Chapter 8: Torpedo

Donte's POV

You know, I kinda like Romaine being gone; no more having to bring coffee, no more having to bring food to the lab. Ofcourse I miss him, but, I'm just enjoying my free time while I have it.

At school my friend was telling me stories about how his big brother stopped lots of crimes. I thought that his big brother had powers like me so I asked him what his powers were.

"What do you mean powers?" He asked

"Well I just thought that your big brother was a superhero or something. Like m- nevermind" I said

"No..my brother's a cop. The best one ever."

"Yeah well, when the trouble happens I never see any cops around."

"Yeah...ever since those speedsters arrived by time the cops get there all they see is a defeated criminal."

"Oh. Well my favorite speedster is Excel."

"Excel? I think the new one is cooler. They say he's ten times better than Excel."

"More like ten times slower." I whispered

"What?"

"Nothing" I just walked away before something else happened that I'd regret later on.

Before my day could go down a slum of boredom Cassandra called me on the communicators.

-"Donte, are you available?"- she asked

"Always am. What's the problem?"

-"There's a Jewelry store robbery on St James Street."-

"Sweet. I'll be there soon. Is anyone else there?"

-"No. Dondre recently started at a new school so it's far too early for him to be getting absents in class. The school is in Trelawny and wouldn't be affected by the robbery for it to be evacuated. And Romaine can't have any more absents in this term."-

"Well what about my school? It's on the other side of town and wouldn't be closed down."

-"Just ask the teacher to go to the bathroom then take down the robber as fast as possible."-

"Ok. I'm coming"

I looked at the teacher and asked if I could go to the bathroom. As soon as I was in the hallway I changed my shoes and ran to the lab. I got into my suit and ran to the place that the guy was robbing.

-"It's a simple robbery so you shouldn't have any problems."- Cassandra said

The guy was walking out of the store like he was done robbing it. His clothes were full black. He had on gloves, a shirt, a jacket and pants; also shoes of course, all black. I thought robbers were masks or something. Well this one didn't; all he had on his head was a black wool looking hat.

"Are you the one they sent here to stop me?" He asked me, "Just a little kid?"

"The name's Excel. And I don't need help to take you down."

The man pulled out a gun and started shooting after me. Thank God I could see things in slowed motion when I used my speed or I would've been dead. I dodged the bullets and ran up to him, kicking the gun out of his hand. I ran back a little distance to get some space between us.

When he realized what I'd done he just opened his hand and a new gun appeared out of nowhere. And by the looks of it, it was better than the other one. The new gun could shoot faster than the other one. When he shot the bullets I tried my best to dodge them.

"Just a normal robbery huh?" I said to Cassandra, "you're telling me all robbers can do this?"

-"No of course not."- she said, -"His X-Gene must've bonded with some sort of gun at the time of being triggered. But I can't figure out how that would lead to him being able to manifest guns."-

"Well think of a plan please. I don't want to have to fight him any longer than I need to."

-"I'm trying to come up with a plan. For now just make sure to dodge his bullets and that they don't hit other people. Or you can catch the bullets if you want. You should be fast enough to be able to do that."-

"No no. I'll just stick to the first idea."

-"Are you..afraid of bullets?"-

"I don't like guns ok? Someone always dies. And I have too much to live for."

-"Well you'll be fine as long as you dodge"-

I had to stop talking to Cassandra because the guy started shooting again. I went and kicked the gun out of his hands again. This time he made a much bigger one.

"Is...is that a~"

-"It's an RPG! Donte, you cannot let him fire that thing."-

When he shot a rocket out of the gun it completely destroyed a building. There's no way I'm letting that thing touch me.

-"Donte the next time he shoots, you have to neutralize the rocket mid air."-

"How in the hell am I supposed to neutralize an exploding rocket?!"

-"Woah woah, calm down. Just take deep breaths"-

"Yeah, sorry. I lost my cool for a while. Now tell me how before he's ready to shoot again."

-"You have to go as fast as possible. You have to hold on to the rocket and vibrate your cells and your molecules. The vibrations will pass on to the rocket and should be enough to neutralize the force."-

"How am I supposed to vibrate?"

-"You shake on the spot basically. I can't explain it any lower than that. You need to shake you body as much as possible."-

"I'll try.."

When the guy was done putting another rocket in both of us started hearing police cars. When we looked up the road it was a whole group of them, about three cars.

He shot the rocket after the coming cars and I knew I had to stop it. I've never done anything like this before and I don't even know if I'm fast enough, but I have to do it. I have to save those people in there. One of them could even be my friend's brother.

When the rocket shot I had already made up my mind on stopping it. Lightning sparked in my eyes and I ran off. I was much faster than the rocket and time was really slow, but when I held on to the rocket the amount of force started to take me in the direction of where it was going.

My feet were barely on the ground, but that didn't matter. I started to vibrate my body and try to channel it to my hands. It wasn't enough to stop the rocket and I could still feel myself being carried away. Then at that moment, I started to think about what I'd do if it was my family. Those policemen, they all have wives and kids to go home to.

I started vibrating my body to it's fullest potential, going all out. As my body slowed down and I started to feel more of the ground again I knew that it was working. When the rocket came to a full stop it rested in my arms; heavy, is all I can say. Before I dropped the rocket and it exploded or something I gave it to one of the cops.

Then I stole that same officer's hand cuffs that he had dangling from his belt and went up to the gun freak. I didn't know how hand cuffs worked at first but after five tries I got it right. I brought the gun man to the cops and told them to lock him up safely. Looking at the lead officer I saw his badge say "Lieutenant Jones", which is the same last name as my friend. I gave them a smile before running off back to the lab.

"That was scary crazy!" I said walking in

"Great job! At this point I think you're beginning to surpass Romaine."

I was hot and my face was filled with water so I started fanning myself for breeze.

"You don't wanna miss school now do you?" She asked me

"School!" I'd totally forgotten about that

I changed my clothes and ran back to my class' doorway as fast as possible.

"Sorry miss," I said to my teacher, breathing hard, "You gotta go when you gotta go. Sometimes it's a real struggle to let it out."

My classmates started laughing as I went to sit down. I leaned over to my friend and said,

"Your brother is cool."

~~~~~~~

After school was over and I was back at the lab, I told them about my experience with the robber. They seemed happy for me that I'd accomplished something new. We all have our own stuff now; Dondre can make you see more than one of him, I can neutralize stuff by vibrating, and uhh...I don't think Romaine has anything special, but we'll just have to wait and see.

"I've got the perfect name." Dondre said, "Torpedo"

Me and Cassandra looked at him weird and then looked at each other

"From the movie? Called-.. nevermind, you wouldn't get it."

"Torpedo it is then." Cassandra said

"Hey I got a question," I said, "You've been drinking a lot from that same tea cup lately. Have you gotten addicted to coffee too?"

"Oh heavens no. I'd never dream of it. This is green tea, I have it every once in a while."

"But... you had some earlier. I could hear you drinking it when you were talking to me over the comms."

"Hey and I noticed thing." Dondre said, "Fighting Obsidian the other day, you had that coffee mug at your table as well."

"Oh yeah." I said

"So much for every once in a while huh." Dondre sounded amused

"Ok fine fine whatever." She said, "I like having green tea. It sure doesn't taste good but it brings me back to that moment; at the Café, before Dondre interrupted."

"Well I'm sorry if me escaping from hell ruined your romantic date session."

"I didn't mean it like that. And 'hell'? Don't you think you're overdoing it a little?"

"Trust me, if you were stuck with Black Zero for months upon months having him torture you day in and out, you'd think it was hell too."

"Well if you say so. And I don't want you two mentioning any of this to Romaine. Besides, there's only room for one crippling addict on the team. I'd never let myself fall to such levels."

"True"

"Yup" I said

We all burst into laughing before Dondre and I decided to train in the speed lab.