Chapter 2
A loud alarm could be heard throughout the HQ, causing Mako to practically jump out the bed and look around his room in confusion. The flashing red light that lit up the room and the HQ did not help any less for him, when a voice began to speak through the intercoms. "There is an emergency in the base of operations." a female voice repeated in sequence as if it was a recorded message. He rushed down the hall and entered the elevator, as it took him downwards to the base of operations. He ran towards the giant computer as Susan appeared on the screen.
"what's going on?!" Mako asked in a panic like manner.
"I was testing the emergency alarm." Susan said as the alarm stopped.
"That was very funny." Mako said in a sarcastically mocking like tone.
"It was not meant to be funny." She said in a monotone manner. "In other news a few new members will be arriving in the next few days to join the team. I'm not sure when they will arrive, so be on alert. And give them a warm welcome will you?" She told him as a file for each of the recruits appeared on the screen. After cycling through the files he did the usual routine of his daily bathroom ritual, getting dressed, eating breakfast, and exercising before leaving the HQ.
As he walked down the street he slowed his pace as he heard the sound of what sounded like a ticking clock near the wall of the city bank. He leaned in closer to where his ears touched the wall, But within a few seconds an explosion sent him flying into the middle of the street. Mako slowly sat up, groaning from the pain, as he saw a shadow standing in front of the hole in the wall. The burglar stepped out showing to have a jetpack that looked to be modified with a self reloading rocket on the back of it. The burglar let out a cackling laugh as he flew of with the bags of money in each hand. The villain thought he was in the clear until an icicle whizzed past his head. He looked behind him and, to his surprise saw Mako close on his trail. Mako was throwing ice towards the road in front of his feet as if skiing on it, a feat he practiced many times since the discovery of his powers. The burglar looked at Mako in disgust as the rocket shot out of the jet pack and flew towards Mako. With a split second decision Mako slid under the rocket as it whizzed under his head and crashed into a parked car and caused it to explode.
"Maybe I should've froze it so that didn't happen." Mako said as he continued to chase the villain, losing some ground from dodging the missile. The villain continued to fire of rockets in rapid succession, while Mako was barely able to keep up freezing one after another. But he couldn't hold off the barrage of missiles as one exploded a few feet in front of him, sending him flying back.
"Any last words you snot nosed brat" The villain said with an evil smirk across his face. Then out of nowhere the concrete under him wrapped his body into a ball but left his head exposed. Confused at what just happened, Mako looked around and saw what looked to be a female hovering towards him. She was wearing a green leotard with a giant white stripe on each side, and green knee high boots. It was hard to identify her face with her hood hiding it in darkness, and a book clutched in her right hand. She gently landed on the ground.
"I hope you don't mind me helping you out. Looked like you could use it."
"Who are you" Mako asked her as he had a skeptical look on his face. He assumed that she was a friend rather than foe because of her help with the burglar, but after what happened in his past, he couldn't be so sure. She slowly lowered her hood to show a Japanese female with long black hair and pink highlights. Her face showed the age of a high school female, and black eyes with thin eyebrows and a smile across her face.
"My name is Kimiko Yakamura. You're Mako Wilson right? I'm a new recruit. I saw the chase and decided to follow behind, just in case you needed help." She explained. Mako did remember reading up on her file.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Mako Wilson." He looked around. "The cops can take care of this guy. Let's go talk somewhere else." Mako said as he lead her to the rooftop of a cafe nearby. The view from the cafe had the perfect view of the downtown area as Mako knew from coming there so many times before. "So where are you from?" He asked her as they sat down on the edge of the rooftop.
"I'm from Okinawa, Japan." She told him as she looked up at the sky remembering her memories of when she was younger. "To be honest.." She paused for a moment. "I never really considered becoming a hero till I found my parents spell book. When my parents told me about what they did, and how they would save the earth with other great heroes, I knew I wanted to follow in their footsteps." She went on as she tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear. She looked at Mako who looked like he was studying her, to her surprise. She looked away as her face turned red from embarrassment. " Sorry, I tend to blab about myself when I talk to others." She admitted.
"It's fine. I liked listening to you." Mako replied as he gave her a smile.
"Then maybe we could talk more some other time. N-not like a date or anything." She quickly explained, turning brighter than an apple.
"It's fine, I knew what you meant." Mako replied.
"Mako come in, its Susan." A voice spoke through his earbud. "I have a mission for you. Come back to the HQ as soon as possible."
"Roger that. We are on the way." Mako said as he tapped on the earbud. He turned towards Kimiko. "That was the commander, we have to go back to base."
They arrived at the base of operations in the HQ as the giant screen flipped to life with Susan's face on it. "I see you have met the new recruit. Excellent because you're gonna need extra help on this." She said when a picture of a warehouse appeared on the screen removing Susan's face from the screen. "We have been spying on this place for quite some time and have been noticing shipments coming in and out of the place. The thing is we have no information of any shipments that are supposed to becoming through there. This is where you come in.." suddenly her face reappeared on the screen. "I want you guys to scout, and NOT engage whoever is there." She finished as she looked at the both of them.
"Understood commander. I'll make sure it happens. Mako replied.
"I will be expecting a report when the mission is completed. Commander out." She said with a serious look before the screened turned off.
"She scares me." Kimiko said to Mako.
"Its her job." Mako said as he walked to the elevator, Kimiko following close behind. "Take this" Mako handed her an earbud. "It's so we can keep in contact with each other." He explained as the elevator opened. "I'm guessing you don't know in teleport spells?" He asked. She thought for a moment before snapping her fingers as she had the answer.
"Actually I do!" She exclaimed as she flipped through her spell book in her hands. "Here it is." She said as she looked at the page before reading of the spell. "Telepotos enquios." She spoke as here eyes turned purple and her casting hand glowed like an orb of the same color of her eyes. "Hurry and grab on." Mako did as she said and within seconds they vanished from the HQ and appeared a few meters away from the warehouse. They ran to nearby trees for cover, where the spotted a few armed guards in front of the entrance.
"Here's the plan..." Mako said pausing for a moment as he stared at the guards from behind the tree, double checking his plan in his head before turning back to her. "You fly over the warehouse and checkout the backside. Tell me what you've found and I'll make a plan from there."
"On it." She replied. She threw her hood over her head and began to levitate before flying over the warehouse, with the help of the night sky camouflaging her. When she landed at the back end roof of the warehouse She saw a group of guards standing next to both sides of the trucks while to other guards were rolling a crate full of small tubes with white liquid inside of them. "This is odd." she said into the earpiece.
"What is it?" Mako asked as he thought of a plan to get past the guards at the front entrance.
Kimiko observed the guards that were packing tubes of liquid inside crates before putting on the tops. "They're rolling some strange white liquid in tubes inside crates into an armored truck."
"Just our luck." Mako said sarcastically. "Don't attack them until I come up with a solid plan."
"Don't worry, I can handle these guys. I've fought guys like these before."
"Wait don't attack yet." But before he said those words Kimiko rushed to the scene as she uttered a few magic words that allowed her to summon a magic orb around her body that would disintegrate any firearm ammunition that tried to penetrate it. As she flew towards the armored truck she was spotted by a guard who on instinct began to shooting at her, alerting the other guards in the process. She stopped moving while floating in the air as she spoke her mystical words which caused the guns of the guards to turn into snakes and the concrete under their feet to wrap around some of the evil guards. Hearing the commotion and gunshots, the guards at the front door ran inside to backup the others.
"Well that worked out." Mako said as he entered the front door to find most of the guards tied up by concrete like rope. He looked around the area impressed with Kimiko's magic abilities. "I guess i underestimated you." Mako joked with a slight laugh.
"I told you this was easy work." She replied as she flew down to meet with him. As the heroes were distracted talking to each other one of the guards who was thought to be unconscious woke up and quickly grabbed a tube of the white liquid and began to drink it, dropping the tube as it crashed to the ground. He let out a scream of pain as his body quickly reacted to the liquid inside his body. His body began to grow bigger and more muscular, growing in height and body mass. His shirt began ripping because of his sudden growth,and his eyes looking enraged with hate. With a loud yell he jumped in the air and aimed at landing on the heroes.
"Look out!" Mako yelled out as he pushed Kimiko, who's back was turned towards the enraged man, out of the way causing him to fly back into a wall from the shockwave of the man landing on the ground.
"Mako!" She yelled out as she quickly casted the concrete spell on the enraged man before running over to help Mako. "Are you alright?" She asked as she helped him up.
"Yea, I'm good." He said as he stretched out his back. "Just a little pain is all."
The enraged man easily breaks loose of the concrete trap shattering it into pieces before letting out a loud roar and charging at the two heroes.
"Good" Kimiko said as she looked at the beastly man charging at them with a worried look on her face. " Because he's ready for round two."
"Just follow my lead." Mako told here as he charged at the guard while Kimiko followed close behind. As the beastly guard got close enough they each sidestepped him in opposite directions giving Mako more than enough time to freeze his foot to the ground while Kimiko summoned another concrete rope around the guard. The guard easily shattered the ice from his feet by lifting with force and pushing the rope easily to break out of it with his superior strength. He charged at Mako as he attempted to hit him with a counter punch of his own, but with no avail as Mako easily flipped over the guard's head hitting his back with a few connected punch. The attacks did not phase the brute as he sent a backhand towards Mako's way connected with a hard smack and sending him flying into the air and land on the ground.
"Damn that hurt." He said with a groan. Thanks to the stomping of the charging brute Mako was able to dodge out of the way as he stopped the brute in its tracks with a beam of ice that started at his toes and ended at its neck. "Now would be some good time for some magic!"
"I found it!" Kimiko exclaimed as she closed her spellbook. "Slepoutus rinomonous" She spoke as her voice echoed those words. Here eyes began to glow purple and her hands matched her eyes as they glowed the same color. As she waved a hand across the brutes face his eyes slowly became heavy as within a few seconds he fell into a deep sleep.
"Nicely done." Mako said with a happy tone. As he gave her a smile he could see that the spell took a lot of energy out of her. Before she could fall to the ground, Mako caught her. "I got you."
"Thank you." She told him. "When I use a new spell it takes a lot out of me."
Mako gave her a reassuring smile before looking around at the disaster that was the warehouse. With holes and parts of it missing you would think that the place had been abandoned some time ago. "Looks like our lead is gone." He said as he saw the tire marks of where the van was supposed to be. "Well there goes our lead."
"So let's recap. We found what looked to be some sort of drug, is being shipped to who knows where, we had to fight a brute who almost kicked our asses, and we let them get away. What now?"
"Not Sure." Mako replied with a sigh. " We'll have to see what the commander says."
Back at the HQ Mako and Kimiko explained the mission with a very angry commander who was shown on the screen. "So you disobeyed orders, went after the suspects that we don't even know anything about, and you let them go away. If I can't trust you with simple orders, what makes you think that I can trust you as a team?" She asked the rhetorical question while looking between the two. "But…" She replied with a sigh. "You did find out what they were shipping and captured the brute before he made things worse." They both looked at her in confusion. Why was she complienting them even after they failed their mission. " A team is trial and error. It takes time to learn how to work as a team. So don't beat yourselves over it too much." SHe says with a continued stirn look. "Commander out."
"Good job out there." Mako told Kimiko as they walked towards the elevator. "Even though we only got half the job done, we'll be ready for the next one."
"Your right." She replied with a smile.
As they exited the elevator Mako stopped Kimiko. "By the way, welcome to the team."