Powerhouse: Legend of the Archwave

Prologue, Part 2: From Uncle To Niece

This is Part 2 of the Prologue for "Powerhouse: Legend of the Archwave". Last time, we were introduced to the Celestial Syndicate, a drug cartel trafficking cannabis in leaf and brick forms from a specialized compound---aptly named the Celestial Compound---in the capital of Santo Domingo within the Dominican Republic, despite cannabis being strictly illegal in the country. The cartel's activity has spiked recently due to Galaxara's planet-wide Decimation setting work and profits back by a solid year, and the scrambling operatives have been struggling to make up for lost time all the while.

The Syndicate's leader, Angelo Acosta, visits his rebellious daughter Isabela Acosta at the latter's archery practice range, convincing her to join him on yet another tour of the main factory despite her having already accompanied him multiple times beforehand. On this most recent tour, Angelo suggests that Isabela act as a defender for the Syndicate's multiple cannabis shipments, using her expert archery skills to fend off any members of the authorities who try to intercept deliveries; when Isabela still voices her disapproval, Angelo also adds that she could also be a hitwoman who takes care of the Syndicate's many rivals across the world. However, when Isabela fails to make up her mind right away, Angelo quickly grows impatient and orders two of his henchmen to drag her away to the company of her uncle in order to apparently "teach her a lesson", to which Isabela reacts very negatively and hysterically to. Despite her emotional pleas for her father to save her, she's hauled away to the company of her uncle, with one of her last sights being a thick door getting closed right in front of her.

This time, Isabela is subjected to untold humiliation at the hands of her own flesh and blood.....

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Isabela Acosta was forcibly hauled into a dark side room away from the main production line of the Celestial Compound's central factory, watching helplessly as her surroundings increasingly darkened and she drew farther and farther away from the thick metal door which had just closed in front of her.

The room she was now in looked like it hadn't been touched in a long time; it was dreary, gray, and practically silent, with occasional cobwebs here and there along the corners. There were multilayered shelves of inventory positioned in two rough columns, and they mostly contained cannabis bricks which had long gone bad, dousing the entire chamber in an utterly revolting smell that even turned Isabela off, despite having been around the substance itself for years.

The two strongmen keeping her restrained eventually came to a stop and reeled her body backward before haphazardly tossing her directly under a cone of light pouring down from the ceiling, which came from an overhead lamp. Isabela groaned and tried to use her hands to push herself up, but when she turned her body around and looked back at the two strongmen, one of them was standing by empty-handed.....while the other was now wielding a metallic canister with a dark red tube coming out of the front. The dark red tube ended in an anesthetic mask highly reminiscent of those used to deliver sleeping gas to surgery patients, and the two henchmen had every intention of using it on their fearless leader's rebellious daughter.

"W.....what are you going to do?" Isabela challenged, trying to keep a brave face despite being scared out of her mind. "Read me a bedtime story first?"

"Oh, we're way past that, mi hija (my daughter)," another feminine voice suddenly said from outside the surrounding cone of light. "I remember when I used to do that with you. You would fall asleep in minutes, and you would never know how any of them ended. When did you end up going so horribly wrong.....?"

Isabela gasped, her eyes widening as she turned in the direction of the familiar-sounding voice. "M.....Mamá (Mom)?"

A grown woman wearing a fitted, short-sleeved white top and a long gold-colored dress shuffled into the cone of light, with the dress being long enough such that any footwear she may have had was concealed. Her hair was down, wrinkles were starting to show themselves on her face, and her skin was the same light shade of brown as her husband's and her daughter's.