Chapter 10: Duel Surprises

"Alright People" Edge said as their van moved down the road along with the rest of the tree car convoy. He, along with Violet, Whisper and Bolt, were outfitted in black battle armor and helmets, since they were going into a combat mission instead of a infiltration mission. "We have just been alerted that a terrorist faction, including evil supers, are hiding out in the home of Edna Mode. We have yet to identify if she is working with or against these terrorists. She is to be taken alive if possible if she is the former and is to be protected if she is the latter...keep your heads and check your targets" he said, finishing his pep talk and then sealed his helmet onto his battle gear.

As the other three supers did likewise, the five man fire squad that was accompanying them checked their guns and other weapons for any last minute problems. Violet had mixed feelings about using the Agencies Policemen, which were more or less a private army. They were the non super personal of the Agency and they, because of this lack of super powers, relied on guns and explosives a lot more then any of the supers did.

Sighing, she checked her M14 rifle, which fired 7.62mm rounds with explosive tips, semi automatic and equipped with a silencer. She hated the idea of shooting anyone, but this was a last resort. Or so she told herself. As if he knew what she was thinking, Edge patted her shoulder. "Hang in there Vi" he said softly, knowing how she felt about their use of guns. He honestly had no problem with it, but he wasn't heartless, he understood that it would take her awhile to figure out the use of guns, and hopefully adjust. If not, well she would find a place in the Agency anyways.

Violet nodded and gingerly grabbed his hand and squeezed. After they had talked before boarding their van this morning, she had felt a bit less hesitant to consider a relationship with him, which he had offered, and she had asked for more time to think about it.

So far it didn't seem so bad, he was a pillar for her to hold onto while she rode the waves of change that were all around her at the moment, and he listened well enough...maybe...

"Go!" Edge yelled and the side doors of the van rolled open and they filled out of the car, just as the other two vans opened and ten more policemen filled out of both cars as well. They then moved up on the gate, the energy bars posing a problem, but once again, man had a crude way through.

One of the policemen ran forward and hefted a rocket launcher. He stayed perfectly still for a minute, then the rocket soared through the air and destroyed the gate, leaving a twisted bulk of what had once been the bars of the gate. They proceeded onto the grounds and started up the hill.

"Whisper!" Edge called. "Take Grump and half the men and go through the front!" he ordered as he began moving the other direction.

"Where are you going?" Violet asked.

"We are going to flank around and hit them from the front while he hits them from the back" Edge said and grabbed her hand, locking his fingers with hers and led her around the side of the hill.

Minutes later and they were outside a massive window. "Fire!" he ordered and the two rocket policemen fired their rounds and blew the window apart as well as a good sized chunk of the wall and several statues. They then surged in, ten policemen and two supers pushing through the dust and searching the area for any threats. All of the sudden they heard a shrill battle cry and a small figure jumped onto the balcony above them, mostly hidden by the dust. "Target sighted" one of the policemen said over the com line.

Suddenly a flash erupted from the foggy figure and it flew back into the dust, just as two more figures dropped down. "Hostile! Target is hostile!" another policemen yelled while another was screaming over the com, saying he was hit and that he couldn't get up.

Violet, a bit surprised that Edna Mode was working for terrorists, since she had always read her magazines and admired her fashions, but she had made up her mind and began to stretch shields around the others, trying to keep them safe. But the other two figures that had dropped down were obviously supers, because they were bashing through her shields like a knife through hot butter. One policemen went flying from a punch and another hit the ground after spinning. Suddenly a grenade flew out and exploded, sending more dust and debris everywhere as a few more policemen panicked and opened fire, accidentally cutting down more of their number and kicking up more dust. "Stop!" she shouted over the com. "Your giving them more cover by kicking up all the dust!" she shouted. Immediately the gun fire stopped and they fell back to cover. Their opponents must have heard them, because they fell back as well, getting into more cover.

Suddenly the small figure returned on the balcony and the distinct sound of a shotgun being cocked could be heard. "Break into Edna's house eh! Well let's see how you like-" one of the policemen, the one who had been shot from her earlier blast, groaned and raised his weapon.

"Take this you freak!" he shouted and fired his automatic at her, full blast. The woman screamed and fell forwards, slamming into the ground and rolling around in pain as the policemen cheered, only to be knocked out by Edge, who was snarling.

"I SAID TAKE HER ALIVE!" he barked and fired the rest of the gun into the air. "NOW GO TAKE HER ALIVE!" he barked and a few policemen ran forward, right into an ambush. Suddenly the hulk like figure jumped out of the rubble and began beating down more policemen as Edge ran forward, just as Whisper and Bolt arrived with the other fifteen policemen.

Suddenly a dozen of them crashed to the ground as if a cord had appeared before them and tripped them. Whisper however was caught in the side punch of the unknown super, who was still surrounded by the dust, clouding their face and exact figure, sending him flying into a stone pillar, before he slumped down unconscious.

Meanwhile, Bolt tried to zap the super with his own power, only to get a punch to the jaw from somewhere and then grabbed and thrown across the room, then smashing through part of what was left of the window. Violet, stunned watched as the group of Supers, there had to be ten of them out there, began to disable all of the policemen. Then she saw Edge crash to the ground, his face bloodied from a headbutt. Then the shadowy figure of the Super landed near him, raising a fist.

"NO!" she screamed and fired her gun. The Super crashed to the ground, leaving a decent sized crater. Running over, she picked up a dazed Edge and looped one of his arms around her neck and began dragging him out. "Fall back!" she ordered. "Grab them!" she demanded and watched the remaining Policemen toss a handful of grenades, then drag the other policemen away from the room as they ran out of the room. "You!" she called, indicating a radio policemen. "Call in reinforcements!" she ordered before making sure Bolt was also grabbed from a thick thorn bush and quickly pulled back to the vans.

Their retreat was a stumbling, bumbling, disorganized run down the hill as they tried to escape the supers, or villains, who had nearly whipped them all out. Reaching the vans, Violet was just in time to see a trio of planes fly over the sky, then drop bombs, each hitting the house and destroying chunks of the building. Then the gas tanks and water heaters blew and the entire house and part of the hillside became a fireball.

Realizing that Whisper wasn't in sight, she gasped and ran towards the burning ruins of Edna Mode, crying as she tried to pry her way past two Policemen. "Ma'am, there's no way anyone survived that!" one of them said.

"Vi" a voice called softly and she stopped, looking defeated. She turned around and found Edge gesturing for her to come over to him, since he was laying on the van's floor, being checked on by a policemen with a medical patch. "He knew the...the risk. Don't...don't let it..eat at you" he said.

Violet nodded and climbed inside the van, she then sat beside Edge as he was allowed to sit up. He held her, and she cried. She had lost a teammate, a friend and a comrade. She had failed. She had failed. She had failed. It just kept repeating inside her head, over and over. Edge, the entire time was just whispering that it would be ok, while the medic checked her, saying something about 'Shock' and the all familiar 'Post Traumatic Stress Disorder'. All this caused was for her to bury her head in his shoulder and black out.

/

Bob slammed his fist into another one of the soldiers attacking Edna's home, only for another to take his place. There were dozens of them! He smacked that one down, then heard Edna screaming above him, then he froze when he saw the flash of a gun and saw her body crash into the floor, rolling around as she screamed in pain. He ran towards her, pushing past the soldiers that were around him, the dust making his throat sting and his eyes water, but he didn't care. All he cared about was saving the woman he had put in danger.

Suddenly he saw a man in battle armor screaming at the man that had shot her, then he hit him in the head and fired the gun at the roof, before dropping it and charging forward with the rest of the soldiers, running right into the frenzy in the dust.

He saw his wife's fists shot forward into the dust and knock out a pair of men, sending them off their feet and onto the ground as he dead legged another one and close lined a second before confronting the leader, right next to a groaning Edna. Bob charged and the man fired his gun at him, but his shots went wild and his gun skidded across the floor as Bob slammed him into the ground and raised his fist, only to hear the voice he had longed to hear for nearly a year. But she was yelling no. then he felt a horrible pain in his chest as a small explosion went off, sending him flying backwards into a wall. Helen was at his side in seconds. Then he heard her voice again. "Fall back!" "Get them! Fall back!" he couldn't believe it.

The people he had thought to have kidnapped his only daughter, were really the people she was working for? His daughter was a terrorist? Had the world really gone crazy?

"Bob we need to move!" Helen shouted and he groaned before standing up, glancing down at the torn super suit beneath his normal cloths and reminded himself to thank Edna for making it. Edna!

Running forward he found her laying on the ground, coughing. "Edna!" Bob yelled and fell to his knees next to her. "Stay with me!" he yelled at her.

"Goodbye Richard...i will...miss you and...your wife..." Edna whispered as she began to close her eyes.

"But..." Bob said in defeat. "Who...Who will...repair my suit?" he asked. Edna snapped her eyes open and whacked him on the head with a newspaper. God forbid him to know where she had gotten that thing.

"I am pretending to die and you only care about a suit?" Edna screamed at him in confusion.

Bob stuttered. "I-You-i mean...wait...what!" he asked. "Pretending!" he exclaimed.

"Well of course darling" Edna said. "It would take much more then a few bullets to pierce my vest here" she said and showed him the edge of her bullet proof vest. "Working with supers means I will have to be on my toes. And speaking of supers, is that friend of yours, frozone, still fighting crime. Did he settle down? What is he..."

"No time!" Bob yelled. Only Edna could talk a hundred miles a second about random things while her own house was under attack. "Safe place. Now!' he demanded as he and Helen retreated down into her lab.

"Behind the vase" she said and Bob pushed the antique aside, where it landed on the ground with a shattering sound, and then pressed a red square, which made part of the wall open up and he, Edna and Helen, who was dragging a armored soldier with her, moved down the staircase that had appeared. Seconds after they all entered, the wall sealed shut as explosions went off. "We must hurry" Edna said and Bob made sure she was still on his back as he ran as fast as he could down the stairs, Helen right behind him with her prisoner.

The four of them tumbled at the end and crashed onto the floor at the end of the stair case just as a massive rumbling sound went off above their heads. Bob groaned and helped Edna to her feet. "What the?"

"Judging by the sounds...they bombed the house" Edna said with a bit of pity and sadness in her voice.

Bob lowered his gaze. He had caused this. And he would end this. "Edna, where is Violet going?" he asked. Edna shrugged.

"I have no idea. Her suit's last location was in Kentucky though, then the signal was destroyed" she said.

"We'll you might not know exactly where" Helen said. "But our friend here probably does. She removed the helmet, revealing a young man's face, with brown hair. He blinked slowly, revealing coal black eyes, before opening them all the way. "Ugh...Edge what the heck ha...oh no..." he muttered and let his head slump back against the chair he was tied to.

"So" Bob said. "Who's Edge?" he really didn't care who the guy was, just where his daughter was.

Whisper thought of who the man was in front of him was, the fact that Edge had kissed Violet last night, then thought about the man before him again. "I really hate him right now..." he muttered.