There was a chance, actually. It only depended on whether he could think of it quickly.
He stared at the scene, seemingly resurgent.
He blinked and blinked again. He was now hopeless.
"If you take a step forward, I shoot!" the lady with the pistol-like gun said.
Axel wouldn't take a step forward. In this position he was in, it was a death call. So the lady telling him he shouldn't take a step forward was quite unnecessary.
His vision seemed ephemeral, and so, as he looked forward to what he had resolved to call hullabaloo, he couldn't pick out anything.
Men in corporate-looking suits, black in color, by the way, came out of the helicopter and came at him. They were holding guns—long stuff, the edges all looking ragged and jagged like the end of a cliff.
Axel looked at them, and with a faint sigh, he concluded they were stupid. Why arrest a hero for saving the day? It was ridiculous.
One of the men in suits held handcuffs, and with a rather too swift, kind of preternatural motion, he came at Axel and roughly put him in the handcuffs.
Axel remained silent and obliged, not even protesting once. He just remained calm, as protesting would put him in danger. They could fire a bullet at him if he did that.
And so, they led him toward the helicopter, his hands behind his back. Him, all uncomfortable and looking like someone that would be out of breath at any second.
Axel was shoved to the back seat of the helicopter, the others starting to ascend toward the sky now. Axel sighed and even let out a shrug. He would have to let nature do its stuff. He would have, at this point, to go with the flow.
His head still throbbed. The headache was still there, and it ached badly. Imagine hitting your head hard against a wall. He ought to be in a hospital now.
The propellers of the helicopter he was in started to rotate very slowly, and soon, it was in the air, going upwards very slowly.
Axel felt sad now. Although it seemed like he was indifferent, he was actually sad, but not sad to the extent that it was evident.
The driver of the helicopter he was sitting in was actually a woman, a headphone on her head—on her hair, actually—made into a ponytail. From the back of her head, Axel thought that she was stunning.
A man sat beside her, and Axel, with the squinting of his eyes, concluded that this helicopter was quite odd. It wasn't the one he knew.
The other helicopters surrounded him. Axel smiled at that. They were fervent in making sure he didn't escape, and he too, with a smile, was happy that he still had a sense of humor on.
The seat he was seated in was very small. He concluded that it could only fit one person. His vision was perspicacious now, and he could see quite clearly.
The man seated beside the lady was with a phone now, which he put near his ear. An act that Axel wondered—if he didn't do so, would the phone fall off?
The man dialed a number, and then he put the phone close to his ear again.
"Hello, Mr. Governor. We have him now."
Axel held his breath now, trying, almost desperately, to hear what the man was saying.
A voice spoke on the phone. It sounded gibberish to Axel, so he couldn't pick out those words. It was like an electronic gibberish rant. Axel could sense, just by mere instinct, that the voice was complaining.
"We are taking him to the base. We'll then check out his powers."
A voice at the other end.
"Okay, Grimm."
The man had been speaking in a whisper all along, a whisper so low it was impossible for any human to pick out what he was saying. But Axel? The Inferno Hero? He could hear words from miles away, so this seemed like nothing.
Axel's mind raced now, trying to think.
He had many questions.
1 - Who is Grimm?
2 - Is Grimm the governor?
3 - Is the governor a villain?
4 - Which base is he being taken to?
5 - What actually would be done to him?
The man was gazing at him, trying to see if he heard what he said. Axel tried to look indifferent, and he avoided the gaze now, trying to act cool and calm. Relatively calm, that is—one that the man in the corporate black suit staring at him now could relate to. One that would make the man think:
'Oh! This is a relatively calm look.'
It worked because now the man was looking forward again.
Axel continued to think. Time wasn't on his side. He could sense that they would soon be at their designated place, and that was what he dreaded now.
He thought and thought and thought very hard. He was about to continue when, not knowing how it happened, he saw a bright wave of light break through the place.
And by place, everywhere. Everywhere was completely white for a complete second. It returned to normal, and now the man and lady in the helicopter were starting to panic.
Axel too panicked but only briefly. Something was about to happen, and this could save him.
The man stared at him, and now the lady driving the helicopter was speaking into a tiny speaker Axel hadn't noticed earlier that was connected to her mouth.
"Round this helicopter! I repeat, round! The fire guy must not escape!" she said.
They complied and rounded the helicopter Axel was in, all moving at a very slow pace.
CRANNKKK!
One of the propellers was off, and now it was falling.
"No!" the man in the corporate suit said with so much vigor it reached the heavens. "Damn! No!"
Axel was stunned. Was this help, or something on its own?
WRAANNKK!
Another propeller was off.
Axel, out of impulse, looked sideways, and through that window, he could see a helicopter exploding. And he was just in time to watch it…
BOOOOOMM!
"Holy shii-!" Axel exclaimed.
The man in the corporate suit was coming at him now, a gun in his hand, pointing it at his face, ready to shoot.
Axel wanted to duck but stopped when he heard another propeller fall off. He was jolted off his chair and to the door of the helicopter, which was now upside down.
The damn helicopter was falling.