I flew in the sky, rapidly approaching my destination. Each time the number of kilometres went down, I felt my heart pound in my chest—it felt like drums playing inside my chest. This was different from all my other flight sessions. Usually, I just soar to the sky aimlessly without any destination, simply enjoying the ability to fly.
Though now, I was approaching a mission that would decide the fate of countless lives. Maybe that's why I'm flying even slower than usual. I would've probably arrived in less than a minute, but with how fast I'm going, It will probably take me about five minutes or more to get there.
"Ben, slow down. They most likely have a sensor that detects fast-moving objects. Though you might be too small to detect, it's better safe than sorry." Gavin chimed in on my headpiece.
"Right."
Hey, that works for me. Frankly, I'm having second and third thoughts on doing this mission. I slowed myself, meanwhile, I enjoyed the text and displays on my SEE goggles. I would look at a random building, and with a split second, it gives me the history and how old the building is. It may be just a second, but it was enough for someone like me.
It's fun, it's sort of like using a video game HUD. Fun enough to distract me. Though soon that wasn't enough as my thoughts shifted to my family. They must be on their way to the falls, probably far enough to escape the blast and the far reaching radiation. It's nice to know they'll at least be okay if I fail, then again I might be underestimating the power of the bomb.
I grimaced at the thought of failure. I was not expecting, I would be doing this even when I imagined my life as a superhero. I thought I would just be some actor and mascot, but if you really think about it. The government would most likely send me in crap like this. Maybe failing to be a hero might not be so bad after all.
"Hey."
I quickly banish those thoughts away. "Yeah?"
He didn't say anything right away, making me worried that I was just hearing things and had gone insane from the stress.
"You're thinking about the consequences of failing, right?"
I swallowed "N-no?"
"..."
"I...okay fine, yes."
I hear him chuckle. "Oh, thank you for finding me stressing out from the fate of countless lives being on my hands, so amusing."
"Sorry, it's just those were the same thoughts I had in my first mission."
That piqued my curiosity. "Yeah? What was your mission?"
"My squad and I have to rescue a group of civilians from an enemy camp. It's a pretty intense mission for a rookie. During the chopper ride, I was thinking about all the things that could go wrong."
He paused briefly before continuing. "My Commander at the time said, or rather screamed in my face, to not think about what could go wrong, but rather what could go right. So my advice is to do just that."
I snorted. "Easier said than done."
"It isn't supposed to be easy."
Things got quiet after that. After a couple had passed, I was just five hundred metres away from my destination when Gavin told me to land. I did as I was told, and I returned to the earth. I was in a forest of some kind, I'd never seen or heard that there was a large forest like this near Toronto. My attention was grabbed when my SEE goggles started to create multiple dots in my vision, each of which was big or small. Before I could wonder what those dots meant, a text popped up.
[Warning! 37 Cameras detected!]
"So that's what those dots are."
"Yeah, that's why I made you stop flying, you'll stick out like a sore thumb in the air. We don't have anyone noticing you right now since they still have hostages with them."
"What do I do then? Can't you just hack those cameras to turn them off?"
"If I do that, they'll just get suspicious and alert everyone that someone disabled the cameras!" Gavin said like it was the most obvious thing which it is, mentally slapping myself at the obvious problem.
That still begs the question of how we'll get past the cameras.
"Just go in, fast."
"That's it?"
"If you go fast enough, the camera shouldn't be able to see you, since you're too fast for the naked eye, but I suggest avoiding them in the first place."
I grunted, tensing my legs. Here we go. I pushed my legs, running at high speed. Using my SEE goggles to try to avoid or put some distance away from the cameras. I'll admit I was still nervous every time I was in its sight. By the way, it was wrong when it said there were only thirty-seven cameras. I felt like I pushed past a hundred or more.
Then again, the thing I was wearing was said to be an older model or something like that. And I doubt it's been used in quite a while. It didn't take very long for me to arrive, thankfully, there weren't any cameras in the spot I stopped. My mouth agape as I look at the large building just a couple blocks away. It was a thick structure, but it wasn't very tall.
The building was around water, with only a metal bridge connecting it to land. I didn't need supervision to know that this place had been in a fight. I could see some chunks of the structure missing, some parts were cracked. Must've been a brutal fight with the terrorist. Speaking of, there were about four soldiers.
All of them were wearing heavy body armour and were packing heat, holding high-calibre guns. They seemed a little different from the picture that was shown to me but without a doubt those were Titan Soldiers. They were just more heavily armored here than the picture. I crouched down, despite knowing I was too far away to be seen.
"What now? I whispered.
"Hmm, can you sense anything with your Mind's whatever?"
My mouth moved to correct him, though I quickly snapped it shut. I knew it wasn't the time. Instead, I shut my eyes, trying to feel everything around me. I could feel the Silhouette of the guards standing by the secure door. More silhouettes are inside, all of them grouped by three, on each floor.
I would say there would be forty or more. Other than the walking silhouettes, I noticed on the third floor, there were about fifteen or so huddled together sitting in a fetal position. Meanwhile two confident silhouettes look at the other sitting down confidently. I relay what I felt to Gavin.
"Those 'Silhouettes' must be the hostages, you got to enter inside."
"Yeah, how?" I whispered, feeling antsy at the stress.
"Hmm, give me a minute."
And so I waited crouching down, feeling cold sweat slide on my forehead. I wanted to move, really anything. I was so tense, I jumped when Gavin started to speak once more.
"You see those soldiers guarding the gate?"
"Yeah?"
"I need you to shoot at them."
"What!?" I say, raising my voice slightly before quickly regretting it and followed up with a loud whisper.
"I have a gun on me?"
"No, but you could use the dummy's and make it look like he accidentally fired."
"Dummy?"
I narrowed my eyes in search of this fabled fool, though it didn't take me long, as the idiot was playing around with his pistol. It's like how a kid would use a fake gun, pretending to fire at their enemy. While I couldn't see his masked face, I could imagine having a serious expression while also moving his mouth with intimate gunshots. He was just behind one of the soldiers who paid him no mind. It would've been easy for him to accidentally 'Shoot' his comrade while playing with his firearm.
"Make him 'Accidentally' fire at one of his buddies, and they'll unlock the door for you to get in."
Still, an image flashed his mind. Seeing the soldier in front of the dummy fall to the ground, clutching his chest that had been pierced while choking on his blood.
"B-but that could kill him..."
"...Well-"
Gavin pauses. "How fast are you?"
"Pretty fast, why?"
"Enough to catch a speeding bullet?"
"Oh."
I get what he is referring to, too. I'm not sure how fast I am, but I should be fast enough to do it.
"Probably."
Gavin sighs. "Good enough, I guess."
I got up and stretched my legs, ready to lunge. "Wait. Do you have an invisible ability?"
"No, I would use that, by now? Besides, I can just be fast enough so they won't be able to see me."
"Don't you get tired?"
"Not really?"
"That's good, but still, you're going to need all the energy you can get; you need to pace yourself. Perhaps you can vibrate to turn invisible."
My eyebrow raises, vibrating can make you invisible? But how? Gavin must've sensed my confusion because he began to explain.
"It's similar to what you've been doing right now. Being too fast for the eye to see, this is the same principle, but moving your body to vibrate fast enough as so you would be invisible."
"Would that work, though?"
"No harm in trying." Gavin finishes.
I deeply inhaled before, I started to shake my body, but using my superspeed to shake even faster. I look at my hands, the speedster part of vision could still nothing happened, but the normal vision could see my hands are nowhere in sight. It was still pretty jarring, able to perceive speedster time along with normal time at the same time. But hey, at least I could get anywhere quickly from a normal time perspective without the agony of slowly running or flying to destination A to B.
In a flash, I dashed forward, only stopping when I was face-to-face with the guards. They aren't doing anything, I guess I am invisible. Still, I don't want to look at them and at me, even if they don't realize that I'm there. Their gas masks looked terrifying. I crept up to the dummy who was still playing with his pistol like a toy, I hesitated for a moment.
Eventually, though, while he wasn't paying attention, I pressed his finger, which in turn pressed the trigger. A loud bang filled the air. While time slowed down for me, I could see the bullet travelling slowly and heading towards the guard in front of the dummy soldier. While I wasn't a physics expert, that bullet is most likely going to hit the back of his neck. This is why you put safety for kids.
I carefully moved the bullet to aim at his calf. Once I did the deed, I took several steps back and allowed my perception to return to normal. My breath hitched as the bullet exited the soldier's leg. Half a second later, the soldier screamed at the heavens, dropping his rifle and then falling to the ground clutching his leg. I winced seeing his wound start to drip blood.
The other guards look at their hurt comrade in shock before turning to face the shooter, who froze like a statue.
"Oops." Was all he could say.
"Damn it, Jerry! I knew this was going to happen eventually!" One soldier growled, going up to Jerry before shoving him.
Jerry raised his arms in surrender.
"I-it wasn't me, I swear! I felt someone push my finger to the trigger."
"And I'm Jesus Christ. Ugh, look, whatever, just help him get inside! You two stay here and radio that it was a false alarm."
The other two seemed troubled, but nonetheless nodded. The soldier who spoke earlier and Jerry dragged their injured comrade to the door, meanwhile I awkwardly followed them. Jerry grabbed something attached to his belt, it was a card. He pressed the card into the keypad before there was the sound of gears turning.
The large metallic door opens, allowing us inside.
"I'm going to kill you for this, Jerry..." The injured man growled.
Jerry audibly gulped. While following the three was amusing, I broke away from them. I carefully walked down the stairs glazing behind my shoulders for anyone. I may be invisible, but each time I encountered a squad of Soldiers on my way to the third floor, my heart dropped.
So far, though, there doesn't seem to be any complications. Thankfully, when I got there, the sliding door seemed to be busted; it was like someone had strongly pulled it off. There, huddled in the corner in fetal positions, their faces terrified, were the hostages. Most of them were wearing lab coats, though some had lightly armoured clothing, which must be security. I instantly felt bad as I noticed most of the security people looked hurt or had bruised faces.
The two guards watched silently at them silently, their weapons ready to fire at any sudden movement. I moved away, going to the bathroom and into one of the stalls. Finally, I stopped vibrating, letting out a tired sigh. I wasn't completely winded, but I would be lying vibrating my body for that long walk in the park.
"What's next?" I whispered between breaths, making sure I made as little noise as I could.
"Getting those hostages out of here would be difficult. Especially with those guards watching them, you have to knock them out."
A cold pit suddenly formed in my stomach as I heard those words. I swallowed, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling of my dry throat.
"You mean, hit them?"
"Yeah." He says like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
My fist hit Emily's father before he crashed into the wall. His limp body fell to the floor as her daughter worriedly tended to her father. I shook.
"Is there any other way? Like, I could just grab the hostages and speed out of here to put them in a safe spot?"
"Ben, that would be extremely difficult. Not only is this dangerous, but you can't take all of them at the same time."
"But, I can just grab a couple and then return quickly to get more people out."
I could see Gavin disapprovingly shaking his head. "That's too risky. Say you get a few of them out, those guards would instantly notice that their prisoners are vanishing in thin air, and their first response is to kill the prisoners before you save more!"
"But-"
"ENOUGH!"
His sudden loud voice made me unintentionally gasp. Tears stung my eyes, and I whimpered.
"I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shout at you. But there is so much at stake here, you can't afford to hesitate."
I wiped the tears that leaked out of my SEE goggles.
"I just...don't want to hurt anyone, not again."
"..."
Nobody said anything for several moments before Gavin chimed again.
"Okay, I hear you, kid. I might have an idea."