Chapter 130 Prison Break.

Chapter 130: 130 Prison Break.

I loved a good prison break.

Probably not for the same reason most do, though.

See, the thing about being a villain these days is that it’s quite a bit harder to build street cred.

Even back in the nineties, you could still rob a bank, and quite often, they’d have those delightful big bags of money. Just sacks of cash.

Nothing could compare to seeing that, unless they actually stitched dollar signs on them.

Sadly, that’s just a cliché too far. But these days, between inflation, the digitization of currency, and the fact that most banks barely keep enough cash on hand to fund a decent grocery trip, bank robberies just didn’t express ’threat level’ as effectively anymore.

So unless we actually spoke to the bank managers and planned the event days ahead we’d be breaking into a bank to steal less than a Corvette.

But a prison break?

Oh, you better believe it.

There was just something about breaching a high-security holding facility that screamed ’equity.’ The alarms. The flashing lights.

The sheer audacity of walking into a place designed to keep superhumans locked in a box and tearing the lid off. It transcends petty theft.

It hits every switch in the public’s monkey brains that says, ’These guys are a major problem.’ Rob a bank, and you’re a thief. Break someone out of lockup, and you’re an organization.

Got that idea from the mob. Breakouts were highly commercialised and when press were around it was beautiful.

And when you were suddenly managing an evil organization, you wanted a theme. You had to put a bit more effort into it.

Heroes paid good money to beat me up, and if I wanted to work with the big leagues, I had to give them some bang for their buck.

Literally.

Which was why I was currently hanging out in the visitor’s lobby of the Metropolitan Superhuman Holding Annex that late summer night.

I was dressed in casual civilian clothes, holding a complimentary coffee in a paper cup, standing at the back of a large crowd of reporters and photographers.

Alright, causal clothes was a stretch. I was in a button down and tie, not to mention the brown tousled wig, blue contacts and makeup to replicate the stubble of a beard.

Looking attentively at the prison’s new warden rant about how unbreakable and impenetrable the new prison was knowing fully well what was about to happen.

Couldn’t blame him though. This was Firefly would pay him a hefty sum for letting us do this here and no one would still break out.

Win win for everyone I guess.

It was a perfect setup. The city was hosting a press day to show off the Annex’s new "state-of-the-art" containment wings, meaning the lobby was absolutely packed with flashing cameras and local news crews.

And behind the reinforced, three-inch-thick polycarbonate glass of the temporary holding cells sat the target of today’s operation.

Steve.

My white trash, minion surplus, self-proclaimed best friend who was currently dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit, sitting on a steel bench and doing his absolute best to look like a hardened gangbanger.

Mind you, Steve, regardless of his powers, had no business in a superpowered prison. Pretty sure a holding cell was enough for him.

He had his arms crossed, buzz cut, a scowl plastered on his face, and two very obvious, very fake teardrop tattoos drawn on his cheek with a Sharpie.

He looked about as threatening as the skater in college who sold you weed, but for the cameras, it was good enough.

I took a sip of my coffee. Eyes scanning the room, everything was going according to plan.

The guards stationed around the lobby were heavily armed, but per standard protocol for crowded press events, their rifles were loaded strictly with rubber bullets and non-lethal riot rounds.

No sense letting real lead fly in a room full of journalists. You had to be careful with that shit; a stray bullet hitting a cameraman turned a fun, choreographed villain gig into a federal manslaughter charge instantly.

I checked my watch. Almost 7:55.

Right on cue, the temperature in the lobby plummeted.

The reporters shivered, their breath suddenly visible in the air.

A thick layer of frost spiderwebbed rapidly across the reinforced glass doors of the main entrance with a sharp crackle.

It was the perfect setup for Glacia, that was for sure. She fit this scene like a goddam glove.

As the heavy doors violently blew inward on a localized gale of freezing wind, she stepped through the threshold.

His clicking down the tile with every step and with added effort from yours truly the light behind her flickered ominously.

Her flawless white coat just oozed class, the collar a fluff of fur that framed her strikingly gorgeous face. Her snowy white hair sat loosely around her head, her eyes hidden by a large pair of tinted sunglasses, and she walked with the sort of sharp, aristocratic stride that commanded absolute attention.

She had the kind of look that just screamed ’untouchable,’ and the entire room was instantly drawn into her gravitational pull.

"What is the meaning of this?!" the facility’s PR director squeaked, dropping his clipboard.

The reporters whispered amongst themselves as their camera crew were all now pointed at my beautiful second-in-command.

Glacia smiled, her lips a light pink that worked wonderfully with her pale face. She brushed a hand through her bone-white hair, tilting her head towards him with flawless ’I’m better than you’ condescension.

"I have come to collect what belongs to my organization," she said, her voice a soft, icy drawl that sent shivers down my spine, and certainly did the same for the reporters rapidly snapping photos. "Release the prisoner. Now."

The guards finally snapped out of their stupor. "Open fire!" the captain barked.

The room erupted into chaos as the guards raised their rifles, the heavy thud-thud-thud of rubber bullets echoing off the walls. But Glacia didn’t even flinch.

She elegantly raised a single, pale hand. A thick, glittering wall of solid ice erupted from the tile floor, catching the barrage of rubber riot rounds. The projectiles bounced harmlessly off the frozen barricade, clattering to the ground.

Through the glass of the holding cell, Steve jumped to his feet, pumping a fist in the air and yelling something that looked suspiciously like,

"Yeah! Gangster stuff!" I made a mental note to dock his pay for overacting, if only he didn’t live in a goddamn van.

Glacia stepped around her ice wall, casually waving her hand and sending a blast of freezing wind that knocked the guards flat on their asses, their rubber-bullet rifles skittering across the floor.

"Halt, villain!"

Glacia tilted her head, and I followed her eyes as a figure dropped from a second-story security balcony, landing heroically between Glacia and the holding cells.