Austin woke up in darkness.
He was tied to a wall. His arms and legs were locked tight by incredibly tough chains.
As his eyes opened, he bore witness to the two lanky figures before him. Then, like a flash of lightning, accompanied by a brief picture of his closest friends massacred before him, he quickly realized what was going on...
And who the two beings before him were.
His oldest friend turned subject of his revenge, his most trusted ally in a time far forgotten, and the receiver of the love and admiration of his unrequited lover, Kara, better known as the Blur:
Ace!
Beside him was the Danger Squad's oldest foe, Mr. E. However, Austin's attention was solely on Ace, much to the annoyance of Mr. E once he noticed.
"You're probably wondering why you're here."
Austin responded with silence.
"Let me cut straight to the point. You're in my secret base right outside Empire City. Why are you here? So you and your team can't impede on my plans."
Austin was still completely silent. But now, his eyes were completely transfixed on Ace.
Mr. E was furious that he was being ignored but tried his damned best to hide it. He was sure to get this fool interested eventually.
"What plans? Could it be world domination? World unification? Well, I'm afraid they go much deeper than such surface-level desires. I simply want to evolve man further."
Austin continued the silence with nothing but a blank expression on his currently unmasked face, staring deeply at Ace, who only looked away.
His bloodlust was unmatched.
"You see, mankind has always had the capability of evolution, but they impede their progress by their continued reliance on ideologies involving religion and morality. This impedes them. Morality is a cancer which is slowly killing the human race! Just look! One nation, our nation, The Commonwealth, stands above all else, but smaller nations still exist! What of the Muman nation as well, eh? The Strange Society?! Why not fight them? Why not see who comes out on top to continue the evolution of man? Morality! That is why! Now I'll make it my mission to eliminate this disgusting morality! With the help of my special weapon, the..."
"Oh, blah, blah, blah!" Austin shouted with a gruff voice, unexpectedly alerting the two figures before him.
"Do you ever stop talking? I couldn't give a rat's ass about your little scheme. That part of me died a long time ago. Killed by the f*cker standing behind you," Austin said with intense anger creeping through his young yet currently gruff voice.
"Hehe... then what are you going to do about it, eh? Your chains are made of Advantagem, one of the strongest metals in the world! Stolen all the way from the land of Mecha! Even known to hold Captain Rocket down!" Mr. E said in annoyance over the realization that he isn't the central focus here.
"Oh, simple. I just have to remember, I'm not Captain Rocket," Austin said with a smirk and immediately freed himself from his restraints.
"H...how did you...?" Mr. E asked, preparing for battle by running to his giant supercomputer at the opposite end of the room and pressing a special combination of buttons.
"Pretty easy. My Muman ability allows me to create and manipulate near-indestructible metallic feathers anyway I want. Whether by forming indestructible bird-based armor or weapons... Or with enough time and concentration, breaking down any restraints I'm put in on a molecular level. I am not someone you f*ck with," Austin revealed as his whole body was enveloped by his red and blue battle armor, and he charged with immense bloodlust at the target of his revenge.
Mr. E prepared to attack but immediately realized he isn't the target.
Ace is.
Austin prepared his armored fist to punch Ace to death by spawning a giant bird-themed gauntlet from his feathers, but once his fist lands, it feels like hitting a brick wall.
That's when he saw it wasn't Ace he hit, but rather a blond teenage boy wearing a gold and black shirt with yellow baggy pants and seemed to be too muscular for his age.
Before Austin could process anything, the boy unloaded a devastating punch to Austin's chest, which sent him flying right through the wall into the adjacent training room nearby.
Once Austin landed, he quickly regained his composure and assessed the situation.
"That attack... why is it so familiar...? Why does it remind me so much of...?"
"You like that, Hawk Knight?" Mr. E taunted while flying into the base with a pair of bat wings and Ace following suit with his insane acrobatic prowess.
"I made sure to get all Captain Rocket's traits to a 'T'! Allow me to show you, Captain Rocket version two, Kal Jordan!"
Kal appeared from the hole he made from Austin's body and slammed into the immensely large and white training room. He stared at Austin with a robotic look in his eye.
One that frightens Austin to his core. Not just because of the look, but because the boy looked exactly like Rocket in his teen years.
The years where they first met...
"Like the name? Turns out Rocket had a tonne of civilian identities, but this is the most common one I could find. Well, this and Buford."
As the boy got into a fighting stance, Austin smirked at Mr. E.
"If you wanted my attention, you could've asked instead of pulling cheap tricks like making a damn clone!" Austin said with very clear anger.
"Oh, now where's the fun in that? Bringing all your dead friends back to life before your eyes is a fine way to get your attention!"
"W...what? Isn't this just a clone of Captain Rocket?" Austin said with slight horror in his voice.
"Oh...well, why don't you find out?"
And just like that, Kal began to glow yellow.
"No..." Austin muttered as realization hit him like a train.
Kal charged towards Austin using super speed identical to Kara Strong, the Blur, and the battle began.
Ace looked on in shame at what one bad decision of his had led to. But there's no going back now.
It was for her, after all.
However, Mr. E tapped his shoulder after sniffing a faint but foreign scent in the air.
"It seems I've sniffed up some intruders. Watch the fight. And if the boy fails, you know what to do," Mr. E told him with a cheeky grin behind his four-eyed mask and disappeared into the hole.
Ace continued to look on at the ongoing battle, and his eyes met Austin's for a split second.
Although it was only a fraction of a second, the one look made everything clear.
"Once I'm done with this fake sh*t, you're mine."
But could he really be a traitor? Or was there something else at play here?
A few minutes earlier, however...
"So this is Mr. E's base, huh?" Jake said, staring at the large inconspicuous island just outside Empire City from the docks with Stacya on all fours sniffing the air by his side.
"Yes. I can detect Austin and Zack in there. We must hurry. I've learned Mr. E is a sadistic human... If he can still be called that. And we must be careful. It feels strange to say, but dark times are ahead of us," Stacya said as a cold sweat ran down her face to her neck in an instant. This was, due to her background, a foreign experience for her.
This was fear.
But as the fear grew within her, Jake snuffed it out in an instant.
"Hey now! No need to worry, we'll get through this together. Now come on! Let's go save our friends and stop this letter-loving prick," Jake said, gripping her shoulder.
Stacya's heart didn't calm down, however, as it was bombarded with a new feeling.
Another one foreign to her.
It wasn't admiration...
It was bravery...
What was it?
Before she could think further, Jake activated his super speed and ran on the water to get on the island, only to lose his balance and sink pretty quickly.
Stacya jumped in to rescue him, and as quickly as he nearly drowned, he was saved. She brought him to the beach of the island but needed to wait for him to recover.
"Cough Cough Hehe... Didn't think I was so slow. Pretty stupid of me. Guess I need to do better, huh?"
He looked into her eyes, and suddenly the same feeling she had before returned without warning.
"D...do not despair, friend Jake. I heard Kara, the original Blur, took a whole six months before she was fast enough to run on water. I believe this takes time," Stacya said, trying her best not to look into his suddenly mesmerizing eyes.
What was this sudden feeling enveloping her?
"Hehe... I guess you're right. I shouldn't beat myself up over it. I still got a lot to learn. But enough about that. We got friends to save and a bad guy to take down. Let's move."
They locked eyes again, much to the simultaneous joy and annoyance of Stacya. To make matters worse, Jake grabbed her by the hand, and the feeling intensified within her.
However, a sudden voice interrupts them...
"W...who are you people?" A large, bald, Black man holding a little boy, most likely to be his son, said to the two.
"Oh, we are supers ready to..." Stacya said quickly, but she was soon silenced by...
"No. We're just two Mumans ready to help. Now please explain what you're doing here," Jake said, much to Stacya's confusion.
"Ah... friend Jake? Are we not supers?"
"No. That title is fake, Stacya. We're just people willing to help. Now c'mon, sir. What's going on?" Jake said with full control over his voice. Stacya had no idea Jake had that opinion of Supers...
What other secrets was he hiding?
"W...we were kidnapped by some lunatic in a four-eyed mask called Mr. E. He wanted to experiment on us and turn us into freaks, but we escaped," the man said with a tense hint of fear in his voice.
"Yeah! My dad and I somehow m...managed to...to get out... uh... I'm so glad you guys came to... No! I'm sorry, Dad! I can't do this! I..."
The boy was quickly silenced by his father and held back.
"Hey, what's that about?" Jake asked as he approached the two.
"N...nothing. The boy is scared. That's all!"
"Yeah... sure. I wanna hear that from him. Let him go."
"I... I'm afraid I can't, man. Just please don't make this... difficult."
The boy was crying and struggling. Jake's suspicion was through the roof at this point, but just before he began to glow blue...
Stacya realized they weren't wearing masks or costumes. Considering the fact that their suits were still in Hawk Knight's Nest at the time of its total destruction, she quickly pulled him back to talk.
"Uh, Jake... You can't use your ability now! We d...do not have any cover!" Stacya pointed out.
"Yeah. I know." Jake said flatly. This brings Stacya to pull him farther away from the man and his son.
"W...what do you mean you know?!"
"Well, I really don't care. Secret identities like that are for Supers, and I'm not one of them. I only wore that suit because Captain Rocket wanted me to. Now enough about that. I'm getting the feeling there's something more sinister going on here."
Jake walked over to the man and son, but soon the man made a mad dash toward the nearby forest, and Jake began to follow them. Stacya watched on in immense confusion.
Who was this strange human?
What drove this strange mindset?
Why did he remind her of Captain Rocket so much?
What were these feelings she had when she looked at him?
And why was everything going dark?
Before Stacya knew it, a strange gas enveloped the whole beach, and the man and his son collapsed. Jake emerged from the forest trembling on the verge of collapsing.
"Stacy...a r...run!"
Jake tried to resist but he fell just like the others.
And just like that, looking into Jake's bright blue eyes, she fell too.
To be continued...