Free Web NovelChapter 256: 256 | Welcome to the V-1 Victory Party
The dinner plate came spinning out of the doorway like a frisbee from hell, the yellow energy disk embedded in its ceramic surface glowing hot enough to leave afterimages on the monitors. Theo raised his arm and the plate slammed into his forearm with a crack that the speakers broadcast at full fidelity. The plate shattered on impact, ceramic fragments spraying in every direction, but the kinetic energy transferred straight into Theo’s Aspect. His eyes lit up and his right fist clenched with stored force.
"Hit me harder, man!" Theo shouted, grinning.
"NOTED!" Marco yelled from somewhere down the hallway, already channeling another disk into what looked like a coaster. The coaster whistled through the air at a lower trajectory, aimed at Theo’s knees.
Eden stepped past Theo and launched a compressed fire arrow down the hallway. The arrow screamed through the space and detonated against the wall where Marco had been standing half a second earlier, leaving a scorched circle on the drywall. Marco had already rolled behind a support column, and the coaster he’d thrown caught Eden in the shin before he could redirect.
"Ow! Dude! My SHIN!"
"SHOULDN’T HAVE SHINS THAT BIG!"
The observation deck erupted. Camille leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, her dark eyes tracking every movement with the focus of someone building a mental database. Nyx had her phone out and appeared to be recording the monitor feeds, which may or may not have violated observation deck protocol and which nobody seemed inclined to stop. Maribelle watched with her tail tip tapping the bench in an unconscious rhythm, her golden eyes bright with the specific delight of someone who lived for chaos she wasn’t personally involved in.
Theo charged down the hallway toward Marco’s column. The floor shook with each step. Marco popped out from behind the column and threw another energy-infused projectile, this time a CD case he’d apparently been carrying in his belt, but Theo caught it on his shoulder without breaking stride and the stored energy in his body spiked another notch. Marco’s face went through several emotions in rapid succession, landing somewhere between regret and panic, before he bolted toward the hostage room.
"Caden’s not engaging," Percy said, his voice carrying urgency he couldn’t fully suppress. "He hasn’t appeared on any camera feed since the exercise started. Light Tongue is passive, it reduces his social visibility, but in a combat context with known opponents he’d need active Refract to maintain full invisibility. He’s burning stamina just staying hidden."
I scanned the monitors. Percy was right. Twelve camera angles and not a single frame showed Caden Holt. The hallway outside the hostage room was empty. The hostage sat in its chair with all sensors green. The stairwell cameras showed only Theo barreling upward and Eden following with flame constructs orbiting his body.
Caden was invisible.
And he was waiting.
Eden reached the second-floor hallway first, moving faster than Theo because Eden didn’t carry three hundred and twenty pounds of Kinetic Bank muscle on a frame that shook the floorboards. Eden scanned left and right, his fire arrow casting warm light across the walls. The hallway appeared empty. Marco had retreated past the hostage room toward the far end of the corridor.
"I see Marco!" Eden pressed his earpiece. "End of the hall! He’s alone!"
"Where’s the other one?" Theo’s voice came through heavy with exertion as he climbed the last flight.
"Don’t see him! Going for Marco!"
"Eden, WAIT for me, don’t just run straight..."
Eden ran straight at Marco.
Percy sighed beside me. The sigh contained an entire tactical debrief.
Eden closed the distance with flame constructs trailing behind him. Marco raised both hands and generated three energy disks simultaneously, hurling them in a spread pattern that forced Eden to dodge left. The dodge put Eden directly in front of a closed doorway.
The door opened.
Caden’s hand came out of nothing, visible for exactly half a second as his Refract dropped. The capture tape was already in his fingers. He slapped it across Eden’s right wrist and pulled, yanking Eden sideways through the doorway and slamming him into the wall of what looked like a bedroom.
Eden’s fireball died as his concentration shattered. The tape locked around his wrist and adhered to the wall behind him. Eden pulled against it with his entire body weight and it didn’t move.
"CAPTURED!" Eden bellowed, equal parts frustrated and impressed. "He got me! He was in the ROOM!"
Caden rematerialized fully, his blonde hair disheveled and his hazel eyes bright with the specific delight of someone who had just proved that patience was a weapon. He leaned against the doorframe and gave Eden a salute.
"Nothing personal, big guy."
"IT’S EXTREMELY PERSONAL!"
Marco burst out laughing from down the hall. Theo rounded the corner at full speed, his stored kinetic energy making his footsteps crack the floor tiles. Caden’s eyes widened and he disappeared again, his costume’s light-reactive panels going dark as Refract kicked in.
What followed was the most entertaining sixty seconds of combat I had ever witnessed that didn’t involve property damage exceeding six figures. Theo charged through the hallway, swinging at empty air where Caden should have been. Marco pelted Theo with energy disks from the opposite end, each impact feeding the Kinetic Bank and making Theo’s eventual response more catastrophic. Caden flickered in and out of visibility, always half a step ahead of Theo’s fists, always just outside the capture tape’s range.
"Marco’s feeding Theo on purpose," Percy whispered. "Each disk impact adds to Theo’s stored force. If Theo lands a clean hit on either of them, it’s over. But the V-1 strategy doesn’t require them to fight Theo. They just need to hold the hostage room until time expires. Every second Theo wastes chasing Caden is a second closer to victory."
The timer on the overhead screen read 8:42 remaining.
Theo realized the same thing Percy had at roughly the same moment. He stopped chasing Caden. He turned toward the hostage room. He charged.
Marco stepped directly into the doorway with a saw blade in his hand and an energy disk embedded in the metal. The saw blade hummed with yellow force.
"You sure, big man?"
Theo didn’t answer with words. He answered with his fist.
The stored kinetic energy from every hit he’d absorbed discharged in a single devastating punch aimed at the space beside Marco, not at Marco himself. The wall next to the doorway exploded inward, drywall and insulation and structural framing detonating outward in a shower of debris. The force knocked Marco sideways and off his feet. Theo stepped through the hole he’d created rather than through the door, bypassing Marco entirely.
The observation deck went silent.
"The hostage," Percy said.
Every eye went to the trauma sensor display.
Six of the twelve sensors had gone yellow. Two blinked orange. None were red.
Theo stood in the hostage room, breathing hard, covered in drywall dust, six inches from the simulation dummy in its chair. If his punch had been two feet to the right, the hostage would have taken the full impact. Both teams would have failed.
Caden materialized in the doorway behind Theo, capture tape in hand, and wrapped it around Theo’s left wrist before Theo could turn. The tape locked against the doorframe and Theo’s massive body jerked to a stop.
"CAPTURED!"
Theo stared at the tape on his wrist. Then at Caden. Then at the two orange sensors on the hostage display.
"That was way too close," Theo said.
"That was PERFECT!" Caden corrected, breathing hard enough that his invisibility flickered at the edges. "Also, you nearly killed the hostage by punching through a wall, so like, points for creativity, minus points for situational awareness."
The timer ran out with V-1 holding the room and both Hero team members captured. The speakers crackled with Radiant’s voice.
"MATCH OVER! V-1 WINS!"
