Metroville, California 11:43am

It hadn't been an easy week for Cornelius.

Beginning with explaining to his parents as to why there was a dead body in the greenhouse when they returned around one, and then relating she same story to the police that showed. They took him down to the station, and tried the whole good cop, bad cop deal. It didn't phase him, he had nothing to hide, did nothing wrong, and wasn't going to act like he did just because they yelled at him and gave him a soda right after. Once his lawyer showed up and did some shouting on his behalf, he was allowed to go back home and have a squad car wait in front of his house.

When he got home, literally as he walked through the door, Cornelius received a phone call from Inspector Gadget. He told the inspector everything that transpired, as well as the name and address of the woman the assassin gave him the letter for, and that he was going to wait for the Inspector to contact him before doing anything too drastic. Gadget was afraid that whoever was behind this might have more assassins waiting in the wings, if not within the police dept. itself, and that Cornelius may not be safe within his own home. Cornelius informed the inspector that due to security purposes, he'd made it impossible to move programs off of his personal computer, via internet or otherwise, and he'd also built certain security protocols into his computer so that his house was the only place that it would operate. Essentially, if he didn't build the program there, he'd need to start again, not with just the translation program but the programs he'd made to make the translation program, it'd take months.

Gadget was adamant that Cornelius's safety was first, and that until an effective means of protection was established, he needed to get packed and ready to leave, his parents as well. Cornelius queried if they should get his girlfriend Franny into hiding as well, to which the Inspector asked if there was a lot of media attention concerning him and her, to which the answer was no. The young inventor asked if the inspector was personally coming to pick them up, unfortunately Gadget was bust tracking down further leads and was certain that he himself was being followed. But he reassured the young genius that the one to pick him up would be someone he trusted completely, his niece.

And so began two straight days of waiting around his house in fear, not knowing whether or not when the police out front went of shift, if their replacements were just gun toting maniacs in badges or not. He also had a swell time canceling his appointments and explaining to his distressed board members that getting targeted for assassination meant he was due some down time from his projects in order to run and hide, and that the reason why he hired them was because they were supposed to be able to run a business, regardless of him being there or not. It did give him time to think however, and thankfully that's one of the things he did best.

On the third day, Gadget's niece arrived, using a tranquilizer gun to take down the officers outside of the Robinson home. Cornelius had a bad feeling about them, they kept shooting dark looks towards the house, and he just got a bad vibe from them. His feelings were justified when she informed them that she'd found two stripped in the grass along the road that lead to the house, one of them still clutched a badge.

With her was Candy, his assassin's girlfriend. She was a pretty red head, not too bright, but was very kind and caring. It was a jarring experience for Cornelius, watching her get brought to tears as she read the note. She told him that she didn't blame him for what happened, but that didn't dissuade the partial guilt he felt over the incident, in fact it cemented it more than anything.

He felt numb as they all piled into Penny's car, driving away from their home which was no longer safe. Budd held Lucille firmly, wearing his clothes correctly for once, as Lucille began to cry. Penny just kept staring on down the road, her sharp eyes darting occasionally to the rearview mirror or the tall grass that lined the paved but mostly abandoned road. Candy just kept dispassionately stroking the fur of what he assumed to be Penny's beagle. They didn't stop, no one really talked, no one really wanted to, they just kept driving and driving until it turned dark and they finally stopped at a motel.

That night, Cornelius spoke with Penny. He told her that he was now fully invested in helping Gadget end this investigation, and to do that he needed to be at his house. Penny strongly urged against him leaving. Until he informed her that he wasn't going back to his house, he was going to procure a means to make it safe once more. He left in the middle of the night, leaving Penny a letter to give to his parents. He didn't want to consult them since he knew full well that they would be fully against letting their one and only thirteen year old son out and alone into a world that filled with killers looking for his head. Penny told him to be safe and dropped him off at the train station, giving him a contact number for her uncle. He ordered a ticket for the next departure and got off two stations before his stop, and hit the first motel he came across.

Life alone wasn't all that difficult. True, he had to lay low, but even then he didn't have to worry so much about money since being Cornelius Robinson at that point in his life not only meant that he was smart, but wealthy too. The only slip up he made was that once he ran out of cash, he paid for some things via credit card. Fortunately he was able to catch that mistake, but not before another close call. Three gunman broke into his motel room and tore the place apart. Fortunately he wasn't there to be found, he was pulling away from the place in a cab, and happened to notice a black sedan park in front of his former room. From then on, he just made a huge withdrawal from the bank and lived off of that, cash transactions were impossible to follow, if a little dated. Unfortunately, he still couldn't shake the feeling that he was being followed.

Cornelius's plan was simple, he'd get a bodyguard. Penny warned him that the word might be out about him that there was a price on his head, and hiring any conventional body guard service might just mean that he was simply hiring his own executioner. He needed to hire someone who wasn't driven by mere cash alone, but was fortified by a solid sense of right and wrong that most people lack. Further than that, he needed someone who was more or less off the grid, and could handle any situation, was someone that the mysterious enemy couldn't get to. Unfortunately, people in the community he was hoping to seek help from were rather illusive. However, if his suspicions were right, then by the end of the day, he'd have a superpowered bodyguard of his very own.

"You here," a gruff voice said from the front seat.

The speaker, Cornelius's cab driver, shook the boy from his thoughts. Cornelius paid the man with a tip twice the cost of the fare before being deposited into the chaotic parking lot of the Metroville baseball stadium, home of the Metroville Meteors. Cornelius gritted his teeth as the sun hit his eyes after exiting the shade of the taxi which was now driving off with a more than pleased driver. The place was full of ballpark fanatics, even though it wasn't a game day, the season was over in fact. Today was a practice day, as well as fan's meet and greet, so the place was packed. Fan's rushed over to stands, creating small mobs in order to get their favorite player's John Hancock. Cornelius headed straight towards the largest of the crowds, knowing intuitively that who he wanted to talk to was there.

Cornelius wormed his way through the chattering fans to finally make it to a table, at which sat a player with slicked back blond hair, deep blue eyes, and of course a perfect, pretty boy smile. This guy was much younger than any of the other people wearing a Meteors uniform, and while he looked like some punk kid, this was the Metroville Meteors no. twenty-six. Dashal "The Dash" Robert Parr, age seventeen, the youngest to ever play in the Majors, as well the fastest pitcher and hitter in the world, and if Cornelius's suspicions were correct, world renown superhero.

The problem was of course was getting his attention while his adoring fans were screaming the heads off for him.

"Excuse me, Mr. Parr?" Cornelius said as loudly as he could without yelling.

"Mr. Parr's my father's name," Dash said, as he signed a Meteor's cap and placed it atop the head of the toddler who handed it to him. "You take care now," he said to the kid, patting him on the head and throwing him a Mikey Meteor plushie, the team's mascot.

"Thank you!" the kid squealed with delight, as his mom ushered him away from the table.

"I need to talk to you," Cornelius said earnestly, trying to win attention over the next batch of sports enthusiasts.

"Look kid, if you want an autograph, you'll have to wait in line just like everyone else," Dash said dispassionately, jotting down his name on a ten year old's mitt.

Due to the urgency of the situation which Cornelius was in, he felt it best not to point out that there was only a four year age difference between the two, and that out of the two of them, Cornelius made more money in a month than the player made working a full year. "But I need to talk to you about The Dash."

"Hey kid, he said no cutting!" said an annoyed zit faced fan from behind him, "Just get to the back and wait your turn!"

"What about me?" Dash said nonchalantly.

"No, about the hero," Cornelius said, trying to be discreet and failing as he be came more conspicuous as more and more attention was called to him and the fact that he was skipping.

"Get to the back!" someone from the crowd shouted.

"No cutting!" shouted another.

"It's great that I'm your hero," Dash said pointedly to Cornelius, "but could you please wait your turn?"

"No, not my hero!" Cornelius said, trying hard to get his voice through the growing ruckus of the crowd.

"GET IN LINE!" Someone shouted.

"THE hero, Dash, from the Incredibles." Cornelius tried to get out, his voice barely audiable.

"Okay, yeah, I know I'm incredible," Dash said, misinterpreting the words, "Please just wait in line?"

"I'VE BEEN HERE AN HOUR!" shouted one from the agitated crowd.

"ME TOO!" another agreed.

"No," Cornelius said, his voice not getting out, "You're the-"

"HEEEEEYYYYY!" Dash shouted, getting up and throwing up his hands, quieting the crowd. Once everyone settled, he rounded on Cornelius, "Listen, I'm flattered and all, but you need to go back and wait your turn." Dash then turned to the crowd at large, "Listen, I gotta go." The statement was met with a large wave of disapproval and disappointed moans. "Hey it's just to the bathroom, I'll be right back."

Cornelius thought about possibly ducking under the velvet line and running after Dash as the sports star walked away. But while the crowd would only use their voices against him for wrong doing, he had a feeling that the security staff at the function would be somewhat less forgiving. So, sad and dejected, Cornelius tromped to the back of the line. It was hard for him to think of any other way to do this. He suspected that chances were high that his contacts at work were being monitored, so going through the proper channels to set up a meeting with Dash could get him caught. Then of course there was always the possibility that his suspicions were way off. The Dash didn't even bat a lash when Cornelius accused him of being-

Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

The world around Cornelius became a blur, as he flew the air. His arm felt like it was being ripped out of his socket as he was being pulled along at a blinding pace by some unseen force. The wind was knocked out him as he came to an abrupt and painful stop.

"Who sent you?" came a voice from in front of him.

It took Cornelius a moment to get his bearing and realize where he was, it was nothing short of a miracle that his glasses hadn't fallen off, in the sudden rush. He looked around to see that he was in the currently empty loading area for the baseball stadium. He was pinned to the side of a dumpster, staring face to face with a red eyed, angry Dash Parr, his hands being the reason why his shoulders were pinned to the dumpster. Unfortunately Cornelius didn't really register the question he was asked.

"…What?" the inventor replied.

POP!

Pain shot through the side of Cornelius's head, his lip suddenly busted and his head turned to the side. He felt like he just got socked in the jaw, although he didn't even see, or for that matter feel, Dash's hands move.

"Don't screw with me!" Dash said coldly, murder in his words, "I could drag you along the highway at a couple hundred miles an hour, and leave your body so far away and in so many parts, it'll be years before they identify you through your dental records. So I'll ask again. Who. Sent. You?"

"NOBODY! NO ONE! I came on my own!" Cornelius cried out, self preservation on his mind, "Listen, my name is Cornelius Robinson and I need your help."

"Bullcrap! How long have you been watching me?"

"I've been following you as a hobby of mine. Appearances of The Dash match your touring routes in other cities, although you've had appearances all over The US and even across the globe to throw anyone off the scent. There was also an instance where you and "The Dash" appeared at the same charity function, but I suspect that was probably your team-mate, Attack Jack, he's the shape-shifter right?"

Dash was silent processing all this, finally answering with, "…How did you find me?"

"A friend of mine's a huge baseball nut. A few months back, he managed to drag me to game you played at Sacramento . You were up to pitch, but you were missing for twenty minutes. Later, I read the news, and it turns out that The Incredibles were in battle during the game and-"

"WHAT THE!" someone called out. Cornelius and Dash looked up to see some a guy in a cheesy Men In Black get up, with a silenced gun drawn and pointed at Cornelius's head.

While Cornelius closed his eyes, knowing the end had come, Dash saw everything. Dash perceived thing much faster than you or I could imagine, to him everything moved in slow motion, it took him years to learn to talk slow enough for anyone to understand anything he said, and school was a nightmare for him. Seeing the world in such a manner applied to the situation that day in the alley. The man was at least twenty or so feet away, but Dash was able to make out the slow, subtle rippling of the muscles in the man's finger as it squeezed the trigger of the gun.

Dash let go of Cornelius and started moving faster than could be seen by the human eye. He started moving towards the gunman, hoping to take him out before the hammer of the gun could strike the primer. He gritted his teeth as he noticed the slight glow from the barrel of the gun, he'd have to circle around and come back. They didn't call it break neck speeds for nothing, if he tried to grab the bullet while moving in the opposite direction, he was liable to snap his arm in half, and he was going too quickly to move the man's arm without possibly dislocating it.

He rushed out of the stadium area and hit the road, ducking under, going over, and zipping around cars and semis. It was exceedingly difficult, if his brain and eyes didn't keep up with the rest of his body, he would've ended up as a nice meaty splatter on the side of a brick wall years ago. It was hard for him to see too well without his mask on, it hurt like hell as he felt the wind hammering on his eyes, and if his tear ducts weren't fast enough to replace the tears he was rapidly losing as he ran, he'd be running blind. He finally managed to hit the freeway after an insanely long and grueling millisecond of running, it allowed the wide berth he needed to make a turn without losing too much speed. There was no big rush, he wasn't in that much of a hurry.

He slowed down as he returned to the stadium loading area. When he came back, Cornelius and the hatless Blues Brothers reject were exactly where he'd left them. The bullet had come close to closing half the distance between Cornelius. Dash sped forward and clasped his hand around the bullet, he gritted his teeth as he felt the bee sting that came from holding the hot lead, it took a lot of heat to really hurt him when he moved at these speeds. With Cornelius no longer in danger, Dash was able to finally slow down and move in the opposite direction, not an easy thing to do when moving over several hundred miles an hour, fortunately for him, his sneakers were custom made for him by Edna Mode, giving him optimal traction over time, any other shoe would've worn away long before then, leaving the bottoms of his feet cut and bloody.

Moving back towards the would-be murderer, Dash extended his arm, setting the slob up for a super sonic clothesline. As he neared the stoolie, Dash aimed his arm lower, since he was liable to snap the guy's neck should he clothesline by the throat. Once all that was determined was…

WHOP!

Cornelius didn't know what happened, one second Dash was holding him against the dumpster with an assassin leveling a gun at his head, the next Dash was standing over the killer, who was now on the ground coughing up blood.

"Hey," Dash said, looking over his shoulder, back at Cornelius with a smile, "Want a souvenir?" The baseball star then held up a bullet in between his thumb and forefinger.

Cornelius for his part was still somewhat jarred, but he started to deduce what most likely happened. And then he started to think what was most likely to come of it. "GET HIS COLLAR OFF!" the young inventor shouted out.

"What?" Dash replied, the statement catching him off guard. Dash looked down to find the gunman on the ground, convulsing violently and foaming at the mouth. "What the hell's wrong with him?" Dash asked as Cornelius rushed past him to kneel down next to the dying man.

"Damn it! It's too late," Cornelius said, removing the man's tie and the upper part of his shirt, revealing a solid metal collar.

"What's happening to him?" Dash asked, not understanding what was going on.

"You see this?" Cornelius said, pointing a the metal band, "This thing kills them when they fail."

"When they fail what?"

"To kill me."

"Jesus."

"I need to disappear Cornelius said, is there any place you can hide me?"

"Wait, we can't just leave him here," Dash said disbelievingly.

"For someone who was threatening to roadhaul me a few seconds ago, you're acting awfully squeamish."

"Yeah, but that's because I was bullshitting."

"Look, they're hunting me in groups now, so it's just a matter of time before his buddies show up. You can call the cops if you have to, but right now I need to disappear. Is there a place you can hide me right now?"

Dash didn't know what to say. It wasn't as if he hadn't seen death before, back when his family had gone toe-to-toe with Syndrome, and even a couple of times since then, there'd been accidents, unavoidable deaths. But that was actual combat, and this was different, it all went by so fast, he never got to stare at a body before. The gunman had stopped twitching at this point, he was stone dead. The real creepy thing was that his eyes didn't even look right anymore, they were cold, vacant, like a doll's, like he wasn't even alive to begin with.

"HEY!" Cornelius shouted, shaking Dash from his inspection, "We need to move, can you hide me?"

"Uh…" Dash took another look at the downed man, "Uh, yeah, this way."

Later

"I still can't believe this," Cornelius said.

"Hey, you said you wanted a hiding place, they'd never find you in there. Here you go."

The two were back at Dash's signing table, the "here you go" being intended for the twelve year old in braces, ecstatic about his newly signed Meteors poster. Cornelius was dressed in the bulky foam rubber suit of the team's well loved mascot, Mikey The Meteor, which wasn't as well loved as he'd been lead to believe. While the players were revered and garnered much respect, Mikey got about as much respect as a wet mop, seeing as Cornelius just spent the last hour or so, wandering the crowd, getting kicked in the legs by little brats left and right. Now while the suit did guarantee that the gun man weren't going to find him for quite some time, he was certain that his shins would definitely be black and blue by the time he got out of the thing.

"So how many are there?" Dash asked.

"I counted nine, two went inside looking for me, and I'm fairly certain that the helicopter overhead is there to make sure that I don't just walk out of here. Two by the parking lot are looking for people wearing hats."

"Helicopter?" Dash looked up to see a helicopter sitting perfectly still in mid air, he saw it a little earlier, but he'd just written it off as a regular news chopper, but upon further inspection he saw that it was black and bore no number or lettering to signify who it represented.

"Dash?" came a woman's voice. The baseball star looked down to see at his table, a rather nice looking young woman wearing a Meteors t-shirt. "Oh my god, I'm your biggest fan!"

"I'm sure you are," Dash said, cracking a million dollar smile. Her team devotion was far from being the biggest thing about her, Dash was fairly certain she fell forward every time she bent over to pick up a pencil, he'd never seen the letters "M" and "S" look so good, bloated but happy. "Say," Dash said, "once I get done here, how's about you an' me go somewhere an' talk, I could show you how to pitch like a pro."

"Sorry, I'm meeting my boyfriend after this, he wanted me to get you to sign his hat."

Dash took the hat, and while his lips said "Sure thing," his mind was screaming, "Lucky bastard!"

"Just as well," Cornelius whispered, "You're playing bodyguard for me, remember?"

"I never technically said yes to that yet, and you can consider yourself dead if you think that'll keep yours truly from getting in between a pair of legs. So, how long are these gun toting stereotypes gonna keep hanging around here?"

"Not too long I suppose. They definitely know I haven't given them the slip if they're still hanging around for this long, but they're eventually going to have to ease up and pull some guys away to draw me out of hiding."

"Well what's this?" Dash said. He spotted the two hitmen that were searching the stadium like Cornelius said, walking quickly out of the stadium towards the crowd. Dash wasn't the only one to notice this, several of the security staff noticed too, and Dash cracked a smile as they moved to intercept, "This oughta be good."

Cornelius at the time had noticed something else, all of a sudden, all the hitmen he'd spotted (they weren't too hard to find since they were all wearing suits to a sporting event), had started to move towards the parking lot. Towards to black vans that had just pulled up to be exact, and from one of these vans, a similarly dressed man exited, holding a briefcase. The man calmly waded into the crowd, walking slowly, not moving fastnone of the hitmen made any sudden movements as a matter of fact. Once he was in the center of the crowd, or close enough, he dropped the suitcase next to a bench, and started to move back to the vans.

"Yeah guys, try to talk your way out of it," Dash said, grinning sardonically as the two hitmen argued with the security guards who refused to simply let 'em leave.

Cornelius also took notice of the two, along with quite a few other things. He saw that that one was becoming increasingly, and unnecessarily agitated with the security staff, whilst the other one had removed his sun glasses and was looking intently from the suit case to the two black vans. He also noticed that the helicopter was suddenly nowhere to be seen, and that the two vans pulled off like a bats outta hell after picking up the gunman, excluding the two who were held up at security, sweating like sinners in church. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was about to happen, although the fact that he was didn't hurt.

"It's a bomb," Cornelius said to Dash in a low voice.

"What?" the speedster replied, confused.

"Towards the center of the crowd, by a bench."

"With this many innocent people around?"

"Absolutely."

"How long do you think we have?"

"Not long."

"Well if I get it right now, I can kiss my family's safety goodbye."

"Let me deal with that." Cornelius started running towards the two gunmen just as they started to run from the security team towards the stadium. The young inventor was much in the way of physical fitness, and the foam rubber suit hindered his running, but he managed to blindside and tackle one of his attempted killers to the ground. Amid the scuffle between him and the killer, Cornelius managed to get a hold of the assassin's gun. The killer threw Cornelius off of him and started back towards the stadium again, with security just barely two steps behind him. It was difficult to handle the weapon in the bulky and clumsy gloves of the mascot uniform, but he managed to wrench the silencer off. He took aim at the ground and fired.

PAP! PAP! PAP!

The gunfire had a remarkable affect on the crowd. Instantly there were screams, people ducking and running left and right, it was mass confusion and hysteria, which is precisely what Dash needed.

Dash ducked under the table incase anyone still had their eyes on him, which he highly doubted, but a few extra precautions never hurt. Once he was out of sight, he jetted forward. It was easy for him to cut through the crowd since to him the people moved at less than a snail's pace. It was even easier for him to find the bomb that Cornelius had told him about, not that it was really cleverly hidden. Seriously, a black briefcase, how much more cliché were these guys going to get? As irksome as this hit squad's predictability was, he still had the bomb to focus on. It'd been quite some since he'd had to diffuse a bomb, but he was certain that he'd have enough time to get back in the swing of it.

As it turned out however, Dash didn't know jack about how much time he had. Because when he opened the suitcase, the red numbers which signified the detonation timer all read as zero. Suffice to say, he didn't have time to diffuse the bomb at all. He closed the suitcase and started running. He needed to get the bomb away from any place populated, he jetted through the town, trying to think of where. The ocean was to far away, and even he wasn't fast enough to make it there on time. He was finally able to make it on the highway and was able to really pick up the pace then. He figured that if he was able to get it to some of the unpopulated land developments that lay between the suburbs and the city, he might be able to let the bomb go there and outrun the blast.

Suddenly he felt his hand start to sweat, more so than usual. He looked down at the suitcase to see the black pleather start to bubble and sizzle, and the metal latches start to glow. "SHIT!" Dash shouted out of frustration so fast that it barely registered as an action and was audible only to him. The bomb was exploding, there was no way he'd be able to make it anywhere unpopulated, he needed to get rid of the bomb now. But there wasn't anywhere he could take the damned thing without killing a dozen people upon it exploding, there was no way to win.

Then he saw it. Metro Tower , the tallest building in the city, the tallest building for miles, and upon seeing it, and idea popped into his head. It could if he was fast enough, and he needed to outrun the explosion that he carried in his hand, there were other factors as well. So all things considered, it was still a pretty big if, but it was better than nothing.

He got low to the ground and really put on the speed, his leg muscles starting to burn from the effort. In time less than milliseconds, he was at the base of the tower, this was what he was worried about. He'd run up the sides of buildings lots of times before, no problem. But he never done it at these speeds before. He didn't know if he'd be able to make such a drastic and sharp turn in the momentum he was working with. If he didn't get his footing just right, he was likely to just simply snap his own leg like a twig, and then blow up due to the explosion on a handle he was holding.

Dash rushed at the building, he then closed his eyes and clenched his teeth as he placed one foot on the side of the building. The pain was unbearable, he felt pain scream resoundingly throughout his leg as the force from his running began to press down on it, beginning to bend the bones, less than a moment away from making them snap. Regardless, Dash pressed on, bringing his other leg onto the side of the building, pushing downwards with it to get traction. It was slow, slow from the perspective of Dash that is, but he managed to run up the side of the building with relatively none of his speed lost in the change of direction. It was all up in the air now, literally. He rushed upwards along the building, but he quickly found himself to be out of road to run on. However, his forward momentum continued to propel him, working to skyrocket him upwards. This was it. With all the strength he had, he grabbed the suitcase handle with both hands and flung it upwards. The explosion had begun to escape the boundaries of the suitcase, the edges of the blast slowly expanding, the bright light of it a blinding sphere.

BOOM!

The bomb unleashed it full force with a deafening outburst of energy. At twenty thousand feet in the air, it was a dazzling streak of red, orange, and yellow fury, the blast going out in a line, still moving upwards. Below it, gravity had begun to reclaim Dash and was pulling him downwards, as he now fought an all new kind of battle. Dash, moving as fast he did, doing the things that he did, typically used up way more oxygen than the average human in order to give his body the air it needed in order for him to move so fast. Now this typically isn't a problem, since he's usually operating on the ground, where the air is plentiful. Not so with his current predicament. As high up as he was, a normal person would have trouble breathing, but with the way Dash's body worked, being up so high where the air was so thin, it was like being buried alive. His lungs burned and screamed for air, although there was not enough for how much he was inhaling. Dash knew what was happening, and tried to slow his breathing, but after what he just did, it was hard for his body to cooperate with his commands. Everything he saw suddenly began to fog over with a thick black haze, and although he fought hard against it, he passed out.

Suddenly Dash's eyes shot open. He was disoriented at first, he awoke to find the rooftops of Metroville rising up to meet him all too quickly. At first he thought it was one of those nightmares people have about falling, but the ice cold wind that stung his face told him different. He shot both his hands forward and began to spin them in circles. It was speedsters 101 really, if you ever get caught falling, the first thing you do is create a strong air current to cushion your fall. True to form, his arms managed to create two wind tunnels which pushed against the ground and slowed his descent to the city streets. Unfortunately, one just can't create a couple of tornadoes in the middle of a crowded street and expect people not to take notice. So he pulled his shirt up and lowered his head, but the time he'd set the toe of his sneaker on the ground, he was long gone before anyone even had the idea to try and reach for their camera phones.

Back at the stadium, the firing of the gun had created a fair amount of pandemonium. The chaos was only increased when Cornelius saw an explosion in the sky just seconds later. In the wake of the hysteria, Cornelius went out of his way to make sure that his tracks were covered. He headed into the stadium unopposed and made his way into the security office. When he got there, he found that the lock had already been broken. He sat at the camera console and found a transmitter of sorts plugged into the computer. It was uploading some program, or allowing someone to get past the security encryptions the computer had in order to get at whatever information was there in. He unplugged the device from the computer and was about to pocket it for further study when he heard a sinister pop. That pop along with some sizzling and smoke coming from the plastic stick informed him that it was now useless to him, his opponent (opponents?) was very thorough indeed.

Regardless, Cornelius pocketed the device and kept moving forward, turning his attention to the computer. I was easy for him to hack into the server, and gain access to all security footage of the stadium. It was all there to him, Dash's interrogation of him in the back, the gunman who tried to shoot him, the footage of even more hitmen appearing to get rid of the body, and even Dash ducking under his signing table and disappearing in a blur. With just a few key strokes, Cornelius made it so that such information would never see the light of day, deleting the lot, but only after copying those files to a flash drive he had on his person. Once that loose end was taken care of, he made his way to the locker room where Dash had gotten him the Mikey The Meteor costume in the first place. Finding no one there Cornelius stripped himself of his foam rubber sweat box and waited.

His patience paid off as several minutes later, Dash burst into the locker room, and he was quite out of breath with his shirt pulled up around his nose. Pulling his shirt down, Dash addressed the young inventor. "So…those…whoa, gimme a second…Okay. So those Pulp Fiction guys…they were really going to kill…all those people…just to get to you?"

"Absolutely."

"Okay…I'm in."

And now for Fire Back (FYI reviews), where the readers say what they think.

Here's what I say.

To The Heck: Thank you.

To Italian schizoid boy: Is this chapter as engrossing then?

And here's what Grimm Gun says.

To The Heck: Well the devil is in the details, besides I hate it when questions pop up like "Why didn't such and such just do this?" and I don't have a good answer, not every emperor likes to find out he's naked.

To Italian Schizoid Boy: Well today's you lucky day isn't it? Unless you got cancer, in which case this all seems rather trivial, and best of luck regardless.

Tune in next week for the fourth part of our thrilling adventure series, where we get to see something strange.