Chapter 3
8 years earlier, December 15th.
Adam and Estel, accompanied by a whole SWAT team storm through Wood Oak Hospital each wearing protective gear including a gas mask and bulletproof vest. As they delve deeper into the building, the scenes become more and more shocking when they witness patients and doctors killing each other in the most brutal of ways. Estel gasps as she quietly passes a room where one patient is stabbing another using a scalpel.
The two of them split from the other members of the group as they approach a dark stairwell. At the top of it lies another corridor with it's lights flashing on and off.
"Shit! They said it was bad earlier when the same outrage happened at City Hall and Wood Oak City Bank, but I never expected it to be this crazy!" Estel remarks.
"Just keep your mask on and take any survivors outside even if we find them first!" Adam says.
"Copy that" she replies. As the two of them pass another room, they notice a young man holding tightly onto another scalpel with his hands frantically around his ears. Behind him is a radio playing classical music.
"Stop the radio now!" He shouts in agony when he notices Adam and Estel outside. The two of them glance at one another surprised before their head and ears start to painfully hurt.
"Shoot it!" The boy demands. Estel painfully aims her trigger at the radio then fires a bullet, immediately cutting off the music. Their headaches instantly stop.
"Run downstairs to the exit before this whole place blows! We've cleared the ground floor level!" She urges the young man before her and Adam continue forward.
"This should be it!" He says, breaking into a secured room further down the corridor. To their surprise, the bed is empty and the room is dark and silent. Adam walks inside first, using the torch on his gun to inspect the surroundings. In the corner, they find a nurse hiding on the floor shaking with a new born baby in her arms.
"It's ok, we're police!" Adam tells her, helping the nurse up to her feet. "What happened? And where is this baby's mother?" He asks, gazing down at an oversized armband around the baby's wrist displaying a patient number and the name 'Blaze Fielding'.
"They took her upstairs when all the machinery here switched off and the power cut out. She's still in a coma so they tried to save her…" the nurse answers with tears in her eyes.
Adam quickly turns to Estel behind him, handing over to her the crying baby.
"Agguire take this child and this nurse and get the hell out of here! There's less than 5 minutes until the place explodes!"
"Where are you going?" She asks.
"If Blaze is upstairs I gotta get her out before it's too late, even if she's still in a coma."
"There's not enough time!" Estel argues, now holding the baby.
"Just follow my orders, Officer!" He snaps. "Take this piece of paper and go and find Max. He knows where Axel is! You need to get this baby out of here as quietly and as quickly as possible without being seen."
"Affirmative". She responds.
"I know an easy way out!" The nurse suggests as Adam and the two females run in separate directions.
"Adam! Be careful!" Estel shouts when he approaches another flight of stairs.
Two minutes pass and Adam is still frantically searching each corner of the hospital level for Blaze. He immediately hears a countdown of 10 seconds.
"Shit!" He tries his best to stay calm before running forward and jumping out of one of the windows. He ends up falling 20ft to the ground then he does his best to roll out of the way, covering his head with his ankle fractured. The whole hospital building immediately explodes into a large white cloud.
"NO!" Adam bangs his fists into the concrete ground before he passes out from the fumes.
It feels as if hours have passed when Adam slowly opens his eyes.
"The procedure was a great success". He freezes for a moment as soon as he recognises the voice close by. Adam then gazes down at his hands tied to the bed with horror on his face, noticing that his blood vessels are sore and more visible under the surface of his hands and arms.
He glances around the state of the art lab and is shocked to find Shiva unconscious and hooked up to a machine next to his bed.
"What the hell have you done to me!" Adam shouts in agony as the evil scientist walks forward towards him holding a needle containing a small yellow star on the handle. He immediately injects it into Adam's upper arm.
"I've done you a favour Mr Hunter" the Dr proudly smirks. "You are now a living weapon and property of the syndicate".
"Is he still alive?" Adam glances over towards Shiva on the bed next to his.
"Just about…." the Dr says, rotating Adam's palms towards the ceiling.
"You are the first of many adults who will embrace their own supernatural abilities that my programme has engineered". Adam tries his best to break free from his chained hands but it is no use.
Dr Dahm then leans forward, placing a large metallic shield that lowers from the ceiling above Adam's body.
"All it took were three blood samples - one from Blaze, one from Axel and one from Shiva. All three of them have been under my microscope at some point and I have always made sure their blood taken is stored somewhere safe. You don't realize how valuable this technology really is!" He smirks, this time holding in the air a loaded gun.
"Do your bosses know about this little project of yours?" Adam asks.
"They only know what they need to…" he replies whilst pressing a red button.
"No, no wait!" Adam shouts as the metal bands connected to the bed around his wrists tighten. His pulse immediately starts to race as bright yellow auras escape from his arms through the air rising up to the metal shield above.
"Yes! It's working just how I envisioned it would!" Dahm glares with amusement.
To his surprise, suddenly in an explosion of yellow light, the entire metal shield cracks and breaks above Adam. His arms radiate, creating a sharp bright blast around him which breaks the chains open around his wrists.
Immediately a bullet is fired towards Adam, hitting him in the shoulder as he rises up from the bed. He tosses a large piece of the metal shield forward at the scientist. It hits Dr Dahm's head then he collapses to the ground before he can reach the panic button.
As Adam lifts himself out of the bed, he stumbles and falls on the floor, forgetting about his injured ankle. He immediately lifts himself up using his arms next to Shiva's bed as he places his hands on the other set of metal restraints around Leon's wrists. Adam's palms easily blast them open.
"Shiva? Wake up! We need to get out of here… Come on man, wake up!"
The weakened fighter looks up at him in a dazed state.
Using all of the strength he has left, Adam reaches for the Doctor's loaded gun then he places Shiva's arm around his shoulder as he does everything he can to sneak them past the other scientists and security.
Eventually once the two of them have made it outside, Adam breaks the window of the first available car he spots. He does his best to help lift Shiva into the back of the car then he starts to hear the panic alarm. This alerts anyone from inside the lab building.
He quickly hot-wires the car before they painfully drive away from the scene to find help.
It takes less than an hour for the two of them to reach Zan's lab.
"Open up! We need your help!" Adam bangs on the door, frantically looking around to check that they haven't been followed.
"Help!" He repeatedly shouts until a young adolescent man around the same age as Sammy opens the door. Adam is taken back surprised as he doesn't recognise the young adult in front of him. Under his navy blue jacket he has broad shoulders and is tall and muscular with a similar physique to Max. He has a sharp jawline with a patch of long dark hair tied back and the rest shaved at the sides appearing either Samoan or Maori in ethnicity.
He raises his gloved fists in the air then blocks Adam with his metallic arms from entering the building.
"I need to see Zan right now! Step aside boy! Adam demands.
"I can't just let you in!"
"What are you a bouncer to a club? Where the hell is the Doctor?!" Adam shouts, not having seen Zan in over a year.
"It's ok Floyd, this is my friend." Zan's familiar voice enters the doorway.
"I've found Leon Shiva! Both of us need your help right away!" Adam pleads as the two of them are rushed downstairs and out of sight.
"The blood samples predominantly show a mixture of cloned proteins from Shiva's DNA as well as a small amount of rakushin." Floyd updates Zan and the others.
"What does that mean then?" Adam worriedly asks.
"It means you have bad-ass supernatural chi now, similar to your friends".
"But they and the doctor here were all born with their powers! I wasn't!" Adam replies.
"The good news is that your body is capable of adapting to it. Your cells are now programmed to use this power. The bad news however is if you don't maintain small doses of this formula whenever your power depletes, your cells will die" Zan explains.
"That's me finished then!" Adam shrugs feeling defeated.
"No! Floyd or I can easily make up this same formula for you any time. I still have plenty of sources of rakushin and as long as we can store enough blood from one of the others, you will survive." Zan replies.
"Hey I'm sorry about earlier!" Floyd takes the opportunity to apologise to Adam. This time he removes his lab coat to reveal his metallic arms. "If it's any consolation, these arms are full of rakushin too! It does have its advantages".
"It's ok kid, you were doing the right thing protecting your mentor. I'm Adam Hunter by the way" he introduces himself.
"I know" Floyd calmly replies "you worked with my father back in the spring when he was stationed in Lima".
"Officer Iraria?" Adam's face lights up with amusement. "You're his son?!"
"Yep" He bluntly answers whilst putting away some lab equipment.
"What happened to your arms?" Adam quizzes.
"I used to work in construction when I was 16. One day an explosion planted by the syndicate hit the building we were working on. I was the only survivor but I lost both of my arms". Floyd explains.
"I'm sorry" Adam replies with remorse.
"Luckily I was fortunate enough to meet this genius doctor who replaced them and gave them functionality".
"That's great and I'm glad to hear that!" Adam replies. "How's Shiva doing?" He queries.
"He's right here!" Zan replies as he wheels Shiva over on a chair.
"Hey thanks for saving me back there! And thank you for your help" Shiva gratefully comments.
"I should have saved you a long time ago back in Lima, but I couldn't. I'm sorry." Adam responds with regret.
"You did what you had to do. And so did I".
"We thought you were dead! I saw the grenade you had in your hand explode. How the hell did you even survive that?" Adam asks, astonished that Shiva is still alive.
"I used my chi. Zan will understand how I did it." Shiva grins.
"Bunkatsu?" Zan queries.
"Hai" Shiva nods.
"Does anybody wanna explain?" Adam shrugs.
"Shiva divided his energy into several partitions. His spirit left his physical body for a moment and his heart stopped when he threw the grenade forward. So it appeared as if he was running into the explosion but really most of his energy was away from it. It's complicated and can have a detrimental impact on the body, but he was able to survive in the end" Zan explains.
"And I was knocked out cold for months unaware of the experiments they were doing to me" Shiva adds.
"So where is Axel, is he out of prison?" Shiva asks.
"Yeah, but not exactly. He still has to serve a sentence out in the wilderness for at least the next 8 years."
"And Blaze?"
Adam pauses, frowning with sadness in his eyes. "Blaze was in a coma for the last 7 months. I tried to find her at the hospital before the explosion yesterday when I found out what was going on there. But I was too late and she didn't make it out" his eyes begin to water.
"Wait, 7 months? Was she still pregnant?" Shiva questions, feeling shocked.
"Yeah" He nods. "The doctors operated on her just hours before and they delivered a healthy baby. We managed to save him at the hospital."
"I'm sorry. Blaze was one of the best fighters I've ever met."
"She felt the same way about you too. She was devastated when we believed you died sacrificing yourself. Thanks to what you did in order to save her, there's another Leon somewhere in the world right now. But I don't know how his father is gonna be able to handle the news". Adam replies, trying to hold back the tears.
"Excuse me…" Zan shies away, leaving the group whilst seeking some time alone to grieve.
Present Day.
Adam abruptly wakes up in the bathroom after falling asleep on the ground. He anxiously checks his watch - it's only 4:30am so Leon should still be asleep. He disposes the used needle then swiftly returns to their room. He quietly closes the door then glances over towards the boy who is peacefully sleeping after a long day's journey. As he looks at Leon, Adam can't help but feel a sense of guilt and responsibility for everything that has happened. If only he had tried to stop Blaze from finding Jake, if only he had got to the witness himself, if only he made it to the hospital faster… There are so many regrets running through his mind.
He lays down with his head back against the pillow, thinking of all the years that have passed by and how much everything has changed ever since.