Balance of Power

Balance of Power is the second volume of Incidentals

### Summary

Chapter 1 opens up with Detective Platte getting a visit from someone that mentions that they know where the girl is, Hodge prepares to intervene but Platte reluctantly agrees to let the visitor say what he needs to say. Brenner then mentions the beach to Platte, who admits he has no idea what his power even is.

Marko introduces Platte to the Incidentals headquarters where Shannon is staring out of a window while Taylor, V and Nuke prepare to rescue Alex and the girl is sitting in a room, still shell shocked from the mission earlier.

Meanwhile, Alex is found somewhere strapped to a MRI machine in a lab of Professor Whisper in **Arizona**, who mentions the incident as "the chariot of the Gods".

Preparing the mission to get Alex back, Bo manages to convince Tristan to be a part of it and offers his personal assistance despite facing certain issues with his body during the last mission (where he wasn't even physically involved), both Taylor and Marko asks him about his situation to which Bo mentions that he's fine.

Back at Professor Whispers lab, Alex easily breaks out of his restraints and prepares to leave just for Professor Whisper to mention that she's letting him think he's leaving in hopes to help with surveillance.

The operation starts with Tristan using his abilities to track Alex to Professor Whisper's massive lab with Tristan trying once again to tell Bo to stay back, Bo disagrees, mentioning that the last time he stayed back, Alex was captured.

Professor Whisper mentions that there's enough surveillance and orders the "hounds" to corral Alex, who manages to take down part of the group on his own.

While defending himself, Winters encounters a giant tube that Professor Whisper seem to rejoice about.

Meanwhile back at Chenco, Shannon is panicking about Alex condition to Marko.

Thanks to Detective Platte, the Incidentals find Alex relatively quickly but not before encountering a mob of armed soldiers under Whisper's employ. V literally catches a bullet for Bo and injures her hand and Taylor is moderately incapacitated after using his power which causes Bo to tell them all to head back to the ship so he can stay and study the giant tube from earlier.

They leave and Bo starts to morph again into a giant alien creature, speaking to the amorphous being in the tube while revisiting his nightmares. Professor Whisper approaches and mentions that inside the tube is a piece of the meteor fragment that Bo may share a genetic makeup with.

In the process of avoiding capture (saved by Nuke's great helicopter skills), Bo has more nightmares back at Chenco.

Meanwhile, V, Nuke and Taylor discuss their seniority in an empty room that utilizes holograms to re-enact the Event (which happened about a year ago in their timeline).

Meanwhile, Sayde is introduced talking to a therapist about her cancer and her daughter, Cassie just to get hit by a meteor, visually get cured and come home to see Cassie high on heroin.

Shannon and Alex argue again about Shannon joining the cause. Shannon voices how she's against it and wants nothing to do with Bo or the Incidentals.

Meanwhile, Seven agrees to get initiated into the Incidentals after a brief conversation with Bo.

Taylor decides to have a talk with Bo about what happened during the Alex rescue mission, mentioning that Bo coming along was reckless since he almost got himself killed, Bo mentions that he had the situation under control and then points out that there may be another issue that they need to get to.

Meanwhile, Marko tells Shannon that Seven only wants to talk to her.

Shannon and Seven go back to her old hovel to gather her things for Shannon to discover that Seven not only didn't ask for her but doesn't even know her that well, the trip ends with Shannon warning Seven about Bo and the group.

Back on the streets of LA, Platte and Hodge save a family from a serial killer that everyone was convinced was in the wind. Hodge starts to question how Platte knew where to find him.

Bo tells the team of a mission out in Colorado Springs involving a man named Lloyd Kramer, a rescue worker that got hit with one of the meteors during the event and was quarantined. However, Lloyd underwent a slight lucid phase where he claims to already be dying while depositing a lot of heat and energy from his body. To end his suffering, Taylor kills him using his power to prevent any federal military intervention.

After reporting to Bo about the failure to get Lloyd, the discussion escalates with Bo losing his cool about the situation. Taylor points out afterwards that it has to have something to do with the Alex retrieval mission and that Bo is hiding what happened to him with the tube in Professor Whisper's lab.

After that confrontation, Bo points out that he was being reckless in trying to get Kramer and after talking to Marko, he organizes a group meeting at the beach where the incident happened where Sayde happened to be walking by.

After a heart to heart about what happened on the beach, Shannon questions why they should trust Bo which causes Taylor and Bo to get into an argument about Bo keeping what happened to him back in Arizona a secret. The discussion gets more heated and Taylor, V and Nuke leave the group, implying to have left Chenco.

### Characters

* Detective Tristan Platte
* Hodge
* Marko Brenner
* Shannon Delgado
* Bo Vincent Chen
* Seven
* Taylor Mayhew
* Nuke
* Vanessa
* Professor Whisper
* Sayde
* Cassie
* Lloyd Kramer