Dragon's Progeny: Chapter 62

The bed underneath Alex was stiff, unused to the point that the springs had set and rendered the soft surface almost wooden. Yet despite that, it was probably the most comfortable thing he had laid on in ages.

The teenager stared at the white, professionally painted ceiling above him with lidded eyes. The room around him was barely, bereft of anything at all except for the bed he was lying on. The corners of the room were layered with dust, undisturbed for months if not years. Proof of how long it had been since another human resided in here.

This room, his prison, was sealed by a single wooden door made from a thick, dark slab of oak. It was locked of course, he had checked the moment he could, but that normally wouldn't stop him from breaking out. One quick burst of his powers could blow holes in concrete, so a wooden door wouldn't be any issue for him.

But not right now.

Alex took a deep breath, filling his lungs and tainting with stale air. His powers… they were so weak, drained to the point that he could barely even feel them anymore. His sister was nowhere nearby.

The thought brought panic and regret to the forefront of his mind. He went back to the warehouse, recalling the events that had led him to be here in the first place. He couldn't believe that guy got the drop on him like that. He was down and out before the fight even started, and as always, Ava had to pick up the slack for him.

‘If she listened to me, we wouldn't have even been there in the first place.’ His inner voice spoke meanly. He immediately regretted the thought, his face twisting sadly as it crossed his mind. This outcome was just as much his fault as it was hers. She didn't deserve all the blame.

“We should have waited.” He said aloud to the empty room. Hitting the ABB so many times was a mistake. They were bound to get caught eventually. They should have tried their luck with the rest of the city. They wouldn't have gotten much, but it would have been enough, if much more difficult.

Things had been hard since Leviathan came to the city. The heroes were spread thin and the PRT was floundering. Criminals had taken to grouping up in makeshift gangs and from what he had heard, a few new groups were trying to push their way into what was left of Brockton Bay, taking advantage of the chaos to create a foothold in the city where Leviathan was killed. Talks of local villains groups, the Teeth, and even the Fallen had spread like wildfire. Nobody was sure what was what, and that just made them scared. Scared people were desperate people, and desperation was a dangerous emotion.

Yosei's territory was about the only safe place in the city, though safe was a relative term. It was safer to be in it than it was to be in the rest of the city though, mostly owing to the fact that the woman had somehow managed to get the majority of her gang out of the city before Leviathan wiped them off the map. Combined with the fact that a good portion of the territory they seized from the Empire was far enough away from the shores to survive the onslaught of waves, the ABB was sitting pretty and more importantly, very powerful compared to everyone else.

And here Alex was, trapped in their clutches and separated from his only living family with no clue whether she was even alive or not.

‘Where are you, Ava…’ He thought sullenly as he watched dim light drift between his fingers. He hadn’t been apart from his sister for this long in years. It might seem like nothing to someone who didn’t share the bond that they did, but to him, twelve hours with only himself as company was almost tortuous. It felt like ants were crawling through his skin, picking at his veins and leaving him itchy and exhausted. It had never been this bad before and he knew it would only get worse the longer they stayed apart. He needed to see her.

The sound of a lock unlatching made Alex sit up straight on the bed. The only door to the room unlocked with a loud, deliberate click, before slowly pushing open. The teen turned towards it, the light in his hands coalesced in his palm, blasting towards the doorway the moment the person outside stepped through.

The intruder, a familiar woman in a white lab coat, didn’t even finch as the light came towards her. It landed on her jacket, splashing into harmless flakes of red and orange as the attack unraveled the moment it struck something solid. As the light disappeared, the woman looked down at the front of her lab coat, taking in the black spot on the white fabric, no larger than the size of a drink coaster.

“Fire this time?” The woman reached up to rub the spot, collecting soot on her prosthetic fingers as Alex lowered his hand. The smell of burnt fabric filled the room as she brought her fingers up to her face, examining them closely, “Fascinating. Incineration is easier to clean up than pulpification, but I don’t think you’ll be able to manage either in your state. Your powers seem a bit impotent compared to what I was warned about. Are you having performance issues, or did you just get the short end of the stick between the two of you?”

“Where is she?” Alex demanded as the woman rubbed her fingers off on her labcoat.

“Oh, she’s around.” She said, “This isn’t exactly the most secure prison in the world so it wouldn’t be a very good idea to keep the two of you together now would it?”

“If you hurt her…” Alex’s words fell impotently upon the woman’s ears as she gave him a challenging look.

“You’d what? Give me a bit of freezer burn with those little lights of yours? I hate to tell you kid but you aren’t in any position to threaten anyone, especially me. Your bad choices brought you here and now you have to face the consequences of your actions.”

Alex grit his teeth but knew that she wasn’t wrong. This far away from Ava, he couldn’t do anything. He needed to find her.

His gaze darted to the open door, seeing the shining path to freedom for what it was. The woman followed his eyes and smirked, shaking her head, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I won’t stop you from walking out of here, but someone will catch you before you get very far. You definitely won’t make it all the way to her before you get caught, and then your sister will be stuck here all alone.”

Alex swallowed roughly, imagining what Ava would do if he went and got himself killed like an idiot before they reunited again, “Why are you keeping us here? Why haven’t you killed us or handed us over to the heroes yet?”

“Killing defenseless parahumans is touchy business. Sure, during a war it’s all fair game, but that’s long since behind us. We’re entering a new era of the ABB.” The woman took her glasses off of her face, cleaning them with the unburnt parts of her coat, “Besides, you know as well as I do that the heroes are in no position to take care of a couple of super powered kids like the two of you. We’d be handing you a free ticket out and that’s a no-no. You stole from us, from our people, so you have to face the consequences.”

The woman put her glasses back on with a sigh that was almost disappointed, “That being said, I don’t get the pleasure in having a hand dealing out those consequences. Lucky you.”

She reached into one of the pockets of her coat and retrieved something silver, tossing it at Alex. A pair of handcuffs, the unlatched rings connected by a length of steel instead of a chain. They were extremely thick and made of a gleaming metal with no visible welds or weak-points to be found. Brute cuffs.

“Put those on. And follow me.” She ordered, watching Alex intently as the teenager slowly picked up the cuffs, “Despite my better judgement, someone wants to meet you. We better not keep her waiting.”

The woman turned to the door, glancing back at him briefly, “Don’t think about running. I wasn’t kidding when I said that you wouldn’t get far. There's armed guards lining this hallway and they know better than to let a prisoner escape.”

The woman walked out of the room without waiting for a response and for a long moment, Alex just sat there staring at the cuffs he had been handed, before slowly slipping them onto his wrists and clicking them into place. He stood and followed after the woman, anxiety following him every step of the way.

The moment he stepped out of the room, it felt like a million eyes locked onto him in an instant. The long, dark hallway was filled with at least a dozen armed men each wearing tactical gear and brandishing scary looking weapons, and Alex was instantly glad he didn’t try to run. Even if Ava was right beside him, he knew there wouldn’t be anything that he could do against this many guns.

The woman was a few steps ahead of him and it took a bit of effort to catch up. He fell into step right behind her, following along silently. They reached the end of the hallway and ascended a long staircase just beyond. Several armed men filed behind them to keep an eye on Alex as the woman led him wherever they were going.

The top of the staircase let out into a much more normally lit set of hallways, revealing that they had been underground in some sort of basement all along. The hall was much better decorated, with paintings and even a couple tasteful statues gazing at them from all sides as they progressed through the building.

As they grew further away from the basement and closer to wherever they were going, the itching underneath Alex’s skin slowly began to go away, replaced instead with the usual warmth that was always there any time his sister was nearby. It filled him with relief and raised his spirits as he realized that she wasn’t so far away anymore and more importantly, that she was still alive.

And if she was still alive, then they’d get through this like they always did.