Despite the building still collapsing in the wake of cannonfire, it didn't take them long to locate the side stairwell they were looking for. A series of steps leading down to a metal door with a 'Staff Only' sign affixed to the top marked what should be the only entrance to the library left. According to Michael's map, this stairwell should lead directly into the basement where Marcus was hiding.

Unsurprisingly, the way forward was barred. Literally.

The door at the bottom of the stairs was not only barred, it was also crossed shut with metal beams. Those same beams had been further chained in place by several lengths of looping metal that were each bolted into the surrounding brick wall. As Ryan jogged down the stairs for a closer look he noticed they had even welded the door shut. A reinforced steel frame had also been anchored into the brickwork and concrete below, serving as the frame for the door's welds.

As if all of that weren't enough security, a weighty padlock was affixed to the handle. Presumably in case someone disregarded everything else around it and tried to just swing the whole thing open, but against everything else… it looked ridiculous.

Talk about overkill... Ryan thought, looking over the overly-engineered obstacle with disdain.

There were more little ‘additions’ that had been added to ‘secure’ it even further. Some of the chains had smaller locks on them, parts of the door were nailed in… it looked like a child had been given carte blanche on materials and told to 'keep it shut' by whatever means possible.

And as far Ryan could tell, none of those additions made the door any sturdier than the welding had. A fact which bothered Ryan for a reason he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It felt like he was missing something. Marcus couldn't be this sloppy with his own defense. The man was meticulous.

Unless Marcus didn't make it. Even he can't oversee every little thing. Probably just had one of his minions close it off.

Shaking his head at the whole affair, Ryan walked forward. He reached out a hand, already mentally calling up the changes he wanted to make with his power.

Smith grabbed his shoulder and yanked Ryan back right before his hand made contact.

“Woah, watch it.” Smith said. He let go of Ryan and pointed at a cord wrapped around one of the door’s bars. It was painted the same color of the metal and ran into the wall only a few feet away. The other end ran inside one of the bars.

Ryan had been so focused on the absurdity of the thiny, he hadn't thought to check for traps.

"Figured you didn't want to get all sparked up before the show.” Smith added with his trademark grin. Ryan nodded, then looked back at the cord.

They electrified the whole thing? Ryan thought, his respect for the absurd construction raising slightly.

Then a smirk made its way across the editor’s face. Against just about anyone else, electricity was a perfectly valid security measure.

Against him?

“Actually...” Ryan countered, extending his other arm towards the door. “This is actually even better.”

“How does being turned into a human lightbulb count as ‘better’?” Smith asked, taking an exaggerated step off to the side.

Ryan took a breath and then gripped the door firmly, feeling the electricity course up his arm and into his core. It felt… well, it felt just like holding a live wire. Only instead of seizing up or searing with pain his muscles felt… energized. Like someone was injecting red bull directly into his veins.

Smirk widening, Ryan activated his power.

Would you like to use the energy in this door to reduce it to ash, and channel the remainder into converting more of the material on your briefcase? Cost: Supplied by source.

He hadn't expected the boost to his secret weapon, but Ryan would take it.

Mentally tapping ‘yes’, the editor stepped to the other side of the door in a mirror of Smith’s earlier exaggerated movement. Ryan made a flourishing gesture as his power reduced the barrier down to nothing, Smith acknowledging the move with a small golf clap.

A thought occurred to Ryan. “I could’ve sworn I told you electricity isn't a threat to me.”

“You did, you did.” Smith conceded, no longer looking at him. His attention was fixed on the various metal sections of the door turning bright red, crumbling, and scattering into fading ashes. “Whooolle different thing seeing it, though.”

The pair were silent for a moment as the door slowly finished its own deconstruction.

“This has got to be bad for the environment.” Smith commented, watching the disintegrating steel blow off into the wind. “There’s no way this stuff is safe to breathe.”

The editor paused. “I uh… huh.” Ryan hadn’t really considered that. Then again, he was only turning it to ash. No worse than lighting a campfire.

A solid-steel campfire.

Shaking his head, Ryan refocused. He jerked a thumb at the now open doorway.“You or me?”

Smith stepped up to the entrance immediately. “Uh, me? This is literally why you bro--”

Bullets slammed into Smith as soon as he crossed the entryway. Instead of flinching, he raised an eyebrow at whoever it was inside - then made an “Oh” sound before something much larger landed in his stomach. What looked to Ryan like a large, green bullet exploded in his friend’s midsection.

The force of the blast threw Smith back against the stairwell, smashing his head into the step so hard it cracked the concrete. His friend, however, seemed entirely unfazed. Picking himself up, Smith dusted some brass off his now severely torn uniform, and brought one hand up to cover his mouth.

“Ahem.” Smith said, covering his embarrassment with a cough and clearing his throat. “As I was saying, this is why you brought m--”

Another grenade landed dead center on Smith’s face before the officer could finish his sentence. This time blasting him from a standing position directly back down into the stairwell. Shards of concrete flew everywhere as Smith was nearly embedded into the stairs. Even the nearby shrubbery caught fire.

Ryan made no move to help his friend. Not only did Smith likely not even need it, but whoever had shot him probably had friends of their own.

Sure enough, a stocky man with a crew cut and an actual broadsword charged out of the doorway towards Smith. Ryan lunged to intercept. Somehow, the man managed to notice him. The swordsman pivoted on the ball off one foot, swinging the length of sharpened steel with both hands. It cleaved through the air in a horizontal arc--

-- and was stopped cold by Ryan’s forearm. His would-be assailant had just enough time to look baffled at his own blade before Ryan grabbed him by the face. Activating his power, the editor yanked the now-comatose man behind him with all his enhanced strength, sending his opponent toppling to the rubble-covered floor.

Smith pushed himself out of the rock, then rose to his feet again. The officer casually brushed stonework off both unblemished skin and his increasingly torn uniform as if the pieces weren’t jagged shards. Then he cleared his throat a second time.

“This…” Smith paused, making eye contact with whoever was still on the other end of the doorway, clearly waiting to see if he’d be interrupted. Apparently, whoever it was did not intend to let him finish because Smith’s eyes narrowed and he muttered. “Rude.” before sprinting towards whoever was on the other side.

Another grenade shot past him, but this time Smith’s attacker missed. The explosion hit the stairwell once more, propelling Smith even faster through the doorway. There was a muffled groan and then the sounds of a fight broke out, interspersed with gunshots.

Running in after his friend, Ryan found Smith wrestling with a short, chubby man on the ground while a woman in a police uniform fired a rifle repeatedly into the back of his head. Each single shot doing nothing more than smacking Smith’s head into his opponent, whose face looked a bloodied mess because of it.

What was probably the grenade launcher had been crushed at some point, the pieces of it kicked to the side of the small room.The woman wheeled her weapon towards Ryan as he entered, but she only got a few shots off before he reached her.

A few coma-taps later and both of the remaining guards were sprawled out, unconscious. Smith breathed a heavy sigh and pushed the chubby man off him. He stood, carefully brushing himself off. After a brief pause to clear his throat for dramatic effect, Smith looked Ryan in the eyes to be sure he had his friend’s attention.

“This--” Smith gestured broadly at the room, spent cartridges littering the floor alongside the debris. “--is why you brought me!”

“Feel better?” Ryan asked.

“I do, yes.” Smith said, part of the doorway collapsing behind him. Bricks fell from the wall, smashing red powder marks into the concrete. Ryan rolled his eyes.

“You mind helping me with these?” Ryan asked, grabbing the unconscious woman and dragging her out the door. “Rather leave them outside, just in case Meatfist brings the place down.”

“Ah, right. Good point.” Smith said, grabbing his former wrestling partner and wrestling him out the door. They put the pair next to the comatose swordsman, and headed back inside. Smith took the opportunity to avail himself of the man’s sword. “Just in case.”

Back in the room there were only two ways forward.

One was an elevator door that had been broken outwards. Likely from whatever rubble had collapsed onto it from above. Bits of electrical wire hung suspended from the inner ceiling.

The other option was a door with a metal bar. If the map was correct, this one led in the direction they wanted. To Ryan’s great dismay, the inner door was not electrified as the outer one had been. Neither was it locked. Which meant this trio had probably been trying to escape when Ryan had melted their way in.

Shame. Could’ve used the points. Ryan thought to himself as he chewed his way through a Mud-Mountain Madness’ protein bar. Smith went in first, the editor following only a few paces behind.

The passageway beyond held a narrow corridor resembling an unfinished basement. A handful of strung light bulbs, spaced every ten or so feet, were the only sources of illumination.

“Should be on the left here, according to the map.” Ryan said as they walked. Neither Smith nor Ryan made any attempt at stealth. If their enemies didn’t know they were coming by this point, a few loud steps probably wouldn’t make much difference.

A few winding turns later, Smith stopped as he reached a dead end. To his left was a simple metal door, and… that was it. The mostly-invincible man turned to his friend with a raised eyebrow. “Uh-huh. Left. As opposed to…?”

Ryan frowned. He could’ve sworn Michael’s map had shown two passages here. As best they knew, the information was current. Which means...

The editor tapped a hand to the wall and pulled up a few hypotheticals with his power. First, he checked the cost to dissolve a small hole through the next inch of material past his hand. Then he checked the cost to do the same thing, only for a foot worth of material instead. Finally, he checked the cost for ten feet worth.

The first cost was small, about what he’d expected for stone. The next went up marginally, and there was no increase in cost at all for the third. Which means there’s nothing beyond this wall past an inch or two.

The editor’s eyebrows furrowed even further. First a trap, and now a hidden path? A little paranoid, Marcus?

Smith watched him stare at the wall for a solid minute before asking. “Figure something out there, magic-man? I thought we were going left.”

“We were.” Ryan said, rapping a knuckle against the ‘wall’ in front of him. “But this is a fake wall.” Examining it, he could see no obvious signs of construction. There were no depressions, no dents. It was even the same faded color as the rest of the unfinished stone hallway. “Pretty sure there’s a passage behind it.”

“Okay...?” Smith asked, squinting at it. “What happened to left? Thought we were following the map.”

“If I were a supervillain, who needed to hide, I’d probably be doing it behind the fake wall instead of the obvious path. Wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, totally.”

Ryan nodded and put a hand on the wall. He’d almost activated his power when Smith spoke up again.

“Unless I wanted to fake someone out, that is. Then I’d just put a trap behind it. Activate a... shower of acid or a flamethrower, that sort of thing.”

Ryan paused, then turned to look at his friend. “Really, man? Acid showers?” His raised tone only slightly influenced by the fact that acid to the face was probably one of the few ways to just off him outright before Ryan could do anything about it.

Smith shrugged. “Like you said. Supervillain.”

Ryan just looked at him.

“It might not be trapped.” Smith offered. “Maybe this one is trapped.” He added, rapping his own knuckle on the door behind him. Both of them paused, waiting to see if some sort of trap would activate. When it was clear that nothing was going to happen though, it was Ryan’s turn to shrug.

The plan had been simple enough. Run straight to where Marcus was supposed to be, kill the prick, and then leave. In and out.

But if Michael’s map had been some sort of plant to lead them into a trap… or there’d been some rearranging since it was made... Well, that was worth investigating.

“Fake side it is.” Ryan said, stepping towards Smith. His friend moved aside, but gave him a curious look. Ignoring it, Ryan activated his power on the door and then turned back to where they were going as the metal door behind him immediately began embedding itself into the surrounding wall.

“Smart.” Smith commented.

“Thank you.”

After a brief bite of another ‘madness’-series protein bar, Ryan popped open the fake wall.

Fluorescent light spilled out into the corridor as the wall fell away, revealing a hole large enough for the two of them to step through. On the other end was what looked like a modern day hospital corridor. Instead of unfinished stone or hanging lights, there were white-washed walls and half a dozen light fixtures.

The corridor continued on for a short distance before reaching a set of double doors with window panes, the far side of which ended in a split hallway. On either side of the corridor were a number of patient rooms, each set next to a large window, and each clearly marked with its own number.

The first thing Ryan noticed was how immaculate the entire thing was, from top to bottom. A building had just been blasted to rubble above it, but there wasn’t a speck of dirt to be seen. Ryan thought he could even see his reflection in one of the polished tiles lining the floor.

The editor and his friend shared a slow glance then, as one, turned to look back down the hall.

“Alright.” Smith said, his voice lowered almost to a whisper. “Who had their money on ‘creepy underground lab’?”

Ryan had a bad feeling about this. Instead of responding, he strode wordlessly into the corridor, crossing over to the glass pane of the first patient room on his right.

Inside was a young man in a hospital gown. His arms, legs, and chest were strapped by thick leather to a medical gurney. The man’s face was obscured, covered entirely by what looked like an opaque, black motorcycle helmet attached to a thin cord extending into the ceiling.

The scene was… unsettling.

As he stood there, the sound of conversation emanated from the glass. Though it was quiet, after a moment Ryan thought he heard it repeat. Like a tv playing a short scene on a loop. Leaning up against the window, the editor strained his hearing.

He couldn’t make out the words, but there was no mistaking the cadence of that cultured voice.

Marcus.

The editor felt his earlier bad feeling morph into a knot in his stomach, but… nothing about this made sense. None of the people they’d rescued before had been bound up like this. And Ryan had scanned the mayor, the man’s power only worked on those he touched. The only thing talking to his victims did was…

… give them their orders.

Ryan stared inside the room with a growing sense of revulsion. It wasn’t a patient room, and that wasn’t a helmet - it was an echo chamber. Forcing whoever was inside to listen only to whatever was playing.

The editor gripped his hand into a fist as anger began to mix in with his revulsion. Stepping back, he quickly checked all the rooms this side of the double doors.

Each room was locked, and held only a single person inside. Young, old, male, female, human, or non… it didn’t seem to matter. Looking into the last one, Ryan recognized the emasculated form held inside. Sarah Masters. The young woman with the water bending power he’d freed at the school before she had run off when Lucas and Ryan had fought the guards. Apparently, she hadn’t gotten far.

Smith walked up beside him. For once, his expression was blank and the man’s tone held no humor. “What… is he doing to them?”

“I’m… not sure.” Ryan answered slowly. “But he’s forcing them to listen to his own voice on repeat. I’d bet my right arm Marcus is trying to figure out a way to extend the duration of his power somehow. Make it do more for less.” The editor winced. “Or… he already has figured it out, and this is it.”

Something had bothered Ryan ever since he’d first learned that the mayor had been brainwashing nearly the entire town with his power. That feeling of unease had only grown after he’d scanned the man and learned exactly how Marcus’s power worked.

The description had been simple: it let the mayor influence people he touched. The greater his target’s will, the more energy it took him to make them bend. Ryan wasn’t sure what the ‘will vs energy’ cost ratio was there, but the power’s description had been clear. It did take energy.

All superpowers did. It was one of the first things Ryan had learned about how powers worked.

Everyone who’d emerged from those shells with new abilities had also popped out with an internal ‘energy capacity’ powering those gifts. It functioned as a limiter of sorts. As far as he could tell, this ‘limiter’ (or organ, whatever it was) functioned basically like an internal battery - just on a super scale.

Much like his own power, others Ryan had spoken to could ‘feel’ when their capacity was empty. It made them hungry. In the same way that running a few miles made you want a pizza, and running too far could make you pass out, spamming your powers eventually became dangerous.

Put it simply: No energy = no battery = no powers. And, quite possibly, an involuntary nap. That was just how it worked.

The longer you used your power, or the more people or material you used it on, the faster it drained that internal battery. Every power Ryan had ever scanned, from Michael’s to Kurt’s to those of the mercenaries he’d fought - even Smith’s - had functioned the same, including his own.

The only noteworthy difference between them all had been that each power appeared to have its own cost. Once Ryan had realized that nearly everyone seemed to have a larger energy capacity than he’d started with - rather early on, actually - he’d stopped caring what those costs were. It hadn’t mattered.

But it didn’t mean those costs were gone. Even though Ryan had eventually been able to increase his own capacity, he’d never been able to eliminate them. Just trying to reduce them had required a dizzying amount of energy he had no hope of acquiring.

Which meant superpowers still obeyed - to some degree - the laws of physics. Making the ‘internal battery’ run similar to the law of conservation of energy.

Or, as his uncle had once put it: “Nothing’s free, kid.”

Turns out, that advice still held true. Even with superpowers.

Even Marcus’s power had to have a cost the mayor couldn’t get around. From what Ryan had seen back in the restaurant, that cost was paid up front when Marcus used it and then metered out as his victim’s will fought against the control over time.

The editor had seen this reflected numerically in his own attempts to wipe the ‘under influence’ status off from others. Unlike other statuses, the cost to remove it fluctuated each time - which he’d guessed reflected the amount of Marcus’s power left in them.

That last part had been the most worrying.

Marcus’s power was too strong.

Just the lingering dregs of the mayor’s control cost Ryan hundreds of points worth of energy to remove. And not only that, according to what they knew the mayor had hundreds of people under his control at any given time.

Unless the man was single handedly scarfing enough food to feed a village on a conveyor belt each morning… Ryan had no idea where the man was getting that much power.

So while he didn’t know what the helmets were for… he didn’t like the implications. Renee’s ability had let her amplify senses… maybe Marcus had figured out how to build a machine to amplify his own power. Or had another super to boost it.

The thought was… chilling.

Ryan wanted to look further into this, to figure out how these strange echo chamber helmet things worked… but there wasn’t enough time. If-- The editor paused before mentally correcting himself. --When I kill him… There will be plenty of time to figure this all out. Just focus on the now.

Though it pained him, the editor stepped away from the glass. Painful as their situation was, it still didn’t change his objective tonight. If anything, it made killing the mayor all the more urgent.

“Come on.” He told Smith, turning towards the double-doors. “It’s time we killed this bastard.”

“We’re not going to free them?” Smith asked, disbelief in his voice. The former officer held the doorknob to Sarah’s room as if he were ready to tear it off, lock or not. “We moved those other guys, why don’t we take them outside, too?”

“I don’t have the energy to free them right now. And if we take the helmet off without taking away his control, she might attack us.” Ryan hated the words coming out of his own mouth right now, but they had to be said. “We need to focus. Once we kill the mayor, we can come back for them.”

Tears began to well up in Smith’s eyes. Blinking rapidly, his expression turned to one Ryan had only rarely seen on his friend: anger. When Smith spoke it was through clenched teeth, the words coming out more curse than statement.

“No, we’re coming for them now!”

The ferocity in his friend’s voice took Ryan aback.

He was about to respond to soothe his friend when Smith shook his head, cutting him off. The nearly invincible man took a deep breath in, let it out, and continued. “I get it. You want to kill the bad guy. The mastermind. I get it. That bastard needs to die. He is going to die. Soon.”

Smith wrenched at the door, which did little more than rattle in place. Clenching his fists, he turned his gaze back to Ryan. “But these people are suffering now. And I refuse to let them suffer any more.” He kicked the door as hard as he could, then hauled off and punched the window in a wide haymaker.

Since Smith’s only power was his own durability however, and not enhanced strength, neither blow did much. The glass window didn’t so much as crack. Ryan’s friend let out a short grunt of frustration… then went for the broadsword he’d forgotten at some point on the floor behind them.

Ryan decided now was probably the time to intervene. He got in between Smith and the door. When the pair locked eyes, Smith’s blazed with a cold, silent fury.

“Move.” Smith almost growled. They were still friends, so it wasn’t a threat. Yet.

Ryan only held up both hands as if to calm the storm. “Here.” He said, putting one hand behind his back and touching the knob. Activating his power to expend the barest hint of points he’d used so far this evening, Ryan unlocked the door. Smith’s eyes went from him to the latch as it clicked.

“I can’t stay, but that doesn’t mean I won’t help. I’ll unlock these doors and any I come across up ahead, but I am going after Marcus.” Ryan said quietly. “I can’t run the risk that he gets away. Not when we finally have a decent shot at him.”

The anger that was holding Smith up dissipated somewhat. Enough for Ryan to see the pain in his friend’s eyes through the anger.

“I’m sorry.” Smith said, shaking his head almost in self-recrimination. “I can’t… I can’t leave these people trapped here. Not after what I went through. Not when that meathead guy you mentioned could bring this place down by himself and…” He looked over at Sarah. “They’d never even know.”

Ryan reached up and clasped his friend on the shoulder, then embraced him. “I know. It’s fine, I get it. You be the hero, save all these people, I’ll go murder that bastard, and then when it’s all done we can find someone to teach you that swords don’t work so hot against metal doors.”

Smith choked out a brief laugh and returned the hug. The pair let go, looked at one another again, then gave each other that mutual nod men do when they don’t know how to continue the conversation, but don’t want to ruin the moment.

They parted ways, Smith working to free the prisoners, and Ryan sprinting down the hallway tapping locks. Before Smith even managed to get Sarah out, Ryan had shoved his way through the double doors. He quickly unlocked all the rooms he could find on the other side as well, making sure to check each occupant first in case of a trap.

None so much as noticed him. Lost in whatever it was Marcus was doing to them.

At the end of the hallway, Ryan found a pair of signs pointing in either direction, as well as one pointing the way he’d just come. The one pointing to the right read: “First Stage”, the one facing where he’d come read: “Second Stage”. But it was the one pointing to his left that drew the smirk back to his face.

It simply read: “Final Stage”.

Well, how’s that for convenient? Ryan thought.

Hitching his briefcase onto his shoulder, the editor turned left and sprinted down the hall.

A part of him really hoped this next part would be easy. That he’d find the mayor sprawled out in a hospital bed, maybe trying to recover from his injuries next to a handful of would-be low-level goons.

That Meatfist had managed to shake off his master’s control and would be willing to join up - or had gone on a rampage of his own. That Marcus only had the one high-powered showstopper up his sleeve, so there’d be no more surprise wrenches thrown into the mix.

The rest of Ryan’s mind was more practical. He knew he hadn’t even made it to the mayor yet and he was already down his entire roster of allies.

Sure, Smith and Lucas would come as soon as they were able. But there wasn’t a single part of Ryan so optimistic as to hope that they’d make it in time for the big finale.His friends had gotten him here, but whatever happened now - it was all on him.

One lone editor versus who knew how many super powered, villainous assholes.

Ryan wouldn’t have had it any other way.