Boboiboy: Elemental Tales

Mind Games (Part 4)

A/N: And finally, the last part of Mind games. How will Blaze take back TAPOPS station? Will he take back TAPOPS station?

***

Fortunately, the vents were tripwire-free. Heart thundering in his chest, Blaze crawled through the maze, trying to keep as quiet as possible and maintain some sense of direction. (It kind of reminded him of that time he'd gotten lost while looking for flags in a maze of ravines - only this time the stakes were much higher.)

Every now and then he'd catch a glimpse of a mind-controlled TAPOPS member patrolling a room, some of whom he recognized. The closer he got to his goal, the more familiar they seemed to get. Blaze swallowed when he caught sight of Gopal and Solar among them.

However, except for Sai and Shielda, the computer room itself was empty of people.

Blaze heated up the vent cover and then bent it as quietly as possible. He dropped down without a sound behind a beeping machine. Sai and Shielda currently had their backs to him.

He smirked. This was almost too easy.

The temperature in the room climbed rapidly. Before Sai and Shielda had even caught on, they were already out cold on the floor.

Blaze surveyed the machinery in front of him. His eyes landed on what appeared to be the main controls (from what he could remember of his failed technology lesson from Solar) near the door. If he could shut that down, the mind control would probably stop.

He picked his way over the mess of wires to the monitor-like device and scanned a panel in front of it. The panel, as long as he was tall, was covered with all sorts of knobs and levers with different colours and symbols, and in the center sat an obnoxiously large red button with the power logo on it, covered by a protective glass box. Without a second thought, Blaze smashed the glass.

And then an alarm blared. Alright, maybe he should have known it wouldn't be that simple.

Blaze flung himself behind the monitor as the door slid open and there was the sound of multiple footsteps thundering into the room. He risked a peek, and couldn't help starting at what he saw.

All his brothers were rushing into the room. Their faces were still blank as ever, but they seemed to be doing a very good job of searching for an intruder (which, in this case, was not good at all).

Ice was standing right on the other side of his hiding spot, in front of the shutdown button, and didn't look like he was moving anytime soon. On the one hand, it was lucky because if Ice took a few steps forward, Blaze would be discovered. On the other hand, the button was pretty much off-limits.

Blaze quickly considered his options (what? He was capable of thinking when things got serious). One, he could stay where he was and hope that Ice went elsewhere before someone discovered him. Or two, he could take the risk of exposing himself and hope that he got to the button before Ice got to him.

Blaze liked taking risks.

As quickly as he could, he jumped out from behind the monitor and launched himself at the button, hand outstretched. His fingers had just brushed the surface and he was thinking that he'd made it when something hit his torso and his body immediately froze (literally; his head and the fingers touching the button were the only things not encased in ice). *

Blaze whipped his head around to see Ice lowering his bow as the others gathered behind him. He gulped.

"Uh, hey, guys..." Blaze tried to stall for time as he subtly increased his body temperature, hoping to melt the ice without alerting anyone, "See, I'm kinda trying to save you guys here, so could you, er, let me go now?"