The sound of worn-out sneakers pounding against cracked concrete echoed through the yard. Adrian, drenched in sweat, pushed through another lap around the prison's open exercise track.
"One more kilometer... then I'm done..." he muttered, breath ragged.
His legs burned. His chest heaved. And yet, something in him wouldn't let up.
Saitama training, he'd called it. As dumb as it sounded, it worked—at least when paired with High Specs, which let him break down his physical limits and build them back stronger.
He stumbled across the finish line and collapsed to his knees, gasping.
"Sigh... I'm so tired. Lap... 653, I think?"
Laying there, Adrian looked around the yard. Among the scattered groups of inmates, one figure stood out: a lean, wiry guy sitting alone on a broken bench, arms crossed, eyes sharp and guarded.
Inmate 653. Adrian had seen the number etched on the guy's collar during previous workouts. Rumor was, this dude kept mostly to himself—never caused trouble, but never took any either.
Adrian stood up and jogged toward him.
"What do you want?" the man asked before Adrian even said a word, his tone clipped and defensive.
"Just saying hi," Adrian said casually, hands raised. "Didn't mean to bother you. You looked like you could use someone to talk to."
The inmate gave him a long look, eyes unreadable.
"I've been in prison twice," he said dryly. "Why do you think I look tired?"
Adrian chuckled. "Fair enough. Name's Adrian."
The guy hesitated, then replied, "Bobby. Bobby Mendes."
"Cool name," Adrian nodded. "Where you from?"
"Mexico. Grew up in a small neighborhood. Family ran a repair shop."
His voice wavered slightly.
Adrian didn't press—but Bobby continued, almost like he needed to say it aloud.
"One day... things went wrong. A car accident outside our place. Power lines down. My sister was still inside. I tried to help—tried to warp in, grab her. But I hesitated. I was... too slow. The fire spread faster than I expected. She—she didn't make it."
His jaw clenched. "I didn't lose her because of my powers. I lost her because I didn't act in time."
Adrian's expression softened. He sat beside him.
"I'm sorry, man. That's not on you. You were trying to save her."
Bobby didn't say anything, just nodded once. Grief was a quiet thing in his eyes—one that had settled deep and old.
"What about you?" Bobby asked after a moment. "How'd you end up in this hellhole?"
Adrian leaned back and laughed bitterly. "Believe it or not... I just went to the hospital."
Bobby raised a brow.
"I'd been feeling weird for a couple days. Like something was waking up inside me. So I thought I'd get checked out. Turns out, I had a high density of... whatever the hell they look for in people like us. 'X-Genes.'"
He made air quotes with his fingers.
"They didn't even wait for the results to come back. Soon as I stepped out of the clinic... black van, gas, next thing I knew, I was in a cell."
Bobby scoffed. "Classic. Medical kidnapping."
"Yup. Just another Tuesday."
For a second, they both sat in silence, the noise of the yard fading around them.
"Guess we're both stuck here for something that wasn't our fault," Bobby muttered.
"Yeah," Adrian said. "But maybe not for long."
Bobby glanced over. "You planning something?"
Adrian gave a sly smile. "Thinking about it."
Later that day, in the solitude of his cell, Adrian unfurled several ripped-out pages from a book he'd smuggled. He'd carefully drawn crude sketches of the prison layout, based on everything he'd seen and overheard.
Security doors. Watchtower rotations. Guard shift times. Cafeteria bottlenecks. Weak camera coverage zones. He marked them all.
He tapped the paper with a piece of graphite. "Alright… what's the most fragile system in here?"
Just then, voices echoed from outside his cell. Two guards walking past, mid-conversation.
"You hear about the girl they threw in the hole?"
"You mean Cell-13? Yeah. Word is she melted through a solid wall during intake. Security called her a walking anomaly."
"Yeah? Still think we should be putting people like that in here?"
"Dunno. But they upped the energy dampeners and strapped her with a full inhibitor collar. One wrong twitch and she's dust."
They disappeared down the hall, but Adrian's thoughts were already racing.
Another powerful inmate. A girl. Cell-13.
Definitely worth checking out later.
Back in his bunk, Adrian stared at his ankle inhibitor collar, a sleek silver device designed to suppress mutant abilities. He hadn't thought much of it at first—until today.
He activated a small burst of One For All. A faint pulse of power rippled through his muscles.
Nothing happened.
No shock. No warning beep.
He narrowed his eyes. "Wait... why isn't it stopping me?"
It clicked.
"I'm not using a mutant ability... I'm using a quirk."
He sat upright, adrenaline shooting through him.
"These collars test for X-gene activity. They suppress mutants. Not quirk users. That means I can activate my power all I want and the system won't even notice."
He rubbed his temples. "Okay. Big advantage. Huge."
But if he wanted a real shot at escaping, he couldn't do it alone. He needed to free the others, too.
Which meant finding a way to deactivate those collars.
Over the next few days, Adrian gathered scraps of copper, melted plastics, fragments of old tech, even a busted-out capacitor from a broken food tray dispenser.
He built a small, palm-sized EMP pulse emitter. Just strong enough to scramble local circuits.
He tested it against a dummy collar he'd swiped from a disposal bin near the lab trash chute.
Flick. BZZZT.
The collar shorted out for exactly five minutes, then rebooted.
Adrian grinned. "Perfect. Enough time to cause a little chaos."
Back in his cell that night, he laid out the escape plan on paper and whispered through it like he was narrating a heist movie.
Step 1: Destroy the key surveillance cameras with a well-timed electrical surge.Step 2: Use the EMP pulse on the backup generator, causing temporary blackout across the cell blocks.Step 3: Free Bobby—and maybe even the girl in Cell-13.Step 4: Locate transport. Any kind. Armored van. Golf cart. Hell, even a forklift.Step 5: Get the hell out. Make it to a nearby city. Hide, regroup, and plan what comes next.
"Simple," Adrian whispered, smirking. "And totally suicidal."
But if he didn't try... he'd rot here forever.
The next morning, he spotted Bobby back in the yard, sitting in the same place, staring off at nothing.
Adrian walked up again, tossing him a packet of crackers from lunch.
"You're awfully friendly for a prisoner," Bobby muttered.
"You're awfully lonely for a guy with trust issues."
Bobby cracked a tiny smile.
Adrian sat beside him and leaned in close.
"What if I told you I found a way to disable those collars for five minutes?"
Bobby's eyes flicked to him, suddenly alert.
"And what if I said I had a plan to get out of here... and I need someone who can fold space?"
Bobby didn't speak for a few seconds.
Then, softly:
"I'm listening."