Chapter 5
NEW ENEMIES AND NEW ALLIES
Amanda Cho-Ming was still trying to process the terrifying events that had just taken place. After deciding to ease drop on Derek Widener's conversation on their "date", she discovered that the billionaire heir to Widener Corporation was working together with one of Crimson City's most fabled crime lords, Victor Glamnock on a plot that involved poisoning the earth's water and selling the antidote to the highest bidder. Upon recording Derek's incriminating remarks from his phone conversation, Amanda raced back to her desk at the ground floor of the Crimson Crusade to begin writing her news article. She stayed late at the Crusade's office, and late into the evening there was a massive explosion in one of the walls of the office. Several thugs busted in, tied Amanda up in her chair, put a black sack over her head, and took her back into their vehicle and drove off. The woman tried to resist ,and even try to call Zach as it was an emergency that was fit perfectly for his particular skill set, unfortunately Amanda was overpowered b y the four men. From what she heard as the lowlifes grabbed her, before they left the newspaper headquarters, the men ransacked her desk trying to find her recorder. (Which thankfully, they never did!)
"Way to go, Amanda!" the beautiful reporter thought to herself as they pulled the bag off her face. "Your first big story in Crimson City news and you find yourself being abducted by creeps. Well, at least we know that this is a big story. Jeez, this is the exact stuff that I tried to get away from when leaving Wellington and ending things with Zach…and here you are again, Amanda…as usual, you really stepped in over your head, girl!"
Amanda observed her surroundings; she was in a dimly lit factory area, that was clearly the very bottom, practically sub terrain floor of a building. It was cold, and misty. Amanda was curious, was she brought to the spot where Derek and Victor would be polluting the water?
Not even a second after Amanda started to think of that disgusting man, Derek Widener stepped out from a foggy corner and walked in front of his captive. Last time Amanda saw Derek, he was dressed in the finest clothing. This time however, Derek was decked in all black: a long black trench coat, a black T shirt, and black pants, and black shoes and socks. Derek circled Amanda's chair slowly, with his hand creepily brushing her back. Derek shook us head calmly in disappointment.
"Oh Amanda…" Derek's voice sounded evil, and somewhat disheartened. "If only you weren't such a good little Nancy Drew. I could have made you the queen of my new empire…but now that it seems you've uncovered my little secret, well…we just can't have that can we?"
"I'd never be your "Queen"." Amanda mocked the pale menace. "You're out of your mind Derek if you think what you're doing here is remotely a good idea! And don't think you're getting away with it. Sicko's like you never get away with this kind of stuff."
Derek halted his movement and took his hand off Amanda. He closed his eyes briefly, taking a moment to contain his anger incited from Amanda's previous statements. After a short moment, he retained his calm composure and then Derek spoke once more. "Well, at least I know there was never really a chance for us…now I can have you killed without feeling any remorse."
"You don't even have the stones to do it yourself?" Amanda challenged, her backbone speaking way before her mind had a chance to think about what she was saying.
"My dear," Derek said as he motioned a few men with pistols to enter the room. "when you have the kind of money that I have…these kind of uncomfortable activities are what you pay others to do for you. Too bad you'll never understand this very enjoyable sensation."
As one of Derek's soldier's raised his pistol at Amanda's head, a large metal door near them opened up. The metal slammed into the wall as Victor Glamnock, a few of his lackeys, and Alloy (with both arms) entered the large room.
"Mr Widener!" Victor spoke cheerfully and loudly as he entered the scene, "The Adulium vents have been successfully constructed underwater and we are ready to begin setting lose your wonderful poison to plague the seas rapidly! I just wanted to make sure you had successfully procured enough of the antidote to reverse the disease once our world leaders request such treatment…should they have the right price, of course."
"Can't you see I'm in the middle of something?" Derek snapped at Victor condescendingly.
"Oh yes, it looks like you're taking care of a particularly attractive female who may know too much for her own good." The fifty year old crime lord stared at Amanda with lustful eyes. "No worries, we'll continue our business once you're fine employees here dispose of this nuisance."
"Our business is done." Derek waved his hand at Victor without acknowledging him with a face to face interaction. "I have all I need from you, and you're money will be wired to you shortly. Leave me be and I'll administer the plague through our mock Purification Initiative whenever I please. No go, Glamnock, and do whatever it is that you and your fellow cretins do when you're not in the presence of true brilliance."
"I remember when we first met you told me that you wanted to be nothing like your father." Victor spoke, his voice now cold and his face was as serious as a hard attack. The crime lord raised his finger up, and his lackeys surrounded Derek. "I'll put your mind to ease; you and Cornelius Widener have very little in common. Obviously you two share some physical features, both of you have a voice that is rather annoying to me, and I suppose you both share that snobby arrogance that makes me hate the rich more very day. One thing that you, my boy, are sorely lacking that Widener Sr. wasn't horrible at, was tack and respect for collogues. I told you when we began working together, Derek, that you're in my business now…and you have a lot to learn about the crime business. For example, rule number one: Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer…because the tide of the stream can turn at any time."
Derek, looked around to see many men with guns preparing to shoot him down. He smiled, as he had anticipated this very act. "Why Victor, have you staged a little rebellion here? What on earth gave you the idea that you in fact had the leverage? Was it perhaps a wayward scientist that wanted to change sides for a higher price? Oh, I remember that employee of mine…I told him he'd get an extra Christmas bonus if he made his part convincing, and it looks like he can splurge on the home decorations this year!" Derek snapped his fingers, and several Widener tech security officers with rifles ran into the room and surrounded the men that surrounded Derek.
"We've been set up!" Victor yelled at his men, "Lets clean house in here boys, kill everyone and make sure we get all the resources necessary to proceed with the Purification Initiative. We have not lost yet!"
Victor and Derek moved swiftly in opposite directions and out of the way of the gunfire, as lackeys and security officers started to gun each other down. Derek ran behind the chair that Amanda was still imprisoned in, grabbed a metal suitcase, and began to run up the stairs and out of the basement.
"That little snot is not getting away from me!" Victor said as he ran through the gunfire (without being hit, of course), "Alloy, take over here, eliminate all these insects! I have some closing business to attend to with Mr. Widener!"
As Victor followed Derek, Alloy jumped into the middle of the scene and turned his body into hard metal. Every Widener security guard focused gunfire on Alloy, but their bullets bounced off his hard skin. Alloy's left hand became a large blade and he began cutting down the security. Suddenly far from where Amanda was sitting, the floor erupted in a geyser and a flood appeared that took out all of Glamnock's lackeys, Widener's security team, and knocked Alloy to his feet. The water stopped moving directly at Amanda's feet. She gave a great sigh as the reporter thought that she too would have had a very watery grave.
Aquaman leapt out of the Geyser and rushed towards Alloy, who was slowly standing up and punched him in the face so hard that the metal man fell back to the ground. The king of the sea grabbed Alloy by the neck with the intention of knocking him in the face again, but the hitman shifted his right arm and fist into hard metal and gave Aquaman an intense punch to the gut, knocking the wind out of the hero.
As the two tussled, high in the rafters of this sub terrain basement, Nightblaze saw his opportunity to rescue Amanda from harm's way. The hero dressed in black pressed his earpiece and began speaking to his comrade. "Eric, I just got here in the knick of time! When your computer predicted Glamnock's most logical hideout based on the information we gathered it was right! I'm not too sure what all's going on…Aquaman is here and he's getting his butt kicked by Alloy, who has his arm back by the way…but I found Amanda, I'm going to bring her outside at the west entrance, have XLR8 waiting for me out there so we can get Amanda to safety."
"Copy that Nightblaze." Eric's voice resonated through the communicator, "turning on XLR8's auto pilot system right now…she'll be out there waiting for you when you get out!"
Nightblaze leapt off the rafters and landed on the ground not far from Amanda. He ran behind her and lit his hand on fire to singe the ropes that the thugs had used to tie her up. As Nightblaze appeared, Alloy saw the man he had sworn to kill by the end of the day, kicked Aquaman off of him, and ran towards Nightblaze.
"Amanda, get out of the way!" Nightblaze spoke as he shoved Amanda out of Alloy's path. As the metal villain closed in on Nightblaze, the hero shot a wave of fire towards Alloy, planning on using a similar strategy as before.
As the surge of fire rushed towards Alloy, he raised his left arm and turned it into a giant metal shield. Nightblaze was stunned to see that arm didn't even to start melt. The hero hadn't made his fire as hot as before when he took Alloy's arm off, but he had definitely intended the heat to damage the metallic bad guy.
"You actually did me a favor when you burnt off my arm last time we fought." Alloy responded with a wicked laugh, as he looked at his heated up left arm. "They used a little of that Adulium that Glamnock's boys have been stealing to fuse into my new arm and made it indestructible! Thanks for helping me get a fire proof arm, Nightblaze! Now it's time for me to return the favor…"
"I'm REALLY starting to regret burning his arm off now!" Nightblaze muttered as he prepared himself for Alloy's right arm which was now a metal baseball bat swinging towards him.
Suddenly, Aquaman lunged forward and tackled Alloy to the ground. He quickly turned and barked an order at Nightblaze. "Get the girl out of here! I'll take care of this guy, don't worry about me. You came here for her, now be a hero and get the job done!"
Nightblaze moved quickly over to Amanda, who had fallen on the ground, helped her up, and the two raced out through a different door then Derek had retreated through. Nightblaze led Amanda upstairs to the first floor, and then once he left the stairwell, the flame thrower began surging massive fires out of his hands to burn through several walls, making himself a door out to the west entrance of the building. Just as he had requested, when Nightblaze and Amanda made it through the burning rubble to the outdoors, his motorcycle was waiting for him.
"Wow…" Amanda admired the bike, as the two got on it. "This is a new addition to the superhero thing… It's hot!"
"Yeah, I figured it'd be a chick magnet." Nightblaze replied with a suave smile.
"No, you moron…" Amanda responded, "It's hot as in…temperature. How the heck am I supposed to sit on this thing?"
"Eric, do you have some kind of setting for normal people on this thing?" Nightblaze asked as the two began speeding down the road away from the crime scene.
"I'm turning on the backseat coolant system right now." Eric responded, "Amanda should be a lot more comfortable."
"Wait, wait!" Amanda yelled out as she hit Nightblaze's back. "What the heck are you doing?"
Nightblaze quickly slammed on the breaks and slid the motorcycle a bit as he reached a screeching halt. "I'm trying to save your butt, that's what. I'm sorry, did you WANT to stay in that building?"
"No I get that…" Amanda responded, "And I get that with you, Zach, there's always been a degree of expecting the unexpected. I'd consider it very unexpected that in the past ten minutes I almost got shot, chopped by a guy that can become metal, or drowned by a guy that entered a room through busting the floor with a large flood that he probably created…But one thing that I never thought I'd see, is Nightblaze running from the scene of a crime without saving everyone, fixing everything, and getting the bad guys. Come on Zach, where's the superhero that I know? What is this crap? You get a new bike and you become a sissy?"
"I came here to save you…" Nightblaze replied as he looked deep into Amanda's beautiful blue eyes.
"And you did," Amanda said with a smile as she got off the bike. "I can take care of myself from here. Now go back there and save everyone else…that's what heroes do, and you're a hero…Nightblaze."
And at this moment, Zach Davis knew why he was so madly in love with Amanda Cho-Ming. When he was around her, she brought out the real Nightblaze, the real superhero that we would want to read books about. The past few months without Amanda, Zach had been going on 50% hero…being in her presence and listening to her encouraging, and somewhat discouraging, pep talks, Zach recalled what it meant to be the hero he had dedicated his life to be. Zach reved his engine and prepared to take XLR8 back to the Widener Research Facility, Amanda put on hand on Zach's back affectionately and spoke softly to him. "But be careful….there are a lot of freaks in there. Stay alive, Zach."
Without knowing what to say, Nightblaze sped off back in the direction from which he came, his job wasn't done yet.
Meanwhile, Glamnock chased Derek up to the roof of Widener Tech's Research building. The billionaire was nowhere to be seen, but Victor knew that he could not be far.
"There's nowhere to run, Derek." Victor barked as he loaded his gun. "I'm going to kill you now. It's what your father would have wanted. I think he would have been really disappointed at how sloppy you are. Cornelius was always two steps ahead of the game. I would have killed him myself, but he never gave me an opening…unlike you."
"When I told you that I am nothing like my father, I think you misunderstood me." Derek spoke as he appeared out of the shadows and pointed his pistol at Victor's head. "To put simply, I'm better then my father ever was. I'm smarter, stronger, more ruthless, and far more brilliant. If you thought Cornelius Widener wasn't somebody you want to mess with, you should have multiplied that feeling by two hundred percent when it comes to me…I'm sorry that this information is too little too late for you, Victor Glamnock."
Derek shot his gun three times, and upon the impact of the head shots, Glamnock fell face first off the building and hit the concrete street, dead. As the billionaire looked out at his dead rival, he saw Nightblaze riding back into the facility on his flaming motorcycle. Derek cursed as he saw the hero enter the building. "Glamnock couldn't even take care of that freak! If I leave now I can leave, but the mess here will ruin my company! I still can release the poison on my way out…I have enough of the purification antidote at other facilities around Crimson City that I could still make a huge profit…all is not lost yet!"
With that thought, Derek rushed back downstairs to where he had placed the plague. At the same time, Nightblaze rushed in to lend a helping hand to Aquaman, who was currently being bested by the villain Alloy. Nightblaze knew that there was no alternate…He was going to save Aquaman and stop Derek's evil scheme. As Nightblaze returned to the crime scene he had this thought, "There is no plan B, because that distracts from plan A."
Well my friends, the next chapter will be the epic conclusion of Nightblaze Issue #1: The Purification Initiative. I hope you've enjoyed this story and what I want to know is if you would like more? I have big plans for Nightblaze, and would love to know if he has a fanbase so please drop a review if you'd like to see his tale continue!
The final chapter and epilogue will be released soon!