03x47: The Mastermind's Assault

Austin tries to escape the Mastermind's mind prison as the people on the Island fight for everything that's left.

THE MASTERMIND’S ASSAULT

March 22, 2011 �" March 23, 2011

 

     On the Mastermind’s ship, a portal opened and a bed with a sleeping Austin came through it.

     “Dr. Fisher, bring him into the lab immediately. Get him ready for extraction.”

     “Yes, sir,” Dr. Fisher said, bringing the bed into a separate room on the ship.

     The Mastermind then heard gunshots on the other side of the portal.

     “Fisher! Close this portal right away!”

     Fisher fumbled around the lab and got one of the portal closing guns. He pointed it at the portal and shot it.

     “It’s too late for him now. Is he going through the mental entrapment?”

     “Yes but there will be some flashes since the mind will naturally resist the entrapment.”

     “Flashes?”

     “Every now and then, he’ll see this room for a split second. As the entrapment lasts longer, the flashes will get closer together and longer.”

     “So we have to finish the process before then?”

     “Yes.”
     The room they were in had a glass window. On the other side of this window was a black walled room with a single steel chair in the center. Austin was strapped to this chair and had a band around his head with a few wires attaches to the band that led through the ceiling and into the console on the other side of the glass.

     There was also a console on the side of the room Austin was facing where two arms could fit inside arm holes with wires connected to them also leading to the console.

     “How much longer ‘til we can begin the process?”

     “Five more minutes before his resistance is lowered enough.”

 

In the battle on the island, a portal opened and Mo-on, Bianca, Ivan, Marella, Dorothy, and Alyssa went through and the portal closed immediately.

    The crater in the center was getting bigger. The battle was slowly moving away from the center.

     Almost instantly, one of the Mastermind’s henchmen attacked Mo-on from behind. He retaliated by switching his center of gravity sideways causing him to fall towards the side of the island. He desperately tried to cling on to one of his comrades but Mo-on just switched that one’s pull as well.

     “That’s a bit cold blooded. Are they gonna die?” Ivan asked.

     “I dunno. They’ll probably end up on the side of a ship in the South Pacific.”

     The others also joined in the battle.

 

Lui teleported everyone except Janella in the ship and the guards in the hangar immediately charged for them. They fought them off and headed for the main part of the ship.

     “Kyle…” Patrick said.

     “What?”

     “What if the Mastermind wins? What if he gets all of Austin’s powers? What then?”

     Kyle stopped for a while and thought about this. He then smiled and looked at Patrick.

     “He won’t win, Pat. We’re the heroes…” Kyle said with half-confidence.

    

Austin had tried everything to get out of the room.

     “D****t! There’s no way out.”

     Suddenly, he saw a lab for a good three seconds before going back to the room.

     “There! I just saw a lab. S**t! It’s the Mastermind’s. They’re probably sucking out my powers as we speak!”

    

“Initiating power sap,” Dr. Fisher said as he turned the dial to the “Material Absorbance” spoke on the console.

     The Mastermind felt a surge of energy as the machine began to work.

 

“Think, think, d****t!” Austin said to himself as he sat down in one corner of the room. He then felt power leaving his body and saw that the Material Absorbance spoke was flashing on the Band.

     “They’re one spoke in…” Austin said out loud.

     “Nothing you can do about it…” the reflection said.

     “Wait. A while back, the Mastermind injected something in me. It was to allow better absorption of powers by psychic cells. I mean, for any other person, the overload of powers would kill him. How does he fix that problem? Simple, he lumps them all into the psychic spoke control, the one he’s mastered.”

     “Still, nothing you can do about it.”

     “Yes there is. Psychic is controlled by the mind and only one thing surpasses the mind, the soul.”

     “Are you going into some religious, meta, nosebleed-inducing bullshit right now?”

     “No, I’m not. I mean in the hierarchy of the spokes. An umbrakinetic would have the upper hand over a psychic.”

     “Umbrakinetic?”
     “Aren’t you my reflection? You should know this stuff. Control of darkness, umbrakinesis. Not physical darkness but negative thoughts, emotions, it is the only thing the mind cannot fully comprehend.”
     “Yak, yak, yak, get to the point.”

     Austin saw the spoke go out and another three-second-flash of the lab.

     “If I hold on to the umbrakinetic spoke, I should be able to at least be one step below the Mastermind instead of him completely overpowering me.”

     “Whoop dee doo. How do you hold on to that when all your powers are being sucked out?”
     “The flashes. They’re getting more frequent and longer. If I can catch one of them while holding on to the power when he has all but one, I can overcome the device.”

     “How?”
     “The device is putting my mind into this prison and the multiple powers in my system is weakening each spoke. Think of it as two pizzas, as of now, my pizza has twenty-three slices. If I can switch it out for a single slice pizza…”

     “That wouldn’t be a slice now, would it?”

     “No but that’s not the point. The point is, I can focus on the umbrakinesis and overcome the mind prison using umbrakinesis.”

     “So, to make this simpler, you’ll use your feelings to get out.”

     “That’s the lame way to describe it but yes, essentially higher presence over mind over matter.”

     “That made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. You getting out of here will just seem like deus ex bullshitima or some convoluted and contrived reasoning to get your sorry a*s back out there.”

     “You know what? I also figured out another thing, you aren’t my reflection. You’re a pawn placed in here made to act like my reflection when in fact; you’re here to screw me up. S**T!”

     Austin suddenly felt a gigantic surge of power leaving him as he desperately tried to hold on to the umbrakinesis spoke, S-11.

      “What the hell is happening out there?”

    

Kyle and his team broke into the lab and found themselves behind the glass wall.

     “Stop this machine right now!” Kyle said to Dr. Fisher.

     “You think you mutants are better simply because you have superhuman abilities. Well, I refused those abilities for this very moment.”

     Fisher hit a switch on the console. Small panels on the walls turned, revealing ARM shields. Fisher then took out a handgun and pointed it at Kyle and his team.

     “You will all stay put while I finish this process or he dies,” Fisher said, pointing the gun at Kyle.

     Fisher pushed the dial and activated absorption on all the spokes simultaneously. He pushed the auto button and fired two shots at the console.

     “Now nothing can stop this,” Fisher said.

    

“I’m losing everything else! It’s working!” Austin said as he held on to umbrakinesis. He let everything else go.

     “Well good for you.”

     “At least you’re not on his side.”

     “Yeah, I’m on nobody’s side.”

     “Look, I’m almost completely drained. Once that happens, the next flash is my ticket out so I won’t be seeing you.”

      “Well, good bye.”

      “AHH!” Austin said as he felt fifteen different spokes exit him at once “Seven to go!”
     “Hey,” the other Austin said. “If you fail it’s everybody’s funeral.”

     Austin held on harder as five more spokes exited his body. One more left. Last one.

      He felt it leave and all of a sudden there was a flash and he lost his grip for a moment. That last one left and all he had was umbrakinesis.

     The sucking force was now focused on this one and the next flash wasn’t for another thirty or forty-five seconds or so. He held on as hard as he could and finally, there was a flash. He unleashed all the stored energy and he caused an explosion in the lab, breaking him out of the mind prison.

     He fell down to the floor, completely exhausted as the Mastermind casually pulled his arms out of the machine.

     “Twenty-three spokes… Not bad…”

     The Mastermind blew telekinetically lifted Austin up in the air and opened his eyes. He stared right into them.

     “I’m invincible now. So here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to throw you off of this ship and I’m going to blow up this ship with me and all your friends in it. I’ll definitely survive but they won’t since they’ll be stuck in that Anti-Radioactive Cell. Afterwards, I’m going to put every single person on that Island, dead or alive, six feet under. Then I’ll finish the job with a power sap and leave you all alone on the Island with everyone you knew and loved and every gizmo you can possibly use in the future against me underground and all you will have in the end are your negative emotions. Great deal, eh?”

     “Do not underestimate me…”

     “Oh, I’m not. I know you’ll come around to bite me in the a*s later on but right now, I’m just going to do the most I can before moving on to phase two, okay?”

     He used his ghost powers simultaneously and threw Austin through the wall of the room into freefall. He then released a gigantic explosion and turned his body into fire simultaneously. He flew out of the wreck but the ship exploded.

     Austin was falling down with a superpower he barely used. He tried flying but he didn’t know how to fly with, as his “reflection” pointed out, his “feelings”. Then he saw the Mastermind’s ship blowing up and was instantly filled with rage. He went back to the time on his porch when he and Kyle first discovered how to use the powers. He closed his eyes, imagined himself within a dark aura or something like that, opened his eyes, and continued the illusion. Pretty soon he was surrounded with a dark aura. He stopped falling and he maneuvered himself back up to the falling debris.

     Austin then saw everyone who was on the ship slowly falling. He flew up to the nearby Pegasus and saw Janella there. He sensed a dark corner in one of the ship’s compartments and entered through there. He went out of the compartment and saw Janella at the controls.

     “Austin! I swear, I didn’t do anything.”

     “Open the back hatch,” Austin said, getting into the Anonymous. He changed it to van mode as Janella opened the hatch. Austin drove through it and kept the van in the air. He saw Patrick turning his teammates to fire as Austin flew close.

     “Lui, the Anonymous!” Patrick yelled. Lui teleported them all in the Anonymous.

     “How the hell did you guys survive that?” Austin asked.

     “I knew the ship was gonna blow up so I held on to everyone and kept on turning us into fire and Erika worked on phasing us out of there, even though our powers were disabled,” Patrick said. “Then for a split second, we were burning. The next, we were all fine and in freefall.”

     “How did you get out of that mess?” Kyle asked.

     “It would take an unnecessarily long time to reiterate but as the mirror would say, Deus Ex Bullshitima.”

     “What?”
     “We have to get to the Pegasus and go after the Mastermind.”

     Then and there they saw Janella being thrown through the side of the Pegasus.

     “I think the Mastermind got control of the ship…” Ivan said.

     “Thanks for the info,” Austin said sarcastically as he maneuvered the Anonymous towards Janella. “Lui, get her in here.”

     Lui teleported Janella into the Anonymous as Austin blasted full speed towards it.

     “Alright, what is happening?!” Janella asked.

     “Basically, the man you met is the new and improved Mastermind with all the powers except Austin’s, I think,” Kyle said.

     “Yeah,” Austin said, glaring at the Pegasus in front of him.

     “And now, if I guessed correctly, Austin has the only power that can beat the Mastermind. Is that right?”
     “I’m a few points behind him but hey, I beat Misty with a Charmeleon in LeafGreen. I can screw around with this guy definitely.”

     “You know, very few people pull off looking serious while chasing a jet with a flying van but you do it perfectly,” Patrick said.

     “Alright, here’s what’s gonna happen. I jump out and you take the wheel. Take this thing down to the battlefield and you guys try to help out there. Gather all of the terrakinetics and stop the Island from going under.”

     “They’re caused by charges,” Kyle said.

     “If destroying the charges will do any good, do it. We have to win this. Wait, where’s Ernst?”

     “He… He got shot trying to save your life…” Kyle said.

     “What? Shot as in with a bullet?”

     “Yeah.”
     “A real gun? Not a superpowered one?”

     “Unfortunately…”

     “F**k this s**t. It’s personal.”

     Austin hit full speed as he opened the door.

     “Patrick, get ready.”

     “Austin,” Erika said. “I’m coming with you.”

     “I know you have a score to settle but you don’t have the power to�"“

     “I have the motivation and the bloodlust, that’s all I need. And you’re gonna need this.”

     Erika gave Austin a dart gun.

     “That has five darts in it. I have fourteen with me.”

     “It’s gonna be a miracle if we can get that in his system.”

     “It’s a miracle we got out of that explosion. Another one isn’t too implausible.”

      “Let’s get out of here. Patrick, grab the wheel and the Power Shift.”

     Patrick did so causing the car to be engulfed with fire.

     Austin and Erika jumped out as they maneuvered towards the Pegasus. The Anonymous went downwards as they entered the jet.

 

“Mr. Fernandez, how nice of you to drop by. And, what a surprise, Ms. Sanchez too.”

     “Drop the formalities. This ends now,” Erika said coldly as she took out the dart gun and shot at the Mastermind. He stopped the darts in mid-air.

     “Stupid girl, did you really think that would work?” he asked and Austin glanced at Erika with the same question in mind. The Mastermind threw the dart back at Erika and she quickly dodged it and picked it up to prevent the Mastermind from using it.

     Austin surrounded himself with a dark aura and began firing dark spheres at the Mastermind. It slowed him down significantly when he was deflecting these.

     The Mastermind then used the steel control powers to knock spare parts into Austin and Erika. Erika went into ghost form and all these passed through her as she went closer to the Mastermind. He sensed this and sent a ghost powered pulse all over the place, knocking Erika back a little and taking her out of ghost form.

     He then dropped a piece of debris on her. She quickly phased to let the debris through but he quickly sent a ghost powered shockwave above her head, sending her down through the bottom of the ship. He then activated the ARM shields outside the ship.

     “Alone at last. What a relief, right Mr. Fernandez?”

     “Austin fired a dark powered beam head on towards the Mastermind as he deflected it with a combination of all the powers. Since all of his spokes were technically under the psychic spoke, it didn’t overpower his beam as fast as it would normally. It took about five times longer but that still wasn’t enough time to think of an escape.

     He felt stupid since he came here to end things and now he wanted to escape. He looked at his watch. It was fifteen minutes to midnight.

     Then it dawned to him, everyone who got hurt, including Ernst, now deserved justice and this man in front of him needed to pay.

     Austin’s anger got stronger and stronger and he channeled this into a dark�"powered beam that caught the Mastermind off guard. Austin hit the console and the Pegasus was now spiraling towards the water a few miles away from the Island’s shore.

     Austin then charged his hands with umbrakinetic power and charged at the Mastermind, aiming multiple blows at his face. He dodged most of these and hit Austin with a fiery punch in the stomach, sending him back.

     The Pegasus now hit the water as the energy went out. Austin pulled a switch on the console using a dark aura and the ship was now submerged in darkness.

     Austin turned into a shadowy form before the Mastermind made a light explosion, blowing Austin into the side of the ship and blinding him for a few seconds. When he opened his eyes, he was instantly met with a fireball.

     He blocked it with a dark shield but it still passed through. He dodged at the last second.

     The Mastermind then blew out a large portion of the ceiling above Austin, pinning him to the floor. The water began to seep in. The brightness in the room was distracting him. IN his research, he knew that umbrakinesis was not focused on physical darkness but rather a darkness of the soul. This light was not the thing weakening him but rather the lack of focus in the situation.

     “You could have been a god, Mr. Fernandez, with all your power. It’s a shame you didn’t harness it when you had the chance.”

     The Mastermind dropped some debris onto Austin’s left body which pinned him to the ground some more.

     “The formerly great Austin Fernandez, lost at sea. How anti-climactic…”

     The Mastermind went out through the hole in the ceiling and left Austin there.

      After a while, the Austin regained focus and tried to lift the debris of him. He could still feel pain but he could use this physical pain to strengthen his powers, a neat little trick he had to master.

     Pressured by the water slowly filling the ship, he tried to levitate the debris on top of his legs and he succeeded a little. He definitely needed more practice. He pulled his legs out of the debris and now had to pull out his left arm. Then he realized why the Mastermind dropped something on his left arm instead of his right arm or his head for the matter.

     He couldn’t pull his arm out because of the Black Band. He hit it as hard as he can in the sides of the spaces underneath the debris. Eventually, he broke the band and was able to pull his hand out. As the ship sank deeper, it got darker, allowing Austin to transport himself through the shadows. Physical darkness wasn’t the focus of his powers but it was still useable.

 

As Erika fell out of the ship, her head fumed in anger as she tried to get back in, to no avail.

     “When I get the chance, I will kill him,” she said to herself. She remembered Isaac and his innocent smile and how the Mastermind destroyed that.

     She down to the Island and went into the Base.

     “Derek,” Erika said, marching into the male ward.

     “Erika, where’s your sister?”

    “I haven’t seen her. Look, the Mastermind’s winning this game. He has all but one of Austin’s powers and is one clean escape away from…” Erika only now realized how serious the situation was. “He’s gonna destroy the f*****g universe, Derek, and it’s up to us to stop him!”

     “Ernst, I have to deal with some business. Will you be fine?”

     “Just lock the door on your way out. I have this IV pole to keep me company.”

     “Let’s get the weapons.”

     “Bianca took them,” Ernst said.

     “Right,” Erika said as she punched the wall in anger. “D****t! Can’t we catch a f*****g break?! The end of the f*****g world is f*****g near and we can’t even get a f*****g weapon! F**K!”

     “Erika, calm down!”

     “Son of a b***h! S**t! F**k!”

     “That’s it, Ernst, did John have anything else in here?”

     “You can check the Tech Garage but they already took everything out of there. There’s a broken electric guitar in the shelf and that’s pretty much it.”

     “There’s nothing in the shelves, I know that much. Erika where is he?”

     “He’s in the f*****g Pegasus.”

     “Damn.”

     “And Austin’s nearly powerless and hanging on a f*****g thread.”

     “Maybe that guy has something?” Ernst said, pointing to his attacker.

     Derek went to his body and took his pistol. He released the magazine and saw that it was nearly empty. He found an extra on his belt. Erika found a spare Telegun lying around.

     “How many f*****g Teleguns do you have around here?” she asked.

     Derek checked the guy’s pockets and he found a Swiss army knife. He put that in his pocket and stood up.

     “We have a gun and a knife.”

     “Do you have Isaac’s darts?” Erika asked.

     “I have ten.”

     “Let’s go and kill that m**********r.”

     “You’re not thinking clearly, Erika. He’s got all the powers and you have some man made weapons, ghost powers and explosion powers. He can stop your darts.”

     “He f*****g murdered my brother; I am going to take an eye for an eye.”

    

Austin pulled himself out on the main island. There was an all out war going on as the Island was folding up into a crater. He was losing hope.

     “Austin!” Derek said. “Where’s the Mastermind?”

     “I don’t know. He got away.”

     “Son of a f*****g b***h!” Erika exclaimed.

     “Failure is not an option. We have to find him.”

     “What do you suggest we do about the a*****e?” Derek said.

     “Wait, if he’s going to finish it, he’s going take someone with him. Spike…”

     Austin then looked in the sky and saw about thirty smaller ships just hovering but one was moving away from the Island.

     “Hang on,” Austin said as he created a shadow vortex below them and they slowly went through.

 

They materialized on the ship and saw that nobody was piloting it. The men were all dead.

     “We’ve been suckered…” Derek said, punching the wall in anger. “D****t!”

     “Wait… I think I know where he’s going… “

     “Austin,” Kyle said to him telepathically.

     “Kyle…” Austin said back but he noticed that it wasn’t telepathic. It was through their link in the Mutant Bond.

     “Where’s the Mastermind?”

     “I don’t know. He could be anywhere!”

     “Where are you?”

    “On Spike’s ship.”

     “Check if you can stop the charges there.”

     Austin looked around and saw the “ACTIVATE CHARGES” button but there was no stop button. He looked on the console and there was a keypad there. Below the keypad was an “INITIATE COMMAND” button.

     Austin looked around for a manual or something. He found nothing.

     “There’s nothing here, Kyle.”

      “D****t, he won…”

     “No, he didn’t. Not yet. We’re still here…”

     Then it dawned on Austin.

     “Erika, Derek, we’re still here. The Mastermind isn’t unraveling the space-time continuum or whatever he’s going to do!”

     “Which means what?” Derek asked.

     “He’s waiting for something.”

     “What?”

     Spike suddenly jumped out of a room in the back of the ship.

     “Time to die, Mr. Fernandez.”

     Austin was thinking of what the Mastermind could be waiting for as he tried to push Spike’s spike covered arms away from his face. He pinned Derek and Erika to the wall with spikes and tried to force his arm into Austin’s face.

     Austin blasted him with dark power and he seemed only a minimally affected by it. Erika phased through the spikes, not having done so earlier due to being distracted by her rage.

     She took out her dart gun and fired at Spike, another accessory to her brother’s murder. Spike dodged this and put Austin in the way. He pulled out just in time.

     Derek pulled the spikes out of his arm without flinching and went in to punch Spike in the face. Spike jumped out of the way and shot a spike towards Austin.

     “Too bad I can’t hurt you by destroying that band anymore.”

     He grabbed him and nearly shoved his spiked fingers into his eye sockets when he saw Erika about to stab him with the dart. He shot a spike at her and she went into ghost mode and dropped the dart. She then lunged into Spike to possess him but he resisted like all hell.

     He banged his head desperately on the wall to get her out. He shot a spike at his left knee and the pain rang through his entire body but it forced Erika out. He then fired three spikes at Austin’s head, which he dodged.

     “Derek, f**k this s**t and blow him up!” Erika said. Derek fired an explosion beam at Spike which blew open the back of the ship. While trying to get back on his feet, Austin used a dark aura to throw the dart towards Spike. It hit him and Derek held him towards the open end of the ship.

     “How do you stop the charges?!” Austin asked.

     “You’re powerless for three hours, a*****e. How do you stop the charges?!” Erika said, pushing Spike lower.

     “On the flagship!” Spike said.

     “Where’s the Mastermind?! What happened to your men?”

     “I don’t know...”

     Erika pushed him lower so that he was kneeling forward with his knee a bit over the edge.

     “Where is he?!”

     “I don’t know!”

     Then all of a sudden, everything went quiet. A portal appeared in front of Austin, Derek, Erika, and Spike. The Mastermind came out telekinetically holding Scarlett by the neck. He stopped the ship they were on from falling, holding it at a convenient level for a conversation.

     “Poor girl tried to hit me with those stupid darts. I sent them back. Now she has, what did you say? Three hours? Before you can consider it safe to do something stupid.”

     The Mastermind turned to the people on the Island.

     “You are all going to die. That is inevitable. If I drop Scarlett here and they drop Spike, none of that matters because,” he turned back to face the people on the falling ship. “We’re all going to the same place.”

     Austin realized at that moment what the Mastermind was waiting for. He was waiting for the Island to go underground to eliminate any threat. Spike was here to clean up. He remembered how when he was out of control last year and he created an unstable portal, John used a gun to close it. It was a gun that could stabilize the time-space continuum. He was waiting for its destruction as well as anyone else who could be a threat to his plan.

     “Now I am offering you a ticket a peaceful death. Being buried underground is much more painless than seeing the end of the world. You can all just wait for the Island to go under or you can keep on fighting, resisting, and I will ensure that you will regret every single second of your rebellion.”

     He turned to the ship.

     “Let Spike go.”

     “Let her go first,” Derek said.

     “As you wish,” Mastermind said as he created a force field cylinder from where he was all the way to the ground to prevent anyone from catching her.

     Acting on impulse, Austin turned himself into dark energy and jumped towards the Mastermind. He fired several dark spheres at the force field, destroying it and allowing people below to catch Scarlett.

     Austin charged his hands with dark power and began to punch the Mastermind in the face. He didn’t seem the least bit hurt at all.

     “You have been the most annoying obstacle yet!”

     The Mastermind grabbed Austin’s shoulders and headbutt him as they crashed on the Island. The other people on the Island began firing at him before he charged up a lot of energy and released a gigantic multi-power pulse, pushing everyone away from where he was. He put a force field cylinder lined with all the powers around a thirty meter radius that reached until the sky.

     “Plenty of space for me to kill you now, isn’t it Mr. Fernandez?”

     He lifted him by his shirt and aimed a super strong punch at his face. He couldn’t even harness his powers for a split second to defend himself. Even this pain was too much.

     “Austin! Come on! You can do this!” people were shouting form the other side of the force field. The Mastermind reinforced it so that Austin couldn’t hear anything from the other side at all.

     “I made it soundproof so that you don’t get inspired or some dumb s**t like that.”

     Austin’s couldn’t hear anything but the hard, packing sounds of the Mastermind blows to his body.

     The Island was now a giant crater and people were getting closer to the force field at the center of the island in an attempt to avoid the imminent collapse of the walls of the crater.

     The Mastermind held Austin telekinetically in the air and tossed him diagonally upwards towards the force field. He activated the electric part of it and he was electrocuted as he hit the force field. He yelled in pain. He could hear nothing else.

     “I feel sorry for you, Mr. Fernandez, because for fourteen years, your entire life has been leading up to this moment. The greatest moment of your life was the moment you died.”

     Austin then remembered T.E.A.G.S, Patola, The ASG saving him, the current team, them getting their powers the first time, the day he realized his true feelings for Autumn. His life was already flashing before his eyes.

     The Mastermind lifted him up again and set him on fire. Austin tried his best to break free but he could only manage to drop to the ground. He was still burning. The pain was so intense.

     His mind wandered to the time when he first met Kyle. They hated each other back then; or rather Kyle hated him for being too smart. Fast forward to fifth grade when they became best friends.

     Austin released a faint dark aura which extinguished the fire. The Mastermind then lifted him up and electrocuted him.

     He went back to when he first met Ivan in eleven years ago. It was an instant friendship.

     He then flashed back to when he first met Patrick. His mom saw him playing with a toy bike in the house beside his five years ago. She invited him to play inside the house and they have been friends ever since.

     Austin broke free of the psychic hold but was still being electrocuted on the ground.

     He first met Ernst twenty-one months ago. His name alarmed him on the org list but he turned out all right. Then their first conversation revolved around cheese-flavored French fries.

     Austin broke free of the electrocution and reached for the darts in a last ditch effort.

    The Mastermind held him back up and released spikes from his body. He slowly pushed them into Austin’s body as he screamed in pain.

     He first met Bianca in a terrible incident. Ivan called him out of the Albay room and Bianca was playing with a ping pong ball outside their room with another girl. Ivan went behind Bianca and Austin caught the ball. He signaled Ivan to catch it. I went over Bianca’s head but Ivan failed to catch it. It went all the way to the first floor where two foreigners saw it and fought over it.

     He released a dark pulse that released him from the hold, forced away the spikes, but dropped him to the ground. He was bleeding in where the spikes had gone inside his body.

     “That’s it, Mr. Fernandez. No more games…”

     The Mastermind snapped his fingers and a giant fissure opened up beneath Austin. He fell in. He snapped his fingers again and the fissure closed. Just then, the edges of the crater began to cave in as everyone tried to escape. Some tried flying away but the Mastermind drew everyone towards the center of the Island.

     He first met Janella a year ago, about the same time as Ernst. Then he realized this wasn’t helping as much as the others but it was worth a shot.

     He met Mo-on nine months ago. They weren’t friends to begin with but eventually, they became airtight.

     Marise was usually seated diagonal from him and she would give him the best conversations. Eventually, he realized that she was completely awesome. He fell in love…

     He met Sir Jojo and Ms Mac on the same day. They were two of the best teachers he ever had and two of the very few teachers he actually felt a connection with. He also remembered Ms. Sharon and Sir Geck and all the other teachers…

     He remembered Derek, Scarlett, Nelson, Erika, and Isaac. How he accidentally killed Isaac. The Mastermind did this.

     He felt like he was dead already. He heard a rumbling outside. “The Island’s going under…”

     It was pitch dark here and he felt his strength coming back to him after that montage of memories.

     “What a cliché…” he thought.

     But then he realized that he wasn’t underground, he was in a shadow. He sensed for an exit point, readied the dart gun, and went out.

     He was back on the island. The Mastermind was drawing everyone towards the center where he was so protected.

     “All of your powers are still under psychic… I can beat you…” Austin said to himself.

     He turned himself into pure dark energy and charged towards the force field at full speed. It shattered and the Mastermind was forced to the ground.

     He pointed the dart gun at him and fired four shots one after another. He stopped all five just in time and sent them back.

     “How many times will it take to get it in your system that that won’t work?!”

      “It doesn’t matter anymore if it doesn’t work. I’m just here to piss you off,” Austin said insultingly. “By the way, when I first saw your face back in December, you disappointed me. I was expecting some kind of pants-shittingly  scary kind of guy but you know what? You’re just another guy who just happens to have superpowers. But hey, so am I.”

     Austin fired a full power dark beam at the Mastermind. He fired back with a multi-powered beam. Austin put all of his might into his beam. He redirected all the power to his left hand as he grabbed the dart gun and fired another shot at the Mastermind. He stopped the dart in mid-air but lost focus and got hit full force by the dark beam.

     “You can’t win. I’m this close!”

     He grabbed Austin telekinetically but he shielded himself with a dark aura, enabling him to resist telekinesis.

     He fired a fireball at Austin but he just ducked.

     “You’ve lost your edge.”

     Austin grabbed the floating dart and stabbed the Mastermind in the chest but he put all of his remaining power into stopping him. Austin put his dark aura behind his right arm as he pushed down harder on the Mastermind’s chest.

     “Not now, not today, not ever, Mr. Fernandez!”

     They struggled for a little more. Austin was getting tired but he remembered Isaac and how his life was ended abruptly because of this man’s actions. He remembered how he hurt his friends and how he turned this simple night on the island into an all out battle.

     He put all his anger behind the dart. Suddenly, he felt a dart whoosh from behind him and straight into the Mastermind’s chest.

     Everyone was finally able to escape the collapsing crater. Austin looked behind him and Erika was there, lowering her dart gun.

     “Guess it worked now, huh a*****e?!”

     Derek followed and grabbed the Mastermind by the back of his head.

     “Kneel; a*****e!” he shouted as he pointed the gun at his head. “This is for everything.”

     “Wait, Derek,” Austin said.

     “Don’t you give me s**t about not killing him! This has gone on for too long!”

     All of a sudden, Derek pulled the man’s head back and jammed the gun he was holding down his mouth. Then Austin had a split second realization. Derek had a gun on a holster on his belt. The one he was holding was a�"

     Derek pulled the trigger and a portal stretched out from the middle of the Mastermind’s torso. The life left his eyes immediately as the top half of his body slid into the portal as the bottom half slumped down.

     Austin made a giant shadow vortex below everyone who was still on the island and he sent them to where it all began.

 

They went out in Seton back in the city. Pretty soon the Anonymous, the bus, and everyone else who flew away began teleporting in the same place. Austin jumped back through the shadow vortex and went out in the Base.

     He rushed into the male ward and saw Ernst trying to get out. His eyes lit up when he saw Austin.

     “You’re alive!”

     “Let’s get out of here,” Austin said as he led him the shadow vortex just before the ceiling collapsed.

     They went back to the school as everyone sat down for a while to take a deep rest. The injured were being healed in one corner.

     Austin saw John and approached him.

     “Anyone dead?” Austin asked nervously.

     “When the charges were activated, the war became less dangerous than the charges. Everyone was focused on getting away from the crater, like that’s possible, rather than trying to kill each other. Some serious injuries but everyone’s okay.”

    “Thank God…”

     Austin went over to his team.

     “How was your first major battle?” he said with a smile.

     “You’re joking about this?!” Mo-on asked.

     “It’s my third personally.”

     “Me too,” Patrick said.

     “Technically, it’s my second since I wasn’t exactly in the first,” Ivan said.

     “Eh, it was fun,” Marise said and Austin smiled immediately.

     Janella was silent all the way through and Austin was partly relieved because he didn’t have to deal with her tonight.

     “So Mo-on, how was it?” Bianca asked.

     “Eh… I don’t know. What I do know is this: gravity rocks!”

     Austin went over to Clutch and some other CV folk gathered in one spot.

     “Guys, I’m afraid the penthouse of the hotel will be unavailable for our farewell party,” Austin said in a matter-of-fact tone.

     “My building’s still intact,” Clutch said.

     They settled that the farewell party be held there.

     Austin then saw Derek, Erika, Nelson, and Scarlet together. He felt a bit disturbed at how they dealt with the Mastermind but overall, he was just relieved that everything was over.