ARCHETYPE (Slowburn Superhero Progression)

The lights from the police blockade grew brighter as the three of us rapidly closed in.

Besides the red and blue lights of the nearing blockade, and the silvery shine of the moon, my heightened vision rendered the rest of the night bright but gray.

There they are, I thought, spotting the police vehicle partially blocking the curve of the road up ahead.

Just before I thought Snap might not turn, she sprang off from the ground and rocketed into the air with feline grace, her arms stretching out ahead of her.

I had already noticed the huge telegraph pole standing at the cusp of the winding road we were closing in on. Snap soared up and landed near the top of the telegraph pole which shuddered from the striking impact of her blood-rubber-clad feet.

In turn, Snap sank like a shadow further off into the upper treeline.

The latest resin-threads which were zipping me across the field detached from a nearby tree and then zipped back into the resin-staff.

Pap! Pap!

Two new threads shot out from the resin-staff.

The hurtling speed I had worked up had lessened just a little between re-threading onto the upper-part of the telegraph pole. The threads attached, and I began to soar upwards.

For a few moments it felt as if I were flying through the air. I crouched atop the resin-board, feeling air resistance whip at my hair, visor, chin , and clothes. The tense threads furled around the telegraph pole, and in turn I swung and soared, veering off to the left in Snap's wake.

There was hardly any time to second guess myself because, on the other side, just before a huge scraggily treeline, there was no way forward.

The resin-board struck down, and for a moment I thought I was going to crash into the thick wall of branches and brambles ahead.

The board hard-turned, and I darted to the left, sailing across the grass at ever increasing speed.

Snap was in the middle of twirling upwards through the air, arms and legs outstretched, before she landed cat-like atop a stone beam at the edge of the wall of branches and brambles.

Just when I began to question how Clang was faring, a sudden rush of thick white steam shot by me. It was more steam than I had seen Clang unleash before; amazingly, he was using it to orient himself whilst falling through the air.

As soon as Clang and I were caught up, Snap sprang off again.

We continued on for another half hour, feeling that little bit safer for having successfully passed our first major police blockade.

The back-to-back farms and fields came to an end.

By far the most alarming part of entering into the next stretch of Greater London was all of the parked cars.

Before, when Snap, Clang, and I had entered Fauncherton Green, we had maintained as much of a distance from the main roads of the town as possible. And we had hardly had any time at all to soak in the modern housing trappings of the town when the helicopter had crash-landed in the middle of it.

The simple sight of many parked cars on both sides of the road told me I was that much closer to home. I didn't yet recognise where we were, but the layout of the residential houses was achingly familiar.

It was hard not to feel like a tourist as the three of us hurtled down the main road.

Black wheelie bins. An empty playground park with swings and a metal slide and a long tunnel. A fish and chips bar. A sun tan business. An off-licence.

And cars. So many parked cars.

And a bus stop, with its arched roof, and sloped red bench. And the red-and-white London transport sign.

Words couldn't express how I felt seeing these mundane things. It had only been just over a month since the evacuation and the nightmare which had followed. Even so, it felt like I had been far away from home for a much longer time than it had really been.

We passed a large sign which read; Wigwell.

I know where we are, I thought, I've been here before.

Somewhere close to where we were was a local theatre where I had gone with my Mum, brother, sister, and late Grandma to see a pantomime show.

Snap suddenly veered up ahead and leapt off the large road bridge we had just started to cross.

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Before I could question why she had done so, I caught a glimpse of yet another police blockade up ahead – the vehicles bright with their red and blue lights, dominating the road. We were close enough I could even see two police officers in high-visibility coats standing by the vehicles.

Pap! Pap!

I attached new resin-threads to the rail bridge stone wall and yanked myself over the top.

Train tracks waited below.

"In here!" Snap whisper-shouted.

I had to slow my perception of time a little to understand what she needed me to do, and to react accordingly.

Instead of untethering my resin-threads I let them hold strong, and in doing so the threads swung me into the underside of the bridge.

Snap was waiting, perched upside-down, within.

I continued with the momentum from the threads and then let the resin-board adhere to the underside of the bridge.

Clang dropped down into view and, just like how I had done, quickly realised that we were hiding.

He spun through the air and started to fall.

Pash!

A fresh jet of steam shot out from his exposed upper back, changing the course of his momentum to bring him to the underside of the bridge.

Crack!

Not having a means to adhere himself, Clang instead simply kicked the underside of the bridge brick with enough force to wedge his foot into place.

He hung upside-down by one leg and folded his arms.

"You couldn't make any more noise if you tried, could you?" Snap snapped.

"I could," Clang's voice rang back.

"Can't you figure out some way to move quieter?" Snap whispered.

Clang broke into a smile, rubbing the back of his head.

"Stealth's not really my thing," he said, still grinning.

"You're letting off more steam than Thomas the bloody tank-engine!" Snap whisper-shouted.

This, despite the three of us understanding the need to be quiet, made us all break out into chuckles.

The crunch of car tires over concrete not far off reduced our chuckles to cautious smirks.

Snap jabbed my shoulder, and pointed to my resin-threads which were still connected to the bridge wall up-top.

Crap! I thought.

I willed for the threads to detach, and they zipped back into my resin-staff.

Either side of the bridge we were under lit up with red and blue lights.

One of the police vehicles was above us.

The crackle of a radio followed.

"I'm at Wigwell Lane by the rail bridge," said an officer into his walkie talkie, "Possible Mice sighting. Checking it out."

Snap jabbed Clang's shoulder accusingly upon hearing this.

Clang didn't retaliate since it was clear by the look on his face that he knew he had likely been the one to draw the officer's attention.

The three of us looked at one another. Being upside-down together, it gave the trippy feeling that the world itself was upside-down, and we were the right way up.

The crunch of the officer's shoes against the concrete moved over to the side of the bridge Snap, Clang, and I had entered in from. From what my heightened senses could piece together, the officer was leaning over the bridge.

This is bad, I thought, thinking back to every other run in I had with either the police or the Pipers since the evacuation. One police officer we could handle, but inevitably he would call for back-up, and then the manhunt would start.

And if the manhunt started people would get hurt.

Please, I thought, Please just go away.

A sudden splashing sound caught in my ears as if some huge beast were moving along the train tracks right beneath us.

For a single horrifying moment I thought about George and Adam and the Amalgamation they had become, as if it were somewhere below having followed me all the way from Wedder Gorge.

But it was just a rat, its movements made loud due to my heightened senses. Seeing the rat skitter out of the tunnel and along the tracks helped finetune the noise my sense had picked up before I even had to think to do it myself.

I heard the police officer sigh.

And it was just as the police officer sighed that Clang's foot, which had been wedged into the underside of the bridge, fell away.

Snap grabbed Clang's ankles as fast as she could, before I could even think to do so.

But her stopping Clang from falling to the ground and making a huge noise was the least of our problems, because several chunks of stone which had been dislodged by Clang's foot began to fall to the ground.

Freeze! I thought.

I slowed my perception of time to a crawl, needing every micro-instant to prevent the worst from happening.

Five chunks of stone were falling to the train tracks below.

Clang, who had also slowed his perception of time, was in the midst of catching two of them already.

Which left three more. Snap already had her hands full holding Clang's ankles.

Which meant it was up to me to catch the last three.

My right hand was already holding onto the resin-staff.

I had to move. Slowed time perception didn't account for my own movements too. I didn't want to run the risk of figuring out how to catch the stones only to be far too late to take effective action.

In order to effectively make my move to catch the stones, I needed to stop slowing my perception of time, and to rely more on my own reflexes. There wasn't even time left to doubt myself.

I willed for three resin-threads to extend out of the resin-staff.

One!

The first thread caught one of the three falling rocks.

Two!

And another.

Three!

And the last!

The rocks swung on the threads, and I had to hold the resin-staff just right to prevent the stones from clacking against each other.

Clang had also caught his share of the rocks.

Silence.

The three of us, upside-down, Snap holding onto Clang. Me holding the resin-staff and the dangling stones as if I expected them to blow up on me.

It was then something even worse happened.

Another piece of the bridge brick from where Clang's foot had dislodged began to fall to the ground.

I swiped for the stone with my one free hand, slowing my perception of time in order to time it well.

But I had still grabbed at the rock wrong.

Rather than swipe it up in one fluid motion like I intended, the rock bounced away from my hand.

Clearly moving in slow-motion wasn't the guarantee of precision like I had assumed it was.

The rock struck the track below.

But, by some miracle, at the same instant the police officer's radio crackled again. The rock lay still. A nearly unintelligible voice on the other end of the radio asked the officer a question.

"Clear for now," said the officer, "I'll head back."

Whilst Snap, Clang, and I waited with baited breath, the officer got back into his vehicle and drove away.

The red and blue lights passed, and darkness returned to the underside of the railway bridge.

All of us waited until the police vehicle was off in the distance before daring to release sighs of relief.