Their hug lasted for a solid ten seconds. Their angle was kind of awkward since the teenage boy was on his side, trying his best to embrace her while she's sitting on the motorcycle. Her arms didn't wrap around him, but her hands held on to his shirt was enough of an indication that she's reciprocating the hug.
He didn't expect her tears to soak his shirt, but he spoke nothing of it. She spoke nothing of the way he wiped away his own few drops of tears, too.
Two days went by, they busied themselves with rebuilding the base and burying their comrades. While they were having a meal of canned tuna and ham sandwich in the silence of their room, Ayala Lopez opened their door.
"Lady Red wanted to talk to both of you." The healer greeted them with a small smile. "She said Jay Pleng, but never specified which one."
Before they knew it, they were standing in front of Lady Red herself. The leader is still required bed rest, but she looked a lot more alive than the last time they saw her.
Ayala Lopez left them in the room with her, so it's a privately private talk then. Jay Pleng was glad that their leader is recovering, but he couldn't shake away the feeling of anxiety.
"Are you two finally getting along?" Her motherly smile didn't ease them one bit.
"Yeah, I guess." The teenage boy tried to smile back.
Her sharp eyes moved from him towards her. "Jay Pleng, Ayala told me you could find me. Do you want to explain your power? It's alright if you don't."
Silence fell over the room once more. After a moment, the girl finally nodded.
"You're still wearing the necklace I gave you." She mumbled, and her eyes were staring at the ground. "I made it myself, so... So I know where it is at all times. Sorry for putting a tracker on you without your permission."
At the mention of a tracker, Jay Pleng eyed the knife strapped to his thigh. The knife that he took from her on the faithful day he broke free from her father's laboratory. Could she track him down just because he had the knife on him? Is that why she kept trying to get it back?
"It's all good, little darling." Lady Red's response was rather shocking. The teenage boy was expecting a lecture or worse... "It's amazing how you could do that. And you," The older woman faces the teenage boy again. "I've seen the damage you've done to those Wonder Soldiers. Do you want to explain your power?"
"Is it alright if I don't?" Jay Pleng took a deep breath before he continued, "'Cause I'm not sure how. I'll try anyway. I can't just make people explode unless they have a... A tracker on them. All Wonder Soldiers have a piece of metal inside their nape. It's how my father controlled all of us. If we misbehave, he'd tase us no matter how far we are away from him."
Lady Red reached for her cup of tea on the nightstand. "So you can make it explode?"
"Basically, yeah." The teenage boy shrugged. "Do you have a dice? I just think it's something cool, so I wanna show you."
The bedridden woman raised an eyebrow at his words, but she didn't scold him for it. "Darling, I don't have a dice, but Jay Pleng, can you make one for him?"
"Right now?" The girl tilted her head just a little. "Depending on what type of dice, the material and size, it might take me a few hours."
"How long will it take you to make a tracker similar to one Jay Pleng described?" Without even taking a sip of her drink, Lady Red placed her tea cup on her bed. "You can probably tell what my intention is. If we could tell where everyone is at all times, when one of us is kidnapped like I was, we can rescue them before it's too late."
That's not a bad idea, isn't it?
"I can't make a tablet that gives you access to their location, but I can make small charms, just like your necklace, and I can tell where they are." The other Jay Pleng took a step closer to her bed. "I don't remember the blue prints of the Wonder Soldier's tracker, but if we must, with the right materials, I can embed a small explosive feature into the tracker."
Red eyes glared at his partner the moment she mentioned the explosive. Are they trying to recreate what his father were doing? Shit, and it's his fault for mentioning it...
"Then our dear Jay Pleng can activate it." Lady Red seemed too eager about this. Her eyes lit up when she looked at both of them together. "If we equip everyone with the trackers, the power will be in your hands. You two are good kids, so I trust you with this. Everyone won't say no to an anti kidnapping device."
An anti kidnapping device that can also explode if Jay wanted it to, but it will only work if the other Jay makes it, and Lady Red somehow convinced people to have it on them.
____
A month went by since the day they hugged. Jay Pleng was thrown into the ground by her opponent, the war machine Jay Pleng.
Her back hit the thin mattress, and she let out a yelp as his hands tighten around her shoulders. Because he's standing on the mattress, it's easier for him to lose his balance when she kicked his ankles. Unfortunately, he fell directly on top of her this time.
"Adorable!" Lady Red was clapping her hands for them. "Jay Pleng, little darling, you improved a lot! Jay Pleng, thank you for teaching her."
Jay pushed herself off the mattress as soon as her opponent rolled off her. He's almost twice her size and almost double her weight, but he's the only person on the base besides Tegan who had any formal combative training.
When Lady Red moved her attention away from them, the girl gave her opponent a middle finger, which he returned with as much vigor as their spar.
"You can't fight for shit." He mumbled, thinking that they're out of their leader's hearing range.
"That's the point, dumbass." Jay hissed back. "I'm not a front line fighter like you. Your job is to protect me."
"We have the mattress to protect your fragile ass." The teenage boy rolled his eyes, and he ran his hands through his sweaty hair to pull it out of his face. "What's on our schedule today?"
Jay put her hands on her hips as she glared at him. "We're picking up some wires from downtown. Did your brain died or something? This is the second time you ask me that question today—"
"Lady Red!" Ayala's scream echoed through the courtyard.
The girl snapped her head towards the commotion, and she immediately rushed to Lady Red's side. One of her hands gently rubbed on the older woman's back, her other hand was holding up her think black hair while her leader was puking into a bush. Ayala tried to bring a plastic bag, but she was a little too late.
It's no secret that Lady Red has been sick in the past week, after everyone's thought she's recovered from when she was kidnapped.
With the constant puking and lack of energy, Jay Pleng feared the worst for her mentor and leader. Eagle Eye must've impregnated her.
Even with that thought in mind, Jay stayed quiet.
After lunch, she hopped on the motorcycle, waiting for her partner to put on his helmet and take them down to the slums. Talking about the slums, Jay had been gaining a lot of weight from the better food they've been getting every time they visited downtown.
It's only a few pounds more than the last time she was on a scale, which was back when her father was still alive, but her point was her mother would lecture her and starve her for a few meals if she's this heavy.
Her partner returning with their allowance put a smile on a her face. The Villains are not rich by any means, but they acquired some money from their missions and all, so every time someone steps outside of the base, Lady Red would give them a few coppers to spend.
Usually the male Jay Pleng used his allowance on gas for the motorcycle that Ayala gifted him, and Jay is the one paying for their food. Sometimes, the people in the slums downtown give them food such as a loaf of bread or some fermented fruits as thanks for their "bravery" and resistance.
Today was one of those days where Jay was thanking a mother of three for the two loafs of bread in her hand. She didn't even get to check what type of bread she got inside the plastic bag when an explosion happened across the street.
Her partner was strapping their package to the motorcycle, and he snapped his head towards the commotion.
"Get inside and lock your door!" The girl turned around to give the mother and her children one last look. "We'll lead those scums away from downtown—"
"Jay!" The other Jay Pleng yelled as he pulled her by her shoulders, shielding her away from a rain of bullets which narrowly missed the mother and her three kids.
The woman finally slammed their rusty door, so Jay let out a sigh of relief. Lady Red said the citizens' safety is their priority. On the same line, Jay would say that her partner is at the bottom of the safety priority list. He would throw him into danger just because he knows he'll make it out alive, and people let him do that because they know he'll be fine.
"Damn it! FRIENDLY FIRE!"
While her partner was yelling, Jay couldn't really see with him in her way, and with the dust in the air from the explosion, she couldn't tell if it's truly friendly fire.
When the smoke cleared up a little, her blue eyes widened at the sight of seven feet tall men walking out of the debris.
Wonder Soldiers...
One of those war machines were holding a rifle, one that belonged to the Villains, while his comrades were cheering him on. Leading the group of five Wonder Soldier was a man with dark blond hair and a face that's almost identical to her partner.
Those red eyes landed on the two teenagers; Eugene Romanov took a step back and formed a force field between them, much to his teammates' confusion.
"Jay Romanov." Eugene called out to his brother. The mention of his name alone was enough for the other Wonder Soldiers to aim their guns at the pair.
"Stay behind me." The teenage boy whispered to Jay, and she nodded.
He barely finished healing, and she knew she had to get him a better bullet proof vest or clothing that wouldn't rip so easily. Jay picked up a half broken brick in her gloved hand, just in case she needed to defend them. She trusted her partner to divert and take the bullets that come her way, but he's not perfect in everything he does, so just in case. The girl began channeling her energy into the stack of bricks laying right in front of her. She knew those bricks were meant to pave the pavement in front of the kind woman's house, but...
"Your forcefield can't protect them, Eugene." Jay Pleng's voice upheld his forced confidence. "Get out of here or you won't make it out alive—"
He didn't get to finish his threat when the force field dropped, and the Wonder Soldiers started shooting. In that moment, several bricks flew across the battlefield, throwing a lot of the bullets off course and exploding into the clay. Some of the bricks even hit their attackers, but it didn't do much to deter them.
As expected, the male Jay Pleng managed to divert enough bullets to not hit his vital organs. With a click of his finger, one of the Wonder Soldier's head erupted into a fountain of fresh red blood, earning some screams and yells from the team.
Meanwhile, Jay ran out of bricks, so she reached into her pants pocket for her knives. She wasted no time picking out the thinnest one to throw at them. Eugene's forcefield easily deflected the blade, bouncing it into the air.
The girl's eyes glowed whiter as she redirected the blade towards another Wonder Soldier. Instead of aiming for his protected face, she drilled the knife into the back of his neck. She didn't know how much force to apply, but she kept drilling upward.
Her blade travelled from the base of his neck up into his mouth, cutting his voice box in the process. Jay gritted her teeth as she pulled the blade upwards until it hit the back of his skull. Then, the blade began spinning.
The Wonder Soldier was released from the agony when his lifeless body collapsed on the debris.
Because of that, Jay was brave enough to step out of her partner's shadow to see the last Wonder Soldier. Her eyes didn't blink as they stared at a very horrified expression on Eugene's face.
His forcefield surrounded him and a headless body. Ah, the male Jay Pleng's power could and would ignore the forcefield. The teenage boy was panting heavily, and after a second of silence, he craned his neck to look at her.
Jay blinked back at the sight of her partner's lost expression. Then, she looked back at the man behind the forcefield. As soon as her blue eyes landed on the last Wonder Soldier's discarded helmet, she let out a sigh in relief.
"If you don't want to kill him, make an agreement, Jay." She said loud enough for the Last Wonder Soldier to hear. "His body cam is broken, right? Right?"
"You! I've seen you before..." Eugene's red eyes were on her, but he didn't drop his protective force field. "You're Dr. Jue's daughter. Your family held your funeral three weeks ago! Why are you here?!"
"You didn't even bother to learn her name." The teenage boy finally found his voice. "She's with me."
"My name's not important." She spoke as she tried to direct her knife back to her. Instead of holding the handle, she made the bloody blade hover in the air next to her. The more she could intimidate the opponent, the better. "Eugene Romanov, how about we let you go alive and well, and you won't tell anyone about me? Oh, and if you two don't want to see or kill each other, how about you agree to avoid each other?"
Just as finished her offer, her partner's arm wrapped around her shoulder for balance. Jay's eyes widened a little at the contact, but she noticed that his arm was shaking.
No, his entire body was shaking.
That must be the effects of using too much of his powers and him not getting the Wonder Liquid.