Kerkylas was promptly arrested without any fuss when he made his grand entrance at the police station. He wasn't going to argue with any officer of the law, of course, especially with a grounder on.
The entire police station was abuzz, speculating about their relationship. A small group of cops whispered among themselves while side-eyeing Ace in the lobby. The comms systems were down, and most of the teleporters were on evacuation missions, so they were unsure of what to do until they got more intel.
So they did what any upstanding law enforcement officer would do.
Draw conclusions from very little evidence and judge the culprit, er, suspect accordingly!
"Look at him! They have the same face. Same everything! They're working together," an officer said.
"Don't be speciesist. All Ionadians don't look the same," another commented.
"I don't care about the Ionadian! I care about Kerkylas. He seems dangerous," a third added.
Another officer cleared his throat.
It was Naran.
"I've worked with him in the past. Kerkylas. Nothing to fear! He's a bumbling idiot without his ability working!"
All the officers started nodding, making a very good impression of bobbleheads on a dashboard. Fenton watched them with his own sense of wonder, trying not to smile and catching himself by covering his mouth. Once they had decided that the threat had been neutralized, they finally turned their attention to the comms in the area being down.
Fenton decided that maybe he should try acting like a leader before he became one and be proactive. He ran down to the holding cell where they kept Adonis, Kerkylas, and Nero—an odd bunch. Fenton looked into Kerkylas's grey eyes and tried to look into the mind of the smartest man in all of Atlaan.
Nothing happened.
"Get out of my head," Kerkylas commanded.
"You know I'm trying to get in?" Fenton asked.
"Yes. Or do you want a staring contest?"
Nero let out a soft pfft, and this made Fenton even more aggressive with knowing. He had to know what the inside of this man's head was like, if he was really so dangerous as they claimed. He couldn't trust the officers' conclusions in the lobby.
Fenton put his face even closer to the plasma wall that separated him from the three felons and pushed even harder.
"If you keep going, you'll hurt yourself," Kerkylas warned.
"I mastered my powers long ago," Fenton replied.
"Yes. Seems to be the issue."
Fenton could feel the walls around Kerkylas's mind give way. It was easy and quick.
Too easy.
A small trickle of music flooded his mind—loud, harsh music. He could hear Kerkylas's thoughts in the background, but they were so fast they sounded like noise. Sometimes they would slow, pause for a moment, and then start again. Unlike Nero's mind, which showed mental scars lining it from top to bottom, Kerkylas's head glowed yellow, as if he had a halo. The more Fenton listened in, the slower the thoughts became and the easier they were to understand. The more he understood, the less his body wanted to.
His nose bled, his eyes started turning red, and his throat started to close up.
Fenton let go, gasping for breath.
"What... did you do?" Fenton screamed.
"My brain gives psychics an allergic reaction," Kerkylas responded.
"That... is... impossible."
"You can get some allergy medicine at the clinic," he offered.
"Shut up."
Fenton stumbled out, heading for the station's clinic while Adonis and Nero looked on in awe.
A professional was in their midst.
"That was awesome," Nero said.
"Eh. He bored me. I came here for translation services. Sadly, my deal with your stunt double in the lobby fell through," Kerkylas said.
"Cops lying? Shocker," Nero replied.
Kerkylas gave Nero's snide remark a blank stare, analyzing his face. When the joke clicked in his mind, he let out a little laugh. It started small, then grew louder, slowly rising into a crescendo.
His supervillain evil laugh could be heard all the way down the hallway, in the clinic, where Fenton was getting an EpiPen shot.
"Oh, you're not just crazy. You're crazy, crazy, huh," Nero remarked.
"I don't care for your opinion of me. What I do care for is your language. I cannot learn Ionadian and require a translator."
Adonis and Nero gave him skeptical looks.
"The smartest supervillain ever can't learn a second language?" Adonis asked.
"I know 57. I do not use C-Chips. They are incompatible with my mind."
"Okay, Mr. Superbrain. Why can't you speak like me?" Nero asked.
"I have mulled over this myself. I wonder if I relied too much on my pattern-seeking ability, using it to learn languages in about a month. Ionadian seems to be extremely contextual. However, after learning eight languages heavily based on context and several non-Latin-based languages, I have concluded..."
Nero and Adonis waited for him to finish, but Kerkylas was deeply lost in thought.
He came back.
"I think because your language comes from the Eighth Realm, I am unable to learn anything more than a surface-level understanding of it."
"That's dumb. I learned whatever you guys got here," Nero argued.
"You have a C-Chip."
"Yes, I have one," Nero replied.
"I wasn't asking. You have one. There is no possible way you could learn another language on your own. From your manner of speech, though, yours seems very outdated."
Kerkylas stood up from the bench against the wall, and the two of them looked up at his domineering build. Sitting down, he reminded them of someone's older father. Standing up, his head almost touched the low ceiling.
"I like the look in your eyes," Kerkylas stated.
"Excuse me?" Nero replied.
"Excused. I want you to teach me. I have tried learning without using a tutor, which is my own fault. You teach me in my last attempt to learn this damned language, and I can give you something in return."
Nero looked up at the ceiling, thinking, and Adonis already knew what his answer was going to be.
"Say no," Adonis urged him.
"Maybe he's right. You got arrested and everything. How do I know you're not some shapeshifter con artist?"
"Because I know your creator. You are not human and—"
"Filthy, nasty, disgusting—"
"—came to this conclusion after seeing both of you."
Nero couldn't yell and throw a tantrum the way he had with the police officer who arrested him. He couldn't dodge a man like Kerkylas. So he sat in the misery of the moment, asking himself what else he had left to lose.
"I am here because I wanted a few things. Learning Ionadian is the first step to those goals. You will eventually change your mind about not joining me after you get arrested."
"AFTER!?!"
"Yes. Why would you change your mind before?"
Nero and Adonis were dumbfounded. They were already in a cell. You couldn't become more under arrest than they currently were!
"A small part of me is also curious about how you work from a biological perspective," Kerkylas admitted. "I also like your eyes."
"I am married," Nero announced.
"I can tell. What I meant was that you have the same look in your eyes as mine—the eyes I see when I stare into a mirror in the morning."
"Gross," Nero replied.
"It is not gross. It is a pleasure to have met someone who will become my equal in the future. Goodbye."
Without blinking, Kerkylas turned toward the plasma wall and opened his mouth as wide as he could. He licked the roof of his mouth, and a soft red glow emanated from his eyes.
The officers in the lobby saw the blast. Soon after, they heard the sound, then another.
The sound of maniacal laughter mixed with loud footsteps.
Kerkylas ran out of the collapsing police station amid the pandemonium, giving Nero and Adonis an escape route. A simmering hole had formed in the plasma wall and was slowly expanding outward, sizzling. Nero and Adonis cautiously stepped through it and peeked into the other hole that now cut through the police station. Kerkylas's terrifying trick had blasted through the entire station. As he moved his eyes upward, the blast cut through the ceiling, even hitting a stray drone.
"It's time to get the sword and get the fuck out of here!" Nero shouted.
Adonis nodded in agreement, and the two of them ran through the halls toward the sword. It was child's play finding him since Nero was too attached to it. Ace could sense Nero moving nearby, and he realized in a moment of panic that he had left the sword alone.
"Fuck!"
He closed his eyes to teleport into the room, but nothing happened.
The room, covered in debris and rocks, was too different from how it originally looked. He couldn't teleport to it any longer. By the time he ran to the office, he caught one last glimpse of Nero and Adonis stepping into a portal.