the male  stuck in it for all of a millisecond until he quickly pulled himself out. His check felt numb, and would likely have a bruise on it, otherwise he was fine.

Giving the aching cheek a rub, he glared at the person that had struck at him, jolts of electricity arcing off of his fist as the energy began to course through his body. Without wasting much time, he crossed the span of the room within seconds, not trying to knock the guy out but run through the door that was indirectly blocked by this guy. While he likely could take the guy in a fight, something told Bolt he didn’t want to in such a confined space. Running around would be really annoying, and  honestly he didn’t want to set anything on fire when he slung a bit of electricity around, unless of course the place deserved to be burned down.

Well that wasn’t his to decide so he tried that approach, aiming to jump through the nearest window once that was done.

"Bolt, you're outputting too many joules. Whoever that is you're going to kill them!" Cypher warned as they looked to their monitor, noticing that the electricity they were putting out had been perhaps a bit more than people could handle. Now their foe, on the other hand, was one they were unaware of. Matthew looked back over his shoulder to the security feed, pushing himself back and turning on his swivel chair to look over the footage more intently.

"Bolt, he's heavily trained and very fast. You need to avoid getting too close to him." He instructed before looking on the screen and seeing how a small, stray spark had come to catch the man, the man dropping and convulsing as he foamed at the mouth. "Cypher i need a reading on the output that hit at 3:45:18.06, check the logs." He instructed. Cypher thought nothing of it and immediately began to search over the information that was requested. It didn't take long, but by then Bolt was already out the window.

"Bolt, I need you to pay attention. You need to use electricity. It's going to affect him far more than any physical harm you can do to him." Matthew instructed, however it would be quite audible from the background that Cypher was once again refuting the path presented.

"What!? Proxy are you joking? That wasn't even enough joules to send someone into cardiac-arrest but it almost killed this guy! If he uses electricity then he'll kill him." Cypher was unsure of how to process all of this, it really seemed like bolt was between a rock and a hard place. Not to mention he just bust himself outside in front of a bunch of orphans with glass surrounding him and was standing there talking to the air. That probably didn't help his case any.... in fact he probably looked a bit crazy.

"Bolt, just run. It's not worth the risk." Cypher said. Matthew was going to argue that the lives of the missing persons WAS worth the life of one crooked orphanage director, though he figured there had been enough moral dilemmas as it was. He would spare Bolt this one until another time...