{Sarah}
The conference starts without a hitch. I'd watched Trevor approach a young black woman with a press badge and start talking to her. She seemed charmed by him, which was good, because we'd probably be getting by on charm from now on. And plus, Trevor had really bulked up since high school, gaining more muscles in his shoulders, chest, and arms. He actually looked like a superhero now.
"Looks like he really knows what he's doing," Hank says, as we watch him hand the journalist a small piece of paper and point to something on it.
"It is his plan, so I should hope so."
"How long'd you say he's been a super for?" Hank asks, out of the blue.
I look over at him, surprised. "I didn't think you cared."
"Well, I don't, really. He doesn't really have what you'd call a super personality."
"Neither do you, but look where you are." I'm offended that Trevor's been questioned on his super abilities from day one, and he's had to assert himself multiple times on just how capable he is.
"That's 'cause if I didn't, people'd start askin' me why I retired. Supernova's a big name, kid. Household name to aspiring supers."
Okay, so he had a big ego. "Well, just because Green Phoenix isn't a household name like you doesn't mean he's not capable."
Hank says nothing, but that's enough to tell me what he thinks. He can preen and strut around all he wants, but that's his approach. Trevor got by on charm and nerdiness, and that suited him just fine. In fact, I would have argued that it was working in his favor.
"Okay, so I did it." Trevor hurries back over to us, not noticing the tension. "Sorry it took so long. She kinda wanted my number."
I manage a smile. "So did you? Give it to her, I mean?"
"I may be a playa, Campbell, but not that kind of guy," he says, keeping a straight face. Then it cracks, and he grins. "Nah, I'm kidding. Kitty'd kill me if I did."
"All of that aside," Hank grunts. "She's gonna ask your questions?"
"Yeppers." Trevor gives him a thumbs-up.
About ten minutes later, the crowd starts applauding. From here, if I stand on the bench, I can see the mayor, standing off to one side as an aide announces him. He has an upswept hairdo, looking like Elvis in the seventies. His necktie's loud, with contrasting bright orange and green stripes. And when he smiles, his teeth are so white it looks weird against his spray-tanned skin.
"So the total opposite of Mayor Green," Trevor says, hopping up on the bench next to me.
I shrug. "I guess."
We manage to tune out most of the conference. The second he mentions "municipalities" and "red-lining," it makes it easier.
So when he opens it up for questions, our reporter's hand is the first to go up, and miraculously, he calls on her.
"Mr. Mayor, what do you have to say about the decline in supers recently?"
"Our crime rate has increased, and that is very worrisome, I'm afraid. The police are a little out of practice, with the supers doing their job for them all these years. Like I mentioned, we're doing everything we can to locate Silver Bullet, our best crimefighter."
"Do you think, Mr. Mayor, that it's expected to keep happening?" Merlin, she's good with those questions. She's asking them like they're her own.
"Unfortunately..." He stops for a second to lean over and say something to the guy next to him. "We don't know that. We think the answer may be yes. Ever since Silver Bullet's disappearance, there has been a considerable decrease in super activity."
"Lastly...what do you think is the cause?"
That makes a ripple of conversation sweep through the crowd. Not only because this was on live television, but because of the weight of that question. I'm sure of it.
"We haven't pinpointed that yet. But I have professionals and analysts working on it full-time. I have my reasons for suspecting that a certain individual, a super himself, is the culprit, although he has made himself extremely hard to follow." The Mayor's mouth tightens. "We will find him, I assure you."
That makes Trevor grab my arm, and it makes me similarly tense up. He knows. Because of the public venue, he can't say his name or anything else, but it's enough. Hopefully this works.
Then suddenly, there's a big boom from behind, in the direction of the courthouse. The ground shakes at the same time, making the crowd cry out in alarm.
"What in the name of Gondor was that?" Trevor's hands clench and unclench, and he seems to be vibrating.
Seemingly in answer, there's a roaring noise, somewhere between elephant and pterodactyl. A giant wing with hooked talons appears around the tower on top of the city hall, to the various noises of surprise from the crowd. A head appears, long and thin, with a mouth lined with sharp teeth.
"Holy Elven Rings," Trevor breathes. "What is that?"
I can only stare, rooted to the spot.
The thing starts to blow plumes of fire, torching half the Mayor's staff right on the spot but luckily missing our reporter. I see her dive out of the way just in time, though. Then it screeches, launching itself off the roof — with a wingspan that's nearly as wide as the building — shooting more flames straight into the crowd, which scatters in all directions.
Hank grabs me from behind, swinging me to the ground and pushing me towards the fountain that I can see through the trees.
"Hank!" I glance behind. Trevor's still frozen on the bench. "Trevor!"
"Hey kid!" Hank bellows over his shoulder. "Come on!"
That seems to goad Trevor into action. He takes a flying leap off the bench, running perpendicular to the front steps of City Hall. The flying thing seems to notice, because it shoots a stream of it right at him.
"Trevor!" My scream's lost in the whoomph noise as a couple trees catch fire, coupled with the chaos still going on in front of the hall.
But then, miraculously, I see a green blur shoot up from the bare branches of the trees, and that's when I remember. Fire can't hurt phoenixes. It gives them their unique powers.
"Whoa." Hank's hold loosens on me just slightly as Green Phoenix, complete with a long stream of green tail feathers and a fiery crest, grows to equal the size of the pterodactyl thing.
"Think he's incapable now?" I snap, forgetting the pain in my arm where he's gripping me.
He doesn't get time to answer. Green Phoenix is beating the air with his powerful wings, daring the other creature to come closer. For a second, the other creature doesn't. It seems confused as to what it wants to do.
But then it tucks its wings in and pushes itself off the ground, launching itself straight at him. Its long snout hits Green Phoenix right in the chest, causing him to roll over a couple times in the air. Then it snaps at one of his feet at the same time, and the screech that results cuts through me like physical pain.
Just in time, he regains his balance, righting himself and batting the thing's next attack aside with a vicious swipe with a taloned foot. It screeches again, this time sounding much more frustrated, aiming another stream of fire at him. Green Phoenix employs the same maneuver, tucking his wings and diving to avoid it. It catches his tail feathers, though.
That doesn't seem to faze him. He swings around again, with his flaming tail, angling it down so that they catch the other creature's wing. Within minutes, it's in flames, its screech a high keening noise. Green Phoenix grabs its snout in his talons, flinging it right over the tall buildings behind the courthouse with a final-sounding crash.
After that he shrinks rapidly, until he's the size of a small owl. He flutters down to the ground, behind a bush, and a second later, he's in his human form again, stumbling towards us looking dazed.
"Damn, kid." Hank shakes his head. "That's some power you got."
"Yeah." Trevor grins, exhaling, and then keels over, out cold.
"C'mon." Hank picks him up, throwing him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "Let's get outta here."
I nod, without a word. That's probably the best idea he's had all day.
***
{Zachary}
We're wandering around downtown Raleigh, without a clear purpose, when the attack happens. We'd had Alex drop us off a little bit outside of town, just in case we came across something having to do with HECKL while we were out there.
We know it's started when Ellis walks straight into an invisible barrier with a hollow metal clang.
"What the...?" He stumbles backward, rubbing his head.
The second thing, Kaelie spots. I see her eyes go up, somewhere above us, and suddenly she points.
"Zach, look at that up there."
I follow her finger. Suspended above us, seemingly in midair, is a blinking red light, like a cell tower signal.
"What–" I start to say, but suddenly the air ripples, and a giant metal contraption appears before us, reminding me of those robotic things in The Empire Strikes Back.
"Damn," Kaelie whispers.
Only a second of silence passes before it turns its head towards us and a bolt of red energy shoots out of a spout on its head. Kaelie and I both leap separate ways to avoid it, and it punches a deep hole in the ground. I get up just in time for it to move again, drawing a bead on me.
"Zach!" Ellis's voice comes from above me. I look up, and that distracts the big robot too. He's standing on top of the building near us. He gestures for me to go get into my super suit, because he's already in his.
"Ellis, look out!" Kaelie yelps from behind, and a second later another bolt comes shooting towards him. He holds up a hand, and miraculously it bounces off, blowing the window across the street to bits. The alarms go off, and chaos starts.
I dive into the alley and change as fast as possible. I can't imagine what my powers could do against a robot that shoots bolts of energy out of its nose instead of snot balls, but I guess it's worth a shot.
"So what's the plan?" I ask when I've Parkour-ed my way up to the roof.
"We need Pink," he says, rerouting another bolt up into the sky. "She's comin'."
"I'm here, guys." She pants up to us a couple seconds later, in complete super mode. "Have I missed anything?"
"Not yet." I duck a bolt that Ellis misses. It blows a hole in the roof, chunks of cement flying everywhere.
"I got it on this end," Ellis says, deflecting two at once. "You go check around back."
I glance over at Kaelie, and she nods. Then we separate. I can't fly, and neither can she, but my fastest mode of travel is by water cyclone.
My inspection yields interesting results. The robot seems to be armed with more blasters under its belly, and its tail is a swinging pendulum of death. It looks like a giant taser, arcs of fizzling energy zapping up and down.
"So whatcha got?" she says when we meet back on the ground.
"Big guns, and an even bigger taser." I report.
"Same here." She exhales, pressing her lips together in a tight line. "I suggest we use one of us as a distraction while the others try to figure out how to disable this thing."
"Looks like Ellis already has that covered." I nod over at him, where he's now hovering above the ground and deflecting every bolt the thing fires at him. He's slowly drawing it away from us, making it walk forward.
"Great minds think alike." She winks. "Ready for a little examination?"
"You know it."
I make a stirring motion in the air in front of me, and soon a light mist forms into a vortex there. It's actually a lot more stable than it looks, because when I step onto it, it feels like I'm standing on a slightly unsteady skateboard – a sensation I'm thankfully used to.
I manage to keep it up until I get level with its back. Then one of its blasters pulverizes it with one shot, and I have to catch the joint that attaches its front leg to its body to keep from plummeting to the ground. Right then, a big pink fireball slams into its side, making it list dangerously and throwing its next shot at Ellis wide. I throw a leg over the joint, holding on for dear life. It walks forward, nearly rolling me off of it. I have to think fast. What can I do against a giant metal monster that operates on electricity? Water conducts it. If I'm not careful, I could electrocute myself.
Pink shoots another fireball, lower this time. Its leg jerks to the side, unbalancing it. I slide further down the one I'm holding onto, now noticing that we have an audience. A crowd's gathered on both ends of the street, watching the battle play out.
The robot shudders, and I see the reason. Ellis had slammed his big gold heel into its face, causing a dent between where its eyes would be. It just seems to make it angrier, throwing its head around.
"Zach!" Kaelie's running towards me again, dodging its legs. I let go and drop to the ground.
"Yep?" I stagger, but catch my balance quickly.
"I think I know how you can help. This thing seems to operate on sight. So if it can't see, then it can't shoot." She indicates the two big black bulbs on its head that appear to be cameras.
"So..."
"We need to make steam to obscure its vision. Lots of it. Think you can do that?"
I grin. She's a genius. "Yeah, I think so."
"Guys, look out!" Ellis shouts, and not a second too soon. I pull Kaelie out of the way as another crater's punched into the ground where she'd been standing only half a second earlier.
"Thanks!" she calls back before glancing back over at me. "You ready?"
"My middle name."
With that I start to form one of my water spheres. It takes a lot of energy to pull it from practically nowhere, but the humidity, luckily, is high today. I keep at it until it starts to condense, and then I work on making it bigger. One of the hardest things I'd ever done was expanding my spheres. They were super delicate, and popped if they got too thin. Kaelie's going to shoot it with one of her fireballs anyway, so I don't bother making it absolutely perfect.
When it's taller than the both of us combined, Kaelie generates one of the biggest fireballs I've ever seen. She nods at me before blowing on it like a fire-eater. It expands and makes contact with the water. Steam starts to billow from where they connect, so thick I can hardly see her on the other side. Soon it looks like we're standing in a cloud, and all I can see of the robot is the blinking light on top of its head.
The odds begin to turn in our favor. Ellis kicks it again, harder, and the bolt it aims in our direction blows up a car next to us, so close I have to dodge its hood as it tears off. The water and the fire finally move together, creating a brief sphere of steam before dissipating. Kaelie spins on her heel and fires another one of her fireballs straight at it. It hits a bolt in midair, causing a huge explosion and sending sparks everywhere.
I suddenly see my chance. Since it only has three working legs, it can only lift one at a time. When it lifts two of its feet from the ground, I get a good running start, using a car roof as a springboard as I slam my heels right into its side, feeling the vibration all the way up into my brain.
With a groan, it teeters, its dented head whipping around. Then it begins to fall.
"Timber!" I shout.
It hits the ground with a deafening crash, its legs twitching. I find myself falling at the same time, tumbling through the air until I'm caught by a pair of arms underneath mine.
"Steady there, Tsunami," Ellis — Sunburst — says from behind, slowly lowering me to the ground.
We land, and that's when I see a crumpled heap of pink right where Kaelie had been before the robot fell.
"Pink!" Ellis springs forward, overtaking me.
I reach them right as he's turning her on her back, and I wince when I see her injuries. She's got a long bleeding gash slanting up from her cheekbone up to her hairline. I see the cause – the pendulum of death, the giant taser, must have somehow swung around and hit her when the robot fell. Her suit's slashed open from her knee all the way up across her stomach. The area around it's smoking, and the skin underneath looks burned.
"Come on," Ellis's voice is rough as he picks her up, holding her so gently you'd think she was made of glass. "Let's get this taken care of."
"Good idea." I nod. It's probably for the best, anyway.
≈≈
We find a motel near the Raleigh-Durham International Airport. I sit outside and watch the traffic and the airplanes taking off while Ellis tries his best to heal Kaelie. We've exerted a lot of energy today, and all we need to do is get some rest. The noises of the planes cover up Ellis's grunts of pain. I'm secretly glad I don't have the power to heal. Supers that did transferred the pain and injury of whoever they were healing into their own bodies. Besides, all of that had to go somewhere.
It's only when I hear a weak groan from Kaelie that I know it's safe to go in. I see her super suit on the floor in a heap at the foot of the bed, and she's pulled the blanket up to under her arms to cover herself, although as supers, we all know that we can't wear underwear under those suits. Makes for interesting conclusions, though.
"Hey." I sit down on the neighboring bed, now noticing an abrasion across her shoulder and over her collarbone. "You okay?"
She runs a hand over her face, wincing when her thumb brushes the gash. "Take a wild guess, Zach."
"Only trying to show some concern." I raise my hands to ward off a threat.
She sighs. "Sorry. Pain does that to me."
"So how are you feeling?"
"Besides the fact that it feels like I've been hit by a train that collided with an electric fence and then beaten with an electric cattle prod? Fabulous."
I manage a lopsided smile. "You were always one for gallows humor, weren't you?"
"When you're me?" She raises an eyebrow. "Always."
Ellis comes over to sit next to me, still with parts of his suit on. "That was some fight, wasn't it?"
Kaelie rolls over, with a lot of wincing and muttered curses, to face us. "I'll say."
"And no reason that we can see." He shakes his head.
"I think I do," I say after a second. "I think it was Dad."
"Zach, you can't go jumping to conclusions like that–" Kaelie shakes her head, brow furrowed.
"Think about it, guys. Don't you think it's a little suspicious that we're all here at the same time, and then that robot just happens to show up? Where were Raleigh's supers, huh?"
"They might not have any–" Ellis starts.
"Come on. We know the super genes are rare, but they aren't that rare. How can one city not have any?" Dad's up to something new, I just know it. He's probably abducted all the Raleigh supers and made it look like an accident.
Kaelie and Ellis look at each other, and then back at me, but neither of them say anything.
"All I'm saying is to think about it." I sigh, used to that reaction by now.
"Well..." Ellis slaps his knees with his palms and stands up. "I think I'll take a shower and then take a nap. That cool with everyone?"
"Oh no, you don't." Kaelie raises herself up on one elbow. "You got a girl naked in a motel room in an unfamiliar city. I call the shower first."
Ellis hides his face with one hand, but I have a feeling he's blushing. I clear my throat and look down at the carpet. It's hard to tell if it was originally brown or if it just became that color.
"Well...when you put it like that..." he says finally, and I can tell he's embarrassed.
"You two are such boys." I'm not looking at her, but I can hear an eye roll in her tone.
"It's more than I've done on a first date, so he's ahead of me." I look over at Ellis and wink. He scowls at me from behind his hand.
Kaelie gets up, the bedsheets wrapped all around her like a toga, and punches me in the shoulder. "Oh, shut up, Hurricane Boy."
I only make eye contact with him when I hear the water go on.
"You didn't have to say that," he says, rubbing the back of his head.
"I kinda did. Don't you think it's time to put yourself out there again and ask her on a date? I'd date her if I wasn't with Sarah." She was feisty, and I liked that. Not to mention hot. No pun intended.
He rolls his eyes. "Shut up, Hurricane Boy."
--
Finally some good old superhero action! It felt good to write it. Stay tuned to see what it was all for! Thanks for reading!