New Age of Heroes 1: The League of Protectors - Dawn of a New Age (29 page)

“Jason?”

“You're okay,
I've got you.”

“Thank you,
now go help Noah.” Jessica replied tiredly. Jason nodded and
flew back towards Noah and Joe.

Joe had the upper
hand and his latest attack left Noah wheeling. Jason swooped low and
caught Joe's massive fist just before Joe could deliver another fist
to Noah's face. Joe broke Jason's hold and shoved him backwards.

“You seemed
awfully concerned over that woman back there,” Joe said. Joe
threw another punch and yet again Jason caught the attempt. Jason's
face was red with anger. He bent Joe’s arm and used his left
hand to deliver a crushing uppercut to Joe’s chin. Joe tumbled
backwards.

Noah used a leg
sweep to get Joe off his feet. The massive man hit the ground hard.
The impact of his fall shook the ground. It caused an incoming
driver, that seemed oblivious to the battle taking place to lose
control.

The car spiraled
wildly. Noah used his telekinesis to catch the car and safely bring
it to a stop. Noah concentrated and gently the car landed on the
ground. He gingerly walked over and checked on the driver and the
passenger. Besides a few bumps and bruises, the civilians were fine.
Noah instructed them to get as far away from the battle as they
could.

When Noah turned
back around, he found himself hit with a massive energy blast that
caught him near the shoulder. His flesh burned and the pain caused
Noah to fall to the ground. He cursed through gritted teeth as the
pain from the blast felt unbearable. He had been hit with blasts
before but this particular blast was so much more devastating. Noah
looked around for Jason and Jessica. He discovered that they suffered
the same fate as him. Noah tried to force himself back to his feet,
but the pain was too unbearable. Noah noticed a woman in white
approaching him just before he succumbed to the pain and fell
unconscious.

The woman in white
looked down at Joe, who was still lying on the ground from the
beating he took. “Unbelievable. You too? Aren't you suppose to
be the most dangerous man in the world? The most powerful man and you
couldn't even take these amateurs out? Pathetic!” the woman
exclaimed.

The woman in white
knew exactly who Joe Dorgan was but she wasn't the least bit
intimidated. Joe looked at her as if she was crazy. “Listen
here little lady, no one yells at me I’m…”

Before Joe Dorgan
could finish telling her his name, the woman opened her hand and by
sheer will power forced Joe to start choking.

“Silence!”
she demanded. Joe’s eyes grew angry as he tried to speak, but
nothing came out. “Do not speak unless spoken to animal. I am
not someone that will tolerate insubordination. Keep your mouth
closed. If you had done what you were supposed to do, I wouldn't have
to come here and clean up your mess.”

The woman looked
back to where Seth Maddox was standing. She instructed him to
teleport them all to the predetermined location. Seth nodded and in a
flash the entire group of Post Humans on scene disappeared.

28

All
that Remains

“Where are
they?” Mr. Connors asked nervously, “Tell me you can
track their location!" The worried man sat at the desk inside
his office. Five of his members were currently captured by a group of
equally impressive Post Humans. All that remained of the group was
Bianca Ramirez, Garrett Blake and Stephanie Morgan. Bianca was the
only one remaining that had any sort of real life experience in the
field. That experience however, wasn't going to do much against the
likes of Erik Masters, Seth Maddox, Kyle Stanton or even worse, Joe
Dorgan.

Bianca's ability
was mainly used as a defensive and healing measure. With her phasing
ability, if she grabbed hold of another member, Bianca could phase
them out of dimension preventing them from being attacked. Her gifts
would allow her to heal herself and others. Combat however was not
part of Bianca's repertoire. Her skills were tremendously lacking in
that department.

“Sir, she
might not be able to detect anything but I can! I'm fairly confident
someone with similar abilities as her own are somehow blocking
Stephanie from detection.” Garrett exclaimed. The young tech
master came rushing in the room with a laptop in hand. “Sir,
one of the tracking locators came back online a few minutes ago.”

Mr. Connors had a
perplexed look on his face. When The League was captured, the
tracking locators went offline. This was an easy indicator that the
locators were destroyed.

“Shaw
Enterprises had been working on a more advanced tracking locator for
the military, but it was still in the early stage of development.”
Garrett looked at his laptop with excitement and continued talking.
“Jason and I were discussing implementing this upgrade into The
League’s bag of technology. The idea was that in the event of
the locating device being destroyed, it would send out a signal burst
that could be traced on our network! Jason must have been wearing the
prototype because sure enough a few minutes ago a faint signal showed
up on my system!”

Mr. Connors clapped
his hands. Garrett's news was the first bit of good news he had
received since learning the group was captured. There was still hope
in finding his team.

“Where are
they?”

“They are
approximately 15 miles from downtown Chicago.”

Mr. Connors had a
solemn look on his face. Now that he had the location of his members,
he needed to figure out how to rescue them. Without his regular field
members available, the likelihood of a successful rescue attempt
seemed unlikely. Was this a mission he should contact G.U.A.R.D
about? Would they even be willing to aide in such an attempt?

After passing all
League mandated mission return protocols, Bianca walked into the room
dressed in all black with a gun firmly placed in a side holster.

“That's a new
look for you Bianca. I guess staying with Noah has opened up your
rebel side,” Garrett said. He wasn't sure if he was afraid or
turned on by Bianca's new look. She definitely had the fiery attitude
to match the new look.

“I’m
just waiting for the assignment. I'm ready for whatever the mission
is,” she replied.

Mr. Connors was
impressed with her enthusiasm. Garrett raised his eyebrow. He knew as
well as Mr. Connors did that Bianca wasn’t going to be able to
do much against the likes of Seth and company.

“Orders for
what? I know you aren’t thinking about going back out in the
field to try and rescue the team!” Garrett's voice sounded very
condescending but he was really just concerned about her.

“And what if
I am?” she fired back.

Garrett huffed.
“You've got about as much chance saving them as I do hooking up
with Jessica!”

Bianca rolled her
eyes. She wasn't going to dignify that statement with a reply.
Instead, she turned her attentions to Mr. Connors and pleaded her
case. She knew she wouldn’t last in a fight against Seth and
the rest of his group. But if she could somehow manage to get in
undetected, she was confident she could free the League and mount an
escape.

Mr. Connors wasn’t
too keen on that idea of sending Bianca back out in the field by
herself, but he didn't see too many other options. After several
minutes of deliberating, Mr. Connors agreed that Bianca slipping in
undetected was their best course of action. Well, it was their only
course of action. Mr. Connors immediately felt sick to his stomach at
the decision he had made, but this was part of the responsibility of
being a leader. It meant you had to make the tough decisions. Bianca
smiled at the decision. She too was extremely worried, but she was
confident she could get the job done.

“Garrett you
will be going with her,” Mr. Connors said.

Garrett Blake
quickly shook his head in protest. He wanted no part in the field and
he made that clear to Mr. Connors from the start.

“You are a
part of this team Mr. Blake and right now your team needs you more
than ever. Right now, Bianca needs you more than ever. She might be
able to phase inside the building undetected, but how will she get
pass the automated security settings? I need you there to shut it
down.”

Garrett did not
feel comfortable at all with the idea of being in the field. As much
as he wanted to help his team, he didn't think he was capable of
doing so from the field.

“Mr. Blake,
being in The League of Protectors means protecting others. It doesn’t
mean we protect only when the odds are in our favor, it means we
protect regardless of the odds. The odds are against us. Ms. Ramirez
can't do this alone. Are you going to help her or was I wrong about
you?”

Garrett Blake stood
there soaking in everything that Mr. Connors had just said. He
contemplated for a moment and then agreed to help as best he could.
“I’m going to need a gun,” Garrett held his hand
out and waited. Hesitantly, Mr. Connors pulled out a spare gun
resting inconspicuously inside a hidden compartment in his desk.
Garrett seemed to contemplate with himself on saying something else
but thought better of it.

“Good luck,”
Mr. Connors said.

“We’re
going to need it,” Garrett replied dreadfully as he followed
Bianca out of the office down to the lower levels, where the jet was
being stored.

He reluctantly slid
into the pilot’s seat. He had no fear of flying the jet as he
was arguably the team’s best pilot, but he did fear what would
happen after he landed it.

“So, you have
any idea how we’re going to do this? Bianca asked.

She was really
hoping he had a clue because she certainly didn’t.

“Yeah, I have
a few ideas,” Garrett said modestly. Garrett was a top rank
player on several war strategy games and he hoped some of that game
knowledge would work in a real life situation.

“Are any of
them good ideas?” Bianca asked.

Garrett chuckled
slightly, “Probably not, but here goes!” Garrett hit the
turbo accelerator on the jet and pushed forward to Chicago.

29

Rescue
Attempt

The cloaked jet
touched down near where the League was being held captive. Garrett
began having second thoughts about the rescue operation and was
seriously considering abandoning the mission. Bianca was also feeling
a bit apprehensive about the situation she volunteered herself for.
She began playing different scenarios through her head, all of which
ended with her and Garrett being captured.

“What do you
say we head back to headquarters and wait for some of those G.U.A.R.D
agents to help us?” Garrett asked. He felt like a punk for
making the suggestion. Bianca immediately shot the idea down. She
knew by the time G.U.A.R.D agents arrived on the scene the likelihood
of a rescue opt would have been greatly diminished.

“So how do
you want to do this?” she asked.

Garrett shook his
head, “I don’t want to do this!”

“Me either,
but we’re going to anyway!”

Garrett landed and
cloaked the jet as the two arrived at the location where the League
was being held. Bianca took the lead and approached the side of the
warehouse building.

“Wait! Don’t
phase in yet!” Garrett hissed seconds before Bianca phased
herself into the building.

“Garrett
we’re doing this so get over it!” The young woman turned
back around towards the wall and began phasing through it. Garrett
again stopped her.

“What’s
your problem?” Bianca was becoming very agitated with what she
perceived as Garrett’s cowardliness.

“You're going
to be caught if you phase in at this location.”

Bianca looked at
him curiously. “Why do you say that?”

Garrett looked at
the hand held device he was holding and pointed to three red dots.

“What’s
that?”

“This little
device detects heat signatures. Each red dot indicates where a person
is inside the building.”

Bianca hit Garrett
in the arm and smiled. “Don't you think you should've mentioned
you had this fancy little device from the start?”

“So how do we
tell which ones are our guys?” Bianca asked.

Garrett thought for
a moment. There wasn’t any real way for them to detect which
red dots were League members and which ones weren’t.

“So we've
only got a slight advantage.”

“Yeah, I
guess so,” Garrett replied.

Garrett looked at
the device and walked towards a section that indicated no red dots.
He glanced up towards Bianca and nodded.

“Here we go,”
she said. Bianca took Garrett by the hand and phased them both
through the solid wall. Garrett nearly threw up when he reached the
other side.

“Oh come on,
it wasn't that bad!” Bianca said.

Garrett's face was
flush red. “That’s easy for you to say, you do this all
the time!” Bianca rolled her eyes as she listened to Garrett
complain. “Quiet, we don’t want to get caught,” she
whispered.

Garrett and Bianca
continued walking around the warehouse, “So what do we do now?”
he asked.

“Check to see
if any of those red dots has a group of five. That’s most
likely where we’ll find them.” Garrett did as instructed
and smiled at his findings. On the east side of the building, the
device showed twelve red dots. Seven red dots spread out around the
room and five red dots that seemed to be lined up around each other.

“This room
has to be it!” he said louder than he should have as he pointed
to the room on the device. Bianca placed a finger over her mouth
motioning for him to be quiet. “Sorry,” he whispered.

Garrett led the way
to the room while Bianca followed closely behind him. The two
couldn’t have traveled more than a couple of feet when he
abruptly stopped walking. Moving quickly, he grabbed Bianca and hid
behind a stack of crates. Silently the two hid as loud vulgar men
neared the corner towards them. The hand held device Garrett was
holding indicated four men approaching. Garrett and Bianca looked at
each other, neither one of them were able to hide the fear that was
written all over their faces.