Tyler's POV

When Zvezda told me that I had to go to class and learn a new technique, of course I was skeptical. What more did I have to learn? I was Black Fricking Scorpion, I was skilled with guns and spy gadgets. So what did I need to learn?

Turns out as soon as I entered the classroom, the door slammed shut behind me and locked. I instantly went for my guns and gadgets thinking Zvezda was possibly testing me. But the lights cut out and the room was bathed in darkness. I felt a bag being thrown over my head and then before I could pull the trigger to my gun, it was knocked from my hand.

My arms were grabbed and then I felt myself being shoved down into a wooden chair. My wrists were latched to either side and then the bag was finally removed. I blinked, finding myself under a dim interrogation light.

“What do you want? What is this? What are you teaching me Zvezda?!” I blurted out, pulling at the ropes, feeling them cut into my skin.

“Settle down Scorpion,” a voice came. It definitely wasn’t Zvezda’s. It was deeper…a man’s. But who’s was it? “Zvezda told me to teach you ‘how to escape being tied down to a chair’, you seem to always wind up in the predicament and sooner or later, you’ll have to learn how to be a badass and escape from it!”

I squinted, trying to find the source of the voice. It sounded so familiar…and yet…I just couldn’t place who’s it was. “Who are you? Can I trust you?”

Laughter followed, sick and twisted and my heart began to race in my chest. Had Zvezda really recruited a villain? But the guy had a point. I did need to man up and get myself out of my own predicaments! I was Black Fricking Scorpion; I could do this!

Finally the laughing stopped and the man answered, “You can trust me to an extent.” He stepped forward into the light and squatted down to look me in the eye. Now I knew who he was. “I’m Sidney Crosby.”

Sidney smirked. I knew him as the “Hex Penguin”, he was a fabulous trainer but his methods were a little on the psychotic side. Instinctively I began to jerk my hands against the ropes again. The ropes scratched my skin and it hurt but I couldn’t show weakness. I’d learned that…I mean that was what they taught you in Superhero 101. I looked up and chanced a glance at Sidney, who was grinning.

“I can tell you that struggling won’t help you escape. For the next two hours you’re my prisoner and I’ll subject you to various perils. I’ll teach you how to escape and fend for yourself. Capiche?”

“Just, how do I get out of these ropes, man?!” I screamed.

“Fine, the key is to not struggle.”

“That’s it?! But how?”

“Don’t struggle.”

I looked at him like he was an alien; honestly this guy wasn’t helping or making sense. I was growing extremely irritated with him. I kicked against the ground and jerked sharply, but the ropes didn’t budge.

“I said do NOT struggle!”

“How the hell am I supposed to get free then?” I snapped.

Sidney got to his feet. Gold colored energy clouded around his hands like magical cosmic dust. He raised his hand up and smirked darkly. “If you can’t figure out how to get free in the next minute, I’ll begin to use my chaos magic reality warping powers on you and learn just how to make you suffer. Until you finally figure out how…to get…free.”

I screamed, tossing my head back. I mustered ever ounce of strength I had in me and tore at the ropes, but they still wouldn’t budge. Then I felt a sharp stinging in my head. Sidney’s hand was against my forehead and it was glowing the gold color.

Suddenly my vision blurred over and I was brought back to when I was a little boy, skating on the ice for the first time. I was outside playing around when suddenly my deepest and oldest fear came to haunt me. A shadow was cast over the pond where I was playing. My stick, gloves and helmet were knocked to the ice surface and I was lifted up and into a burlap bag.

I screamed as I remembered what had followed, intense workouts, gun training, sterilization to make me stronger (steroids) and a bunch of mad scientist experiments. All of it made me panic-stricken…but how was I supposed to escape the horrible memory? I had to get out of the chair!

“Don’t struggle,” I heard repeated over and over in my head as the vision blurred to darkness. “Don’t struggle…” It was my internal mantra.

Then it hit me!

I snapped from the vision and launched upward on my feet. I whipped around and smashed the chair underneath me on the ground. Then I sprang up and raised my fists.

Sidney clapped. “Good, good. You are learning.”

I smiled. “That’s one way to get out of a chair!”

“Now…let’s try a harder situation…”

Before I could object or fend him off, I felt another sharp feeling. This time it was more like a pinch…on my arm. But my vision blurred and I fell to the ground, unconscious. What had he done to me? What was he going to do to me?


I awoke some time later. I’m not sure how long, but I found myself still in the room, under dim lights. This time my muscles ached…and no wonder, my arms were raised up and bound together above my head. I moaned and found that my feet could barely touch the floor.

“Sidney Crosby!!” I roared. “This isn’t funny!”

“I know it isn’t,” his sly villain-disguised voice sounded from the shadows. He reappeared and stood in front of the dangling spy for the Hockey Avengers.

“Okay, I got the chair one, but this is impossible.” I tried to pull on the chain, but my muscles screamed at me and the effort hurt.

“Nothing is impossible, Seggy darling. I want you to think of all your options… remember struggling is pointless, useless and redundant.”

I took in his advice and sighed. I closed my eyes and thought about how I could possibly escape this. An idea flashed in my head and I tested it out. I grabbed the chain as best as I could and then leapt up, while pulling. That did nothing except send more waves of pain through me. I bit back the agony though, refusing to break in front of Sidney.

“Remember your spy training, Seguin.”

I wanted to kick him so badly! Wait…kick?! I could kick…I could maybe grab him with legs…it was a classic spy move anyway to wrap your legs around someone’s throat. If I could get on Sidney, it would provide me time and leverage to yank the chain rapidly and get something. Yes!

So I tried it. I kicked out and brought my legs around Sidney’s neck. I knew he wasn’t really a villain and this was actually very beneficial to my knowledge, so I latched on not as tight. Then as soon as I was piggy-backing his neck and head, I instantly yanked the chain and it loosened and came undone from the pipe it had been attached to.

Sidney threw my off and I landed on the ground but I lashed the chain out at him and lassoed his legs, pulling them from under him.

“Thanks for the advice Sid! I hate you so much right now!”

Sidney rolled his eyes and unwrapped the chain from his legs. Then he scrambled up and pulled me forward toward him by the chain leash. “Don’t ever do that again! Don’t get cocky with me…but good work. Zvezda will be pleased with your new-found escape abilities.”

“No longer will I have to rely on others to come for me!” I stated, flashing him a sharp glare.

Sidney undid the chain from my wrists with a firm yank and then tossed the metal to the side. “One more peril. Let’s really test you now.”

“Bring it!” I snarled, cockily. I’m not normally a sassy person but if given a challenge or if someone threatens me, by all means I will get that sass out. I can be cocky…if I’m provoked.

Sidney’s hands glowed gold once more and he raised them to the sides of my head. And before I knew it, I was plunging back into the childhood vision reverie once more.

This time, I was much older. I was at a bar with Brad Marchand partying, when I spotted a man with a hood and cloak on. He was standing at the far back of the livid bar almost like a shadow or statue. Suddenly the hood was removed and I gasped in fright.

The figure moved at me, gliding through the air, a set smirk etched into his face. That smirk was so familiar, on or off the ice. It was Zenon Konopka. He was snickering. I backed away, tripping over my feet as the one man I feared most of all in the NHL attacked me.

I slipped from the nightmare vision once more and this time I found that I’d been moved to another peril by Sidney. I was tied to a chair…again. But this time I had chains wrapped around me tightly. My legs were tied to the chairs legs and something was wrapped around my head too. I couldn’t speak, and when I tried, all that came out were pitiful muffled sounds.

I looked for Sidney and found him on top of a teacher’s desk. He pulled out a match and lit it with a quick swipe across the surface. Guess he wasn’t gonna waste time with his eerie magic hands…? He jumped off the desk and walked over to a string, which I could just barely make out. He lit it and the fuse began.

I was bewildered. What was going on?

“Alright Tyler Seguin, you have five minutes tops – if you’re lucky – to get out of the chains, out of the chair and completely free. If not, the floor you stand on will go up in flames. You’ll be trapped in a fire ring…oh and, here’s the best part, I borrowed a little friend to give you some motivation.”

I wasn’t so sure I wanted to hear about this, but I followed Sidney as he lit up another area of the room. Bound and gagged with duct tape in a cage was Jamie Benn.

I muffled Jamie’s hero name into whatever was covering my mouth. Sidney looked at me with a wicked smirk and glare.

“Star Vision, right? He’s agreeing to help out and this was his idea, so you’d have motivation. I have faith that you’ll do well.”

I wasn’t thrilled that Jamie was in a cage. He was my best friend. I had to help him. And he – or Sidney – had purposefully removed his star glasses. He was mortal and therefore extremely vulnerable.

I had to save him! I had to get free. I looked back to see that the fuse was slowly inching close to me. As I looked at it, I now notice that the string encircle the area around my chair and it was rigged. As soon as the flame hit the start, the string would ignite and then it would become a quick disaster.

I calmed myself down and focused. Okay, first things first, I had to get my legs free. I kicked out and snapped the ropes with ease. Then I stood up and whirled around and slammed the chair against the ground, breaking it. I rapidly brought my arms around my legs because my wrists had been tied behind me and I removed the chains from my upper arms, grunting with the effort.

I took a quick breather, wrenching the – okay, it was a bandana – from my mouth and let it drape around my neck. As I gulped in the welcome air, the flame reached the point and the string began to ignite. I gasped and dove out of the ring, to safety. My wrists were still bound together but I had survived the first part of the peril.

Now to get Jamie free... I darted to the cage and swung the door open. I precisely worked to unwind the tape from Jamie’s mouth and his wrists and then he rewarded me by untying my hands. I grabbed his hand in mine and we exited the cage.

Sidney stepped out of the shadows to the side, smiling…it wasn’t a creepy villain smirk anymore. It was genuine and sweet. “Nice work, Seguin. You’re ready to get out of anything. However, I’d be careful with your Zenon-problem, could come back to bite you.”

I patted him on the shoulder. “Thank you, Hex Penguin, without your lessons I wouldn’t have been able to do that. But next time, please don’t scare me with Star Vision like that.”

“He had to, Scorpion, it was for the best that you receive it as a surprise. And hey, you looked pretty badass man!” Jamie remarked, slapping me on the back.

I walked out of the dark room with Jamie at my side. Sidney doused the flames and turned the lights back on. He worked to clean up the room. Luckily it was a training room, so it was wired for experiments and the sort. No damage had been done to it. Jamie and I headed back down the hallway of the Hockey Avengers’ Headquarters. I rubbed my sore wrists, but it was a good soreness because now I was ready for anything!

Notes

Hex Penguin = Sidney Crosby, he is Tyler's mentor and tutor, he was also in change of training Tyler to be a spy for the Hockey Avengers
(Black) Scorpion = Tyler Seguin, the spy for the Hockey Avengers, he has a problem with getting tied down to chairs
Star Vision = Jamie Benn
Zvezda = Evelyn O'Reilly, the leader and founder of the Hockey Avengers
Delving into a little backstory with Scorpion. Also just experimenting with him. I might keep this for the Arrow Hawk series...or not... :P We shall see.