VELOCITY

Part Five: The betrayal Revealed

"Hey you! What's your business here?" Jacob shouts to the mystery man, he looked down towards him and waved. "Hello, where's the other one? I'll only start until he arrives too." His response spooked us a little bit, that he intends to fight as soon as I got there. "Everyone in the building get out now before it's too late!" Jacob warns every person in the lobby and they all quickly leave the scene. The mystery man just stands there and waits, not moving a muscle, I start to get near the lobby until an unexpected someone appears in front of me. "At last, we meet again." Mike says in a menacing tone, I was sure that I wouldn't be able to talk my way out of this one. He transforms into his ice form and quickly sprints towards me, he was way faster than before as he then grabbed me and threw me through the door that leads to the lobby. I was thrown right next to Jacob luckily, Mike walked through the door and started to walk towards us, I got back up to my feet and prepared for a fight until Jacob stepped in front of me and faced Mike head on. "I'll worry about him, you could try your luck with him." He says as he points to the mystery man, I nod and transform into my lightning form and Jacob transforms into his crystal form. His crystals looked bigger than when he first obtained them and they had a dim yellow color to it as well. Jacob raises his arm at Mike and crystals start to form at his palm, they start to become brighter and then they shoot of a huge a huge blast that sends Mike flying to the other side of the lobby. I start to become a little fascinated with how strong he's gotten but as I become distracted I realized that the mystery man was gone, I looked around in a panic to not see him anywhere, then all of a sudden I started to feel my purple flame power about to activate. I didn't know what to think when it activated by itself, it came on at full power but I slowly felt that power to decrease rapidly, as Jacob had his battle with Mike he had seen that my flames were being absorbed from behind me. "NATE! LOOK BEHIND YOU!" He shouts, I turned around to see nothing but my power being pulled in from that direction, I jump back to see that the absorption stopped. "He must have the ability to go invisible somehow." I think to myself, "You must be thinking that I have the ability to go invisible right? Well you're right." He says as he deactivated his invisibility, revealing that he was standing right in front of me, I react quickly by activating my lightning form and firing off a lightning shot but it's ineffective as he then quickly absorbs it and fires the blast right back. "What? How did he absorb it without an AD?" I thought to myself. I'm shot and sent back, falling down to the ground, I look back up to see him no longer there. My purple flame is pulled back out and was starting to absorbed from behind me again, I started to feel that power being taken away. I couldn't come up with a plan or even get up before it was absorbed completely, then out of nowhere Jacob shot off a blast from his crystals at the mystery man, he was blasted to the wall and was unable to absorb anymore of my flames. I looked towards Jacob to see that he was still fighting Mike but something was different, Mike looked like he was growing more ice shards around his suit, Jacob began to look pressured but he still was able to hold his ground; we're both fighting difficult opponents. I heard the mystery man began to get back up, he didn't look affected by that blast at all which made me think that he couldn't even be defeated, but he has to have some kind of weakness. I then got an idea, I transformed back into my lightning form and shot off another blast, he was able to absorb any shot from any spot on his body without the need of that AD he back when I first fought him, so then I wondered why he didn't absorb Jacobs crystal shot when it hit me. "He's unable to absorb Jacobs structure powers, which means that Jacob could defeat this guy." I shouted to Jacob telling him to switch places with me, he was a little confused but he didn't hesitate to do as I said. He made his way to me and we swapped opponents, they caught on quickly and they both prepared to fight seriously, so we did the same. "It seems you found out the boss's weakness, but don't think you can beat him as easy as that." Mike says, the guy who we've been fighting this whole time, the guy whos been behind all of this, the guy who killed Karley is him? I couldn't believe it, I didn't know what to say, but now isn't the time to be worrying about that, I have to focus on Mike right now. I transform into my ice form and create a sword, he does the same and we both start charging at each other. Back in my college days, I always had my nose stuck in books and would never go out with my friends, Jacob was the same way but he realized that what he was doing was continuous and convinced me that it was. He secretly had signed me up for a club at our school without telling me what it was, I hoped that it could be science related but was disappointed to find out that he signed me up for the Swordsmanship club. I didn't even know what gave him the idea to go with sword fighting but I stuck with it after a few lessons, who would have guessed that it would have paid off? We start fighting and our skills start to shine as each of us are both equal in strength, "Why are you fighting us? Why did you join him?" I started to ask him questions as we exchanged blows. "All will be revealed once the plan is at its final stage, but for that to happen I must defeat you." He replies and at that exact moment, he started to transform into something else, something I never would have thought he would have done, he transformed into a monster. "Now, I'll do whatever I have to do to win." His voice got deeper and his ice had turned light black, it almost didn't even look like ice anymore, but more like Jacobs crystals. He started to run towards me with full speed, shouting but so determined, I almost felt bad when I realized last second that I had charged up enough power to activate my purple flame form. I transformed and melted all of his ice around his body leaving him with only his suit on, he was knocked to the ground and was forced to surrender. "You may have easily beaten me but you have absolutely no chance against the boss because he has the ultimate power that you two will never be able to win against." He says, "What are you talking about?" I ask but he doesn't answer me, I start to get a little annoyed and decide to ask him another question. "If you don't want to answer that then at least answer this, what is his name?" Once I said that he turned and gave me a stare, he deactivated his mask and told me his name. "He is the Grim Reaper, and you will soon find out the reason of why he has that name." For a second, chills had gone all through my body, shaking me up with fear, I created fire chains and tied him up like I did the last time. "This is it Mike, no matter how much you tell me about how strong he is it still wont matter, because there's no way he could ever defeat the both of us." What I said to him made him start laughing hysterically, I didn't know why until he said one last thing to me. "Just wait." His tone went to dead serious, the chills came back when he said that. I got up and started to make my way to Jacob to help him out, I was late to notice that he was struggling a lot but so was the "Grim Reaper," I think I'm just going to call him Reaper from now on. I transformed into my fire form and ran to go grab him and take him away from his fight, I set him down a bit further off from where Reaper was. "What are you doing? You should still be fighting...Good work." Jacob says, we didn't have any time to create a plan as Reaper went invisible again, my purple flame form regenerated nearly half of what he stole earlier but I'm sure that he only needs to absorb a bit more to completely have my power. Jacob and I stay still to listen for any kind of movement that he would make but it was dead silent, it was almost as if he would just disappear, that invisibility ability is quite good. I started to feel this breeze coming from the left of me where Jacob was standing, it wasn't a breeze of air but a breeze of feeling, I felt another presence coming from where he was standing. "Jacob, punch in front of you!" I shout, he doesn't question it and immediately transforms into his evolved Nightmare form as he called it and punch's right in front of him to hit Reaper directly in the face. The punch was so effective, it broke a chunk out of his mask and made him fly to where the elevators were. We waited to see what his next move was, we were being super cautious and didn't want to risk the chance of losing. He got up and covered his mask with his hand, he then lifted his arm and transformed into Jacob's form shocking the hell out of both of us. "How did you get his form? We thought you couldn't absorb his structure power?" I demanded to know, he replied with silence, not speaking a single word as he then let's go of his hand to show that his mask was fixed. "He tricked us into thinking that he couldn't take your powers to make us use you as the one to fight with him." I say to Jacob, we both prepared ourselves without any plans, we were forced to improvise one in this situation as we had no idea on how to counter his absorption and now he has Jacob's form but we still gave it a shot anyways. We had the same idea to not use our strongest powers or else he would be able to easily absorb it both and it would be over in an instant. I transformed into my fire form and he transformed into this liquid metal one. "Ready?" He asks and I reply to him with the obvious answer, "I don't have much of a choice." We both launch ourselves at him, throwing everything we have together, I shoot off a fire spear and he shoots off a metal one at the same time. Reaper caught the both of them but that's exactly what I planned on him doing, I threw a second one as now he had no other option other than invading it. He moved out of the way but was quickly countered by one of Jacob's punches to the gut, it looked to have been very effective but we were wrong. Jacob's strength in this form isn't nearly as strong as the evolved nightmare one he used to punch Reaper before. He was able to receive the punch head on without taking any damage, he grabbed onto Jacob's arm and slammed him down to the floor. Jacob went unconscious, I didn't see anyway to take this guy on by myself, I saw no other choice other than using my purple flame power. "I have to focus on getting Jacob out of here so we could create some sort of plan. I'll punch him in the face with an added blast but the blast has to be at least ten times stronger than all the other ones I've done before, I don't see any other choice." I thought, I transformed into my purple flame form and bolted straight at him with full force. He knew exactly what I was going to do and decided not to move, I didn't hesitate for a moment as I then punched him straight in the face. The added blast was so massive it blew out all the windows in our building and the buildings around us, it sent him flying through a wall that lead to another room but I was sure that he was unable to get up after that. "Jacob wake up already we have to get out of here before he comes back." I said as I proceeded to slap him countless times, "Ok ok I'm up, what happened?" He asked, "no time to explain, we have to get out of here before he gets back-" I'm telling him before I'm interrupted by a familiar voice. "Up? It's kind of obvious you were going to say that wasn't it, but you always used to cut people off despite the fact that what they were about to say was obvious." Jacob and I turn to the wall that Reaper was sent flying through to see him walking towards us with his head down, we stood up and watched him get closer to us. "Finally, my plan is complete, I could have easily done all of this without you guys getting all of this powers but I wanted you guys to have gone through the traumatic experiences of losing your loved ones first, to make you think that it was your fault. I would thank you but I really don't want to." He explains, Jacob and I didn't want to believe if it was him, we didn't want to think that he was the one behind it all, but we knew whos voice that was. "First, how about I show you the power you get by merging two demons together, the power you get by taking merging yours." He then transforms into my purple flame form, releasing all the power he had absorbed from me. But that wasn't it, he had begun to activate Jacob's evolved nightmare form at the same time, releasing all the power he had absorbed from him too. The horrifying pressure we felt was too great as it felt like earth's gravity was multiplied, it made us drop to the ground making it hard for us to get back up. Our two forms he took started to fuse together creating this monster, he didn't grow in size but the pressure did. The whole building started to shake making it seem like an earthquake was happening, but once he finished fusing our powers the shaking stopped and the pressure went away. We had witnessed something we couldn't even comprehend, something we thought never would have been possible. "You probably already know who I am but are still a little hesitant to believe it, so how about I show you to make you believe." He deactivated his near broken mask to reveal the person we didn't want to see, the person we trusted, the person we loved, the person who was our friend...*A couple of years ago* "Hey guys," I say to Jacob and Matt who were patiently waiting for me to arrive, we planned on having dinner together at Matt's place. "Did you bring the stuff?" Jacob asks, I lay down the bag that I was holding to reveal sushi, we stuffed ourselves with california rolls until we couldn't take anymore. "Ahh, that was delicious, but I think it's now time for dessert." Matt says as he then gets up and heads to the kitchen. Jacob and I were left alone in his living room to notice something we never saw before. "Matt! Where did you get this cool looking scythe? It's huge!" I shouted but I didn't receive any kind of response until he walked out of the kitchen with brownies. "That thing? It was my dads, he was pretty obsessed with the grim reaper and always had cool collectibles or pictures of stuff like that for some reason. I started to like stuff like that as well so I took them after he died, I guess you could say I'm a little obsessed too." He explains, Jacob and I felt a little bad as his father just passed away this year, we tried to change the subject but he seemed to want to keep talking about it. We were at his place for another hour just listening to him talk about all the other cool things his dad had but couldn't take. As we were about to leave he said one last thing, "You know, if I ever was a superhero, I would want my name to be the Grim Reaper." Back to the present, as Jacob and I witness Reaper take off his mask to reveal the face of our best friend, Matt. "M..M..Matt? B..But why?" I mutter out trying my hardest to not breakdown in tears, Jacob next to me can't even say anything. He stared at the both of us with serious eyes, not saying anything for a couple of seconds. "It must be hard to take this in but just know I have my reasons, it's not time for you two know yet as now I will not hold back when I kill you both." He finally spoke out, it made me think for a second, I took my time but I finally stood up and looked him straight in the eyes, summoning all of my will power to say one thing to him. "I don't have any idea for why you are doing this but frankly I don't think I could even handle the truth at this point, but what I do know for sure is that I will do anything in my power to put a stop to you. But I don't know how I'm supposed to do that without RIPPING YOU APART AND FUCKING MURDERING YOU!" I shout at the top of my lungs as my rage fuels me with more power than I could handle, he doesn't acknowledge the sudden boost that grew inside me but instead just stands there staring right at me. I charged up every ounce of power from my purple flames into one attack, all my rage, all my thoughts, and my whole soul into this shot, I call it the Hellfire Incinerator. "It seems as though that much power is too much for me to absorb, but that doesn't matter as it will do nothing but stall your impending deaths." He teases as he activates his mask, concealing his face within that monster of a suit. "Nate, what is that? It's making the whole room feel like the sun." Jacob says, I ignored him, as I felt nothing but sadness and anger, he killed Karley and was involved with Reed's death as well. This move was a final move I had created ever since I obtained my fire form from Jack, I've been trying to perfect it but I haven't had any luck as this move nearly drains all of my power in an instant and I couldn't find any way around it, but right now I feel like my power is overflowing, I feel like this shot could destroy a mountain. I continue to charge up the blast as much as possible before shooting it off but something keeps bugging me, Matt truly plans on killing us for a reason we don't even know and he doesn't seem to remember everything we did together, I still have hope that he could change but for now, I can't seem to forgive his actions. "What are you waiting for? You're leaving me in suspense as you continue to charge that shot, hurry up and fire it already." Matt says, he starts pushing his luck making me more furious than I already am. "I really hope this doesn't kill you Matt or else Jacob wouldn't even have a chance to kill you himself. Now take this shot head on and don't back down." I shouted as I released all the power I charged straight towards him, the blast was so powerful it completely obliterated anything it touched, including the wall behind him. I was drained, and felt like I was going to pass out but Jacob stood up and caught me. As I saw the blast hit him I knew that there was no way he could have ever survived, but when the smoke cleared out Jacob and I realized that no one was there. "There's no way he was turned to dust? Where did he go?" Jacob says, we both looked around and saw nothing but a damaged lobby. All of a sudden, I felt that same presence from before behind me, I turned around too late as the next to happen was unexpected, I had been stabbed by a scythe. "Shoot, a scythe isn't supposed to stab someone, it's supposed to slice them in half." I heard Matt say as he deactivated his invisibility in front of me revealing a long, sharp scythe that was made out of my purple flames and Jacob's evolved nightmare powers. I'm in shock, he pulls out the scythe and kicks me, sending me flying into a wall, I'm left unable to get up as I slowly pass out, Jacob immediately reacts and tries to grab a hold of Matt's scythe. One of the back arms that Matt had punched Jacob straight in the gut but Jacob stood standing, it was enough force to deactivate his form but he didn't back down, as I passed out I caught a glimpse of Jacob continuing to fight back with everything he had. My eyes closed and I heard a faint voice that I couldn't make out say to me "Wake up." As I had woken up, I noticed that I was no longer in the lobby but inside some dark room with nothing inside, I start to get a bit confused until that same voice starts talking from behind me. "It seems you have finally died, Nathan." I start to get a little shaken up as I turned around to see a man in a hooded robe standing there. "What the hell, I'm not dead, right?" I say as I start panicking and feeling sorry that Jacob has to fight Matt all on his, the man in the robe then starts to laugh hysterically at me, he takes off his robe to reveal that the man is in fact Reed. "Hey kid, I guess I finally got through, I've been inside this place ever since I died and I was only able to communicate to you through your mind. I talked to you through Sam making you think Sam was actually real when in reality he wasn't." He explains leaving me in total shock, so many things have happened today that had always left me speechless but this is one tops them all. "Nate, I was always watching from within you; I've seen everything, I've even felt what you were feeling. Before I let you leave, I just wanted to let you know that my death wasn't your fault no matter how you look at it. I decided that it was my time to go, I knew what I was doing, I knew that you wouldn't take it well but I still did it so that you wouldn't have to keep worrying about me, I wanted to be where my wife was Nate. I know that sounds a little selfish but I have-" before he finished his explanation, I hugged him and started to cry a bit. "You don't have to tell me, I'm just glad that I get to see you one last time. I wish I could talk to you more but I have to go back to Jacob." I say, he got a little surprised that I wasn't a hot mess like I usually was but I finally got a peace of mind now that I've seen Reed's face. "Alright, but before you leave, let me explain to you the purpose of that device on your chest; the coalescence device." A few minutes have passed and I was suddenly awakened back into reality, once I opened my eyes I had seen Jacob on the floor with Matt above him with his scythe in his hand, he was going to kill him if I hadn't had woken up sooner. "MATT! You still have one more opponent and that's me!" I shouted to get his attention, he turns his head slowly towards me and leaves Jacob on the floor as he then also got up, he replies to me with a serious tone. "You finally got back up, Jacob and I just finished are little heart to heart conversation and I presume that you are going to add some of your thoughts to it as well?" It's like Matt got possessed by some british demon, his choice of words are to classy and the way he talks is to proper. "Look, I really wish you could just end this sudden act of yours Matt. We both have our own mistakes that we made in the past, you should at least try to reason with us don't you think?" I explain to him but that just makes him more aggravated, he seemed like he was about to blow out of frustration. "After I kill you guys, I'll tell your corpses everything how's that, so if you excuse me, I think I'll kill you for real this time." He then starts charging at me with full force, I didn't do anything other than think about what he said. Matt's words didn't just make feel better, they also confirmed that he still had good in him. I didn't say anything back as I figured he wouldn't listen to me anyways, but I knew that my actions would have been better than my words. I lifted my hand to my AD and activated the coalescence device, both Matt and Jacob who was trying to get back up looked at me as my suit started to shine white. "What the hell is that?" Jacob muttered out, he couldn't believe what he was seeing, he was witnessing the true purpose of our AD's, the main reason we made them. *A couple of minutes ago* "The coalescence device sounds wacky in a way but it means to join or merge elements to form one mass or whole. In your case, the device has the power to merge all or your powers together for a limited amount of time, the outcome will give you a new form and this new form would be many times stronger than any of your other ones, I don't know how to stress this enough but your power would skyrocket. To activate it, just tap your AD a couple of times and you'll be good, this is my last last words to you and Jacob, I think it's time for you to go and save everyone." Reed says, I give him one last hug and goodbye before I woke up. Now is the time I finally show the true power of the AD, the true power that I didn't even know I could obtain, as I merged all of my powers together, Matt froze in place as he felt what Jacob and I felt earlier when he transformed into his form but now he must be feeling something much stronger. "Matt, whatever the reason is, just know that I'm going to make you regret ever killing Karley by beating the crap out of you." I say, he looks at me with a straight face and doesn't say a word, he starts walking slowly towards me now still without saying anything, it's like a struck a nerve in him. He began to charge up some more power as he walked towards me, but the power he charged up was something really terrifying, something sinister. "What is this? How did you all of a sudden get a new transformation? There's no possible way, you were knocked out cold, laying down beside the wall, how did you do it?" He began to plead in hopes of figuring out me secret, I take one look at him and start laughing hysterically, tears of laughter roll down my face as I couldn't stop laughing. "That's pretty funny, I'll keep it a secret like how you kept everything a secret. I hope you're ready for what's about to come Matt." I replied to him, after I stalled him long enough, it appeared that my new form, my true form was complete, this was exactly what we had in mind when we created the AD, a form of which everything we absorbed from our adventures would be mixed together. A huge bolt of white lightning shot out from me in all directions, then a cloud of cold air surrounded my body as white ice covered my suit, a white flame spewed out from my palms, feet and even my back. All of a sudden, I felt the lightning and fire double in power, it must have been my purple flame form mix with the regular lightning and fire forms to further increase the powers I had. As all my powers merged into one, I remembered the other thing that Reed had said to me before I had woken up, "Oh, and before I go, as I was heading home that night I thought up something that you and Jacob might like, if you guys end up not liking them then too bad this is my final wish. Nate, your superhero name will be....." I began preparing to dash straight at him with my new speed, the lightning and fire would boost me to let me run faster than the speed of sound and the ice will be used for quick attacks. As I launched towards him I shouted at the top of my lungs, "I AM VELOCITY!" I punched him straight in the face with so much power, I bet it rivaled the strength of Jacobs punch in his evolved nightmare form. The punch set him flying towards the other side of the lobby, as he was about to burst outside the wall I ran behind him punching him again back to the ground, he slammed his face to the floor and tried to get back up but it was no use. I was running around him in circles, punching him in every direction, he was faster than me before but now he's no match for my speed. I stopped running and grabbed him by his neck, he started to get angry as he then used those back arms of his to pry me off, but I quickly shot a huge bolt of lightning right at him that almost looked like it impaled his chest. "That's enough, you may be faster and stronger now but you will never be more powe-" he couldn't finish his sentence as he noticed that I was no longer in front of him but instead behind him. I brought out an ice sword and added fire to it creating my fire sword, the ice acted like a base while the fire was the power source, I used the sword to cut off his back arms so I was able to put him in a choke hold. "Get off of me, this isn't supposed to end like this, I'll do whatever I need to do to kill you both!" He starts to ramble, I wasn't planning on killing him, I'm not going to kill him, but that doesn't mean that I won't knock him out and throw him in jail. "If I were you, I would be focusing on the other one that was in this battle from the beginning, it seems as though he figured out how to activate his true form too." As soon as I said that he turned his head so fast to look at Jacob but it was too late, Jacob already transformed and was right in front of him. Jacob's transformation had white crystals coming out from the side of his arms and the back of his legs, his liquid metal form didn't look like regular metal any longer but instead turned white as well, the liquid surrounded his suit reinforcing it. Then it showed both of his nightmare powers combined, his regular nightmare form has two arms coming from his back while his evolved nightmare form has four, but when they mixed it created six white arms, they looked like they had a mind of their own as they were all super hyper. Jacob fused two of his back arms with some of his liquid metal and submerged them into his right arm, he threw his arm back and quickly punched Matt right in the gut, destroying his suit but he still had a little bit of fragments left. To be completely honest, I didn't know that he was planning to do that as he didn't give me any sort of warning, luckily I have my new speed and I was able to dodge it just in time. The punch was way stronger than anything I could have done but it wasn't meant to send him flying but was coordinated to only destroy his suit, Matt had no chance anymore, we're both glad that we didn't get to see the power he had when he took both of Jacob and I's forms. "You're done Matt, It's over." I say, he stared at me and took off any remaining pieces of his suit that he still had stuck on his body and then said in a serious but sad tone. "It's not, even if I failed it doesn't matter, it's not over." Matt says, I tie him up with fire chains and start walking him outside. Jacob didn't forget about Mike that had been tied up awhile ago and tossed to the corner, he was watching the whole thing without saying a word, I forgot he was even there. "The building took a beating, especially from that blast of fire you shot off earlier. The lobby is probably going to need some rebuilding, but for now let's get these two out of-" Jacob says until all of a sudden his words became more true than we could realise, the whole building started to collapse, the amount of power that was being expelled from us seemed like it was too much to handle. "Hurry, we need to get out of here before it falls down on us!" I shouted as I started to run out of the building, tugging Matt in the process. I was paying attention on surviving that I barely heard what Matt said while I was running, but I definitely heard him say this. "We'll meet again Nate ...Karleys still alive." Karleys name was echoing into my ears, I turned to him and realised that he activated his suit that must have refinished constructing inside his AD, I was too slow to stop him as he activated his merged form and broke free from the chains. I try to activate my lightning form and try to grab a hold of him but he went invisible and vanished. I felt like everything we just went through was for nothing, we let it go for now as getting out of the building was more important. We managed to get out just in time before the whole building fell to the ground, my house, the lab, all of our work was gone, I couldn't believe it. "Nate, I think we have a bigger problem than the building." Jacob says as he turns me around to show me police cars, helicopters, S.W.A.T trucks, and even more things that I couldn't even comprehend. A news helicopter came from around the corner and started to film us. "BOTH OF YOU, HANDS UP, I WON'T ASK TWICE!" Someone shouts with a megaphone, Jacob and I started to panic a bit and didn't know what to do, we were superheroes but right now we didn't look like we were. "Jacob, on the count of three I'll grab you and run out of here, I'd rather not but we have no choice." I whisper, Jacob secretly shakes his head in agreement. They all had guns pointed on us, ready to fire, it made me feel a little queasy. "3...2...1" I grabbed him and ran off, they didn't have enough reaction time to catch up with me so we were able to get away, leaving Mike there alone. We now were considered wanted criminals instead of hero's, There are still many questions that needed to be answered. Why was Matt doing all of this? What is their objective? Is Karley still alive like he says she is? I needed to find out everything, now that Jacob and I working together I feel like we could do it. I'll put a stop to Matt and his plan, I'll save everyone, I'll find Karley, even if it's the last thing I'll do, because I am Velocity.