Chapter 24
(Third Person P.O.V.)
Akihisa then entered his house where he was supposed to meet up with his friend Pete Costas after he had just completed a mission together with both Yuuko and Rachel afterward Rachel was also recently promoted to the position previously held by Jean Mairot, and returned to his new high school campus and finding out that someone might be after him, and after making a promise to a little fan girl of his named Jo to show up for an extreme sports park grand opening for her and a few other kids Akihisa then entered the house and said, "Hey Pete I'm taking orders, you want pepperoni or sausage pizza? Pete?" only to find that Pete was nowhere to be seen except for on a video call on a mysterious laptop computer that was in the living room that wasn't there before where Pete replied, "Akihisa?!" to Which Akihisa looked at the laptop and picked it and and responded, "Pete? What's going on?" curiously and slightly confused as Pete explained, "You tell me, some friends of yours snatched me and they keep babbling something about you being a secret agent. A joke is a joke, but I have a trig test tomorrow!" To which John Dread who was now sporting a scarred face then appeared standing next to Pete and saying, "That should be the least of your worries." to Pete who looked at him a little frightened, with Minami standing next to Dread on his left and Himeji standing next to him on his right, both of them wearing skintight bodysuits and boots as Akihisa saw this on the laptop screen and exclaimed, "Dread?!" to which John Dread retorted, "In the flesh, or what's left of it, thanks to you, Mr. Steel!" to which Akihisa proclaimed, "But I saw you go down with your airship!" in utter shock and surprise at seeing not only Dread still alive but Minami and now even Himeji standing next to him and both of them working for him, to which Dread remarked, "Yes well reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated, tell me do you enjoy the way I've livened up high school life for you?" snidely as Akihisa merely said "Yeah, real cute around innocent people, what's wrong Dread, you not man enough to meet me face to face?" with a bit of annoyance and anger as evident by the expression on Akihisa's face as Dread simply replied, "In good time, but right now I need alive to run a little errand, you're going to get me a sample of the nanoprobes and disc containing N-Tek's probe research." to which Akihisa responded, "Sorry Dread, but I took you off of my Christmas list." to which Dread stated, "Oh, your friend will be so sorry to hear that." as he leaned in until his head was right next to Pete's to which Akihisa uttered, "It's me you want! Pete's an innocent!" seriously with a matching facial expression as Dread said, "Actually he's an insurance policy." to which Akihisa announced, "Don't worry Pete, Dread needs you alive if he wants his probes." dead seriously with a matching facial expression as Pete then nervously muttered, "Then get him what he wants and fast, huh." to which Dread added, "I've taken the liberty of jamming your communications with your friends, Mr. Toshimitsu Kubo, Doctor Martinez, Ms. Yuuko Kinoshita, Ms. Kat Ryan, and Ms. Miharu Shimizu, this will be our little secret, capeesh?!" to which Akihisa declared, "Even I can't just walts out of N-Tek with the probes and the data!" to which Dread asserted, "I'm sure a resourceful agent such as yourself will think of something, with that said, see you at Del Oro Dam. You have one hour." before the video transmission ended, immediately after which the laptop short-circuited, forcing Akihisa to drop it to the floor he then left to go get the nanoprobes and data disc Dread wanted to save Pete.
Meanwhile, back at N-Tek HQ Roberto and Kubo were both busy repairing their computers, Roberto spouted, "Ugh, still nothing?" as Kubo remarked, "Keep trying, we need to get these things back online and quick." Akihisa's elder brother Akito walked up behind the two of them. He asked, "Is there a problem?" at which they quickly turned around and remembered the promise they both made to Akihisa, and then Roberto responded, "No sir, we're just offline, while Kubo and I run some diagnostics." While keeping his cool Kubo then spoke, affirming what Roberto said, "Yes that's right sir, just running some diagnostics while the computers are offline, so that we can fix them." To which Akito just believed their words and shrugged before saying, " Hmm, when you're operational again tell Akihisa I'm looking for him." before turning and leaving both Roberto and Kubo who then quietly retorted, "You're not the only one." to themselves and each other after Akito walked out the door.
As Akito Yoshii walked down the hallway, Akihisa, as Max Steel jumped down from the ceiling while in stealth mode, completely invisible, Akito continued to walk away, completely unaware, as Max whispered, "Sorry big bro." to himself, as an alarm went off just once, as a door opened and out walked Dr. Yevchenko, who walked over to a control panel next to the door, as Max then quickly but quietly rushed into the door before it closed, Max then turned off stealth mode, making him visible again as just then the floor of the room was covered with red security laser trip wires, which would sound the alarm if Max touched them, he then pulled out his grapple gun and fired the grapple hook and line, wrapping it around a large pipe on the ceiling and then jumped and swung over to the giant tank that contained the nanoprobes in the green fluid and began downloading the data for them on to a disk from the computer control panel as Max noticed the pipe almost giving way from trying to support his weight and nearly dropping him on to the red security lasers but thankfully and luckily still held him up as Max then muttered, "Gotta remember to lay off of the California burgers for a while." nervously to himself as the data finished downloading on to the disk as Max then took the disk and proclaimed, "Half way home!" to himself with a smile that was brief as he then heard the alarm sound that let him know that the door was being opened and someone was coming inside now.
Max then quickly went stealth mode and turned invisible again and as the security lasers turned off, he got rid of the grappling hook and line wrapped around him and the huge pipe on the ceiling before the door opened. Dr. Yevchenko walked in looking at her clipboard, Max quickly grabbed one of the vials containing the nanoprobes in the green fluid and placed it in another invisible container with him, while her back was turned and she wasn't looking, successfully getting the probes. Still, before he could leave, Dr. Yevchenko walked up to where he was currently standing which was not good as she could discover his presence at any moment despite him being invisible, so Max quickly knocked over two other vials containing the green fluid with the nanoprobes to distract her. Luckily and thankfully it did as Max then took the opportunity to quickly run out of the room and get out of N-Tek headquarters.
Meanwhile, where Dread was holding Pete hostage, Pete looked at Dread and exclaimed, "This has gotta be a mistake, I mean Akihisa Yoshii, a secret agent, I mean the guy couldn't even save a computer file, let alone save the world." nervously as Dread walked in a circle around him while he was tied up, as he then stopped in front of him and proclaimed, "Let us hope that you are wrong, because if you are not, then there is no point in keeping you alive now is there, Pete." which made Pete even more scared and nervous.
Max then flew to Del Oro Dam via jetpack, landing on a bridge on the dam, and shouted, "DREAD!" as he discarded his jet-pack, Dread laughed and spoke to Max via his communicator saying, "Hahaha! Time's ticking away Steel!" as Max looked and saw where he needed to go, he then jumped and did a front flip, landing on his feet as he ran across the bridge and jumped down into the shaft of a giant pipe at the end of the bridge, landing on his feet at the bottom, where he found another laptop with Dread video calling him, saying, "With three minutes to spare, hmm, impressive." Max took out the container with the nanoprobes inside and the disc with the data on it and said, "I have what you want!" Dread replied, "I knew you wouldn't let me down, Max. Tell me how does it feel to be a common thief?" Max retorted, "You tell me, you're the expert! Let's do this, where's Pete?!" angrily and annoyed as Dread responded, "Patience, I need to be absolutely sure you weren't followed." to which Max angrily retorted, "How?!" as Dread uttered, "Have a nice swim, I'll give you a ring." as doors inside at the bottom of the giant pipe then opened filling the pipe with water and sending Max down the dam's water system.
Max looked up ahead and saw a large fan that was part of the dam's water filtration system, which he was heading for, Max then went into Turbo mode and began swimming and moving even faster towards the large fan, easily managing to move past it, getting back outside of the dam, though still in the water as a plane from nearby airfield next to the Del Oro dam took off, at which point he swam his way to the outside of the airport on the other side of its fence and deactivated Turbo mode, as the emergency phone in the yellow call box started to ring, to which Max then got out of the water and ran to the ringing phone to answer it, saying, "What?!" in an angry and extremely annoyed tone of voice as Dread, on the other end of the line replied, "The good news you're alive Max, the bad news is, you have a plane to catch." to which Max retorted, still angrily and annoyed, "Stop playing games!" as Max saw the plane he needed to get on about to take off, as he irritably shouted, "Going Turbo!" and ran after the plane at superhuman speed, jumping on to one of its wheels before it lifted off into the air, as he just barely held on as the plane began to fly through the air and into the sky as Max then exclaimed, "I'll never complain about flying coach again." to himself as the plane retracted its wheels back inside of itself, with Max as well, after which Max broke through a panel into an area in the back of the plane where luggage and cargo was stored as he then uttered, "I hope there's a movie on this flight." to himself.
Meanwhile, back at Max/Akihisa's and Yuuko's house, both Kubo and Roberto were walking around searching for clues as to what happened and where Max could be until they both spotted and found the burned and destroyed laptop on the floor, which Roberto picked up before muttering, "Hermano, where are you?" as he and Kubo looked at the destroyed laptop in Roberto's hand.
Back with Max on the plane, Max was sitting down and looking at his Bio-link on his wrist to see the status of the amount of energy he had left as he proclaimed, "Running low! Dread's making me waste T-juice!" to himself after which Max heard a phone ringing as he then said, "Boy, somebody dialed the wrong number. Unless!" as he stood up and opened a briefcase that was on the luggage/cargo shelf behind him and took out the phone that was ringing and answered it and to no shock or surprise dread was on the other end of the line, saying, "Enjoying the flight, Mr. Steel?" to which Max retorted, "Peachy! Except I never got my bag of peanuts! Now if we're done playing Follow the Leader, why don't we get down to business?!" to which Dread replied, "Very professional, and it just so happens that you've just reached your final destination." at which point Max looked out of a nearby window and responded, "I don't see an airport." to which Dread stated, "The plane is not landing, you are, I hope you packed your parachute." before Dread hung up.
Max then looked around and saw a tarp on some large boxes he could use as a makeshift parachute and grabbed it in hand, he then opened the nearby plane door, causing a few things to fall out of the plane as he then blurted out, "So that's how airlines lose your luggage." to himself before saying, "Going Turbo!" and activating Turbo Mode and jumping out of the plane with the tarp in his hand and free falling for a minute before opening the tarp and holding it above his head in a way for it to catch the upward wind and act as a makeshift parachute which allowed Max to float down just long enough for him to be not endanger of sustaining serious injury before the tarp ripped in half, causing Max to fall on to a nearby small hill and roll down until he was on the the mining cart tracks for a nearby old abandoned mine, before turning off Turbo Mode on his Bio-Link on his wrist and getting back up to his feet, as a laser was fired at him from behind hitting the spot on the ground where he was standing, causing a small explosion which knocked Max a bit of a distance away and on to the ground as John Dread, while being flanked on both his left and right sides respectively by both Minami Shimada and Mizuki Himeji walked up to him as Dread remarked, "Max Steel, you have no idea of the pain you have caused me, and these two girls here." as all three of them pointed a laser guns in their hands directly at Max who then declared, "The feeling is mutual!" as he got back up to his feet as Dread then demanded, "The nanoprobes and the research disc!" as Max defiantly retorted, "Not until I see Pete!" to which Dread tossed him a tablet that was facetiming Pete on the other end, to which Max and Pete looked at each other from their opposite ends of the video call on the tablet as Max then proclaimed, "Pete just hold on buddy." to which Pete looked at Max/Akihisa and almost not even recognizing him because of him looking like a completely different person now, then uttered, "Akihisa?! What happened to your hair?! and why does your face look slightly different from how it normally is?!" in complete shock and surprise at how Max/Akihisa currently looks now.
Max then turned back to all three Dread, Minami, and Mizuki and handed both the container with nanoprobes and the research disc over to Dread who took them and proudly proclaimed, "A pleasure doing business with you Mr. Steel." as he put both the nanoprobes and research disc in one of his pockets and pulled out a remote control device from another and pressed a button on it which brought out a unique looking car out from the entrance of the mine, that Dread, Minami, and Mizuki all got into as Max then declared, "This isn't over Dread!" to which Dread simply stated, "How true, also we left something for you and your friend, call it a goodbye gesture." as Max zoomed out from the live video of Pete in the mine to see what Dread meant upon hearing what he said, to see that Pete was tied down a large time bomb that was set to blow in only five minutes as Max then shouted, "Time bomb! DREAD!" loudly, and first shockingly and then angrily as Dread sped off in his special car with Minami and Mizuki riding in the backseat, as Max watched them speed away.
Max then threw the now short-circuiting and flaming tablet on the ground before running off into the mine to go save Pete, turning the built-in flashlight on his chest piece on to help him see in the dark tunnels of the mine as he came to two forking tunnels ahead of him as he shouted, "Come on Pete! Don't keep that big mouth of yours shut now!" as he used his enhanced hearing to try to pinpoint Pete's exact location as Pete yelled out, "YOSHII! HELP!" which allowed Max to identify his actual location in the mine as he then said, "Yes!" to himself and quickly ran to Pete's location but fell through the ground of the tunnel he was running in and slid down into a different part of the mine as he got back up to his feet and stated, "Dammit, I'm running out of time! Going Turbo!" as he once again activated Turbo Mode on his Bio-Link and hit the nearby wall of the cavern with a flying side kick and followed up with several rapid fire punches, smashing through the stone wall of the cavern in the mine as Pete felt what felt like an Earthquake as he fearfully announced, "What now?!" as Max then busted out through the wall and ran over to Pete who then said, "That Freakoid guy was right, you really are a superhero!" in shock as Max corrected him by saying, "A secret agent actually." as he tried to disarm the bomb but couldn't, seeing this Max then annoyed and angrily remarked, "Dammit! Tamper proof! If I mess with it, it'll look like the 4th of July, a.k.a. the American Independence Day in here!" As Pete then fearfully responded, "Well do something!" as Max then broke the chains restraining Pete's arms with two Turbo-enhanced and powered knife hand strikes, freeing Pete as he then uttered, "Let's go!" as the two of them both ran off as the time kept counting down until there were only 30 seconds left, as Max used his enhanced vision to look at an old mine rope elevator that was their only way out and knew exactly what he needed to do as Pete then shouted, "We'll never get out of here!" as Max then blurted out, "Going Turbo!" to which Pete replied, "Going what?!" before Max activated Turbo Mode on his Bio-Link and told Pete, "Grab on to the rope!" to which Pete fearfully and worriedly commented, "Please tell me you've done this before!" to which Max stomped on and destroyed the thing holding the other end of the rope elevator up which caused the rope they were holding to be rapidly pulled up and therefore pulling them sending them flying upward quickly out of the mine shaft as Pete loudly screamed as the timer on the bomb hit zero and exploded causing both Max and Pete to just narrowly escape the explosion as the both returned to the surface and landed hard on the ground.
Pete then crawled over to Max and worriedly voiced, "Akihisa?! Akihisa?!" as Max laid on the ground and looked at Pete and muttered, "Never a dull moment, huh, Pete?!" completely exhausted as just then Hawk flew overhead and landed close by and out came both Kubo and Roberto with a strange looking briefcase like object as Pete saw this and said, "Wait, Kubo?! Roberto?! Whoa wait a minute, is there anyone else other than me who's also not a secret agent?!" as Roberto voiced, "No time to explain! ¿Qué pasa hermano?" as he spoke first to Pete and then to Max, who then stated, "Running a little low here bro." as Kubo then interjected, saying, "Roberto and I thought you might need a little pick me up." as he opened the briefcase like object up as Roberto then proclaimed, "Portable Transphasic Re-generator, to give your nanoprobes a quick jumpstart, it should work." as he turned on the device and pulled out a cord and connected it to Max's Bio-Link, effectively recharging it and therefore also Max as a result.
Back with John Dread, Minami, and Mizuki, who were driving away in their special car with Dread driving the car while Minami and Mizuki were in the backseat behind him, both Minami and Mizuki felt a bit sad and down because even now Akihisa/Max still won't return their feelings for him and would still rather be with and choose Yuuko over them, as Dread glanced over at them momentarily and asked, "What's wrong my dear girls?" curiously, as Mizuki then answered, "That idiot former friend and classmate of ours from when we were in Fumizuki Academy, Max Steel a.k.a. Akihisa Yoshii still refuses to return our feelings and would still rather be with and choose that stupid man stealer bitch, Yuuko Kinoshita over the both of us!" as Minami added, "That's right, why would he rather be with and choose her over us after all we were in the same class as him back in Fumizuki Academy, he is so stupid and the whole thing is just so stupid!" as they both sat with their arms crossed and pouting like spoiled little brats as Dread then spoke, saying, "Now, now, girls there's no need to throw a temper tantrum, after all assuming that his body isn't too badly damaged from the explosion of that time bomb in the mine, we can always go back and collect some DNA from his lifeless corpse and make an army of clones of him, so that way you both each can have your very own Max Steel/Akihisa Yoshii all to yourselves." which made both Minami and Mizuki smile and their eyes sparkle as they both asked at the same time in unison, "Do you really mean it Mr. Dread?" to which he replied, "Of course, after all you both have been so loyal and helpful to me, so what kind of boss would I be if I did not make my subordinates happy." with a rhetorical question, as they both squealed, "Yay, thank you Mr. Dread, thank you very much." in unison and happily as Dread then stated, "Don't mention it girls, now with that said, all we need to do now is find some of my other subordinates who were scattered all over the globe and make them aware that I am alive and have them rejoin and regroup with us in order to recover and rebuild from the ground up and take our revenge on N-Tek for our previous crushing defeat at their hands." confidently as he continued to drive across the desert.
Dread then happily smiled and proclaimed, "My dears, Steel is deceased and the probes and data are in our possession, is there anything sweeter than the taste of revenge?" as Max appeared ahead of and right in front of their car and riding on top of the back of Hawk and retorted, "I've always been partial to both banana splits and Japanese style ice cream parfaits." which shocked all three of them to see Max still alive and right in front of them, as Max then exclaimed, "Going Turbo!" as he activated Turbo Mode once again on his Bio-Link and jumped off of hawk and did a front flip on to the front of their car, as all three of them pulled out their laser pistols and started shooting through the windshield at Max who managed to barely dodge their laser fire, with his upper body still on the hood of the car but his feet on the ground, desperately trying to stop their car as it continued to move forward and they continued to try to shoot Max, only for Max to use his super enhanced strength from Turbo Mode to flip their car into the air, causing it to spin in mid air before crashing landing upside down back on the ground as Max then walked over half way to the flipped over car while Hawk, which had all three, Pete, Roberto, and Kubo in it landed and the three of them got out, as Max then commented, "I'd say that was a successful field test of your re-genarator my guys." to which Roberto pointed out, "You're still way low on Transphasic Power though." As Kubo added, "Indeed, we need to get you back to N-Tek." he nodded in agreement with Roberto, while Max walked over to Dread's upside-down car and knelt while saying, "Hey you're the Doctor, Roberto, with Kubo as your assistant. Oh and by the way, and I'm saying this to everyone here, and you three especially, Dread, Minami, and Himeji. The probes I pilfered were unstable and therefore worthless, and the disc was a digital copy of my Edgar Allen Poe, English term paper, if only you three could see you could end up truly frustrated and disappointed, after all, why should the bad guys be the only ones to pull a double cross." rhetorically as Dread, Minami, and Himeji hung upside down and barely conscious in the flipped upside down car.
As Max stood back up to his feet, Pete then phrased curiously, "You should have told me that you had such a cool day job." to which Max countered, "Sorry Pete, I couldn't, too much at stake." at which point Pete curiously asked, "So what do we do now?" as Max pointed out, "Well you have two options my dude, the first is your memory gets erased by way of complete holographic memory eradication, or the second choice, that being, we keep this little secret all to ourselves." to which Pete then remarked, "Eh, what secret?" with a smile and a wink he gave to Max, Kubo, and Roberto, which all three of them returned to Pete knowing full well that their secret is safe with him and that they can trust him, as Max looked over to both Kubo and Roberto and said, "Hey, thanks for the save guys, but how did you guys find me, you know with Dread jamming the Bio-Link signal and all?" as Roberto stated, "Simple we re-calibrated the N-Tek satellites to triangulate on the unique Transphasic energy signature of your Max Probes. Of course you could you could have saved both me and Kubo the trouble if you'd clued us in on what was happening." Max refuted, "I'm sorry guys, but I couldn't risk and take the chance that Dread, Minami, and Himeji would off Pete, so I couldn't risk telling anybody." at which point Kubo interjected, retorting, "The two of us both are not anybody, Max, we're your friends and your teammates." as Max then declared, "Understood, Mi hermanos." calling both Kubo and Roberto both his bros in Spanish and giving them both each a fist bump.
Later on at night, John Dread, Minami, and Mizuki, each were being held in their own individual prison cells in Corinth Super Max Prison, as Dread irritably uttered, "This isn't over yet, Mr. Steel!" as two armed guards walked in opposite directions past his, Minami's, and Mizuki's prison cells.