Samantha, who had been babysitting the other children, had refused to open the door when the E.H.O.D. showed up. She was now looking after Martin and Abigail in the back rooms while Andy and his parents confronted the E.H.O.D. agent.

Andy sat on one end of their L couch, facing the agent who sat at the other end, going through some files in his briefcase. Having arrived just a few minutes ago after a quick phone call, Garrett Stone sat next to Andy on a folding chair. Garrett didn’t look too pleased about this situation and glared at the E.H.O.D. agent.

Amelia Gatlin, wearing her light skinned and dark haired human form, sat next to Andy on the couch, glaring at the agent and tapping her foot. John Gatlin sat closer to the agent, also glaring. Andy noted that he could sense a subtle electromagnetic charge from his father. Andy’s magnetic senses also detected metal muscles and bones underneath his mother’s still organic skin, a simple Valtarian technique to prepare for a fight without giving oneself away. Andy didn’t know if this would end in a fight, but he decided to follow his parents’ lead, preparing some electromagnetism and turning everything but his skin and eyes into metal.

If there was one reason to be ready for a fight, it was the Cerberon. John had forbidden the agent from bringing it into the house, so it stood in the window, looking in. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the agent had put it there deliberately, and Andy had to resist the urge to look at it. The most disturbing thing about the Cerberon, to Andy at least, was that he couldn’t sense its metal or electronics. It must have had some technology to resist electromagnetic energy. Andy didn’t know if that was a standard feature or if this one was selected just for him, but it gave Andy pause nonetheless.

“Is this really the best extra seat you have?” said a belligerent voice with a British accent.

Everyone looked towards Centurion, sitting in a metal chair with his arms folded irritably.

“You’re not ruining my couch with that armor,” said Amelia, arms crossed as she tapped her foot. “Speaking of ruining, that machine of yours is trampling our lawn.”

The E.H.O.D. agent looked up irritably, then rolled his eyes. Andy sensed a small electric surge coming from him, and the Cerberon outside then levitated about a foot into the air. Andy figured the man must have a cerebral implant allowing him to control the Cerberon with his thoughts.

“Better?” asked the agent.

“Much better,” said Amelia.

Amelia didn’t look happier. If anything, her foot tapped just a little faster.

“Can we get on with this?” said Centurion. “I had plans tonight.”

“Yes,” said Garrett. “Why did you show up a day early with no warning?”

“I thought it would be more convenient to get it out of the way,” said the agent.

“More convenient for who?” asked Garrett.

The agent’s eyes narrowed, “For everyone.”

Centurion snorted.

“And I assume,” said John, a threatening tone in his voice. “That since we never received any sort of notification about this change, that Andy won’t be held responsible for being late since he couldn’t possibly have known about it?”

The agent paused and looked up, giving a phony smile.

“Of course not,” he said. “Probably a glitch with the e-mail or something.”

Andy could sense the agent’s electromagnetic signature fluctuating, indicating that he was stressed, and Andy had to suppress a grin.

Finally, the E.H.O.D. agent finished pulling out his documents.

“Let’s begin,” said the agent, clearing his throat. “Andrew Maxwell Gatlin. You are faced with civilians about to be crushed by rubble and a power user criminal attempts to escape. Rescuing the civilians will likely mean that the criminal gets away. What do you do?”

“Rescue civilians,” said Andy. “The power user will likely fight back, so there’s no guarantee I’ll catch him even if I give chase. On the other hand, the civilians are lives I can save immediately.”

The agent gave no indication that this was the right or wrong answer but just wrote something down.

The interview continued with questions just like that, different scenarios, and how Andy would deal with them. Andy did his best to answer each question honestly but had this sinking feeling that this was all pointless. It was one thing to speculate about how you’d act in a scenario. It was another thing to be in that scenario with all your emotions and adrenaline affecting how you think. Besides, real-life situations might have mitigating factors that change the answer. Still, Andy got through them all without too much problem.

The last question, however, made his blood boil.

“You see a fellow superhero acting erratically,” said the agent. “And his actions threaten nearby civilians. How do you respond?”

Andy took a moment to answer and had to suppress his anger. They knew how Andy would handle this because he’d done it already. He could also sense the electromagnetic signatures from his parents as they tensed up.

“I’d do whatever I could to stop that hero without hurting him,” said Andy. “But would prioritize the safety of nearby civilians.”

“All of them?” said the Agent.

Andy detected a hint of a smug smile and realized that the agent was trying to provoke a response. It took all of Andy’s willpower not to give him one.

“I would prioritize the civilians,” said Andy. “But ultimately, I’ll save everyone within my power to save.”

The agent stared at him, and every other head in the room stared at the agent.

“Alright,” said the agent. “I think I have enough. You may continue hero work, but for the next few days Centurion here will be observing you.”

“Lucky me,” said Centurion Snidely.

The agent gave Centurion an irritated look, then put his files back, closed his briefcase, and stood.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” said the agent.

“Sure,” said John, a sarcastic tone entering his voice. “I just love when pencil pushers who never engage in hero work think they can pass judgment on those who do.”

The agent paused, then looked right at John.

“Sir,” said the agent. “I assure you—we at the E.H.O.D. are the foremost experts on power users. Trust me. We know exactly what we’re doing.”

He turned to leave, Centurion following.

“Finally,” said Centurion.

The agent and Centurion left the house, and soon the Cerberon at the window followed them, flying away. With them gone, Andy breathed a sigh of relief but knew this ordeal wasn’t over yet.

###

New Tartarus Prison was a massive facility with walls of black marble. Guard towers surrounding the facility were operated not by soldiers but by the Cerberons, their black, mechanical eyes scanning for any attempt at escape…or rescue. Within those black walls were several supervillains kept in holding cells. A man named Atomic, who could unleash nuclear energy, was kept in a metal room that siphoned his radiation. A woman named Mismatch, with three different abilities, had her hands covered with metal spheres at all times as she waited behind bars.

In the same hallway as them, one supervillain called Deathstare was covered in a white full body suit that even hid his face. He had to move around blindly, as these were the necessary lengths to suppress his powers. The suit hugged his skin and could only open when the guards allowed for things such as eating, and when that happened, he was put under close supervision. Right now, he lay in his cell, surrounded by darkness as far as he was concerned. He was incredibly bored, as he was most days trapped in this place. Little did he know what was about to happen.

Nearby, hidden in the hills outside the prison, a man sat in a jeep, typing on a laptop, though ready to drive away at a moment’s notice. He was a handsome, dark haired man with horn rimmed glasses who was completely and utterly focused on his task. With his laptop, he controlled very small drones that crawled up the prison walls like insects.

Infiltrating through the air vents, these robots managed to get to the main server rooms and plug themselves into the system like mobile computer chips. This allowed the man to examine the security firewalls directly. The more he learned, the more he began to frown. Finally, he placed his finger on a communicator in his ear.

“Draego,” he said. “Can you hear me?”

A muscular man with tan skin stood on a hill. He wore a simple black, sleeveless, backless t-shirt with black pants. His dark, wavy hair framed a handsome face with a strong jawline. With piercing yellow eyes, he overlooked the E.H.O.D. facility with concern. Apart from his yellow eyes, his bare feet were the strangest thing about him. When he heard the other man try to contact him, he put his finger to the communicator in his ear.

“What’s the word, Cipher?” said Draego with a deep, powerful voice.

“Well, Draego,” said Cipher. “I’m in the system, but you’re not gonna like this. I can force a system reset for the Cerberons, but it will only disable them for five minutes.”

“That’s it?” said Draego. “That’s the best you can do?”

“Dude,” said Cipher irritably. “You should be thankful I can get you that much. The E.H.O.D. programers might not be me, but they’re good, and have billions of dollars in taxpayer money backing them. I guarantee the exploit I’m using will be gone by tomorrow if we go through with this, and within a week, they’ll have countermeasures for my drones. Maybe if I had a month, I could come up with something better, but that’s a pretty strong maybe.”

“Wish I could give you a month,” said Draego. “Guess this will have to do.”

Dropping his hands to his sides, Draego clenched his fists as he began to transform. Green scales began to grow across his skin, and his face began to elongate. Horns pierced out of his head as two flaps of skin formed on his back. Claws extended from his hands and feet as the pupils in his yellow eyes went from circular to a long slit. The flaps on his back extended to become two giant, green bat wings. When his transformation finished, he looked like a hybrid between a man and a dragon. Even his ears resemble holes like a lizard, his communicator embedded in the skin next to it. Draego put his fingers to the communicator and knelt into a crouch.

“Tell me when you’re ready,” said Draego, his voice even deeper and guttural.

Cypher waited a moment, then said, “Three…two…one…go!”

Draego knelt, then jumped up, fire forming from his feet as he flew away like a jet, using his batlike wings to steer.

Meanwhile, the New Tartarus control room technicians became confused when the Cerberon units underwent a random system reset. When they detected an object approaching the facility at high speed, someone hit the alarm. Red lights flashed, and the alarm blared, waking everyone in the prison.

Moments later, Deathstare jumped when the ceiling of his cell exploded, rubble falling to the floor. Draego fell through, landing with a crash on the ground. Guards wearing black body armor, their faces hidden with visored helmets, immediately turned and aimed their guns inside the cell. They fired, but the bullets sparked off Draego’s steel hard scales. Draego lifted his wings to protect Deathstare, the bullets hitting the hard leathery flesh and falling to the floor. A fireball formed on each of the dragon man’s hands, and Draego threw them, making explosions that blasted the guards away.

“What’s going on?” demanded Deathstare.

Draego didn’t answer but walked over and gripped Deathstare. Deathstare struggled until Draego ripped the suit off his Deathstare’s face. Deathstare, a narrow faced man, went from frightened to pleased.

“Oh,” said Deathstare. “It’s you.”

“Let’s finish getting that suit off,” said Draego.

Draego ripped the suit from Deathstare’s torso, leaving his upper body bare, but it was then that reinforcements arrived, black clad soldiers crowding the area in front of the cell.

“Get behind me!” shouted Draego.

“I got this!” shouted Deathstare, stepping in front of Draego and pointing his back at the guards.

As the guards raised their guns, fissures opened in Deathstare’s skin, revealing human eyes on his back. When the first guard fired, one of the eyes on Deathstare’s back tracked the bullet, glowed, and unleashed a green blast that hit the projectile, making it fall to the ground, flattened.

Soon, the guards unleashed a barrage of bullets blocked by beams from the eyes on Deathstare’s back. Each eye could track each bullet with one hundred percent precision, and not a single projectile was able to get through. Deflected and flattened bullets fell, clinking to the floor.

A moment later, Deathstare raised his arm and made an eye appear on the back of his hand. As the eye beams from his back blocked the bullets, the eye on Deathstare’s hand shot the guards, blasting them against the wall one by one. When the guards were down, Deathstare closed the skin, covering the eyes all over his body.

“Yep,” said Deathstare with cocky satisfaction. “Still got it.”

“I told you to get behind me,” said Draego sternly.

“Dude, come on,” said Deathstare. “I haven’t gotten to stretch my eyes in ages.”

“Whatever,” said Draego. “We gotta go. Jump on my back and hold on tight. We don’t’ have much time.”

Deathstare held on to Draego’s neck while his legs held onto Draego’s torso.

“Aren’t we a bit old for piggyback rides?” said Deathstare.

“Shut up,” said Draego irritably.

With Deathstare holding onto him, Draego leaped up, blasting fire from his feet to shoot himself away. The pair then sped away from the prison, and by the time the Cerberons came back online, they’d hopefully be long gone.

After running his program, Cipher had already turned on his jeep and gotten out of there. Draego could see Cipher’s jeep fleeing below, a red-orange dot appearing in his heat vision.

“So,” said Deathstare, raising his voice over the sound of Draego’s jets, “Where are we going?”

“Remember that heist we were always planning?” said Draego.

“The Fugori Crystal?” said Deathstare. “What about it?”

“It’s being moved,” said Draego. “It’s out of Fort Knox and out in the open. We’ll never get a better chance, so we had to act now. Cipher found the crystal’s route and the best spot to ambush it. It will pass through a city without much superhero presence, just some rookie everyone hates right now.”

“Oh,” said Deathstare, amusement in his voice. “Yeah. I heard the news. You mean Partition City.”

“Yeah,” said Draego, satisfaction in his voice. “That’s the one.”