Rise of the Heroes (17 page)

Lorna shot her brother a furious look. “Just because you both argue all the time doesn't mean you can be so reckless with her life!”

“What? Arguing has nothing to do with this! Just because
you're
her favorite—”

BOOM!
A shockwave struck the undercarriage of one of the giant carriers, ripping a car-sized hole in it. Black smoke poured from the lesion, but the impact did little to halt the carrier. More rib-shaking booms followed in rapid succession, and Toby only became aware of Pete shouting as one of the mercenaries' glider-discs exploded into a million pieces.

“The tanks in Fort Knox! They're firing!” screamed Pete.

Toby and Lorna exchanged glances—they were right in the line of fire!

In retaliation, the massive dome-turrets on Doc Tempest's barges swept downward and fired a volley of blinding energy slivers.

Below, a couple of Ml tanks were hit full on; the armored behemoths spun through the air as their gunturrets were ripped away. The remaining tanks started to move in a grinding of gears, two colliding head-on, armor buckling. But they hadn't scattered far enough …

The hurricane was on them as the second volley of shots came from Tempest's barges. The remaining tanks were batted away—two bursting into flames, the crews escaping only to be swept off their feet by the strength of the winds, and thrown a dozen yards as the hurricane chewed the electrified fences.

The artificially induced force of nature had reached Fort Knox.

Alarms shrieked across the complex—but there was nobody left to respond to them. Brickwork began to crumble; cracks started to race across the bulletproof windows as the air pressure increased.

A sudden mass of thick, sticky blobs sprang from the approaching soldiers' rifles, whizzing past the heroes' heads with high-pitched whines.

Lorna and Toby shot straight up to avoid the attack; Emily and Pete peeled off either side as about twenty glider-discs streamed past them. Toby glanced around—the remaining troopers had descended toward the roof of Fort Knox, which was being torn off by the relentless winds. The troopers themselves seemed unaffected by the winds, protected by a nullifying field around the glider-discs, which appeared as a faint energy crackle. Within seconds the roof had given way completely—and Tempest's men disappeared inside.

Toby dragged his eyes back to the skies as a pair of gliders banked toward him, the henchmen readying their weapons. He extended his hands as a hot rush raked through each arm, down to his fingertips—

WHOOSH!
Fireballs the size of basketballs shot from his hands; they hit one of the glider-discs and hacked it in two. The surprised thug trod air for a second before plummeting, the gun in his hand firing wildly. A stray shot struck one of the other glider-discs, forcing it away from colliding with Emily. The glue bullet expanded on the underside of the glider, throwing off its balance—the man on board was flung away as the glider-disc flipped like a coin and plummeted earthward.

The second platform made an emergency climb, away from the boy with flaming hands.

Emily had no idea what powers she had downloaded. She couldn't even decide if the icon she clicked on
was a stickman running or leaping. Either way she had about three seconds to discover what it was. She tensed her body and zoomed toward the three glider-discs bearing down on her. She could feel a soothing warm glow radiate from the pit of her stomach, as if she had drunk warm soup on a winter's day.

As Pete watched, Emily's clothes, skin, and waving strands of blond hair shimmered like polished silver. She seemed to become denser.

Emily extended her hands, trusting that
something
unusual would happen. As she did so, she noticed her hands and arms were shiny chrome—but she had no time to marvel at the fact before she crashed into the lead glider.

Emily shot through it—she didn't feel the impact, but the platform exploded around her, and she continued in a straight line, blasting through two more platforms behind.

She had become a human bullet!

“She's so cool!” said Pete. He dragged his eyes away from Emily. A glider-disc was zeroing in on him in a barrage of resin-bullets. He easily zigzagged around the streams and squinted hard at his attacker. Instead of the laser blast he was expecting, he farted loudly. The noise startled the grim-faced thug so much that he pulled up short and burst into laughter—giving Pete the chance to get it right the second time.

“Please … no more X-ray vision!” he murmured. Intense rays of light blasted from his eyes, striking the platform and another behind it as he moved his gaze.

“Wow! Look what I can do!” he screamed triumphantly.

He turned to search for Toby—and the beams continued to blast from his eyes, inadvertently cutting down two of the thugs maneuvering behind his friend. Toby spun around—and ducked—just as Pete's laser vision sliced narrowly over his head, gouging lines in the enormous barge behind him.

“Pete! Watch it!”

“Sorry!” Pete said, forcing himself to blink and stop the beams. When he opened his eyes the world was blurry. Had the superpower suddenly made him blind?

Panic-stricken, he removed his glasses to clean them. His fingers went through the frames. Holding them up, he could see the lasers had burned perfect holes through the glass lenses.

“Oh, shoot!” he cried.

Everything was a blur. Toby, Emily, and Lorna were indistinguishable from the other figures flying around. A glider-disc banked toward him at a furious speed. Pete reacted on instinct and shot his laser blast at the approaching enemy—only registering a figure between him and his target at the very last second.

“Lorna!” he screamed, but she didn't hear him.

In a confusing blur of activity the disc exploded as his laser blast struck. A furious cloud of orange flames chewed up the glider—the soldier riding it fell dozens of feet, miraculously landing on top of another disc swooping below. Pete's heart pounded as he scanned the skies, but he couldn't see Lorna.

He might have killed her.

Pete was horrified, but before he could think of what to do, a powerful blow struck him in the back, and he was flung head over heels. His head hit something solid.

Pete staggered to his feet and was surprised to see a wall of gold. It took him seconds to get his bearings and realize he was standing on one of the barge decks. The other hung in the sky above him. The gold was being loaded fast by the mercenaries on their gliders. It already covered an area about a third the size of a football field. It was stacked in high blocks, with narrow aisles between them.

“Thought you could fight me again, worm?” said a familiar voice that made Pete spin around.

Doc Tempest was several feet away. He had obviously slammed Pete onto the barge. Any reply from Pete was swallowed as he noticed a vortex of whirling air and gold bricks dropping above his head.

Pete dived aside as the mass descended slowly to the deck, landing where he had been standing seconds before. Gold whirled inside the vortex, which was
generated by a goon's glider floating above. It had sucked up gold bricks in a miniature whirlwind, literally vacuumed up the gold to be deposited in relatively neat blocks on the barge. Worry about Lorna temporarily disappeared as Pete marveled at the villain's ingenuity.

His eyes lingered on the gold, which gleamed almost hypnotically—just one bar was worth more than his family owned … had
ever
owned.

“Ah, I see a familiar gleam in your eyes, boy. A poor boy shown the wealth of a nation,” gloated Tempest. “Think if you had one, no,
ten
of those bars. Think how rich you would be.”

Pete stared at Tempest. Even without his glasses, he could see the veins under the villain's skin pulsing.

“The rich don't get bullied. They don't have sleepless nights worrying about their parents paying the next bill. They can have
anything
they want,
do
anything they want. It's yours. Take it. A gift from me. All you have to do is help me get rid of your toy-hero pals.”

The thought of living in riches floated through Pete's brain: a life of luxury would be worth a
few
sacrifices. He ran his hand across the gold.

“That's a very tempting offer,” said Pete. The gold felt cool and hard. With money like this, he could ditch school and the bullies; live in his own place without his parents' misery to deal with.

No more arguments. No more crying himself to sleep.

“It's the real deal,” purred Tempest. “You could afford laser surgery to your eyes. No more squinting or horrible nicknames.”

Pete remembered a proverb: money doesn't buy happiness. Somebody who really didn't know what wealth could buy must have come up with that phrase. Pete was pretty sure it would make him a lot happier. And if not happier, it would certainly buy him a better standard of misery. He thought of Lorna. Nothing would alleviate the fear he was feeling about her. If she
was
dead, Toby would never forgive him. He might as well be guilty and rich, as opposed to guilty and poor.

Tempest was beginning to get impatient as the remains of a burning glider clattered down on the barge just feet away.

“Hurry up, I don't have all day,” he said. “What d'you think I am, a bank? Make up your mind.”

Pete met Tempest's gaze; his life-changing decision had been made.

“That is a generous offer … but does that mean I would have to look as ugly as you? I mean, what happened to your head to make it look like that?”

Even out of focus, Pete could see Tempest's face twist into a snarl of anger.

“Fool!” Doc Tempest screamed and leveled his arm at Pete.

Pete jumped to his feet and ran, as lightning spewed
from Doc Tempest's fingers and raked across the barge's deck, leaving black scorch marks. Pete could feel the heat of the electricity on the backs of his legs. He ducked into the golden aisles, hoping he could lose the villain.

In the sky above the carrier craft, Emily looked around, suddenly aware that she hadn't seen Lorna for a while. She slid sideways to avoid a mass of glue-bullets and spurred forward toward the henchman that had fired at her. In retaliation she crunched through his platform like a knife through butter. The bewildered man gripped half a glider-disc as it pirouetted earthward.

She glanced back at the barge in time to see Pete running from Doc Tempest's lightning attack. Her first instinct was to swoop down and help him—but then she noticed the second carrier was wheeling its gun turrets around to point them in Toby's direction.

Clenching her chrome fingers she took a second to bask in the warmth of the superpowers that flowed through her. In that moment of calm, Emily hatched a plan.

Toby was having a little too much fun as he flew in wide arcs, easily outrunning the resin-blobs that whizzed past him. Too fast and agile for the gliders to keep up, he chose to remain a moving target, shooting fireballs so rapidly that it looked like the sky was raining flames.

Toby saw Doc Tempest chasing Pete across the deck of the gold-laden barge. Pete was lost from view between the stacks of bullion.

“Pete!” With a roar, Toby accelerated toward the barge.

Hidden behind a large pile of gold, Pete held his breath, fearing the slightest wheeze would alert Doc Tempest to his presence.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are, boy,” taunted Tempest.

Pete moved to a crossroads of narrow passages between the gold. Tempest could be standing just around the corner.

“Only rats and cockroaches hide. Heroes fight!” Tempest's voice drifted down the aisle. “But you're no hero, are you?”

This time the voice was an icy whisper, close to his ear. Pete spun around in fear, but no one was there … then, with a sinking feeling, he peered
up
.

Doc Tempest was hovering above him with a faint roar from his rocket boots, a sour grin on his face and his fingers outstretched, ready to strike. “Say good-bye to the riches you could have had!” sneered Tempest. “In fact, say good-bye to
life
!”

Pete pressed himself against a bullion wall, waiting for the blast—when a ball of flame suddenly threw Doc Tempest sideways.

Toby swooped over the blocks of gold, cheering as his fireball dropped Doc Tempest onto the deck.

Toby hovered over Pete. “You okay?”

Pete leaped into the air and floated alongside Toby. He nodded, but avoided meeting Toby's gaze.

“Yeah … but I broke my glasses, and I can't see very well.”

“What kind of superhero breaks his glasses?” exclaimed Toby.

“The lame kind!” snarled Doc Tempest as he rose into the air like an avenging angel.

Instinctively Toby shot out a pair of fireballs, but this time Tempest was ready. A shimmering blue energy shield blossomed from his small replacement wristband—only about the size of a trash can lid, but big enough to deflect the two fireballs aside.

“Game's up, Tempest!” Toby shouted, ready to fire another volley. “I came here for my mother. Now hand her over!”

“Of course. I bring all my prisoners out on my heists. Go on a picnic; get to know them better,” he said sarcastically. “She is not here, you imbecile!”

“Then tell me where she is, and I won't have to, say … blow your head off?”

“Really?” said Doc Tempest smiling. “You and what army?”

Pete had had enough. Gritting his teeth he squinted hard at Tempest. The dual laser beams struck his energy shield, shattering a segment away as though it was made
of glass. Tempest was surprised. Pete remembered to blink before he cut off his
own
feet.

Toby seized the opportunity and flicked a single fireball at Tempest. It hit his chest, knocking him back down onto the carrier deck.

Both boys zoomed over Tempest who was flat on his back, a sizzling hole in his costume revealing chalky skin beneath. They landed beside him. Toby stalked menacingly toward the villain. Tempest's men were still looting the bank and had not yet noticed their fallen leader.