02.
With his cheek perched at the base of his palm, Leo stared at the computer screen absolutely sure that soon he would die of boredom. His stepfamily brought him along on their mission to stop Krane from broadcasting his whacko, creepy override invention, but as always he was left manning the controls (in the RV/lab parked near the site this time). It wasn't that he wanted to be out there with them. Actually, they were overstepping their World Army adviser. They were supposed to report incidents like that to the organization, but then his stepfather and Chase agreed that they could – and should – take this one on their own.
He may not have been familiar with the agents assigned to his siblings, but Leo had known Sonia for as long as he could remember. There was no way he was willing to cross her or any agent like her. No, thank you.
Still, he had long tired of deskwork. Since the beginning, he had been chained to looking through surveillance and giving instruction through comms. Would it really kill the dynamic if they assigned him something different?
"We just need to keep looking," he heard Chase say. "They'll turn up eventually. Knowing Krane, he won't be able to resist springing something on us."
"Leo, you've been quiet there a while," Donald said. "Are you doing okay?"
"Yes. I'm doing all right."
"I'm sorry, Leo. I know you really want to be out here with us, but it's just not plausible," said Donald. "Your mother will kill me if something happens to you."
"It's way too dangerous," Chase added though sympathetic.
"Don't worry about me. You guys just do what you have to," Leo said, holding his hands up. He leaned back on his chair, crossing his arms. "Although, you know, I really think we should have told Agent Reeves about this."
Chase scoffed. "Why? You don't think we can do this?"
"Oh, I think you can do it. It's just that, you know – it would've been a bit more comfortable if we had the option of back-up if we need it."
"Please. The World Army guys are nice and all, but we don't need them to solve our problems for us," Chase said.
"Especially not with them keeping secrets," Bree muttered.
"You don't trust them?" Leo asked.
"Do you?" Chase asked.
Sonia, Kendra, and Jay, yeah. And the rest of the Wonders, Leo wanted to say. Instead, he replied, "Reeves seems like a decent guy."
"He's a wreck when he's nervous, though," Adam chimed in, chuckling.
"Yeah, well, until they give us clearance for the things we need to know, I think we have a right to go on missions of our own," Chase said.
Hate to break it to you, buddy, but that clearance thing might take a while, Leo thought.
"Douglas, how about you? Anything where you and Bree are?" Donald asked.
"Nope." Then, "Yep."
"Douglas. Little girl," Krane's smug greeting came through the comm, pulling Leo to the edge of his seat. "Why am I not surprised to see you both tonight?"
"Uh, probably because you were expecting us?" Bree sassed.
"We're coming there now," Chase said.
"Hm, no we're not," Adam said, obviously caught unaware by something. He chuckled nervously. "Hey, guys, how're you doing? D'you think you can, you know, just let us through this time?"
Scuffling and sounds of combat filled the headset. Hurriedly, Leo pulled up the keyboard in an attempt to scramble the signal from the satellite that no doubt would soon go online. Occasionally, he looked at the surveillance cameras to check on his stepfamily. Things appeared hopeful in the beginning.
Then, as minutes rolled along, their situation turned bleak.
They were far outnumbered. Also, even with their abilities maxed out, taking down that many opponents with similar and unexpected capabilities proved difficult.
Even he wasn't having such a good time with the hacking. His skills were decent, but stacked against an advanced program and probably a programmer with superior intelligence, his chances were dismal. He used all the coding and hacking tips and tricks Jimmy had taught him, but the reality was that he was no Doctor Impossible. He couldn't do it. He couldn't stop it like this.
"Get your hands off of me!"
Bree's growl caused Leo to look at the video feed. His heart dropped to his stomach. A couple of teenagers under Krane's control held each of his siblings back. One tightly grasped at Douglas' arm, anchoring him. Meanwhile, in the middle of the semi-circle were Krane and his stepfather, the former pointing the latter's own blaster at him.
"Let me go!"
"Mr. Davenport!"
"How ironic. You provided me with what I need," Krane said, grinning at the patriarch predatorily. "You know what hurt the most? It's not when they took out my chip; that one's relatively painless. It's when I woke up the next day with stitches in the back of my neck. They made sure I won't ever have abilities again." He laughed humorlessly. "Consider this my thank you note."
Leo knew he promised himself that he would never use his abilities in front of this side of his family, but he didn't have any choice. He glanced at his wrist, just as everything had begun slowing down. He hadn't been wearing the watch his father gave him because, to be honest, he was still upset. It had been nearly half a year since he sent him packing to go back to Mission Creek, and his father hadn't made any attempts to start a conversation about what happened.
Did he want his father to apologize? No. Of course not. He did see why he reacted that way. Plus, his father owed him nothing. Would it have been nice if he didn't avoid the topic altogether? Definitely. And it would've been great if he heard it from his father why he just sent him away like that instead of hearing it from Kara.
The watch had been in his desk drawer for weeks now. He probably wouldn't've called Superman anyways because Chase was right: there were problems that he needed to deal with on his own.
He looked at the box of cuffs, the one with the signal interrupter, and decided to take the whole lot with him. He got up from his seat, picked it up, and then headed out the RV.
Everything was so still, the world around him moving in a very, very slow motion. Kara, during their many training sessions, had told him that was natural and expected. He still hadn't gotten over it, though, and he doubted he would for a long time. When surrounded with usually immobile objects, like the night sky, the moon, and trees, it didn't seem so odd.
It definitely got weird, however, when he was with people. Running into the site, Leo couldn't help but stop for a moment and hitch his brows at the unmoving people. They all looked like mannequins, moving frame by frame every few seconds or so.
He frowned when looking at his siblings. Chase was stuck in the middle of yelling 'No!', Bree in the middle of yanking her right arm out of a soldier's hold. Adam stared wide-eyed at what was about to happen, while Douglas leaned forward, maybe in an attempt to run towards his brother. Krane had a devious look in his eyes, his laugh that of a madman, as the laser blast from the blaster darted towards a surprised Donald at a speed of roughly a quarter of a mile an hour.
Super speeding is so weird, Leo thought.
He set off to work. One by one, he carefully cuffed the soldiers' hands behind their back, gently leaning them backwards or sideways so they would be falling to the ground. (Kara said gentleness was key. Brash action plus super speed equals absolute destruction of something when things return to normal.) After liberating Douglas from the teenager holding him, he made sure his step-uncle wouldn't fall flat to his face by pulling him back to a standing position.
Once done, he ran to the satellite dish. With his super strength, he hit it, causing the metals underneath to compress slowly but surely and the dish to cave in on itself.
He had just enough time to move his stepfather out of the way when he finished with everything.
When he stopped speeding and everything went back to its usual pace, many things happened at once. The soldiers, now cuffed, fell clumsily to the ground. Douglas and his stepsiblings staggered a little as they lost their balance. With a loud bang, the satellite imploded. His stepfather hit the ground, while he dodged the shot easily.
Krane, confused, looked round about him, taken aback by the very sudden turn of events. He glanced at the destroyed satellite, wide-eyed, and then turned his attention to the teenager that appeared out of nowhere.
"Don't," Leo warned after seeing the madman's grip on the blaster tighten again.
Krane did it anyway, lifting it up. Leo prevented him by activating his heat vision.
The blaster exploded, knocking Krane out and, consequently, the soldiers on the ground.
Instead of feeling accomplished and victorious, Leo, to his surprise, felt guilt. Krane may have been bad, but he was still a person who could sense pain. Hopefully the burns on his hands weren't too bad. Man, forget the burns. "I hope he's not dead," Leo muttered under his breath, inching a little closer to check their nemesis' condition.
"What…How did you…"
Leo turned around and found his stepfamily staring at him, shocked and scared, very confused.
His stepfather pointed at him. "You're not – I mean, he's not…" he stuttered, swiveling back and forth from his stepson and his younger brother. "How—"
"You super sped," Bree stated, still stunned.
"And used heat vision," Adam added.
Chase shook his head. "That can't… But you're not – You're not bionic," he said. He looked at Douglas. "At least not that all of us know of. Right?"
Douglas, the first to understand and recover from what happened, only crossed his arms, looking at his step-nephew with a cloud of disappointment.
"I can explain," Leo said, knowing there was no way out of it. "But before I do, can we get these guys picked up first then go home to eat? I'm kind of starving."
to be continued.
