Chapter 10

(After a long hiatus, I've begun work on my novel again)

Steve was just going to the store for his mother, bread, milk, eggs, that's all he needed to get, oh yes, and a bag of ice. Well Steve never would have thought getting a bag of ice would have such dire consequences. Steve opened the door to the ice box only to find a body lying across the ice. "Excuse me," said Steve to the masked man, "Could you purchance get me a bag of ice which is underneath you."
The masked man clearly had not realized where he was and this was the first thing he had heard since waking up, he looked at the kid's face and did the only thing he thought to do in that situation, he flexed his mind. To Vortex's dismay however, doing so in close proximity resulted in his clothes being covered in vomit. It was at this point Jigsaw came walking out of the store, only to find a sick kid lying on the ground and Vortex slowly making his way out of the ice cooler, covered in vomit. "Oh good, you've awaken, I didn't know what to do for you since you were knocked out from that sink, but I thought ice would help."
"So you dumped me in an ice cooler?"
"Pretty keen don't you think?"
Vortex stepped over the body of Steve strewn out on the black top and walked with Jigsaw who had taken out and was nibbling on a Charleston Chew. "So what is our next move?"
"Well our buddies were taken, and there's no sign of them. So I thought, we may need some help."
"Some help? But who would we get help from?"
"Well... That's where I thought we may need some gifts, so I bought a cake."
"You don't mean..."

Harold was the last to wake up in the infirmary. Vicki was overlooking his injuries as he woke up, "Uh, what happened."
"We had a bit of a tussle, it was alright though, not much damage, everyone's coming out of it fine, you're the last to wake up but I think it's more so cause you haven't been getting enough sleep lately."
"Oh, well what are we up to now then, are we pursuing those guys who came in?"
"No, I've scheduled everyone in for some much needed R&R. So there's not much you can do but to do that, you know you can't get out of my scheduling."
"That's why you're the Boss." He chuckled.
"So I've been meaning to ask you," Vicki said as Harold got to his feet, "What's the link between you and this Leo fellow."
"It's all about my past, I guess I haven't told you the whole story have I?"
"No, not as much."
"Well it starts back in college. I was tired all the time back then."
"You? Tired?"
"Yeah I know, hard to believe isn't it, but I had a boring job, a couple of friends and not much else to my life. But then one day I found the magic tea bag of power and I got my powers from that. Anyways, back in those days, I had two best friends, we would always go out to lunch and have parties and play video games and all that. Well right around the time I got my powers, Leo Richmond, one of the two guys started getting a little shady, he was telling us about all the things he would do once he had a lot of money, and that for him it was coming soon. We didn't think much of it until one day he actually won the lottery and we never saw him again, well that is I never saw him again until he came and attacked us."
"That is so interesting. What ever happened to the other friend?"
"I don't know, his name was Johnny Victor, I had gotten my hyper powers and had met Percy shortly after that, Percy had met Johnny once or twice before Johnny went on a business meeting to Spain, he wrote me a letter about a month later saying he had found his life calling being a conquistador and that he wasn't coming back any time soon. I wrote him a couple of letters after that but he never replied again."
"A Bull fighter huh?"
"Guess so."


When you're used to waking up on the best beds money can buy, waking up on the cold hard ground can be awfully frightening. Leo found that out first hand, he woke up to feel hard rock beneath him and bolted to his feet in a state of shock.
"Good you're awake."
Leo turned to look where the voice was coming from, and it was from a man sitting in chair behind some iron bars. It took Leo a second or two to realize who it was.
"Johnny?"
"Right you are there Leo, who woulda thunk that you winning the lottery wasn't just luck eh?"
"What on earth are you doing? Why do you have my locked up? Who you working for?"
"Now now there champ, calm down, it'll all come in time, you just give it time. All you really need to know is my boss is in need of your power and so I was sent to bring you in, I couldn't believe it was really you though, I thought I'd never see you again."
"What happened to you?"
"What happened to me? What happened to you, you just bolted when you got your money, left me and Harry all by our lonesomes, because of you I had to find something to do with my life, a new direction, and that's when I found Bull fighting. I became a full fledged conquistador, and I was damn good too, then you know how it gets you fall in with the wrong crowd and before you know you're working for an evil mastermind bent on world domination."
"No, I don't know what that feels like."
"Sure you do, all your money has gone to your head, you're soft now Leo, look, I just wanted to tell you that you better do what my boss says otherwise your life will be ruined. That's all, he has one of your buddies too, just in case you decide not to help him out, luckily he doesn't know I used to be one of your buddies, or else I'd be in trouble too. Good thing he wouldn't believe you if you said anything. But look, as I said, just do what he tells you and you'll be safe and sound, you got it?"
"Yeah, I got it, hey Johnny, it's good to see you."
"Yeah Yeah, he'll be in to see you in a little bit."
And so Leo waited and wondered what was going to happen to him.