Fracture point

Bolt was back already, and Shady could her his sister screaming in the other room. He shot up and tore his hood back revealing a stunned and shocked face of a young man, whose smile got really wide as he looked to Bolt. A strange young man seemed to gleam with joy for a moment as he shook his head. "Holy shit. Yeah man. This is gonna work out juuuuust fine." He said as he clapped his hands togther and began to rub them. With a sharp inhale and a hissing exhale he prepared to enlighten Bolt.

"The Airfield is where my boss is supposed to meet with a pair of notoroious crime lords. An old man and a chick, the man specializes in drugs and the chick...well let's just say shes a hot one. They're both interested in meeting my boss, he's a huge player that's interrupted both of their operations but has has an unparalelled success. They both took interest and wanted to meet with him. Probably to try and win him over and get him to work with one of them. ll I know is that it's gonna go donw in Gate A's shelter house." Shady said before snapping his fingers and pointing to Bolt like his hands were guns. He then moved away from the bed, making it quite clear he was no longer bound by the initial handcuffs and bindings that restrained him. He then took a seat on a comfortable chair and let out a sigh.

Cypher was in the other room talking Shady's sister down and explaining the situation, trying to spare the girl from the facts that her brother was a criminal drug dealer that used children as mules for his product.

With the shady hood torn back he wasn’t as creepy as Alex had expected, and in some way even easy on the eyes. In a way that also made him want to enact violence on his face. ”Really hoping it does.” he said with a nod, half expecting everything to go terribly wrong. Superhuman villains were a little difficult to deal with, and adding in people on superpower drugs was always a pain. Still, he listened in as the drug runner explained what was going down and what part he would play in that matter. Three crime lords meeting in one place, and likely one of them being a speedster. The shelter house was where things were taking place, though his mind did find itself snapping to the fact that he had broken from his binds.

Who either of the ones meeting were was unknown to him, but the did find himself nervous about the prospects of this. ”And i’ll be there to throw a wrench in their plans.” Alex said confident within his own abilities, turning his back on Shady. ”Your sisters here, so...i’ll let you explain this whole thing to her.” Because he sure as hell wasn’t going to do that. So he walked into the room with the shouting woman and Cypher who looked a little...nervous. Not that she wasn’t like that before anyway.

”Your brothers in the back, you should probably talk with him.” He jerked a thumb back to direct her towards the holding cell, waiting for her to leave him and Cypher alone so he could let the info out. ”Not sure how much of what he said I can trust, but it seems legit. Mostly anyway.”

The girl didn't say much but she moved and went into the white-room looking at her brother and breaking down crying. She was stammering and shouting something as she tried to reach through the bars and hug her sibling, only for him to tell her to listen very carefully to something. If Bolt wanted to hear he could always try to be two places at once, however it wasn't something he could just look to the cameras for.

     "Okay so... we've got where the meeting will take place. But these crime lords.... what are they meeting for? To try and win an indie up and coming drug lord before the other gets it? It doesn't seem to add up though, does it?" Kris asked as she looked to Bolt, hopeful that her hero might have some answers for her, or some enlightening input. She walked over to the computer and began compiling lists of whatever people they may expect to see at this event. Kris, Cypher, stopped dead in her tracks as she looked onto the television dead ahead, the taglines flashing about how several drug dealers were found dead on a street back where Bolt had been. The victims had all been related to the Spark outbreak, although in their company had been several blindfolded children with scars and bruises, none of them overly fresh but their ages ranged from 12 to 15 and they were all in protective custody. Their reports were declared.

  "Seven boys forced into servitude to the growing Spark outbreak. These brave young boys were forced to work as mules for the past three weeks under threats and coercion by grown men and women who sell this highly addictive and highly illegal substance. Though earlier today these seven children were all given blindfolds on their delivered drop-off from a stranger that had been following them, None of them were able to see the man's face but he gave them all very specific instructions. "Put this on and see no evil. Please forgive me for what I must do to free you and your families. Put this on when you are with the other children again.", and they did as they were told. The children all reported the sounds of violence as they dropped to the ground. Shots were fired, guttural noises were heard but soon the children were taken one by one to a safe area. when they removed their blindfolds they met with a "kind" individual that fits the description of the notorious vigilante known as "Humanity". They stated that this man was a hero and protected them, even making sure that their families were contacted and they were delivered safely to local authorities. Why Humanity has done this is unclear, but what is clear is that not just Metahumans have taken an interest in stopping the Spark Outbreak."  The television cut off as Cypher pressed the button on the remote and sighed, looking back to the screen. She had no idea what it was that she was to be doing now, just a bunch of speculation, and the hopes that Bolt knew what to do next.

The guy had his sister back, though what that meant overall was something he found himself questioning as he would let the two have their conversation, or maybe not. A part of him wondered if there was something useful she could say, granted that sounded stupid considering she was the victim as far as he could tell. Being in two places at once wasn’t actually difficult when he thought about it, though keep attention of two conversations was a different story entirely when he thought about it. So he threw that idea out, and just devoted himself to finding out more about what was going on with Cypher, who seemed to be watching the tv.

As uninformative as the news was, there was a story going on involving a few dealers getting killed or something along those lines, along with children being saved in those killings. There were mentions of Humanity saving children apparently, followed by something about them calling him a hero which caused him to frown somewhat. Images of people crushed like insects resurfaced, followed by a feeling of revulsion that nearly caused him to gag from the taste of bile. ”Hero my ass. Guy probably has some weird ulterior motive.” Was all Alex said in response, seemingly resolute in tone that was indeed why the vigilante was doing it.

”Not sure what he has to do with going against the Spark trade, but I know i’m going to get to the bottom of it. Don’t exactly know about the crime lords either. Maybe they could be meeting about territory, alliances or maybe to try killing one another off.” The idea of meeting with Humanity alone managed to fill him with anxiety, though Alex tried to hide that the best he could, despite how he ended up chewing on his lower lip. ”Sorry, i’m not exactly the..um...tactical sort.” He added in, realizing that he didn’t have anything of value to add into the conversation.

"An ulterior motive for saving children?" Kris asked as she almost didn't see any possibilities in such a move. It didn't match Humanity's M.O, or whatever they believed his M.O to be. She continued to look at her computer and began doing a little research. She had the maps and everything already brougth up but she began to sweat, it would bead and drip down her forehead as she worked to try and do yet another job that Proxy had been charged over. She began to clear her throat and try to work with impossible odds.

"B-Bolt! There's a huge alarm going off at your house!" Cypher yelled after a moment of looking at the screen, unsure of what it was she had seen. Bolt would no doubt be on his way out, running around at the speed of sound to see his family and make sure everything was safe. Cypher watched as the shady umbrakinetic's sister came out with a worried look on her face, walking around to look at the screen with Cypher. They watched as Bolt closed in on his house. It took him a decent amount of time to get there, but once he did it would be shocking. It was his parents sitting there at the porch, perfectly fine and the day going as usual. The power began to flicker in the building.

"Bolt. BOLT! ALEX IT'S A TRAP!" She shouted, the computer having shut off before her message could get out. She felt a rush of air, looking up and seeing nothing.

Cypher sounded skeptical of the suggestion, but then again it sounded stupid coming out of his own mouth. This was in a sense just Alex finding a way to justify the bad guy being a bad guy and nothing else. Making things simpler always made thinking easier for him, but recent events made things even more annoying. That being until Cypher added in something about an alarm tripping at his house, bringing everything else to focus. Shifting blame onto Humanity was easy enough, and perhaps fear for something else was enough to force him to run in that direction.

”On it.” Without even a backwards glance he was already gone, leaving a large gust of wind as he was already on the track to his home. Seconds passed by, maybe even less as he dashed through the city The fastest he could and arrived to see...nothing was wrong. ”W..what?” He muttered to himself. A sudden well of dread filled him, and so he dashed back to the base..HQ or whatever.

Returning there, he ran as fast as he could and arrived to find that the power itself had went out. The buzz of electricity that was radiant through the place was gone, and that managed to make things all the more...tense. The first thing he did was look for Cypher, following that the person he had locked up there.

"S-stay. Hide." She ordered as she looked back to the young woman. Cypher had fear itself seize her heart. She stepped forward and around the counter, the emergency lights coming on before long and giving a deep looming and ominous orange and red glow. She could feel her heart racing a thousand beats a second, her head getting light as her hair was thrown about, her grabbing a microscope in her hand from a nearby lab desk as she began on her way towards their little "informant". She turned the corner and couldn't believe what she was seeing. Their informant was in the back of the caged area, back against the wall with his eyes wide.

   A figure standing about five foot seven in a hooded trench coat with gauntlets stood with it's back to Cypher. It seemed to ripple, almost as if the entire outline of it's being was crawling or vibrating at incredibly speeds. The being stepped through the bard with absolutely no resistance, phasing through it with not even a second thought.

  "Do your worst. Just let her alone." He said as he swallowed audibly, his throat bobbing as he took in a breath, trying to prepare himself. The figure didn't seem to say anything until it was literally two feet away.

  "Of course. She is innocent. She was never at risk." The masculine voice said before their hand shot out, piercing through the man's stomach, the hand vibrating at incredible speeds. The umbrakinetics eyes began to bleed, then his ears, and then he vibrated so quickly that he literally exploded, gore flying everywhere, a foul smell lingering as the being turned around, staring down Cypher with a large glowing blue eye. The vibrations had been too quick, deflecting and refracting away any of the previously splattered blood as it stepped forward slowly. Cypher began to back away, rearing back the microscope as the man walked through the bars once more. Once it cleared the bars, it randomly appeared right in front of her, electricity sparking and cracking off of it as it's hand stopped vibrating and caught the microscope.

  "It's only the beginning." It said before disappearing in the next instant, a large rush of air throwing papers and air in all directions... shortly the Bolt would return to find the power kicked back on, and Cypher and the white-room covered in blood splatters.

Bolt had returned, but he felt as if he were already too late. It was a sensation within the pit of his stomach, something that felt as if he were being clawed form the inside out, or maybe that was just what was left f the contents of his stomach. None of that mattered really, when he had to focus more on what was happening here. What he found was Cypher covered in blood, flecks of viscera and gore. All within the span of a second he grew pale, seemingly just to stared at her blankly. He didn’t need any confirmation to know or maybe guess who’s blood that was, though that didn’t make him feel less sick.

Another person was dead. A criminal many would argue, but he couldn't help feel like it was his own fault. For all his speed he was so helpless in stopping this. All it took was a few steps to see that the umbrakinetic was nowhere around, which confirmed that. He was supposed to be a hero and yet the only thing happening was him just letting people die around him. This was someones brother, and yet they were killed...just like that. ”Who did this?” He found himself asking, teeth grinding together in a way that managed to irritate him, but he didn’t stop.

Cypher just cried. That was all she could do in this situation. She had no inherent love for their captive, and quite in fact believed him to be one of the worst people alive. Though to see someone turned to nothing but blood splatter was a horrifica and scaring experience. Bolt had arrrived as the power turned back on, only to find Cypher in her current state, holding her head and trying her best not to sob. She was a normal girl who'd never had much exposure to death beyond the news and the occassional relative she wasn't overly close to. Bolt's question was a valid one, but all she could do was sniffle as tears ran down her cheeks and she tried to unsee the horrible things she had.

"H-H-he...Was tall." She sobbed before swallowing hard, walking over to the wall and sniffling. As she began to fold her arms she began rubbing them as she squatted to the floor, placing her back against the wall as she forced her eyes shut. "He wore a-a-a-a trench coat with a hood, he had these gauntlets and he...he was too fast. I couldn't see him move." She stammered as she tried to convey the fact she believed it to be a speedster of some kind. She began to cry again with the corners of her mouth as far apart as they could be, internal pain wracking her.

"I-T....This is my fault." She whimpered as she placed her head back against the wall. "I should have known it was a trap. I-I'm not a strategist, or a tacticle master, or even a very good moral support. I-I can't do this. I'm just a college student in Metabiological sciences. I can't even do that well, let alone this..." She cried for a moment as she looked from Bolt to the ground, looking to the puddle of blood and the earring, glasses and the inhibitor watch that was dropped by the explosion.

Teeth grinding was something he did when he was nervous, and man were they doing that now. His mother had always told him that doing that would ruing his teeth, advice that was lost within the moment the realization that someone who was living and breathing only a few seconds ago was no more. His mind found it nearly impossible to grasp the concept, moving over the idea multiple times as if that would illuminate the mystery in some fashion. Looking down to Cypher, now sobbing as she tried to explain what she had seen, and understandably she was hysteric.

If she wasn’t doing it, he felt like he would be crying. A long, drawn out exhale issued from Bolt, kneeling down and looking to his friend with what looked to be compassion. It was a speedster of some kind, so he didn’t really expect Cypher to have been able to stop them, though dealing with something like this was also not his plan.

Did he even have a plan to begin with?

”Don’t blame yourself Cypher. It’s my fault, not yours.” He sighed, resting a hand on her shoulder, thinking of all the ways that it was indeed his own fault. ”If only I were faster I could have done something about it. I should have seen how obvious of a trap it was.” If only he hadn’t chased away Proxy, well this would have gone much better than this. He would have seen this trap coming a mile away, but no. It was a little too late for that now, and he didn’t have the time to worry about what could have been.

”I’ll...get you something to clean yourself off with.” He looked away, hoping the fact he was close to tears was something he could hide. He walked off for a few seconds, coming back with what looked to be an arm full of paper towels, threatening to fall out of his arms.

Cypher wasn't quite able to get ahold of herself for the moment, as Bolt went to get her a tisue or something. She looked up and actually chuckled as he returnned with an arm full fo paper towels, the laugh a bit of break in what had become soft sobbing. Quickly, Kris buried her face into the paper towels, rubbing at her eyes as she blew her nose. She had no personal stake in their captive, but the jarring shock of a sheltered girl whom had just witnessed her first, live kill. The feeling of desparation, dread and dispair. She had no power in this situation, and for the first time ever she felt completely helpless.

"I-I don't know what to do."She finally admitted as she began to sniffle, and wipe her eyes, trying to keep herself together, despite the fact she failed to do so until now. She was slowly gaining some composure before she looked to Alex and nodded. She sighed and looked away from the room of gore and guts. "How can we stop this? How do we make this okay?" was all she could think to ask, then looking over to the computer.

"We need to stop them." She said, a small part of her inner anger swelling past her eek, cracking voice. "We can't let them do this to anyone else."

Alex could see that seeing someone die in front of her had shocked Cypher, and he couldn’t blame her for that. Luckily she took to the paper that had been handed down to her, wiping away tears and likely a little bit of mucus from the crying, while he continued to give sympathetic looks. It was hard to both help and deal with his own problems, though he tried to do what he could. The thought of helping a friend managed to subdued a small part of the despair that was plaguing him ever so.

In time the admition came, one that he felt himself in this same instance. However, his eyes did not seem to produce any tears like hers did, staying misty as he turned away and fingers bounced off of his forearms like machinegun bullets. Tapping out a low rhythm, as he tried to keep his mind off of the display of gore that had been created by an unknown speedster. A speedster that, well likely would make this all the more annoying for him. With brows furrowed, Cypher spoke up, and asked all the right questions.

”Yeah, we need to stop them.  We can stop them.” His teeth ground together, a small amount of electricity breaking free from him. ”We can do this. I’ll...just have to run faster.”

Bolt seemed to have a moment of conviction, though he didn't have much time to get things ready. He had but a little time to gear up and get ready to prepare for the airfield meeting. While Bolt prepared for this, making any preparations he needed to, Cypher made a point to talk to their once-captive's sister, helping her cope and deal with his murder most foul. It was a rough day for everyone on Bolts side of the battle, but now they needed to focus in and do what ti was they signed up to do.

Be Heroes.

Cypher sat at her chair and tried to rig up a whole new system, only to find herself blind in a moment, unable to really touch into anything Bolt had taken with him. Not his suit's vital readings, or even his location. Cypher took in a deep breath as she began to work on fixing and restoring the feed to her laptop.

"I'm blind for a second. We've got 10 minutes until it goes down, so just....don't die." She mumbled as she began to continue tinkering on her computer, looking and following wires and connections from massive servers into her little monitor. She began to tweak some of the settings and with a few re-connections she managed to get security of the field, though a great many areas were calm.

"I got eyes! Everything looks calm..." She said as she clapped a little, maybe a bit too excited that she could be helpful again. She quickly noted that there was nothing going on through the monitors. Bolt would notice a black Sports Utility Vehicle arrive on the scene, turning and going into a hanger.

He had little time to actually prepare, but being a speedster made seconds matter. The fact he didn’t bother changing out of his normal heroic gear made that all the easier, even if his mind found itself preoccupied by the visages of death he had seen earlier. Heroism was the name of the game now, and he would have to do what he could to still call himself a hero. With everything that he felt kept him prepared for the airport, Alex moved into position in that fast fashion that he did. A  vehicle was moving into a hangar,  meaning that something was going on. Well, at the very least their information so far wasn’t incorrect.

With nothing going on for now, Alex for now would keep to the more stealthy aspect of things. Following the vehicle through the entrance as more of a blur, slipping into any spot that could serve as a hiding place. It would be better if he knew exactly what he was dealing with before running in. Preserving as many lives as possible was the plan, and he did have to be the heroic one. Hopefully there weren’t any of those of the speedy kind like the one that had broken into HQ, or he ha d a feeling this would go south quick.

There were two large cars within the hangar, all of them had a hummer S.U.V style but a bit more luxurious and they were the color of night itself. The doors opened on both sides and large men in black three piece suits stepped out, large firearms at the ready. An older, mostly bald man was the last to leave the vehicle, his eyes filled with what appeared to be fluorescent cataracts. The chubby old man began to straighten out his suit before clearing his throat and walking forward, approaching the halfway point between the two cars.

On the opposite end, there was a tall woman dressed in a crimson sort of dress with gold embroidery and jewelry adorned upon it. The appearance of the pattern appeared to be oriental in origin, and the fact the backside of the dress touched the back of her knees and the front was only slightly covering to her mid thighs. Her long black hair seemed to shine as a single bodyguard stepped out of the car, helping the woman out before walking slightly behind her. Piercing amber colored eyes could be seen as she seemed fixated on the older man, a slight smile played at her crimson lips as the click of her red heels could be heard echoing. Her white skin seemed to shine under the lights as the guard stood tall, watching the others with no discernable weapon in hand.

"Okay the cameras are on." Cypher said as she looked back to the monitor and noting that nothing had changed. She gave a little sigh before looking around and muttering something being oddly quiet. Meanwhile Bolt would have found himself most secure on the high ground, or a dark corner within the shadow of an inactive plane.

"What's the meaning of this? We have our arrangement." The old man said, confused and obviously perplexed and a little cautious of why they had been summoned to convene. Apparently he was under the assumption that this woman had called them there.

The dark haired woman approaching the half way point between the two cars with the staccato of heels echoing off of concrete. Her bodyguard kept a few steps ahead of her, an unassuming male in a black suit dressed more like one would expect of a bodyguard of a rich woman. Eye lids made up with brilliant gold eye-shadow narrowing an almost  contemptible expression.”No, you were the one who had summoned me. Unless...” A low melodious hum that stretched across a few seconds. ”It was someone else entirely who invited us. As if I would want to meet with an uninteresting man like you.” A scoff, seemingly checking a few painted nails. ”Even if I were to meet with you, I would have sent someone else rather than coming in person. I have much more important things to tend with, so someone else must have wanted us together. For what I cannot tell.”

Bolt however found himself trying to pick up what they were saying. Something was happening, and it seemed vaguely criminal, so he was in the right place. Though he didn’t expect a woman with an overly ornate dress there, but maybe some just preferred their villainous deeds done in style. ”That does beg the question as to who set this up.”