The salty wind whipped at Chase's face as he crouched atop the roof of a warehouse overlooking a dimly lit marina. Exhaling, he ran a gloved hand over his recently shaved head. The short, blond hairs stabbed at his exposed fingers, keeping him grounded in reality.

If the mission was going to go as planned, then he—and his team—would need to stay focused. Any slip-up would spell catastrophe for them.

He scanned the docks again.

All the boats had been brought in for the night, their ropes tied around wooden posts at the end of the boardwalks. Blinking lights from the city across the choppy water shone in the distance, the bright skyline glowing throughout the night.

Chase squinted at the boardwalks themselves in search of his targets. His eyes lit up after he spotted them.

Normally, the docks would've been empty at that time of night. But the worst crimes always occurred during the dark.

"Hostiles spotted towards the south end," Chase whispered. "Glitch, do a headcount for me." The virtually invisible earpiece in his ear crackled with sound as Glitch—also known as Archibald Hamilton—readied a response.

The now fourteen-year-old and a half boy—emphasis on the half—was stationed in a nondescript, white van parked a block away from the marina. Their usual surveillance team member called in sick, so Archie volunteered to step in. After all, he designed the drones and other equipment they used during missions. Who better than him to back the squadron of teenaged Primes up during their mission?

"Give me a second, Sentinel," Archie replied. Chase heard the boy type something before continuing. "I'm seeing twelve mercenaries. The cargo is in the trucks. Another convoy is on its way to their position. It'll be there in...two minutes."

Chase nodded and thanked the boy. He then averted his eyes towards the roof of another warehouse. Through the haze, he spotted the silhouette of their ranged weapons specialist standing on the ledge. "Reverb, we're going to need a distraction."

"Red or green?" Emily Yumiko, codename Reverb, asked.

She was referring to the different colored arrows she had in her quiver. The red ones caused a small explosion while the green released a thick, non-lethal gas.

Chase stroked his chin as he thought of which one to go with. If they chose red, it would alert the mercenaries of their presence immediately. Though, it would knock a few of them off the board. But if they opted for green, they'd be able to maintain their element of surprise. As an attack, though, it wouldn't be very effective.

"We should go wit' the red, Chase," another voice, tinged with a southern accent, suggested. "That way, we'll have less peoples to fight, ya' know?"

It was one of the newbies, Angus Tucker—codename Slugger. The boy hid behind a brick wall near the arm's deal below. His orange hair stood out against his all-black uniform.

Chase rolled his eyes at the sixteen-year-old's suggestion. "Bad idea," he replied. "Agent Strong specifically told us to get the collateral damage to a minimum."

"But—"

"We're going with green," Chase said. "Decision final."

"I was just givin' a suggestion," Angus grumbled.

A soft voice chimed in after him. "Can we focus, boys? The mercenaries are going to get away if we keep arguing about which arrow to use." Her voice was slightly muffled as if she were underwater.

Chase nodded. "Pisces is right. We need to focus on the mission." He shifted his gaze back to the docks below. The convoy Archie mentioned earlier pulled up to the scene. A few men, dressed in all-black, hopped out the back with AK-47s in hand.

They walked over to the other group of men standing in front of a few trucks. The trunks were popped open, revealing sealed cases of weapons, illegal tech, and other forms of contraband.

But this wasn't a regular arms deal. No. A Prime had orchestrated this one. A fairly notorious one at that.

"Reverb, what're they saying down there?" Chase asked.

"Hold on." The girl's line went dead for a moment. "Just gun talk. They've got some serious firepower in there, though." She paused. "They're about to complete the transaction."

"If we're gonna stop them, we betta' act quick," Angus chirped.

Chase scowled. Yeah, no shit.

"We'll go on Chase's word," Pisces, real name Kai Namaka, said.

He was glad he brought her and Emily along. It helped that the two girls worked incredibly well together. Though, he wasn't too stoked about bringing Angus along. It hadn't been his idea, but Director Shaw insisted the boy tag along for some "mission experience".

What a terrible idea.

Shaking his head, he squinted at the docks. "Okay, on three, Reverb is going to shoot three green arrows into the crowd. Once the gas settles, the rest of us will rush in and take them out. Our main priority is Phobos. He's the ringleader. Understood?"

His team muttered in agreeance.

"Good." His hand tightened around the handle of his tactical sword. "One..."

He watched as the criminals below wrapped up their deal. The orchestrator of the whole thing, Marco Bonucci—or Phobos, had recently started his own underground crime syndicate after his abilities were awakened during what was known as "The Incident". For the past year and a half, he'd been moving and pushing drugs, weapons, and even people.

"Two..."

He was sly, cunning, and dangerous. For months, the police had been unable to catch him.

Up until now.

"Three!"

Out the corner of his eye, he spotted three arrows whistling towards the platform. The tips exploded upon contact with the ground. Gas released from the tips and swallowed the dock slowly. The armed men below shouted in alarm. The lights attached to their rifles pierced through the green clouds.

"Let's move!" Chase yelled.

He sprung from his perched and combat rolled before hitting the floor. It was easily a fifteen-foot shock, but that meant nothing to him.

Popping up from his knee, he sprinted at the nearest arms dealer. He squeezed his hand into a fist. The light blue holo-shield attached to his wrist hummed to life. After detaching the shield from its holder, he chucked it at the mercenary.

They dropped to their knees, clutching at their chest. Chase's shield flew back to his wrist and he continued into the green fog ahead of him.

To the side, he spotted Kai rising from the water beside the boardwalk. Arms made of water swirled around her, protecting her body from the bullets hurtling towards her.

"It's Atlas!" someone yelled above the commotion. "Get the cargo and get out of here!"

Chase scowled. Not so fast.

As he prepared to run towards the owner of the voice, he heard a gun cock behind him. He spun on his heel and wrapped his fingers around the rifle's snout. The barrel crumpled like an empty soda can.

"Bad move," he said. Before the shooter could react, he smacked them across the dock with his shield.

Behind him, he heard Angus rushing into the battle like the bumbling fool he was. He has taken on two mercenaries on at once. One swiped a knife at him, which the boy barely dodged. His other assailant fired off a few rounds from his handgun. Yelping, Angus dove behind a stack of metal crates.

Angus' power might've been impressive, but his skin couldn't stop bullets as Chase's could. It didn't help that he had little no real-world fighting experience.

Why did we bring him with us?

As the mercenaries converged on Angus' hiding spot, the young Prime lobbed a ball of crackling, blue energy at them. It sailed harmlessly wide and crashed into a nearby boat, sending it up in flames.

Swathes of fire bathed the dock as the dinghy began to sink.

Chase facepalmed. Amateur.

Sighing, he refocused on the fighting going on around him. Emily, who had descended from her rooftop, was blasting foes with rings of supersonic energy from her vocal cords. Kai had touched down on the platform as well. The girl twirled her trident in hand as she fended off attacks from both sides.

He wasn't worried about them, as they could take care of themselves. It was Angus who worried him.

But he had bigger things to worry about at the moment.

Marco was going to escape if he didn't find him soon. And if he got away this time, he feared they wouldn't be able to find him again.

"Where's our guy?" Emily yelled while notching two arrows.

"I'm working on it!" Chase replied. He looked around for the man, but couldn't find him through the gunfire, dissipating smoke, and debris around. He pressed a finger to his earpiece. "Glitch, I need you to find Phobos for me."

"He just got into a getaway car in an alley nearby. He'll be coming your way shortly."

Chase nodded and turned in Emily's direction. "You get that?"

"Yep." The girl readied an electric-charge arrow and aimed it at the alleyway Archie mentioned.

Seconds later, a black sports car zipped out the alley and hurtled down the docks. Mercenaries dove out the way, cursing loudly as they avoided death. Emily shot her arrow at its hood, but it didn't seem to slow it down.

In fact, the car sped up.

And it was coming straight for Chase.

He froze for a moment. His mind went blank as he stared at the racing vehicle hurtling toward him.

The panic was short-lived. He took a step backward and rolled his shoulders. A grin stretched across his face.

"Chase..." Emily warned.

"I got this."

As the car got closer, he spotted Phobos in the driver's seat. The man's bearded face sported a scowl as he pressed the pedal to the metal. The engine revved as the tires squealed. A malicious glint filled his eyes.

Chase had no intentions of moving. Ever since he got his abilities two years prior, he'd been honing and growing them. Before, he could only lift a car above his head for a few seconds. Now? He could carry a military-grade tank for multiple minutes.

Stopping a sportscar in its tracks was nothing.

Putting one foot behind him for extra support, he braced himself for impact.

His heart stopped for a moment when the car collided into his palms. His arms dug into the metal of the hood as it passed around him. A dull pain rippled throughout his body as the vehicle forced him backward. His feet pushed into the ground as if it were fresh mud. A loud, echoing yell left his throat as he strained to push the car back.

Through his closed eyes, he heard glass shattering and a man screaming—though, he couldn't tell if it was a horrified scream or a surprised one. It was probably both.

Gritting his teeth, he shoved the car backward until he heard the tires screeching. Smoke billowed around him as he felt himself slowing down. Soon, both he and the car stopped, just inches away from the edge of the dock.

Sweat dripped down his face as he dislodged his hands from the ruined vehicle.

He dusted a few pieces of broken glass from his mission suit and grinned triumphantly.

Car: zero, Chase: one.

Ignoring the faint aching in his arm muscles, Chase sauntered over to the driver's side of the vehicle, ripped the door off its hinges, and pulled Phobos out by the scruff of his jacket.

"W-We can talk about t-this," the man stuttered, his eyes widening as he dragged out of the car.

"Sure we can," the blond Prime replied with a roll of his eyes. "You can talk all you want once you're locked inside The Vault." He hoisted the man into the air and stared into his abyss-like irises.

Chase pursed his lips upon seeing Phobos' shaking hand reaching for his hand. "What're—"

His eyes glazed over, his vision waning. His grip on the man's jacket slackened. Pinpricks of pain shot up his arm as his entire body shuddered. A flurry of terrifying images infiltrated through his mind, each one more horrifying than the next.

He saw bullet-ridden bodies laid out on the floor of a destroyed city. Smoke filled the sky. Dark silhouettes passed through the black clouds above.

The image switched to one of himself standing in the doorway of his house. His mother had her arms wrapped around him as they watched his father leave for yet another military mission. The scene shifted slightly. He was still beneath the doorway, but he wasn't watching his father leave.

He was watching him return. In a casket covered by the American flag. Oorah.

The picture changed yet again.

This time, he was back on Adak Island, bleeding out on the snow-covered floor. He saw Kane's body against the machine that changed the world forever. Everything turned red again like how it did on that fateful day.

The scar beneath the mesh of his mission suit flared up as if he'd been stabbed again. Sweat formed on his forehead and temple. Crying out in pain, he dropped Phobos and scurried backward.

He brought a trembling hand to his face, which was damp with tears.

"What the hell was that?" His voice was an octave above a whisper.

Chuckling darkly, Phobos rose to his feet. "Like that little trick? I call it the tocco di paura. The touch of fear." He retrieved a gun from the waist of his jeans. "That's why they call me Phobos."

Chase rubbed his wrist. "Yeah, I figured that much."

He cursed himself for not reading the man's file for carefully. He took a step toward Phobos but stopped after hearing the man cock the gun.

Surely, he knew a bullet wouldn't stop him? But perhaps it wasn't a normal bullet. And it was public knowledge that the Sentinel was not indestructible. There very well could've been bullets out there that could pierce his skin.

Knowing who Phobos was, he would've definitely had some in his arsenal.

Swallowing hard, Chase frantically searched for a way out.

"Bye, bye, Sentinel," Phobos grumbled, his finger inching closer to the trigger of his gun. Before he could pull it, the black shaft of an arrow whistled past his ear and lodged itself into the ruined car behind him. He cast a glare to Emily, who stood a few yards away with her bow in hand. "You missed." He ripped the purple-tipped arrow out and laughed.

"Did I?" she asked, sarcasm dripping from her words.

Phobos tilted his head at her. "Wha—"

The arrowhead in his hand expanded in a burst of sonic energy. He cried out in surprise as his body was flung backward into a stack of crates. Groans of pain rose from where he landed.

Chase glanced at Emily with wide eyes. She walked over to him and slung her bow over her shoulder.

"Thanks."

"You shouldn't have let him get that close," she chastised. "You're lucky I was there to save you."

"And I take my 'thanks' back."

Around them, Kai and Angus finished off the last few stragglers who hadn't surrendered after seeing their leader get blasted across the docks. The group called in Archie and the local police to help round up the mercenaries.

As they waited for the authorities to arrive, Chase took a seat on the edge of the dock and stared at the black water ahead. Wincing, he absentmindedly rubbed his abdomen. After helping the others load Phobos into their van, Emily took a seat next to her team leader.

"What'd he make you see?"

Chase clenched his jaw.

"Hey," she said, her tone softening. "You can talk to me, you know. I'm not one of these new guys. It's me."

He nodded and ran a hand over his head. "Yeah...yeah, I know. It's just...I saw something weird. There was some destroyed city and something in the sky. I don't know what it was, but it was horrible."

Emily averted her gaze to her feet.

"That wasn't it either," Chase continued. "He showed me my dad coming back from deployment in a casket. Then he put me back on Adak Island right after Kane activating the machine."

"Jeez." Emily exhaled. "That must've sucked."

He snorted. "Yeah, no kidding."

Someone behind them honked the horn to the van. He heard Archie yell that it was time for them to get back to the airport so they could fly back to headquarters.

"C'mon, Goldilocks," Emily said. "Time to go home."

The two of them walked over to the back of the van to make sure Phobos was properly strapped in and cuffed. His abilities wouldn't work as long as those nullifiers were wrapped around his wrists.

He journeyed over to the driver's side and opened the door. Before climbing inside, he spotted something moving on the roof of a nearby building. He froze and squinted at the structure.

But nothing was there.

"You good, Chase?" Angus asked.

"Yeah...Yeah, I'm fine."

Shaking his head, he wrote it off as lingering paranoia from Phobos' fear touch. He took one last look at the rooftop. Convinced he was just seeing things, he climbed into the van and drove off.