Rise of the Sidekick

Leo tried his best to make himself invisible while Blair was taken away, unsure of what to do. He wasn’t exactly trained in hand to hand combat, but the sinister looking machine was inching closer and closer to Blair and he knew he had to do something.

He decided to completely turn his brain off and suddenly lunged at the woman in purple without thinking much of it. She screamed in surprise, but he hit the ground when she suddenly teleported out of his reach. When she teleported back, he kicked a foot out to knock her off balance. Drone had turned his attention to Leo now and was stomping towards him. He must have expected Leo to get up and fight like any other hero, but he just stayed on the ground. When Drone got close enough, Leo jumped forward to grab him by the ankles and deactivate the machinery in his legs. He roared in frustration when his legs shut down and he was stuck to the floor.

Leo scrambled to his feet and ran to the machine Blair was strapped to. Luckily, it had stopped when the woman had been distracted. He couldn’t figure out the computer mechanics, so he just continued to use his ability to manipulate the machines and make it unlock. Using it so much was starting to get exhausting, but he was able to get Blair out.

The woman in purple dove forward to grab her, but Blair pulled her into place on the bed and Leo closed the clamps back on her wrists. She struggled against them, but Leo shut down the system so she was stuck.

“What’s the plan?” Blair asked Leo.

“Run,” he said, grabbing her hand and sprinting towards the door. “Ohmygodrunrunrun-“

He had no idea where they were or how to navigate this place, but it looked like a creepy underground hospital. He was really only guessing which halls to run down, but they skidded to a stop as masked troopers with guns appeared.

“Fuck,” Leo grumbled. “Okay, run the other way. Fuck, zig-zag.”

They sprinted down a different hall as bullets ricocheted off the steel walls.

“This is your plan?!” Blair said in exasperation. “You’re supposed to be a field hero that does this all the time!”

“This is way out of my purview, Blair,” Leo told her as he dragged her around another sharp corner.

“These walls are all metal, can’t electricity travel through it?”

He skidded to a halt, suddenly having an idea. He reached up towards one of the lightbulbs, knowing the wiring had to meet up somewhere behind the scenes. With a quick flick, he was able to shut down all the lights in the hall and leave them in darkness.

“Leo?”

“Yeah?”

“This wasn’t what I was getting at.”

“Oh.”

“It’s fine,” she said quickly. “It’s good. They can’t see us so they can’t shoot us. We just need to find an elevator.”

“Okay, this way,” Leo said.

She didn’t move an inch when he tried to pull her away, instead moving the other way.

“Nope, you’re done leading,” she said.

He was following her now, down some halls they hadn’t gone through before. There were other hospital rooms, some containing people hooked up to machines though the power was still out. Blair’s intuition must have been on point, because she found an elevator just seconds later. Unfortunately, Drone was blocking it.

He had regained control of his legs, and if his face expressed emotion, he would have been furious. Blair and Leo froze in their tracks, unsure of how to go about the standoff.

“I will get what I need, or you will die,” Drone growled. “That’s the only option.”

“Okay, I choose die,” Leo said, making Blair let out a sort of choked sound. “Just do me first. So I don’t have to watch Blair.”

Drone marched towards him, but this time Leo marched back. Without thinking too much about it, he grabbed the piece of machinery covering half of Drone’s face. Drone cried out in pain when it sparked and went dead, and soon he crumpled to the ground weakly. His human side was still alive, but his robot side was completely deactivated. Blair stared at Leo with wide eyes.

“I can’t believe I just did that,” he said breathlessly.

“Everyone has been trying to take him down for years and you did it in two seconds,” Blair told him in disbelief. “We all see you now, Voltage.”

“Ugh, I like hearing you say it but it’s still cringey.”

“Please just fix the elevator so we can get the hell out of here.”

He knelt down to get to the elevator control panel, messing with it a bit until it came to life. Once the elevator door shut, they were able to shoot back up to surface level and back to safety.

Once they were out, Leo quickly called headquarters and explained everything. Within a minute, a team of a few dozen agents appeared to take down the hidden lab and shut it down. Leo and Blair were ushered to an ambulance, but neither of them had sustained major injuries besides some scratches and bruising.

Fitzwilliam appeared shortly after and started to pester them with questions, but they were both too exhausted to answer anything. Especially Leo, who had never used his ability so much in one instance. It was so exhausting that there were strands of grey appearing in his dark hair.

“We have agents at Gladiator’s house to detain him until we have further information,” Fitzwilliam said.

“Further information,” Leo repeated dully. “He tried to have us killed. And he wanted to turn Blair’s brain into scrambled eggs.”

“It still requires an investigation.”

“Great,” Leo said, standing up and pulling Blair up with him. “Well, you can go investigate. We’re going home. If you need to, you can use my sick leave for the next three days because I’m turning my pager off. Same with Blair.”

“Miss Landry, will you be needing a hotel room?”

“Nope, she’s coming with me. Goodnight.”

Everyone watched in surprise as Leo dragged Blair off, but she seemed happy to follow. The circumstances were strange, but at least they could finally be together without hiding from Andy or angry cyborgs. They could just take a good, long nap.