From high up in the air vents of the Mansion, Tobias watched as his friends were dragged away one by one, each locked in their rooms and cuffed with strange glowing blue restraints that seemed to cut off all access to their powers. Each one was thrown into their room, trying to fight back but finding all their energy was completely drained. The guards that had once protected them now searched for Tobias on the orders of the man he used to see as a father.

“Find Tobias,” Loop had ordered. “I want him brought to me immediately. He is a threat to us now that he knows the truth, and I need him if I’m going to get any answers out of Marcos. Now find him!”

“But sir, what if he doesn’t come willingly?” said one of the soldiers.

“Then make him!” Loop snapped. “Wound him if you must but bring him to me!”

For the next half an hour, Tobias had sat up in the vents, leaning against the wall and tried to calm his hammering heart and his ragged breathing. His thoughts were swirling, clouding his brain of any clarity on what to do now.

Marcos was his brother. Oscar loved him. Loop had betrayed them. He wanted Tobias found. He didn’t care if he was hurt. He didn’t care about any of them. He lied. He lied. He LIED.

Letting his head drop into his hands, Tobias fisted his hair in frustration and just maybe a little bit of fear. He had to calm down. If he was going to have any chance at saving his friends and getting them all the hell out of here, he needed his head clear and his mind set. Taking a deep breath, Tobias let his hands fall back so they were resting on his knees and closed his eyes.

“Alright, Tobias,” he said to himself. “Let’s think about this. Come on, just think!”

Oscar and the others were all currently confined to their rooms. They were all on the first floor, which he was on as well, and so that made it easier to get to them. The problem was that each room was guarded by at least two heavily armed guards and none of the air vents went into the bedrooms themselves. So the only way he’d even had a chance at springing his friends was by getting the guards out of the way…

That was when the idea hit him. A crazy, manic, completely insane idea. Yet the only idea he had. And, if he was honest with himself, an idea only worthy of his mad brain. Oscar would kill him, but to Tobias that was an indication that it was a good idea.

Crawling down the vent, Tobias slowly made his way towards where he knew the fire exit stairs were, just down the end of the corridor. The air vent opened out to a larger box, a grate just under him. Tobias cursed quietly under his breath as he spotted a guard standing beneath his exit from the air vent. Biting his lip, he very slowly and very carefully pulled up the grate, trying to be as quiet as possible. Then, swallowing hard and wiping the sweat from his forehead, he placed himself over the gap…then jumped down.

The guard didn’t know what hit him. Within seconds, Tobias had wrapped his arm around his neck, cutting off his air supply and the man went down without a sound. Tobias moved quickly then, grabbing the guard’s revolver and tucking it into the waistband of his jeans. Then, using his powers, he levitated the guard up into the air vent and slid it closed, hiding all the evidence. Thank god Loop hadn’t gotten him with that strange power stealing machine. He didn’t know what he’d do otherwise. Stealing their powers…it was like stealing their hands. Tobias really didn’t know how to function without them.

Running to the window, he climbed out and dropped down the fire escape without anyone noticing. Then, slipping back inside the Mansion, he carefully made his way down the halls towards the weapons room. After taking out the two guards that stood in front of the weapons room door, Tobias crept in, dragging both the guards in with him and shut the door behind him.

Inside the weapons room looked like chaos, a far cry from the organised collection Tobias was used to. The guards had obviously been in here just before the lockdown to gear up but they had made a mess behind them. Pursing his lips together, Tobias began his task of arming himself enough to take out a whole unit of guards. Once he was satisfied, he grabbed a black duffle bag and began stuffing more weapons inside for the others. God knows they’ll be needing them once he sprung them. He even quickly threw in some body armour, knowing that without their powers, the others wouldn’t be able to protect themselves as well as they’d usually might. Tobias could only hope that they would eventually get their powers back... It was only when he got to the back of the room when he found the two things he was looking for: the stun grenades and a laptop.

Grabbing the stunners, he tucked them all into his belt before turning to the laptop. Now for the crazy, insane part of the plan. Taking a seat, Tobias shakily pulled the laptop towards him, opening up the page to a secure server. With his fingers hovering over the keyboard, he typed in the contact he wanted – the one that he remembered from when he read through Marcos’ email. The emergency contact line had been at the end of each email, Tobias had noticed, and he instantly memorised it just in case.

But he didn’t realise he’d be needing it so soon.

As soon as he had typed in the contact and then the code (which he had pretty easily figured out by the fact it was also Marcos’ password), the laptop screen went black as he waited for someone to pick up his call. Five minutes ticked by and there was still no answer. He was just about to give up when the screen flickered and a woman appeared. The moment she looked up, Tobias could see the flicker of panic that flashed across her eyes. She clearly knew he shouldn't be the one she should be speaking to.

“Umm…hi,” Tobias said, not exactly knowing what else to say. “Is this the Unity?” The woman stared at him, an eyebrow raised. “Okay, well I suppose you are by that death glare.”

“What do you want?” the woman spat. “What have you done with Marcos?”

“I haven’t done anything,” Tobias said. “Jesus, lady, why the hell do you think I’m calling you?”

“To gloat in our faces,” the woman replied.

“Heck no!” Tobias exclaimed. “I’m calling because I need help! Marcos has been compromised and captured by the Flame in the Compound! All of Project Midnight now know the truth behind everything but they’ve been captured too! I managed to get away but I can’t take on a whole Mansion full of guards on my own. Well…I could, but I wouldn’t want to.”

“Wait, are you saying that the entire Mansion Compound has been locked down?” the woman asked. “And that all the assets and Marcos are detained?!”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you!” Tobias yelled. “Honestly, I did not want to call you bastards but unfortunately your sorry arses are the only people open to me right now! Now if you’ve done repeating everything I say will you please go and get your bloody leader and let me talk to him because right now I could use some back up!”

“Who the hell do you think you are?” the woman said, her voice nearing shrill. Tobias growled, slamming his fist on the desk.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” he shouted. “I’m Tobias de la Rosa!” And with that, the woman scrambled out of her chair and out of the camera’s sight.

Tobias waited for another ten minutes, continuing gathering weapons and stuffing them all into his bag. Hell, this better work, he thought once he had finished packing, slinging the bag across his shoulder. Now that he was alone with absolutely nothing to do, his brain immediately went back into chaos again. Only this time, it wasn’t about the fact he was stuck in a locked down Mansion with everyone he ever cared about trapped in its walls.

No, this time it was about one person.

When he first stopped Oscar in the air vent and told him he knew about his feelings, he hadn’t quite expected Oscar to say what he did about his religion. It made him sad to think that Oscar was really that scared of telling Tobias how he felt because of the God he believed in. Not only that, but also because he was afraid of what Tobias himself would think. Truth be told, Toby didn’t care one bit that Oscar was gay. He didn’t care one bit that Oscar liked him. Tobias didn’t even care if Oscar loved him, like he had claimed to Dani and Megan.

It was strange that Oscar had chosen that moment to tell the girls. Sure, they kind of did force it out of him – something that Tobias found very funny indeed considering their whole lives had just been turned upside down at that point. But when he did, with Tobias listening on the other side of the bathroom door…well, it was like suddenly he could breathe again. After weeks and months of holding his breath, of waiting and watching and just begging that he wasn’t making things up in his head, Oscar had finally said what Tobias had suspected all along. And he was glad. He was so, so glad.

But they hadn’t quite finished their conversation earlier before Dani interrupted them. Tobias knew the question he was about to ask and he definitely knew his answer. He was just afraid that Oscar didn’t feel comfortable enough with him.

“Tobias?!”

He whipped around back to the laptop and grinned at the sight of Ariana and Max appearing onscreen. Scrambling forwards, he took his seat again at the desk.

“Ari! Max!” he cried. “Are you guys okay? What’s happening out there?”

“We’re fine, Tobes,” Max said, crouching down so Tobias could see him. “We broke into Lark’s office. The Flame have been lying to us, Toby. Lark explained everything. I didn’t want to believe it but Toby…they killed our parents.”

“I know,” Tobias said darkly. “We found out the same. Marcos explained the rest…can always trust a big brother to mess things up, can’t ya?”
Ari and Max exchanged looks before turning back to the camera.

“Yeah…how are you doing with that, Toby?” Ari asked softly. He raised an eyebrow before shrugging. Ari was only trying to be nice, he knew that. But still, he couldn’t help but think what a stupid question it was to ask him. How did she think he was doing? It definitely wasn’t all sunshine and flowers.

“Yeah, I’m alright,” he said. “But that doesn’t matter right. I need help over here, like real soon. Loop’s got everyone on lockdown and I can’t get to them without backup. So if you’re now besties with Lark, tell him to send every goddamn Unity solider he can over to this Compound because if he doesn’t then we’re all going to have our memories wiped again.”

“We’ve already made an agreement,” Max said. “We’re coming for you, don’t worry. But we have to get something too.” Tobias groaned.

“Okay, what is it?” he asked.

“Up in the Preparation Room is every single bit of information the Unity could ever need on the Flame, save for the names of the Flame Leaders themselves,” Ari said. “Lark wants the entire database downloaded. If we can get to it, then maybe we can work on unravelling the mistakes we’ve made working for the Flame.”

“Wait, you want us to work for the Unity now?!” Tobias exclaimed. “How do we know they’re any better than the Flame!”

“We have to, Toby,” Ari said. “We have to! For every person we killed or captured that was trying to fight for the Unity. God, even for our parents! For our families! We owe it to them. We owe it to a lot of people. Don’t you want to make up for everything?”

“It was hardly our fault,” Tobias pointed out.

“Maybe not,” Ari said. “But we have a chance to finally end this war.” Tobias hesitated for a moment, biting his lip. She was right, as she was very often. And he had to admit to himself that getting some revenge on the Flame for everything they had done to him and his family sounded damn good. But at the same time, so did not having to worry about this war anymore. All he wanted to do was run away to some little village, maybe get a job as a farmer or a shopkeeper and just forget about everything. However much he wanted that though, he knew the Flame would never stop chasing them. They would find them eventually. They would.

“Fine, all right,” Tobias groaned. “I’ll get what you need. But by hell, if I manage to pull this off, you better be waiting outside with an entire army.”

“We will, don’t worry,” Max said.

Boom!

Tobias spun around to see the door to the weapons room shaking as someone pounded on it outside. He could hear the shouting of guards as they tried to break through the door. He cursed to himself, grabbing his bag of weapons.

“I’ve got to go,” he said to Ari and Max. “But get the Unity outside the Mansion. I’ll do the rest.”

“But Toby-”

“Just go!”

And with that, Tobias slammed the laptop lid down, cutting off his communications with Ari and Max. The banging was getting louder as the door’s hinges began to splinter. Toby swallowed hard, looking up to where the grate of the air vent was just above him. Holding out a hand, he blasted the grate from the vent, climbing up onto the desk and hoisting himself back into the metal tunnels for the third time that day. He just managed to levitate the grate back into place as the door was smashed open and guards filled the room, completely unaware that once again, Tobias de la Rosa had slipped away into the vents above their heads.
 
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So a little filler there but it is important...you'll see why nect update ;)

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