As it were, Felix nearly collided with Johnathan and Harper as they camped out at one of the non-central staircases. They were both dressed in their superhero costumes, fortunately. The police pouring out from behind him regarded these new caped – in Harper's case, scarfed – vigilantes with suspicion.
"Fe- Rewind?" Harper corrected herself, almost accidentally revealing Felix's name. He eyes showed significant surprise, even through the mask she wore.
"Yeah. I changed my mind. I don't know what use I'll be in there, but I'll do whatever the two of you decide you need me to do," Felix said, careful not to say why he was there in the first place. There would only be one Kyle and Beth pair in that room, and something about Sergeant Welters told him that she was looking for hints as to who they were.
Johnathan walked up to him, clapping him on the back. "You're just in time, then," he told Felix. Then, turning to address Sergeant Welters, he asked, "Do you mind if we have a moment alone?"
Sergeant Welters eyed them with no small amount of scrutiny, her grey eyes flashing. Then, deciding that there wouldn't be any real harm in letting it happen, she simply insisted that they remain within visual distance. That was an easy request to adhere to, so Felix and Johnathan simply stepped back a handful of feet.
"I'm glad you're here, Felix, but you didn't need to come if you didn't want to," he whispered seriously. "You can still back out, if you'd like."
"Some friends of mine are in there. I can't let any harm come to them, nor can I let you and Harper put yourselves in any danger without me," Felix argued. "I won't be leaving." His tone of voice brooked no more discussion about that topic.
"I understand. Thank you, Felix. We can stick to our original plan with a couple of modifications, since we've got some new team members with us," Johnathan's eyes flicked towards the police officers, who were having their own hushed conversations. Only Harper remained alone, her gaze fixed on the floor above.
"Before that, why are you and Harper down here? Shouldn't you have come from above?" Felix's mind tried to work through the puzzle, but he found absolutely zero reason for this.
"Harper promised she could read signs," Johnathan said, simply. Felix slowly began to nod in sage-like agreement.
"That would do it."
"Either way, the plan remains unchanged. We move up to the fifteenth floor, send you in through the conference room's doors first, and see if you can distract Blast enough to buy Harper and me time to enter on our own."
"Wouldn't it make more sense if you and harper just flew through one of the windows? I know it'll probably cut you, but it'll basically be the best surprise attack possible," Felix suggested. It sounded silly to base everything on the idea that he could strike up a conversation with Blast that was so gripping that it made the supervillain forget about watching the entrances.
"I don't know how fast we need to go to break glass, and if we go too fast, not only will Harper and I suffer injuries, but we could cause collateral damage. If we were to fly into some of the hostages…" Johnathan's voice trailed off, clearly imagining the worst-case scenario.
"And the police?"
"We can use them to hold the entrance of the conference room from any of Blast's lackeys, should they come to help their boss. You want to go convince them?" Johnathan offered. Felix fervently shook his head, but a single puppy-eyes from Johnathan found Felix standing next to a group of impatient and pressed police officers. Gosh, who knew even old people had some version of those eyes. Felix cursed his weakness as he butted in into their conversation.
"Yes, Rewind?" Sergeant Welters said, looking at him with clear distrust that almost bordered on disdain. "Going to try to run away again?"
"I hardly ran away. I was still going to make it up here. To be specific, I ran away from you guys, because I didn't want to see any of you hurt," Felix explained, doing his best to not include the aspect that he felt it was annoying to be shadowed by a whole squad of trained cops.
The sergeant glared at him, tossing her hair back behind her shoulders. She looked far more like a pissed-off college girl than a police officer in that moment, but her careful visage swiftly returned. "Do you have a plan? Do we get a choice?"
"What do you mean, 'get a choice?' Of course you get a choice!" Felix didn't yell, but it was pretty close to it.
"I assume you and your friends could kill my guys many times over with your magic. We're not your pawns. Even though I supported you in front of the captain, I don't trust you in the slightest," she growled. The majority of her squad nodded along, with only a couple looking at their partners with confusion.
"Firstly, we wouldn't dare harm your people. Secondly, we're not using you as pawns. We want you to just hold this staircase so that we can take care of Blast. We have a plan, so please let us execute it without outside interference," Felix dipped his head, asking for the favor. Sergeant Welters pursed her lips and paced back and forth, her eyebrows furrowing in concentration.
"If a single one of my guys dies again, I will make sure you go to jail," Sergeant Welters pushed her index finger into Felix's chest, making sure that he got the memo. Felix nodded solemnly. There wouldn't be another Adam, nor another Jerrick. He'd make sure of that.