On the warm bench outside the retirement home sat Alayna and a worn out Leo.
"Tomorrow, we will learn the basics of the Silent Step series." Dogman says while stretching.
Huff, huff. "Finally!" Leo says in labored breaths, exhausted from his training with Dogman. "I learned Silent Landing while I was locked up, but that's about it really."
"I haven't heard of this Silent Step series." Alayna ponders. "I'd assume it involves dampening the noise of movement."
"Well, it's that, plus some extra stuff." Leo agrees while cleaning out his ear. "I had met a guy in there named Sumi, he was cool as fuck-" Leo flicks the ear wax and dried blood off his finger before catching a glare from Dogman, forgetting his mentor's nonverbal cursing rule. Leo envisions everywhere that Dogman would strike him in the halves of a second that followed, but alas, it never came. Seems the old man gave him a freebie this time. Leo exhaled in relief, "wait, where was I?"
"The man who taught you Silent Landing I presume." Dogman says with a smirk, acknowledging that despite Leo's weary state the boy was ready to block an attack from him, or at least try to.
"Yeah! Right!" Leo begins to gesture with his hands,"see…Murdoch is shaped like a huuuuge soda can. The Cell Blocks go from A to Z, top to bottom, half underground, half above. There's this big blue light in the center of the prison that prevents us from using our powers..."
"Light shown through Reverted Godwinite shards or lenses to suppress and negate supernatural abilities is commonplace for prisons or jails that house Gifted." Alayna adds.
"Yeah, that stuff." Leo continues. "But, the trick is, that the light doesn't reach the lower floors. We called floors X, Y, and Z, The Pit. Since it was dark down there, you could let loose. Guards wouldn't even come down that far."
"Seems inefficient to have your most dangerous criminals unsuppressed while the weak are." Dogman says, crossing his arms.
"See, the thing is. The most powerful guys in there were at the top and that's where the Reverted whatever-it's-called is the most intense. I was in Cell Block K, since I was a minor who was charged as an adult, the Wardens decided this level was the safest option." Leo says with air quotes. "Think about it, I mean I'm close enough to the top where I can't use my powers, I'm separated enough from the criminals above me who don't need their powers to kill me, and I'm too far away to escape to The Pit without being caught or falling to my death. This is where most other juveniles my age were."
"So is this where you'd meet this Sumi character?" Alayna asks.
"Actually, I met him on level Q. See, everyday I tried making my way to the Pit. It was the only sense of freedom I could look forward to. However, I never got there on my own, guards always would catch me and beat me up if I went down the normal way. When I tried jumping from level to level one time, I slipped and knocked myself out on level M. I'd wake back up in my cell on K hours later. One day, while jumping down, I found someone who was jumping aswell."
A massive cylindrical chamber flickers in Leo's memory, full of steel beams and pathways connecting each level of the vast prison, a web of metal and concrete. A younger Leo, age: 14, holds onto the railing of a platform while nervously looking below him. He can barely make out Cell Block O, this was currently the farthest he's ever been. Sweat beads down his forehead and fingers as he begins to shift his body weight back and forth.
"I can't wait to see him go splat!" An onlooker from a lower cell yells out.
"He'd be the 14th this week! Like bugs on a windshield!" Another screams.
"GRRR! SHUT THE FUCK UP! I'M COMING DOWN THERE TO KICK ALL OF YOUR ASSES!" Leo screams from the guard rail, dangling aimlessly.
The lower cells explode into laughter. "We want to see you try, boy! If you survive the fall we're going to skin you alive! Some of us haven't seen a boy in so long, you better hope you die on impact, boy!"
Leo freezes but shakes his head and looks for his landing spot again. "I'm going to kill all of you…" Leo says under his breath.
"Hey! YOU! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Comes from a prison guard spotting Leo from the other side of the level and now making his way to him.
"Fuck!" Leo says, looking back and forth between level O and the approaching guard.
"What you gonna do, boy?! Come on down here! We'll keep you safe and sound!" Coming from the lower cells followed by more laughter.
As the prison guard gets to Leo he lets go and propels himself down. He catches a water pipe and slides down, runs along the wall then leaping to Cell Block O's platform. However, at this point in time, he just wasn't fast enough. He misses, short by a few inches of reach.
He falls.
Cell Block P's platform is on the opposite side of the prison. He couldn't get there in time either. All that was left was Cell Block Q below him. Perhaps he could survive the fall, it was only 4 levels from level M, no biggie. All he had to do was position his body like this and place his feet like that, and theoretically he could-
CRUNCH!
"AAAAGGGGHGHAJAGH" Leo screams in pain as he feels gravity's punishment for undermining it. He brings his head up to see if anything is broken and everything seems to be in order. Leo tries to get up but his right knee buckles and he falls to the ground screaming. It was numb already but exuded a radiant stinging, his knee was dislocated.
"Don't worry, kid! We'll be right there to help you!" The prisoners from the lower floors, now the residents of this floor call out, teasing Leo.
Two prison guards make their way to Leo. "Hey, Josh." The guard says, getting closer to Leo rolling around on the ground. "It's that kid from Level K again!"
"No way, that kid surely died by now. Inmates typically get like 3-4 attempts of jumping into The Pit before they either give up or become roadkill." The other guard says. "That kid has been jumping everyday since he got here."
The first guard kicks Leo in the leg.
"GAHHHH!! WHY?!!" Leo screams before holding his knee once more. "JUST TAKE ME BACK ALREADY!"
"Yeahhh, it's him alright. Look at those eyes of his."
Unbeknownst to them, someone had just jumped from Cell Block C and was plummeting down the prison.
The second guard grabs Leo by his hair and forcefully opens Leo's eye with his filthy rough gloves. "Woah. They kinda look like-"
"Stars. I swear, every new kid they bring in this place looks weirder than the last." The first guard says, shaking his head.
"I know right!" The second says as he dropped Leo. "There's this one kid we just booked, Ian or Eon, however you pronounce it, has these crazy cat eyes. They said he tracked down his mother's killer and ripped his throat out during a church sermon."
"Yeah, I heard about that one. I say the black bitch had it coming though, they said she had the potential to be a New Warlord. We definitely didn't need any more of those running around." The first responds.
"I dunno. I mean don't get me wrong it's fucking brutal, but I think the child is justified. I mean if it was my mom…" They both pause and think of the scenario. "Either way, a child capable of that isn't one I want on the same playground as mine."
"Agreed." The first concludes before taking notice of Leo who was crawling away. "Speaking of children!" The prison guard swings his stun baton over Leo's back who screams in terror. "I don't know about you, but I find it so relieving to work here. It handles the stress of raising children all the better."
"What do you mean?" The second guard asks.
"Well my Emily is 16 years old and you know how they are."
"Tell me about it." The second guard rolls his eyes and sighs.
"So sometimes we get into spats and sometimes I really want to put my hands on her…" The guard swings the baton over Leo again.
"STOPPPP!!" Leo screams.
"....but then I remember moments like these when I can still hold a shred of my dignity by getting the point across here." The first guard cocks his arm back. "MAKE SURE YOU WEAR CONDOMS!" The stun baton whiplashed against Leo behind every word, breaking bones and shocking him with millions of volts. "Is that fucked up?"
The second guard holds Leo's head by grabbing a fistful of locs. "Not really. If it was your own kid or just a normal kid, sure. But these. These aren't kids, they're monsters." All Leo saw next was the color black as the guard slams his face into the ground. "Had these brats gotten any beatings at home, they wouldn't be in this situation now. Whew!" The second guard leans up. "Damn, that did feel good!"
"I'm telling you, man! With the way my youngest, Timothy, has been acting lately. They better not bring any 8-year-olds in here, I might just kill em, hahah."
"Now that's fucked up, Jake! Hahahah!" The prison guards laugh. "Okay, enough fun, let's get this brat back to-"
Thud
The lightest noise silenced everyone present, the sound at which the ground makes when a sheet of paper falls onto it.
A man. Almost fully submerged in the encroaching darkness of night, save for his easily recognizable orange prison sweats. He was shirtless, and many tattoos covered his body. Leo hadn't seen him yet, all he saw was black, and now red.
The first guard snaps his head around to the figure perched on the pathway. "Did you? But I didn't hear you-"
"Jump down all the way from Cell Block C? HA!" The man taunts. "And I plan to jump to the bottom too. Just came to see what all the hoopla was about. Something about condoms?"
"You're crazy if you think we're going to let you do as you please around here!" The second guard says, charging the man.
"Many have said I'm crazy, yes." The man holds out his arm and black ink bubbles down his arm before forming into a katana. "Looks like it's dark here." The man flicks the blade out and it fully materializes into steel. Both prison guards freeze in place, however as the man gets closer to the center of the room his sword turns back into ink and falls on the floor. "Alas, not dark enough. Bummer."
Leo turned to his side and barely managed to open his eyes.
"Hey, Josh. I think this guy must be that Yakuza prince we booked last week." The first guard says as they both raise their shields and slowly approach the man.
The man cracks his neck and hands. "It's just two of them, no need to get fancy. That's the whole reason I got sent to this dumb country anyways."
"Hey! Who do you think you are! Return to you-" The second guard doesn't finish his command as the man's hand shatters through the plastic shield and grabs his mouth powerslamming him into the floor, shattering his helmet and combining his brains with the concrete.
"JOSH?!" The prison guard screams in terror as the man gets up and flicks the last thoughts of Prison Guard Josh off his fingers. "You mother- GAHHH!" The remaining guard swings his baton but the man ducks underneath and brings a rising uppercut from the floor that nearly makes him see the same stars he made fun of Leo for having as pupils.
As the blood cleared Leo's vision he watched in awe as the tattooed man brought a hammerfist down onto the first guard's nose before ducking low and kicking the guard's knee into the opposite direction. The guard screams and drops to the ground, the man catches the guard by his right hand and catches the stun baton in his freehand.
"No! No! Please! I have a-"
ZXXT, ZXXT, ZXTT, ZXXT, ZXT, ZXXT
The man beat the guard over the face with the baton until you couldn't call it one anymore.
ZXXT, ZXXT, ZXTT, SQUISH, SQUISH, SQUISH, SQUISHHH
"Whew!" The man tosses the bloody baton and wipes his hands. "That was a fun little exercise, wasn't it?" The tattooed man chuckles then walks over to Leo. "Still alive, kid?"
"Please…please, don't kill me." Leo says with tears filling his eyes.
"Kill you? HAHAHA!" The man holds his stomach while he laughs. "I only go after big fish, kid. You're a small fry. You have better odds killing yourself in here than me doing it."
"Fuck…you." Leo splurts out.
"Defiant to the end, I like it! What's your name, friend?" The man kneels down and extends a hand.
"Le..Leo…" Leo says while shakily holding up his hand.
"Well nice to meet you Leeleo!" The man says grabbing Leo's hand and shaking it excitedly, despite Leo obviously being in pain. "My name is Sumi, Prince of Crime and the King of San Fransangeles. You were headed to The Pit, weren't ya? You can't just jump from any height, you know? Gifted are more durable than normies but the rules of gravity still apply.
"I…know…." Leo weakly said.
"Well…" Sumi examines Leo. "You aren't getting to the Pit on your own. Want to come with me? It'll be dangerous, I might die and leave you alone again, I mean I doubt it, I'm pretty fucking badass. Whatever the case, it's better than staying here. I hear Level Q is for all the rapists and perverts. Ew!"
"Why…why are you helping me?" Leo says covering his face so Sumi doesn't see him cry.
"I believe in two things, kid: Karma, and the power of investment. I aspire to commit random acts of kindness wherever I commit bad deeds. As you see, I killed two guys, saving you cancels out the first deed annnnnnd the second will be teaching you how to survive here without me, because I don't plan to be here long." Sumi smiles and bends down, snapping Leo's knee back into place.
"FUCCCCKKK!" Leo screams in pain.
"That's the defiant energy I like, now wipe your snot and come on." Sumi laughs as he urges the young Leo to stand up. "And who knows, maybe this act of kindness may come into my favor down the road."
"And just like he said, he wasn't there for long. We made it to The Pit and I got patched up by the other small fries who made it to the bottom." Leo says to Dogman and Alayna, returning to the present. "I thought it'd be pitch black but it was bright. Someone breathing fire here, someone shooting lightning there. Sumi hopped around, laughing and decapitating anyone that stepped up to him. It was chaos. But there was something beautiful about it."
Alayna looks in wonder. "Maybe it was the freedom you sought?"
"Somewhat of a freedom of expression. Somedays there wasn't fighting, just some guys hanging out. That's when Sumi taught me how to fight and how to land from tall heights without breaking all my bones."
A memory of Leo sitting before Sumi and a pile of burning corpses acting as a campfire.
"Alright, you jump and you huggggg your body real tight." Sumi squeezes in while making a funny face. "Then right before you hit the ground, you squat like you're taking a shit." Sumi then drops low and farts, Leo bursts into laughter. "And that's the Silent Landing. Ta-da!"
"HAHAHA!" Leo cackles, probably the hardest he's laughed since arriving at this hellhole. "Yeah, Silent and Deadly Landing, hahahaha."
"Well I'd like to see you try, Leeleo!" Sumi eggs Leo on, the boy laughs and joins him for these Silent Landing drills, repeatedly hugging their stomachs in then dropping into a squat.
"Those were the days." Present day Leo sighs.
"Aside from the burning corpses. I hope." Alayna chuckles.
"Yeah, you never got used to the smell. But after a month of knowing him, Sumi made bail and I haven't seen him since. Shortly after, I led a few of the small fries back to the upper levels and rested on Level K." Leo says with his hands behind his head.
"Since you now knew how to traverse the prison safely." Dogman chuckled.
"Bingo!" Leo figuratively shoots a finger pistol at Dogman.
"Well! Since you've mastered the first step, why don't you take the next day off? Maybe relax in your new room, heck, I'll even allow you to invite some of your friends over." Dogman rewards.
"Wow, no kidding? Sure. He-Heck Yeah!" Leo throws a celebratory fist into the air.
Vrbbb, vrbbb, vrbbb
Alayna pulls out her phone. "It's Ms. Adebayo."
Elsewhere.
In a dark hallway, a boy sneaks into his parent's room like a thief in the night. He carefully slides open the drawer of the nightstand so that he doesn't wake his mother sleeping peacefully in the bed to the left of him. The boy grabs his father's handgun, it's heavy, chrome, real.
He drops it.
The boy quickly hides underneath the bed as his mother wakes for just a moment before rolling over and back to slumber. The boy slides from underneath the bed and picks the gun off of the floor. He was now creeping through the hallway and into the kitchen. Dishes piled to the ceiling, empty bottles scattered about, a lock on the refrigerator door, this was the house he lived in. But it was never a home.
The gun fidgets in the boy's hands. It feels unreal. He crouches behind his father's recliner. The TV is loud, loud enough to cover how hard the boy was breathing. He spins around to the front of the chair, and his father is sleeping as well. Tears well up in the boy's eyes as he backs away and turns around. After a moment of thought, he walks back up to his sleeping father and places the gun against his skull.
"mmmm…Es..Esme..this beer..isn't cold enough." The boy's father mumbles in his sleep.
Tears stream down the boy's face. "You…You'll never…hurt us again…"
BANG!
The next moments were a blur.
A light flicks on. A scream. A call for help.
"QUINTIN!" Came from his mother, shaking the boy with tears streaming down her face. "NOT YOU TOO! I CAN'T KEEP RAISING KILLERS!
"I…I did it…I did it for you, for us…" Quintin said while crying.
"No! Not again! Not ever!...I can't keep living like this….Not anymore." His mother said while approaching his father, she placed a hand on his shoulder. There was blood rushing like a river out of the gaping hole in the man's head.
"Mom! Mom! What are you doing? Are you going to heal him?! Don't! He'll hurt us again!!" The boy pleads.
"No…he won't hurt me anymore…no one will. I'm sorry Quintin.." She says as the man's wound begins to close. "Quintin…don't blame yourself…only we are to blame…"
"MOM! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!? STOP IT!" The boy cries, pulling on his mother's leg.
A dent starts to form in the center of her head. "We failed you as parents, and I can't bear to patch this sinking ship any longer. I'm sorry…Quintin."
"MOM?!?"
"Don't be like us." Esmerelda said to her son.
BANG!
In that moment, 9 year old Quintin Cassidy watched his mother's brains explode out the back of her skull. Simultaneously, his father's head sewed itself back together.
"Huh?! Wha-a?" Says Zoom Cassidy, waking up in a daze.
THUD
Esmerelda's body hits the ground.
"Es? Esme? ESME!!" Zoom crumbles to the ground and rolls his deceased wife over, examining her wound. "ESMERELDA!!" Quintin's father shakes his mother's corpse. "WHAT HAPPENED?!?" Zoom leans back and feels his face, there's blood running down it, but no wound. He turns to see his son shakily holding a pistol. "YOU!!!"
"WE WERE FINALLY SAFE!! WHY DID SHE HEAL YOU?!?" Quintin says, holding up the pistol to fire at his father again. Zoom sidesteps two shots.
BANG BANG!
"YOU BASTARD!!!" Zoom says as he chokeslams his son onto the kitchen counter and slides him through bottles and dishes, shattering them. "YOUR MOTHER CAN'T HEAL!! SHE TRANSFERS WOUNDS TO HERSELF!!"
Quintin falls onto the ground and gets up slowly, thoughts racing, bile churning. "But…but every time I-" The boy doesn't finish his sentence as his father kicks him in the face and sends him flying to the brick wall.
"EVERY TIME YOU AND YOUR BROTHERS FELL OFF A BIKE, BROKE AN ARM, GOT A COLD, SHEEEEE!" Zoom screams. "SHE TOOK IT UPON HERSELF." Zoom cries and looks towards Esmerelda for a moment. "I can't believe you." He kicks her body, "You fucking coward! HOW DARE YOU!" He kicks her again. "You probably knew this would happen, so you took the easy way out by saving me, huh? Now I'm left with five mistakes!"
Quintin gets up in rage, cradling a piece of broken glass. "DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH HER!!" Quintin screams as he lunges onto his father's back stabbing him repeatedly until Zoom shakes him off and slams him onto the kitchen floor.
"You must have some nerve…" Zoom picks up the gun. "…to try and fucking kill me." Quintin gets up and Zoom aims the gun at him. "You don't get to walk out of here when she doesn't. Actions have consequences. What's one less son? I have four now, that's more than enough."
"Fuck…" Quintin spits out blood. "…you."
CLICK!
"You're my father, but I was never your son." Quintin says before putting his fists up and charging his father.
PING!
Zoom clocks Quintin in the face with the side of the empty gun. Out of all the times Quintin was struck by his father, this was by far the hardest. Quintin falls unconscious on the ground. He'd be unsure if the next moments took place over minutes or hours.
"Caine! Goddamnit, Caine! Answer the phone!"
"Hello. United Cities of America Secretary of Defense, Victor Caine speaking."
"Caine! It's Zoom! I need a cleanup crew asap!"
"Now Mr. Foster "Zoom" Cassidy, what on earth could've happened for that request at this hour. Clean up crews come at a hefty price during thunderstorms you know."
"Whatever! Name your price! I'll go destabilize a government or two!"
"Where shall I send them?"
"My apartment."
"Oh my. May I ask who's it for?"
"My wife and son. Brat tried to kill me, and she sacrificed herself."
"How noble." Victor Caine says as the tinted windows of his car roll down outside of Zoom's apartment. "I offer my condolences, I'm out of the office right now so it'll take a moment for me to make arrangements."
"Just hurry it up!" Zoom says as he slams the house phone back onto the dock. Quintin had woken up and been crawling towards the balcony until his father ended the call. Zoom follows the trail of blood. "You're still alive huh? You have my eyes so I assumed you only had my powers, but maybe you have some latent healing ability from your mother. Let's find out, shall we?"
Victor Caine casually walked through the alleyway behind the Cassidy residence, umbrella up. Suddenly he heard a shattering of glass and looked up. Something was thrown from the top floor. It looks like a body. It crashes against the neighboring building before falling onto a dumpster and rolling onto the ground. Caine examines the body, a boy's, presumably Zoom's. Caine watched in amazement as after a while, the boy's wounds started to stitch themselves. Although it was a slow process, it was a start, and Caine smiled.
The boy holds his head up and makes eye contact with Victor Caine before laying his head back down.
GASP
Bulletproof picks his head up, dazed, confused. How long has it been? The flames have seemingly stopped. Motorcycle in smithereens. BP looks up to see a large white robot standing in front of him. "The fuck…are you?"
The white mecha flexes its robotic muscles. "I AMMMMM THE PLATINUM GUARDIAN!!" It says excitedly.
BP stares blankly at the machine.
The chest plate of the robot opens up and lo behold, Rex is sitting in a chair inside with various buttons and levers at his sides. "Ta-da! It's me! I've come to save you!"
BP lays his head back down. "Just kill me already."