Viper's Bite

Chapter 20: A Friend-Turned Foe

Just then, Jaden, who had attended the concert and was in the bathroom for most of Mitchell and The Crawler's rampage, exited out onto the arena floor and saw The Viper, Mitchell, and The Crawler in a standoff. 

"Hey, sorry I missed out! Did anything happen up here while I was....?" Jaden's voice trailed off as she realized she was now cornered by two supervillains with The Viper close by. This caught Mitchell's attention, and he turned to look at her for a moment, recognizing the girl immediately. After altering his gaze between Jaden and The Viper for a while, he successfully managed to put two and two together. 

He laughed. "Hailey...." the boy sneered. "I should have known something was up. When you said you would 'think' about helping me.....you had already made your mind up, hadn't you?" 

"Hailey?" Jaden whispered, as she began to catch on as well. "You were The Viper this whole time....and you never told me?" 

"Mitchell.....what have you done to yourself?" the heroine asked, sounding devastated. "I did what you made me do," he replied. "I thought we were friends, but you SOLD ME OUT!" 

The Viper shook her head. "No....I....I was trying to protect you....." 

The boy chuckled. "Well....in a way, you did. If it weren't for you leaving me behind, Duncan would never have picked me up and recruited me into his ranks. And.....he never would've given me this power suit to heal my injuries." 

The Viper's heart sank as Mitchell explained everything, but a small part of her still had hope that he could be talked down. "Look, everything's gonna be okay, it's going to be alright...." she said, attempting to defuse the situation. 

"You don't bring hope and light to people," Mitchell responded, sounding almost disappointed. "You take it away." 

"No....no, Mitchell, wait...." she protested.

"Now, I'd say it's about time I returned the favor," he said. 

With that, he swiftly turned around, used his rocket boots to fly in Jaden's direction, and forcefully grabbed her off the ground, wounding her in the process. 

The Viper quickly fired her grappling hook and gave pursuit. "MITCHELL! MITCHELL, PUT HER DOWN!" she demanded as the two of them flew around the concert venue. Meanwhile, The Crawler anchored himself to the ground and began to fire devastating laser shots at The Viper with his new eye in an attempt to get her off Mitchell's tail. 

The heroine chased Mitchell around the arena for several minutes before Mitchell finally came to a stop, hovering high above the main stage. "Mitchell! This is between you and me! You want a fight?! Don't you want to get back at me?" The Viper taunted, hoping this would take his attention off of Jaden. 

Mitchell shrugged. "Okay, fine," he said, dropping Jaden and making her fall several feet towards the hard stage floor. 

"Wait, NO!" the heroine cried as she quickly wrapped Jaden in the grappling hook wire and redirected her so she would land on one of the soft side mats instead. 

She had no time to check on Jaden's condition, as Mitchell immediately flew down and began attacking her immediately. As the boy soared around at high speeds with his rocket boots and fired plasma beams at her when he saw an opening, The Viper constantly leapt around the rafters and carefully placed her grapple wires to both gradually limit his mobility and give herself more angles to attack from. 

Then, she jumped towards the skylight and used another wire to physically pull herself onto Mitchell, grabbing him and obstructing his vision in the process. This made him fly out of control until he slammed into a side wall, stunning himself for several seconds. Thinking fast, she got off of him and swung around a different wire she had placed earlier in order to successfully knock him out of the air and onto the floor. Finally, she shot his rocket boots with her dual pistols so he couldn't take flight again.