Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Columbia Pictures and to the writers and producers and whoever else I may have forgotten to mention. The only things I claim to own are my own characters and the plot of this story.


"Shit! You let them follow you here?" Dahlia hissed, whirling to face her team. "Don't just stand around, get rid of them!"

The rest of her team jumped into action. Before the Zenith Team even touched the floor of the prison, the fighting had begun. Connor watched as Cindy rolled and grabbed another table, chucking it at Byte, who was running toward the back of the room. Summer and Dylan were tag teaming against Nyx and Flash. And Tucker was going up against the last thief, who Connor assumed was Spectre. Dahlia swore again, ducking table Cindy had thrown before disappearing into the chaos.

To his left, Connor noticed that Tucker was struggling against Spectre. The middle schooler was dodging all the thief's punches and kicks, but just barely. Even though he wanted to get Allie out of the line of fire, Connor knew he couldn't do that without the help of the team. And that meant not letting another one of his teammates get hurt because of his distraction.

He charged toward Spectre, slamming into the older man at full speed. They tumbled together, rolling across the floor until they stopped up against one of the metal tables. Connor immediately jumped to his feet. The thief lay on the ground, breathing heavily. He glared up at Connor as he struggled to catch his breath. Connor smiled back. "It's nice to finally be able to beat up the guy who caused me so much trouble these past few weeks."

Tucker approached, slightly winded but otherwise okay. "Did you see what he was doing Concussion?" the younger teen used his team name. "He can make stuff appear out of thin air!"

By now the thief was beginning to recover, getting to his feet even as he swayed heavily. Connor took a second to glance around the room again. Dylan was nursing his left side, judging by the way he grimaced as he sidestepped one of Nyx's fast-moving shadows. Summer was a few feet away, blood dripping from a cut on her forehead, but still holding her own against Flash's blasts of energy. Cindy was swinging her metal table off in the background, and Connor really hoped she was destroying some of the machinery he'd noticed earlier. Dahlia and Byte were nowhere to be found. He heard a grunt from behind him and turned to find Tucker blocking an attack from Spectre. "You got this, Mega Boy?"

Tucker nodded, and Connor immediately turned his attention to finding Dahlia. She'd disappeared when the fighting began. But she still had whatever the rest of her team had stolen. He suspected it was the particle accelerator he'd seen discussed on her laptop, but without seeing it more closely, he couldn't be sure. Flash let out a bolt of energy, illuminating the back of the room better.

There she was. Dahlia was just turning toward the fight again when Connor spotted her. She still carried the machine, but he could make out a faint blue glow coming from a spot near the front. He knew the moment her eyes fell on him, because she smirked again. It sent shivers up his spine.

Before Connor could move toward her, Dahlia was already jogging back toward the front of the room. As she neared, she hefted the machine-which Connor was realizing looked more and more like a large gun- up onto her shoulder. "This is it, Concussion!" Dahlia shouted above the noise of the fight. "Join our cause and fight alongside us as we rewrite history or stand and watch as we turn all of your friends against you. Make your choice!"

He wanted to charge her, but with the machine in her hands it was too dangerous. Obviously frustrated by his lack of an answer, Dahlia swung the accelerator toward Cindy, who was now chasing Byte around some of the buffet tables. Connor saw her finger tighten, every muscle in his body tensed as he ran toward his opponent. But before the accelerator could fire, a heavy metal chair came flying from somewhere behind Connor. Dahlia was so focused on Cindy that she missed seeing it coming toward her. The chair hit its mark, and the thief crumpled to the floor. The antidote syringe she'd had earlier worked its way free of its hiding spot and fell to the ground.

Connor watched as the fragile-looking syringe hit the concrete floor, almost in slow motion. He expected it to shatter into a million pieces, but to his surprise, it didn't. It landed with a tiny ping and rolled to a stop by his foot. Dahlia was distracted enough by her tumble that she hadn't even noticed the antidote had fallen out of her pocket. Connor snatched it up and made a mad dash for the cell he'd left earlier.

As he entered the cell, he paused. For a moment, he was terrified that Allie was already dead. Then he saw her chest rise slightly and gave a heavy sigh of relief.

"This'll help," he whispered softly as he knelt beside her and uncapped the needle. "At least, I hope it will."

He carefully administered the antidote before tossing the needle aside. The fight between the Zenith Team and the thieves was still raging outside the cell, but for that moment, all Connor could think about was his friend. He'd done something awful to her, and he knew that he didn't deserve her trust or friendship anymore. But maybe saving her life would let her forgive him. "Come on, Allie," he said after a moment of no change. "Please."

Suddenly, her eyes flew open. Her breaths went from shallow to gasping, and in a brief thought, Connor wondered if Dahlia had lied about the antidote. But then Allie clutched his arm so tight his fingers went numb for a second. Her gaze found his, confusion and panic filling her eyes as she struggled to find her voice. "What did you do to me?"

"It's an antidote. Dahlia poisoned you and said this was the only thing that would save you," Connor replied as he pried her hand off his arm.

"Shit, that's some antidote," she said, closing her eyes again. "Gah, I feel like I'm on fire from the inside."

"We have to get you out of here. You're in a line of fire I don't want you to be in," he said after a moment. The fighting outside the cell seemed to be getting even closer.

The corner of her mouth lifted briefly before going slack again. "There's no way I can go anywhere right now," she said softly, muscles tensing in a sudden spasm. Her eyes opened just enough for him to see how dilated her pupils were. "I don't even think I can sit up. Go, take care of Dahlia. Stop her before she can use that accelerator. And be careful, Connor."

Allie knew. Dahlia must have told her cousin her plans after she gave her the poison, figuring that there was no way Connor would get ahold of the antidote. And ever after everything he'd done to his best friend, she still cared for him it seemed. His heart pounded as he watched her close her eyes. Her breathing slowed to a more relaxed state as she went unconscious again. It wasn't as dramatic as when Dahlia had given her the poison, so Connor was decently confident that the antidote had worked.

He waited for a couple more minutes just in case Allie stopped breathing. But when her breaths stayed deep and even, despite the occasional muscle spasms, Connor turned his attention back to the fight outside. Standing in the cell door, he could see both teams still fighting their hardest, even as the fighters themselves were beginning to look fatigued. Dylan and Summer seemed to be wearing down their opponents, though the pair were moving slower than when the fight had first started. Tucker had managed to overpower Spectre and was sitting with an oversized hand over the slightly struggling thief. Cindy had Byte tied up with a chair against the opposite wall, grinning as she wearily bent the metal like a twist tie. It looked like the Zenith team was assured the win. But Dahlia was nowhere to be found.

Connor cautiously stepped out of the cell. Dahlia could be anywhere, and with the accelerator, she was an extreme danger to the entire team. He'd just passed the first table in the room when he heard a voice behind him that made him freeze.

""I have to say, those thirty years in an alternate dimension treated you very well. You're what, 46 now? Incredibly impressive." Connor turned to find Dahlia standing at the door to the cell he'd just left. Her smile ticked upward as their eyes locked. "You think you can stop this, Concussion? I've seen your personal file. You seem to have a very bad reaction to Gamma radiation, don't you?"

Before he could react, she raised the accelerator and fired. "Let's see what happens this time."

For a moment, Connor couldn't move. His muscles tensed as a wave of pain washed over him. He shouted something, but what it was, he didn't know. The world around him buzzed with energy, fading in and out as a familiar red tint tainted the edge of his vision. Someone in the distance was laughing. At him.

Anger flooded his veins. In the back of his mind, Connor knew what was happening. But that small part of consciousness was pushed away by the all-consuming rage. It was a more instantaneous reaction than the small doses of Gamma radiation had caused all those years ago. A voice cut through the anger. "They don't care about you as a teammate, Concussion. Look at them. They continue with their own lives as though they didn't see what happened. But they did."

He glanced over his shoulder to find Summer embracing Dylan, their former opponents sprawled out on the ground. Cindy skipped over, smile on her face as she left Byte secured to join the party. And Tucker simply smiled like nothing was wrong with the world. None of them had given him a second glance, even though he was the one to find the hideout, confront the villain, and save his friend. "They aren't your friends Concussion," the voice returned. "They'll take you out as easily as they will those thieves. You have to stop them first."

And so he would. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. He moved toward the team, hands clenched into fists to avoid raising detection early. Dylan briefly stiffened, then turned, concern shadowing his face. It was too late. Connor was already raising his fist, swinging at the team leader with reckless abandon. The teen couldn't avoid the first blow, which caught him in the stomach and sent him flying.

Summer screamed, but Connor was swiping her feet out from under her before she could use her powers. Her body hit the floor with a satisfying THUD. A table swished by his head. Cindy had picked one up after he'd hit Dylan, but her swing missed. As the table swung up into the height of its arc, Connor raise a hand and sent a blast in its direction. The force knocked it out of Cindy's hand, and it spun across the room before crashing into the far wall. She watched it hit before turning back to him, fear glistening in her eyes. She turned, running as fast as she could, but not fast enough to outrun the blast he sent after her. She turned at the last moment. The wave hitting her left shoulder, rolling her into a table where she slumped unconscious.

Tucker had finally abandoned his post watching Spectre. His still oversized hand shot toward Connor, but the older teen easily rolled under the clumsy attempt at an attack. He grabbed a nearby chair and threw it. Tucker couldn't avoid the obstruction because of his momentum. The younger teen's eyes widened as he fell forward, landing head-first on the concrete floor below. Out of the corner of Connor's eye, something shimmered into being, and he moved just fast enough to avoid Dylan's attempted kick. The two locked eyes for a moment before Connor grinned and placed his hands on his former team leader's chest. The power he used to send his opponent flying across the room felt insignificant.

He'd forgotten how good that power felt. How strong it made him feel. It was intoxicating.

"Good job," came the voice again and he suddenly recognized it as belonging to Charm. "They'll never forget how powerful you are now that they've seen your full potential. I think we could make a good team."

She wasn't wrong. The rest of his team had never fully treated him as a teammate. They'd only ever used his power as a means to an end. But he'd shown them what true power was, how the gamma radiation could release their true potential. They were afraid, but he wasn't anymore. The thieves had been defeated, and he'd shown the Zenith Team that he deserved respect. His last team had learned the same lesson that same way.

"What the hell?!"

He whirled at the familiar voice. Allie was leaning heavily on the bars of the cell he'd left her in a few minutes before, arms crossed over her chest. Her dark hair had come out of its braid, framing her face with tangled waves. Charm growled low as she stepped over fallen debris to stand next to Connor. He and Allie locked eyes, and suddenly her pale face went a few shades lighter. "What have you done?" she hissed, gaze flitting to her cousin.

Charm placed a hand on Connor's shoulder. For a moment, he wanted to shrug it off, but suddenly clarity flashed through his mind as she began to speak. "Concussion, she's been using you just like your former team did. She was never truly our friend. All she wanted was for you to join that stupid Ag Society to keep the principal off her back. But you saw the way she treated you in Physics when you forgot your slides. It was an honest mistake, but she didn't see it that way. Or how about how she got you suspended for the fight she started? She's not your friend. She's the enemy."

Charm was right. How could he have ever thought Allie was his friend. She'd only ever used him to get what she wanted. But he was done with that. It was his turn to be in control.

Beside him, Charm smiled as she glanced at her cousin. Her fingers tips still brushed Connor's arm as he took a step toward his former friend. "Finish her."


Author's Note: This is it. The final battle.

As always, if you like this story, even just a little bit, would you mind leaving a review? And as always, feel free to message me if you have any thoughts/ideas/concerns/etc. Thanks again to everyone who has read and reviewed and followed and favorited! Every email that I get saying the story has a new follower or review or favorite motivates me to finish another chapter! Stay safe and healthy out there! ~NightRider