It’s night over Thunder City.
Hero is hiding among the foliage of a tall maple overhanging a strange shaped villa. In the mid of a vast park, there is a cylindrical tower made of stones. Small windows appears here and there on the curved facade, lit by the waving, warm light of actual torches.
In the hot evening, one window is kept open: a child appears, playing a small flute, showing an incredible talent for his own age. If it wouldn’t be impossible, Hero would say that many glow-worms are dancing at the rhythm; on the other hand, the kid is a meta, so why not?
Edward Sweeter.
Where has he heard the name before? Anyway, at the moment, if the ship’s database is correct, he is the only five years old meta left in the Thunder-Promethean City area. And it is of age only since a week, when he had is fifth holyday.
A bird crows from the sky. The kid stops playing, and suddenly disappears.
Hero frowns, gazing at the house across all of the spectrum, from ultraviolet to infrareds, when something hits the branch he is on.
He falls, hitting the ground with his bottom. There is a tall man in front of him, his face in complete shade. He has a black arrow in a hand, and nocks it into the bowstring of a equally black longbow.
“I don’t think that thing would be harmful on my skin, sir” says Hero.
The man does a step further. “I was not expecting you. Why a MBLeaguer spies on my son?” said the man, his face coming into light.
“Ed... Edmond Sweeter!” whispers Hero. That was why the name sounded familiar. The father of the kid is the keeper of the Thunder Museum who helped the MBL in the previous case.
“Yes, it’s me. And I believe I need an explanation for your presence.”
“Sorry, professor...but I believe your kid is in danger of being kidnapped" says Hero, standing up.
The tall bald man lean down to take a big axe, the object that previously cut the branch under Hero.
“It’s seven days that they try to take my son. They crawl here at night, like scorpions out of crevices, armed only with war-club, dressed in jaguar skins. It’s like they sprout out of the ground, and when they are beaten, retreat into it.”
“You beat them every night last week?” asks Hero, astonished.
“Yes, barely. They keep to come in force, but for now I have been able to defeat them.”
A meta, like his son, without doubt, though Hero. And a powerful one, too. “Why don’t you call Danner?”
“Calling on the police is not what we did back then, son. I need to capture one, and find my way wherever they keep all those kids.”
Right then, a dull rumble, like a distant thunder, was heard. And then, a dozen of olive skinned men, wearing maculated coat and waving hard-wood clubs, appeared out of the ground, screaming in rage.
