Chapter 5: Shockwave

Romaine's POV

As the elevator doors to the lab opened I gulped down on my latte, not wanting it to go to waste.

Cassandra seemed a bit out of it actually. Come to think of it she seemed more and more out of it as the week went by.

"Hey." I called out to her, making sure I sounded concerned, as I threw down my stuff in the chair beside me.

"What's been up with you lately?" I asked as I got closer

She blew down out of obvious frustration. I was beginning to wonder if her 'all-work-no-play' lifestyle was finally starting to catch up with her.

I held her gently but close to me, my hands on her hips.

"Come on.." I pressed, "you can tell me."

"Well.." she started, "maybe it's because I haven't had any coffee lately" clear sarcasm in her voice, "or maybe it's because I have a strange man living in my house."

"But it's not about the strange man..is it..?" I asked putting my head closer

"I don't have a problem with him but.." she hesitated, to continue

"The references?" I asked, knowing full well that Dondre's mother tongue is absurd references.

"Ugh the references!" She moaned in relief as she walked away from me

I burst into laughter scratching my head.

"That's Dondre for ya." I said

"And they just never stop!" She started to vent, "Sometimes he comes down here just to bother me with references and ask me if I watch shows that he likes. Like jeez."

When my laughter was quenched I came up with an idea.

"Ok then. How about we just make him go to school like me and Donte have to? He can come to school with me" I suggested

"No I already tried that. He's basically a drop out from your school so they don't want him back. Can't exactly explain that he was kidnapped and tortured for a whole year." She said

"Oh.. well how about applying for another school then?" I said

"I already sent out applications but without any school record; I doubt any would reply, much less accept him." She said

"Well I'm sure we can think of something." I went on

"How about you think about this awesome pizza!" Donte said as the elevator opened

How did I not even notice when the elevator went up? This boy eludes me to a point of discomfort.

"Great you brought pizza~" I was saying

"Nuh uh" Cassandra interrupted, "I get the first slice this time. Last time the one you guys left me was cold."

"Well alright fine then." I said

Donte laughed as Cassandra carefully chose the slice she was going to take.

"Hey uhh.." I said, "Maybe it was just me but I didn't see Dondre on my way down here..."

"Are you kidding me?" She mumbled with her mouth partially full, "The guy's a couch potato; he only leaves to go to the fridge and the bathroom. You obviously weren't paying attention on your way in."

"Yeah." Donte agreed, "I saw him when I was coming down here. He was so crazy for the pizza, said he'd be here soon."

"Oh.." I said softly, "guess I must've missed him then."

Come to think if it the TV was on when I came here so I guess he must've just taken a bathroom break.

I made my way to the recreational room and figured I'd might as well start on some homework while waiting for the late bug to show up. It's inconceivable really how a speedster could ever be late to something, no matter how sloppy your speed is. And to make it worse he lives right upstairs. Like seriously, what could be more important than our first training session?

~~~~~~~

Believe it or not, I finished all the homework I got for the week before the man in question decided to show up. And that's no quick or easy feat.

He showed up looking jagged and as if he hadn't showered in a week; he smelled like it too.

"Dondre, what the hell?" I scolded, my voice sounding differently from pinching my nose

"You've been attached to that TV all week. Did you care to do anything else?" Cassandra said, also pinching her nose and fanning the smell

"PEE-YOU!" Donte exclaimed, following suit by pinching his nose and fanning

"Look I'm really sorry you guys." He pleaded, "I wanted to come earlier but I was watching this Lord of The Rings marathon and I couldn't miss any bit of it."

"Go take a shower! I'll excuse you being late this time" I said

"Ok, thanks man, I knew you'd understand." He said

I discreetly rolled my eyes as the elevator closed.

Though he was gone and we thought it was safe, the odor had already contaminated the place. We ended up coughing for nearly three minutes.

~~~~~~~

When he finally came back down he looked completely different than before, like wiping of a screen completely covered by dust.

"Y'all ready to train?" He prompted

Well now I didn't feel in the mood given the prior events but I still had to. As I got up from my chair and put down my bag the crime monitor went off.

The four of us urgently walked over to it at the end of the room opposing the elevator and crowded Cassandra.

"Various shockwaves originating from a single point are destroying the city centre, with a man in the center of it all. AKA, we got an X-Genist." She informed us

"Well Dondre," I said looking at him, "looks like you get to train out in the field today. Lucky you. Go suit up"

"Great!" He shouted before running off

Donte went off to change as well, leaving Cassandra and I alone in the room.

"This is the last thing I need." I thought out loud, walking off at normal pace

~~~~~~~~

When the three of us had changed into our suits and were back in the main room, Cassandra stopped me by holding back my hand as I walked by.

While the others went into the elevator, I was now held prisoners by her embracing arms.

"This isn't why I stopped you," she said softly, "but it just looked like you needed a hug."

Putting my arms around her I felt the warmth of her embrace. I'd realized that I wasn't being a good friend. I was getting mad at Dondre, who I claim is my best friend, for making a mistake.

"Thanks." I went gently

When she pulled away she struggled with making eye contact.

"I-I...I have something you could use." She stuttered, her voice sounding weak, "but I'll only give you if you need it. It's still in it's prototype stages and I don't know if it's ready for the field yet. So only come back to the lab if you need it to defeat that guy. Ok?"

"Sure thing." I responded, now walking into the elevator with a sense of urgency.

When the doors closed I was buried in teases from the other two.

"Guys come on, be more serious will ya?" I said to them on the verge of cracking a smile

~~~~~~~

Running out I bet the three of us looked amazing together. We were side-by-side for once, me leading the bunch. Donte doesn't really know places in Montego Bay that well and Dondre is slow. So by pacing myself to run beside Dondre then Donte would be forced to follow suit.

When we got there it was just as Cassandra said, the man seemed to be creating and directing shockwaves at the city centre. What could they possibly have done to him? Did they not accept his coupon or something?

When I burst into laughter, the other two who were observing looked at me.

"So what'd we do then?" Dondre questioned

"Well...uhh..usually here we either make a plan or go in and get hurt first before doing that." The way I explained it would make you think that the injury part is intentional. Not the image I wanted to convey.

"So...plans?" Donte prompted

"We can't very well just go charge in on him." Dondre said, stepping forward, "He's generating the shockwave impulses all over his body then emitting the full load out into the ground. Which is directed towards the building."

"Ok so what?" I asked

"We run in on him before he can shock us." Donte suggested

"No." Went Dondre, "You see how they're destroying the building? A good enough shockwave would rip us to shreds. No regeneration. And don't even think about trying to avoid the shockwaves. They're slightly faster than the speed of sound and frankly, I know for a fact neither of you can go that fast."

I have had times where time nearly froze, which I'm sure is faster than the speed of sound, but that's only happened when I've had high stimulation.

"Well.." after that info dump I only had one thing left in mind, "I have a magnetic ring that I've used to paralyze people before. Maybe I can use it then we get the drop on him."

"What about the new thing Cassandra said she had for you?" Donte said

"You guys heard all of that?!" I started rubbing my head as I took a step back

"O fcourse we heard it we're not deaf." Dondre said, "And frankly we don't even know if it's appropriate in this situation."

"Well I trust Cas." I said, "I don't care what you want to say but don't question her judgement. She works hard, you should be grateful."

"Whatever." He scoffed

I pressed on my comm to communicate with Cassandra, "Cas, can I come by to pick up the prototype?"

-"Sure thing"- she responded

"We've wasted enough time as is." I pointed out, "you two go in there and save all the people before the building collapses."

I ran off trusting them behind to save the people. Making my way back to where I was a minute ago, I asked Cassandra what her knew prototype was.

"Hold on." She said swiftly walking into the room, her heels constantly clacking on the tiles

She had something small dark grey in her hand. I couldn't tell what it was, though it looked like some sort of chip.

She detached the emblem on my suit and placed the chip into a socket that looked like it was made for that very purpose. Veins connecting the chip and the rest of the emblem began to light up.

"I managed to scavenge some of Kronos' DNA and engineer it for my purposes." She said

"What kind of purposes?" I asked

"Well.." she gave me an slightly guilty look, "when activated, the chip absorbs available iron from the user's body, ionizes it and materializes it into a solid Iron II chestplate."

"That's.. great, Cas."

"It should be enough to absorb and neutralize the shockwaves, but I'm warning you, it's really heavy. And remember it uses your body's own supply of iron so you'd be left with insufficient. So please, only use this as a last resort"

When she said the last part I could sense a note of pain. I gave her what comfort I could, knowing that if the time would come I'd have to lay down my life either way.

"Thank you.." I muttered

When she felt like moving on she explained to me how the chip works.

"To activate the chip simply rotate it to the right and then press it down to lock it in." She demonstrated to me

Having nothing left to say, I began to walk off.

"Thank you, again."

She subtly nodded her head

Before entering the elevator I realized I'd forgot something and turned back to her

"The ring please..just in case" I put out my hand

She fished around in the pockets of her lab coat before silently placing it in my hand.

I thanked her one last time as I put on the ring and left.

~~~~~~~

Back on the scene with Dondre and Donte, they seemed to have done a well enough job evacuating the people.

"Did you get everyone?" I asked them

"We think so" Donte responded

"Did you get it?" Dondre asked

"Yeah." I confirmed, "she said to only use it as a last resort, but let's face it, we don't have much of a choice here."

"True, but that only depends on what it does." He said

"It's supposed to neutralize incoming shockwaves." I responded

"Well that does prove useful." He said

"Well show us how it works." Donte prompted

I stepped forward and called out to the attention of the man terrorizing the city.

"Hey you!" I called out

"I named him shockwave." Dondre said

"Shockwave?" I questioned

"Yeah..." I don't know whether or not at that point Dondre realized how dumb it was, but either way he still sounded like he regretted it

I looked back at 'Shockwave', who was now snarling at the three of us, evidently charging us a big shockwave. Now I feel weird saying shockwave; Thanks, Dondre.

"Anytime now" Donte rushed

I looked down at my emblem, rotated it in the proper direction, and locked it in. At first I didn't feel like any iron was being taken from my body as Cassandra claimed, but when the chest plate materialized I fell to my knees.

"She wasn't kidding" I thought out loud, feeling suffocated

The two helped me up but the farthest I could go was one knee on the ground and one up.

"You better hope your girlfriend's right" Dondre said

The two of them stood behind me to support me, their hands on my shoulders. I knelt with confidence, and the knowledge that if Cassandra was wrong, I'd die.

Contrary to his previous shockwaves, 'Shockwave' fired his attack through the air. Dondre must've been right about the speed of sound part, because I wasn't able to see the shockwave for long before it hit me. All I saw was the yellow electricity-like energy being emitted from it coming towards me for a mere fraction of a second.

The impact was powerful, almost as if it had pierced through my chest. I felt the force dispersed throughout my body, the feeling was terrible. At every moment it was as if my body was trying to rip itself apart in all manner of directions.

Some of the shockwave was transferred to Donte, being that he still had his hand on my shoulder. He hollered out before falling to the ground behind me. Dondre's reflexes must've been lighting fast; he removed his hand before the shockwave hit. I didn't even see or feel when he did it.

Dondre dispatched from behind me and went straight for Shockwave. He manoeuvred and made his way around all of Shockwave's attacks. When Dondre was right in front of him with his fist ready to deliver a speed punch, it was as if he had fallen into Shockwave's trap.

Shockwave's hands start coming together violently as if to clap, and Dondre was right if front of him too close to dodge and already in the air. In that fraction of a second I raised my left hand, channeling all my remaining power into the ring. I altered the magnetic field around Shockwave, causing him to be unable to move.

Dondre's attack made sure fire impact in his face and Shockwave was no more. Shockwave was now lying on the ground, his face completely impaled, Dondre walked up to him and looked down on him.

"The name's Acceleration" he said, in an oddly dark tone, "don't you forget it."

With everything stirring up around me and the ground wavering beneath my knees, I finally fell to the ground. The ringing sound of the chestplate making impact with the ground kept going on and on in my ears, as everything turned black.

~~~~~~~

Waking up in the chair beside the bed in the medical room wasn't the best experience I've had. Slight headache, ringing in my head, numb limbs.

I struggled to get up before Cassandra came in and positioned me back to sit down. I glanced at the bed and saw that Donte was there, still out.

"How come I didn't get the bed?" I joked

"No special treatment." She replied, adding a wink to it

We started laughing but that was quickly cut short by my sudden cry of pain. I hurt to move every part of me.

"Just sit still." She said, "No need to be so stubborn."

I didn't stay awake for long after that, I ended up quickly going back to sleep.