Fire & Ice | Soulmate AU 1 |

chapter twenty-four

Christin and a group of her terrorist friends hold up a bank on Madison Avenue a couple of days after Redwood's visit. The local police department tries to handle it themselves at first, but Dennis, the AI in our tower that I keep forgetting exists, eventually puts through a call from the department asking for our assistance. They report that there's an enhanced person in the field, so our partial team suits up and gets moving as fast as we can.

Max outlined a few different team lineups for different situation after the assembly in D.C. He's decided that anything Christin related should be dealt with by everyone but Cecelia, Cally, and Tony. His choice to essentially bench Cecelia and Cally for now makes sense because of their powers. They're only consultants for a reason. Tony is the one agent Max has decided to leave behind at the tower on any given mission since he knows how to run everything and take care of things if something goes wrong.

Everyone on the partial team Max decided on suits up as quickly as possible. We're ready to head out of the tower in under ten minutes, which is kind of a miracle considering how long it takes to shimmy into our uniforms alone.

"I can fly one of you there with me," Nick says as our group is making its way to the elevator. Max volunteers me, so Nick and I head to the roof while the rest of them go down to the parking garage.

We land within a group of cop cars stationed on the street outside the bank. A few of the officers have guns trained on the building, but that's the extent of the actions they've taken. I can't exactly knock them for that, though, because that's protocol. Situations like this one where enhanced individuals are threatening civilian lives automatically enter the League's jurisdiction. The police follow our lead once we arrive.

"Agent Castillo, Ford," one of the officers greets, walking up after we've landed and Nick has let me go. "They're all still in there. We sent in Officer Mendel first, who alerted us to the enhanced activity. He radioed in but hasn't come back out. Says there's at least two dozen hostages. Mother and her baby, the works."

"Blackwell is enhanced, but she can only teleport, so we'll take care of her. Is there anyone else in there with powers?"

"As far as I'm aware, no. I could be wrong, though. If two Blackwells can go bad, other ex-agents can, too. I'd keep my eyes open."

"Alright, we're just waiting for our captain before we move in. You'll follow us close behind. I'm sure seven of us will distract them enough for you to take care of the hostages."

The officer agrees and goes off to relay the information to his coworkers. Max and the rest of the team arrive a few minutes later.

"What's the situation?" he asks. Nick explains everything to him while I try to catch a glimpse of the inside of the bank through its floor-to-ceiling windows. The hostages are being held too far back in the building for me to see clearly from here, so we're going to be playing a dangerous kind of guessing game when we get inside.

"I want Crystal Witch right in front of me. I'll follow her directly in so she can scope everything out for the PD. I'm going straight for Blackwell. Ghost, take care of any weapons. Bolt, you help the PD get all the hostages out. Angel, you're aerial defense. Inferno and Hurricane, work defense, as well. If you see someone in trouble, fix it," Max lists, laying out orders cleanly and precisely. Hearing him use code names instead of our actual names is definitely something I'm still not quite used to. They're pretty much self-explanatory, though. Wendy, Flint, JD, Nick, and then Rowan and I. I'm kind of surprised he put me on background defense, but I suppose somebody has to do it. I'm also coming right off of multiple injuries, so it's probably better that I take it easy. The broken arm and fingers are all better, but they're still a little stiff and sore.