Footsteps pounded of the hard metal floor in the underground facility as the two escapees darted away with their incognito guardian. They were not a strange sight in the immense lair under Cinderella’s castle. People were always rushing and running through the well-maintained, shiny corridors. This trio did not look out of place, even though two of them were teenagers. Everyone there was always in a hurry because punctuality is of value when dealing with dangerous and peculiar occasions. Which was pretty much always in this secret underground lair.

As they sprinted down the clean silver halls, Jake was running alongside Shauna who had begun to pay little interest in him when her father saved them. When I rescue her, I’m ‘just a friend’ but when her father rescues us he is a god? Jake thought. That’s not fair. His dirty blond hair was starting to grow a little bit more than the usual 2 inches and were close to falling in his eyes, but haircuts weren’t an option at the moment; there were much more important tasks at hand.

As Jake ran by the rooms and labs he couldn’t help but peek for a second through the window on the doors. He was surprised to see all different types of things like: classes, mutations, simulators, explosive experiments, and many other things one wouldn’t expect to find under one of the most kid-friendly theme parks in the United States. What the hell is Roger going to do with all of this?

“Wait here.” Shauna’s dad said in a friendly yet powerful voice.

“But Dad, we aren’t gonna let you go ‘lone.”

“Yeah, Mr. Fletcher, we can’t really stay away from you or else we’ll be taken again.” Jake said, trying to disguise his hatred for Shauna’s father.

“Call me Kyle, Jake.” Then to Shauna he said, “I just need a second to ask for directions.”

“Look, Kyle, the problem is that we can’t leave you. You are our protection. And plus no one is willingly going to give you directions.”

“You know, guys, I’m going to go get a drink of water.” Shauna said sensing an argument. An’ I thought opposites attracted, she thought as she went to one of the many water fountains, strategically placed close to the wall so that people who need to hydrate don’t stand in the way of the others.

After seeing Shauna leave, Kyle changed unexpectedly to a menacing voice, “Look kid, if you even try to ruin our plans, I am going to kill Shauna right on the spot.”

“What are you talking about? You’re her father!” Jake exclaimed with a newfound hatred and surprise.

“She might as well be anyone else’s kid. I didn’t even see her birth. But I guess I’ll let you come to gain more of her trust.”

“So you’re a traitor too; just wait till I tell Shauna.” he threatened. I can’t believe that he would do this to her. It’s gonna crush her when she finds out. He thought worriedly, but making sure to disguise every emotion other than hatred.

“Oh, please do.” he laughed, “Don’t you see? She’ll hate you even more and give all the trust she had on you, to me.”

“Someday I will personally make sure of your death.” Jake grumbled, seeing that Shauna was coming back.

Seeming as if Jake had won the argument, they turned to a room with a black door and no window. It had a lock on it and a keypad to type in a code. Kyle produced a key and typed in the code. Kyle’s brown eyes had turned like the fiery red color of his hair, and were still cooling down from the argument. The trio entered they saw a bunch of computer monitors and joy sticks. This was obviously some kind of control room. Despite the dark colored door the whole room was snow white except for the charcoal screens.

Jake felt the movement even before he saw it. When the door shut behind them he saw a shadow move in his peripheral vision. He craned his neck in that direction but in the moment that it was there, it was gone. Is this a trap? What does Kyle want? Then he heard a scream next to him. “AAARGHH!!” a loud booming voice yelled as Minos, Roger’s henchman, came charging at him. Jake almost fainted. What the hell is he doing here! He should be dead. Do I have to kill him again? Minos accelerated and Jake was barely able to sidestep at the last moment.

“W-what are you doing here?” Jake asked as Minos began to walk towards him.

“You thought that you could defeat me?” Minos laughed. Despite his body-builder figure with square shoulders his laugh was like one of a hyena. He was wearing a black sleeveless shirt that showed his monster biceps that seemed to ask “You wanna mess?”

“I defeated you once, I’m not afraid to do it again.” Jake said in a confident voice.

“I want to see you try.” Minos teased and took a few steps forward looking straight into Jakes icy blue eyes. Shauna gasped, and then Kyle punched Minos right in the face. This is a setup. It’s another test to gain Shauna’s trust. But what do they want to do to her?

Kyle grabbed Minos by the shirt, pinned him to the wall and yelled, “Where the hell is Roger?” right in Minos’ face.

“H-he is in the r-room. The penthouse.” Minos managed, with eyes drowned in fear.

“O-kay… that was easier than I thought.” said Shauna, “Let’s go.”

Once again they were cruising through the halls of the facility at jogging speed. The only difference was that now they knew exactly where they were headed and where they had to go. As he was jogging Jake thought to himself No wonder it was planned, I could bet one thousand dollars that Kyle couldn’t take someone that big if it wasn’t an act. They found the elevator which was small and had little air space. Once the elevator doors came to a halt and they were alone in the little box shaped room, Kyle reached into his pocket, took out another key and inserted it into a secret slot on the side of the wall which opened to reveal a button.

“Ummm…Dad? How’d you know that was there?” Shauna asked, obviously confused by how her father had so easily found that one spot that concealed the secret button. Kyle had carelessly made it obvious that he had done that before.

Jake seeing this as a chance for Shauna to find out the truth said “Yes, Kyle. Please explain to us how you knew it was there? Amuse us with your explanation.” Jake sounded a little too confident.

“It was a lucky guess, my dear.” he said acting as if he didn’t hear a single word that Jake had said.

“What’s going on? There is no way that you could have done that on your first try dad.” Shauna said, obviously skeptic.
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As if right on cue, the elevators opened to reveal a smiling Roger and a man with a very long and familiar scar.

“D-dad, why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be tied up?” Jake said taken aback by his father’s presence.

“Son, I didn’t shoot your vehicle for nothin’. I wanted you dead.” the man with the long scar replied.

“B-b-but why? And you didn’t answer my question.”

“Because you’re bad for business. And you’ve been ruining everything.” Jake’s dad said without hesitating.

“My ques-” Jake was cut off by Roger.

“Did you really think that your little rope was going to keep the one and only Aaron Sparrow for long?”

Jake was speechless. He wanted to cry. The only reason why I’ve come here is to find my dad and take him home. But this…this is not my dad. This man wants me dead, he cannot be my dad.

“Look, son-” Sparrow began.

“STOP CALLING ME THAT!” Jake yelled. “I've waited all my life to meet you and you go and admit that you had intentions of killing me? You are not a father and you are, more importantly, not my father! At least you didn’t try to befriend me like him.” Jake hollered pointing at Kyle.

Throughout the whole time Shauna was shocked. Jake was accusing her father of being a spy, a double agent, a traitor, and at that moment she actually believed him. The man who called himself her father, the one who had become her hero. That same man was trying to hold back laughter directed at the only person whom she trusted with her life.

“EVERYUN’ SHUT UP!” Shauna yelled and in an instant everyone was silent. It was as if she had hit a mute button. All the chaos and commotion stopped at once and all eyes turned to the auburn-haired 15-year-old with the big amber eyes.

“Lemme get this straight. So all our efforts to help our fathers have gone to waste because they’d rather work for this business than be with us? So pretty much you two don’t understand that everythin’ we’ve done is to find and save you, not to ruin some stupid secret company.” Then pointing to Jake’s dad she said, “You think that your own son, who has dreamed and never stopped talking of finding you would destroy your little business on purpose? And like if that would give you an excuse to kill your own son, do you think it’s a good reason? You are pathetic. And you” She said pointing to her own dad, “Are even more. You think that you can fool us when; out of all the million doors in the facility you know exactly which room Minos is in, you have the key and the passcode to enter, and you know that Minos has the answer to where we need to go. You single handedly take out a guy twice your size and practically make him cry with one punch? How stupid do you think we are? Then you hurry us because you know that you have to be here on time and you know exactly where to put the key in the elevator. Lucky guess? I don’t think so.”

Roger got up from his chair and started pacing around the room. “Well it seems that these kids are smarter than we thought, but I’m afraid that their time is over. As for you,” he said to Kyle “you have been careless and even your own daughter saw right through you. So I will have to dispose of you.” And in a fraction of a second, Roger took out his sword, and cut off Kyle’s right arm.

“No!” Shauna wailed.

“Don’t waste your time with him young, girl. There is no reason why you should care for him after what he’s done to you. And either way, my blade has poison and it is infecting your useless father as we speak.”

“You ruthless son of a-” Shauna was interrupted by Jake who gave her a hand motion, telling her to go help her father.

Roger chuckled and turned to Jake’s father, “Get my vehicle ready. This won’t take a while.”

Roger advanced Jake, sword in hand. Jake was defenseless and he knew that he didn’t stand a chance without a weapon. Roger lunged, Jake moved away. Out of the corner of his eye Jake saw a metal bar that was probably to replace a broken one in the cells down below. He jumped toward it and as he felt he tucked himself into a roll for extra distance. When he got to his feet he was right next to the tube and grabbed it with his right hand.

Jake taunted Roger. Roger was furious. Jake’s icy blue eyes were glowing with hatred and his skin seemed to be on fire. Roger lunged, Jake parried. It was almost as if they could read each other’s mind
. Each one seemed to know what to do next to block the other person’s attack. At one point Jake found himself blocking more than attacking. He was playing defensive. Roger slashed and Jake sidestepped, Roger attacked, Jake parried. Jake knew that it was only a matter of time before he got tired and Roger actually did hit him.

The room seemed to grow smaller by the second and even though Jake was at ground level he felt like he was on top of the world. He feigned an attack to the left and then in a split second he lunged to the right perfectly executing the move. And you called me foolish, he thought as his metal bar was going right at Roger as if it was part of Jake’s body. He was sure that Roger had taken the bait and waited for the scream of pain to come from Roger’s mouth. But it didn’t come. In fact, the bar didn’t even connect.

One moment Jake felt like he had it all in the bag until he noticed that bag had broken and that Roger had dodged his attack. Jake didn’t have enough time to pull back before his weapon flew out of his hand. He was disarmed. Roger laughed. He tripped Jake and slapped Jake with the flat of his sword. Jake was on the ground and his cheek felt like it was dipped in acid. Thankfully there wasn’t a cut on it so the poison didn’t get into his system. Roger stood in front of Jake with his sword raised, right on top Jake’s hand.

“What are you going to do now? Go and cry to your little daddy? Too bad he works for me.” Roger teased.

Jake was on the verge of tears. Don’t cry, he told himself, it’ll only make him tease you more and make him feel more powerful.
“You must be so proud, you defeated a teenager.” Jake said, and in addition he spat at Roger, hitting him in the eye.

“How dare you! I’m going to make you go through so much pain that you will regret having liv-”
He was cut off by the sound of something whizzing by the air. Then Roger dropped the sword to grab at his ankle. Jake rolled to the right to avoid the sword, then grabbed it and stood towering over Roger who took a tranquilizer bullet out of his left leg.

“You little bitc-” he began to yell at Shauna but was cut off again by a dart that hit his bottom lip. Then he saw Jake with the sword in hand and his eyes got full of panic.

“Bat ba bell?” was the only thing that he could get out of his mouth.

Jake was bringing the sword down but he heard a scream. Shauna’s dad was trying to strangle her! “JAKE! Please help!” She said from across the room. He stopped the sword, inches from Roger’s face and ran to help Shauna. When he got there he pierced Kyle’s heart with the sword and left buried in Kyle.

“I told you I’d make sure of your death.” He said quietly so that Shauna couldn’t hear him.

Shauna began to cry. “What did we do?” she sobbed.

“I don’t know.” Jake said with his voice full of sympathy.

The sound of a chopper startled them and they looked for Roger. He wasn’t there. Roger had gone, escaped. Jake saw a broken window and he and Shauna climbed through. They entered the giant and busy Magic Kingdom but the helicopter was easily recognizable. Everyone was looking in that direction, generally because there was a man climbing up the ladder. Jake could have recognized that jet black hair anywhere. It was Roger. He seemed to be unstoppable. And when Roger got to the top. The hands of a man pushed him back and every kid, mother, father, uncle, aunt, anyone who was at the theme park witnessed the great event. That’s when the disturbing thought crossed my mind, The powerful, the great, the one and only Roger Zeif sailed through the air to his eternal doom literally by the hands of my father, Aaron Sparrow. My father.