Chapter 9 part 2

Samuel

His back ached as he was shoved into another building. The lightning-like powers grabbed him off the ground and squeezed him tight. He let out a grunt, squinting at the person in charge of the attack.

Samuel didn't plan on showing up as the hero too soon, but when he saw a masked woman walking outside his house he was more than intrigued. He didn't have to watch the girl for long before something was proved to be wrong. Out of her back came long, red... powers?

Samuel had hurriedly put on his suit and mask and rushed out his back door just in case. He couldn't have people seeing the hero come out of Samuels house.

He followed her from behind just watching for a while. That was until the lines of power growing from her back grew greatly and began swinging around rapidly. They were going in all different directions while two picked up random civilians and another two smashed building windows.

Samuel worked up a yellow ball and sent it the woman's way. It smacked her in the head but earned no reaction. The lady simply sent one of her strings of power his way, not even looking back at him.

The hero rolled out of the way, narrowly missing the attack. Upon getting a closer look the power seemed to be hundreds of small strings of power grouped together to make an almost rope-like object made of red powers. Not to mention they were pulled together in a way that somewhat resembled a strike of lightning.

Samuel continued throwing lazars and balls of his own power in her direction but she dodged smoothly past each attack. She wasn't even looking at him, how was she doing all this?

Samuel ran forward to get within closer range of the woman. He dodged multiple swinging red strings until he finally made his way up to her. He put a firm hand on her shoulder and whipped her around.

She was wearing a plain black mask that appeared to be made out of metal. The mask only had a small hole by the mouth and two larger holes for the eyes. She was wearing a full body suit that was mostly black. There was red lining trailing around the suit in places like around her waist and down her legs. There were also too many pockets to count. Many had zippers, velcro, buttons, anything you could think of.

The hero had clearly spent too long inspecting the new found villain when his face was met with a rock hard fist. It didn't hurt due to his masks protection, but he still stumbled back before looking up at her dumbfounded. She didn't hesitate to turn herself back around and continue walking down the street.

"What are you trying to accomplish here?!" The hero shouted over the ruckus. A thick red rope was sent his way in response.

He hopped back and was missed by the attack, but he had no time to celebrate before a strong pain in his leg caused him to stumble. He silently cursed at the injury he forgot was there.

While he was distracted another rope hit him head on and sent him flying back multiple feet. He fell back into the outer brick wall of a thrift store. However, this time the attacks didn't stop.

The red bundle of strings wrapped itself around his arms and pulled him up into the air. It held him at least ten feet off the ground, allowing him a good look at the chaos that surrounded them.

All the buildings behind them had broken windows and multiple were missing their doors. Meanwhile every building near them were currently under attack. Even a few people were grabbed just to be pushed around and them left alone.

"The hell are you doing!?" The hero shouted angrily.

The woman didn't even spare him a glance as she kept walking down the street, bringing the ruckus with her. The hero opened his mouth to shout again, but stopped when he was dropped out of the air and landed back on the concrete. He landed flat on his back, his spine screamed in response.

He struggled to stand and now had to jog to catch up to the cause of the chaos, which his leg did not appreciate. The hero staggered behind the woman when he stopped abruptly. How had he not realized it before? She was going right by Matias's work!

It's not as of Samuel wasn't worried about the other stores and civilians who were in danger. But Matias being in potential danger made his heart race. He knew that if anything he should he less worried about him since he had powers to protect him, but his brain was being unreasonable. He had to get to Matias before this Villain.

He moved as fast as he could to get past the woman and it wasn't long before he was barely in front of her, many feet to her left. He continuously dodged the attacks coming his way and remained as far ahead as he could.

Did Matias know what was going on? Surely this was on the news right? Does Matias even watch the news? He doesn't have his mask or hoodie with him does he? Questions flooded Samuels brain as he did his best to stay focused.

They were now only three stores down from the coffee shop. Surely Matias saw them coming by now. Or at least he must've seen the red powers slinging everywhere.

The hero finally got a comfortable distance in front of the woman. Though it didn't last long before her powers grabbed onto one of his legs. She dragged him down across the concrete and held him upside down in front of her. She seemed lazar focused on the hero but the rest of her attack continued unfazed.

"Why are you doing this?" The hero questioned in an interrogative tone.

No response.

She continued to walk forward for a few long seconds before tossing the hero to the side, leaving him to crash into a building. The building right beside the coffee shop.

Samuel was suddenly overwhelmed with panic. He threw multiple bunches of his power at her and pushed himself off the wall. He had ignored all his pain and ran forward in a rushed attempt to stop her.

He wasn't being smart about his approach or attacks. He should've known he'd get himself in a worse situation.

And now here he was. Just out of sight from the people in the coffee shop, being held in the air by a bunch of electrifying red strings of power. He was finding it a bit hard to breathe and let out struggled huffs of breath. He felt his body start to give out and begged himself to keep pushing.

The woman picked up the pace, quickly approaching the coffee shop. Her powers never stopped slinging around and one ended up smashing the shops window like it had done to every building before it.

Samuel fought the urge to yell out for Matias. The woman was now standing right in front of the coffee shop she her walking came to a halt. She dropped the hero and allowed him to land right on his ass. He was now sitting in the middle of the road looking up at this woman as she continued to damage everything around her.

"Why are you doing this?" The hero asked once more.

Though he couldn't see her face, Samuel was sure that the woman had smiled. All the ropes of power suddenly came to a stop and retreated into the lady's back. Samuel cringed at the sight.

"Who are you?" The hero asked, doing his best to sound confident.

It was then that a singular stream of her powers reached out to a place far right, over the buildings, probably multiple roads over. Before he could question anything she pulled herself through the air and disappeared somewhere miles away.

The hero threw his head back in both annoyance and pain. He wanted to sit there for hours until his body was ready to move, but was it was quickly made clear that that wasn't an option. He noticed the news helicopter flying a safe distance away for the first time and sirens were heard from not too far away.

Samuel sighed and stood up slowly. His whole body ached but he wasn't seriously injured anywhere. He looked at the ground and collected his thoughts for the few second he had before the police and news cars pulled up.

He was very soon surrounded by cameras and microphones. He was always happy to do interviews and talk about fights when it was with the villain. The original villain. But this was all too different.

Many questions were shot at the hero, none concerned for his current physical well being. He was bruised and scratched all over, but they didn't care about that.

"Who was that?" "Where were you?" "Why did you leave?" "Did the villain cause your disappearance?" "Should we expect more people with powers to appear?"

All the questions were thrown at his face at once. His eyes rapidly traveled around all the people crowding around him. There were constant flashes of light as photos were taken and the amount of microphones was unnecessary.

"Okay people give him some room" a woman shouted from the back of the crowd.

She made her way through as the voices died down and the clicking of photos became more inconsistent. When the lady finally emerged from the crowd he finally got a good look at her face. Officer Knight.

"Thank you" He did his best to sound confident as he spoke.

Officer Knight, otherwise known as Nevaeh, stood by the hero's side and continued to pressure everyone to back up more. They had known each other for years, since Samuel first became the hero. Of course she knew nothing of Samuel though, only of the hero.

"Alrighty then, we feelin up for questions?" She looked up at the hero.

"Of course, but perhaps we should take it somewhere that isn't the middle of the road" the hero joked lightly.

"Where do you wanna go? The sidewalk covered in glass?" Officer Knight joked back, nudging the hero in the arm.

"They're closing off the roads anyways, no cars will be coming through here. Everyone is advised to stay in any building nearby for the time being too" She continued to explain.

Samuel already knew they'd do all that, but he really didn't feel like standing out here. He was grateful for Officer Knight, but she could really put him in some awful situations.

"Alright" he tried his best not to sound annoyed.

"Okay! We're going to do this one at a time" she addressed the group of news reporters and other police. She pointed at a lady at the front holding a notepad.

"Who was that? Are they working with the villain?" She lady asked hurriedly, managing to ask two questions.

It took everything in Samuel to not sigh after hearing the question.

"I'm afraid I don't know much more than you when it comes to that" he said in a promotional voice.

"I have never seen her before and as far as I knew there was nobody else with powers. I was obviously wrong, but I am still unsure if it is now us three or if there are more. As for her working with the villain, I believe it is unlikely" he paused as murmurs and comments passed through the small group.

"I can't be positive, but I am almost certain that the villain has no involvement"

He knew he couldn't just say that he was certain the villain wasn't responsible, that would raise too many questions. However, surely if he just implied that it wasn't him then that'd be better. Now that he knew he wasn't actually a villain he wanted to prevent soiling his name any further.

Officer Knight caught onto the fact that he was done with that question and pointed at a man with a rather large microphone.

"Where have you been the last few days?"

Of course. Some psycho just attacked and the second question has nothing to do with that.

"Well, something.." Samuel pondered his next words for multiple seconds too long.

"something happened, that I am not sure I can talk about yet" nervousness basically leaked out of his voice.

Questions and comments immediately sprung out if the group. Officer Knight started practically fighting them to calm down. Samuel paid the no mind as he glanced over at the coffee shop. He looked just in time to see Matias step out of the back door. A group of people, who must've been customers, watching him as he walked across the shop. Samuel couldn't help but wonder what he was doing.

Matias glanced up and met Samuels eyes. Samuel smiled and almost waved, but stopped himself after remembering where and who he was right now. Matias grabbed what looked like a phone off a table near the window and walked back to where he came from, not looking back at Samuel again.

"Hero?" Officer Knight waved a hand in front of his face.

"Ah! Yes, sorry" he said surprised. He hadn't been staring that long had he?

The officer looked over to where the hero's eyes were but only had a puzzled expression when she looked back. She shook her head and pointed at another reporter who was ready to ask a question.

"Are we safe? Is there any chance that person will come back and do this again?" A murmur of agreements passed through the people.

The question caught the hero off guard. You'd think it'd be the most obvious question but for some reason he didn't expect anyone to ask it.

"Well.. like I said, I don't know much about this mystery villain or sudden attack" he stopped, expecting them to interrupt, but was only met with a dreadful silence.

"Not to make anyone worry, but there could be another attack at any moment" his hands clenched into fists.

That was when the silence was broken. Hell, it was more than broken. It was shattered.

The group in front of him all started shouting questions, and though there was only roughly twenty of them, it was annoyingly loud. Despite the noise right in front of him he could hear panic in nearby buildings. Samuel mentally face palmed, remembering that this was live on the news. There were at least ten cameras in front of him, you'd think it would be hard to forget.

"Uhm.. alright well I'm actually in a huge rush, I'm so sorry but I really must be going" the hero said just loud enough where they heard him and started protesting.

He only continued walking away, not even looking back at them. This may seem rude, but the hero had experience. If you let them keep talking they will go on for hours.

He went the opposite direction of his house and took lots of weird turns through less used roads and pretty much abandoned areas. He slowly made his way back to his house. Nobody ever tried to follow him home, but it never hurt to be sure.

He finally got back into his house and put all of his things as 'the hero' away. Who knows what Ellie would think if she saw it.

Right as that thought crossed his mind his eyes widened. His heart sped up and his legs felt like they could give out.

"Ellie?!" Samuel shouted through the house.

He had been so worked up over seeing the powers coming from that lady that he completely forgot about his own daughter. He left her here alone during all of that!

"Ellie?! Honey where are you?" Samuel rushed back to her room.

He checked under her plushies, in her closet, and all around her bed. His breathing hitched as he realized she wasn't in there.

"Ellie baby please come out" he choked as tears started to swell in his eyes.

He walked out of her room and opened the bathroom door. He swiped the shower curtains out of the way and even checked under the sink. She wasn't there either.

He was in the living room in seconds. He stood in the middle of the room, his whole body freezing against his will.

"Ellie.." he choked one last time, glancing around the room as tears finally fell from his eyes.

"dad?" A tiny voice spoke up from near Samuels room.

His head whipped up and his wobbly legs seemed to gain some strength.

"Oh Ellie" Samuel rushed over to where she was now standing and dropped to his knees. He wrapped his arms around her securely.

"I'm so sorry Ellie, I'm so sorry" Samuel nearly sobbed.

"I was so scared" Ellie's voice squeaked as she sniffled her nose.

"The news said a bad person was hurting people.. and I couldn't find you" Ellie cried into her fathers shoulder.

"I know baby, I'm so sorry" Samuel apologized quietly into her ears.

He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back a bit, breaking the hug.

"I'll never leave you like that again, I promise" Samuel assured in a soft voice.

He held up his pinky and it didn't take Ellie more than a few seconds to latch her own pinky onto it.

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What do y'all think of this newly discovered villain? Is she also just misunderstood like Matias?