"Nobody make a move! We don't want to have to kill anyone, but if you don't do as I say you'll all soon be filled with lead."
The ground floor of the Chase Tower in Dallas was the center of attention this afternoon for a group of madmen armed to the teeth with fully automatic weapons and anti-ballistic armor were holding the level hostage until their demands were met. There was no uproar or panic as everyone did exactly as they were told without hesitation. The crowd was oddly complacent during such an event. No one even broke into a sweat as a couple of the men rushed up to several floors just to swipe a case of compact disks.
"Okay, got those docs. It was pretty easy really."
"Yeah about that. Where are the cops or swat? Not that I'm really complaining, but you'd think there'd be something."
"You guys aren't from around here, are you?" interjected a security guard still with his hands behind his head.
"With law enforcement as vigilant as this I'd be proud to say we're not."
The mercenaries stormed out of the complex in a militarized fashion and loaded up into their bus. After double-checking to make sure they weren't being pursued, the driver shifted in gear and pulled away leaving the city at eighty miles per hour. The frontman kept peering out behind them expecting the armed forces or at least the police to be picking up their trail and hounding them down, but instead, there was nothing. It was unsettling at first, but after they were clear outside county lines and on their way to Arkansas he eased in and chalked it up to the goddess of luck.
It wasn't but two minutes later as everyone was going around joking about how easy the job was and what they'd do with their cut of the bill when their presumed luck ran dry. The caravan jerked to the side and served back into the lane as some undefined shockwave zoomed past them. The boss ran to the front of the bus and consulted the driver rather angrily.
"What the hell was that Bernie, you could have gotten us killed!?"
"It wasn't me Jim. Something sped past us, but I'm not sure what."
"Sped past… what could have sped past us? We are going more than eighty and we are the only thing on the road as far as the eye can see in either direction. Are you sure you weren't spooked by our own shadow?"
"I swear Jim. It was small too."
"Like a motorcycle? Something that small would get wrecked if it hit us."
"No, like a… like a kid."
"That's it Berns, the corporate sabotage business is getting to you. I'm putting you on a mandatory vacation when we get back. A kid…" he muttered as he walked back to his seat.
It was only a few seconds later that the driver was interrupted again, but instead of a sonic pulse, it was a tap. The driver's side of the vehicle was being knocked on, but Bernie couldn't see another vehicle next to them. He rolled his window down and peaked his out. Lo and behold that below his standard view was a small child, roughly the age of an elementary student with bright blonde hair and pale skin. He wore a red tee shirt with a black cape sewn to the shoulders and shorts to match. But that wasn't the astounding part, it was the fact that he was keeping up with the bus and he wasn't even panting.
"Excuse me mister, but I'm going to need you to pull over!"
"Buzz off kid, you have to be at least this tall to ride," he hollered while placing his hand at the height of the window before rolling it back up. Before he could focus on the road again, however, another knock came from outside.
"What kid!?"
"I really need you to pull over. I'm placing you under arrest!"
"Fuck off kid. We're busy."
The man rolled up the window again, but this time the kid had an irate look in his eyes. Noticing Bernie's peculiar activity, Jim made his way up front again.
"What the heck are you doing now Berns?"
"Dude, I was right. There really was a kid outside."
"That's it. I'm taking you off the wheel and putting Stewart on. There is no way a chi…"
Before he could finish his statement the bus halted to a complete stop and everything toppled over. Jim gave the driver a nasty look assuming it was his fault, but there was no way their breaks could stop a twenty-ton vehicle going that fast on a dime. No one else had time to explain that it wasn't their fault since before their eyes the back end of their armored bus was torn off like the lid to a can of tuna. Standing there with the back of the bus in hand was the kid, who tossed it aside like it was made of cotton. He hopped into the vehicle with the same angered look still stuck on his face.
"You said a bad word. I stop being nice to people that swear at me!"
"What are you waiting for," Jim screamed immediately, "shoot that kid!"
The men unloaded full magazines of armor-piercing rounds at the boy, but he stood unharmed. The bullets didn't even ricochet off him, they just compressed into themselves upon impact and dropped to the ground as if all their momentum was displaced by his body. After all of the ammo was expunged from the guns, the kid started walking toward them slowly. The bandits panicked since they couldn't comprehend a man immune to gunfire, let alone a small kid. Many of them got up from their positions and charged at him with blades they had concealed on their persons, but various knives broke and blunted upon striking the boy's flesh. As they each ran up to him, the boy would flick them upon their crowns and the men would collapse into a state of unconsciousness from the force. The kid kept walking until nothing stood between him and the pack handler.
"I'm sure we can strike a deal, I'm former Commander James War-"
"I don't care. All that matters is that you took something that doesn't belong to you and now you must own up to the penalty."
"Come on kid, there's got to be something we can work out. How about some candy!" the man yelled as he threw several smoke bombs to the ground. He was going to use the coverage to scurry, but when the smoke subsided he found that he was slipping around in the same spot with the boy holding on to the back of his collar.
"You know, that might have been a problem if I saw things the same way you did."
Jim flipped out a knife and cut loose the fabric the boy was gripping. He proceeded to run out of the bus, but the kid wasn't too far behind. They stood fifty feet from each other when the lad stopped and questioned James.
"Where do you plan to run; the land is empty for miles and I'm pretty fast?"
"Oh," Jim gasped out while catching his breath, "I don't need to run anywhere."
The boy looked confused until he caught the sound of something high up in the air. He swore it said, "Heat signature locked". Within the time it took for him to notice where the helicopter was, two air-to-surface missiles spiraled down at him releasing more than a ton of explosive force each on contact. A hoist lowered down and lifted Jim into the chopper before the police arrived to collect the knocked-out terrorists. The dust settled with the boy rising from his planted rear and stretching out his limbs. Several officers ran over to check on him.
"Are you okay Valor?"
"Yeah, nothing's damaged but my pride."
"We apprehended most of the criminals and claimed all the discs, you don't have to chase an armed gunship for one guy."
"Now if I gave up that easily, where would all the fun lie?."
The boy took off running again, clearing all the remaining dust from the road with the shockwave he left behind. Back in the helicopter, Jim unveiled that the compact discs weren't his target after all.
"It took you guys long enough to get there, but it's fine. Despite that freak of nature showing up, I've still got what we set out for."
James pulled a device the size of a man's thumb out of the lining of his boots and showed it off to the others in the aircraft.
"What the hell is that?"
"Yeah, looks pretty worthless to me."
"I'm not surprised you boneheads don't know what it is. You guys can hardly turn on a computer. The device is only a couple years old now, but it is called a Universal Serial Bus Flash Drive, though some of us just call it a Jump Drive."
"I don't get it."
"Of course you wouldn't. It is a form of flash memory that based on its state can store exponentially more data than many of your CDs while being completely rewritable. This little sucker here has the schematics for our big project. Is the satellite ready Sara?"
"Yeah, but you might want to hurry!"
Jim looked out and behind them to see the brat who had spoiled his day thus far gaining on their stolen militarized aircraft.
"Holy shit, how is that kid still alive? I want you to fire everything we've got at him. The little punk might have taken our standard armor-piercing rounds and a couple tons of TNT, but how he handles our anti-tank ballistics."
No longer being in the age of fixed-direction weapon mounts, the bottom-hanging gatling turrets pivoted around and fired at the charging child. The bullets tore into the road with all of them missing the kid within a fraction of an inch.
"Sara, haven't you ever heard of 'leading your target'!?"
James took control and set the turrets directly into Valor's path. As the ballistics made contact, they appeared to be slowing him down but not really damaging him. Annoyed by the constant fire, the boy stuck out his hand to the turret and a glowing ball started growing in front of it. It was blindingly bright, like a miniature star. He shot a softball-sized shining sphere at each turret, which exploded violently on contact.
"I'm not sure what he just did Jim, but the kinetic shock is really fucking with our systems. Any more of that and we drop like rocks in a pond."
"Then drop the cavalry."
"No Jim. That's like a kiloton of dynamite. Everything in the mile would be demolished."
"I don't care, we are in the middle of nowhere. Drop it!"
They lifted higher into the sky than before. Once they reached a safe altitude, Sara flipped up a hatch and pulled a switch that opened a trapdoor on the back of the chopper. Out of the hatch, a bomb dropped close to Valor. It didn't hit the lad, but upon striking the ground the detonation lit everything around it into the normally lethal dosage of chemical combustion. The flames soared high enough to tickle the underbelly of the aircraft, but overall they were safe.
"Good riddance. Things like that brat shouldn't even exist as far as I'm concerned."
Just as James wiped the sweat from his brow, a figure shot up from the cloud of smoke and landed hard on into the helicopter. The boy was covered in first-degree burns, his clothes were tattered and scorched, with still some small flames on them, and his face expressed what could only be described as pissed. As he strolled over to Jim, everything from his body to even the clothes he wore began healing back to the way they were before their very eyes.
"H-how… how are you still alive!? You're not human, like some kind of monster or god!"
"No, I'm just a boy."
That was all Valor said before he knocked Jim and all of his associates out like the other before. Of course, then the boy realized quickly how dumb it was to incapacitate the pilot.
"Oops…"
Before they lost much altitude, Valor used the helicopter like a springboard and leaped downwards faster than gravity could grab the ship. Upon landing, he repositioned himself and caught the chopper in the nick of time. While waiting for the law enforcement from the closest county to arrive he muttered to himself, for that is all who was conscious to hear, "I know I'm only nine, but I really need to think these things through better."
The next thing Jim and his gang remember was coming to just as the police arrived. Valor was long gone and when he tried to explain what happened as he was being shoved into the back of a secured vehicle, they thought he and his goons had gone mad. It appears no one outside the Dallas/Fort Worth area knew who Valor was or that he even existed and that puzzled the man. It led to many questions. Who or what is Valor? Who was keeping him secret from those outside the city and why? Were they afraid the world wasn't ready for him or were they trying to keep him for themselves? But it ultimately, it didn't matter. The only thing that mattered to James H. Warren was that before Valor took them down, the transfer was complete.