Rise of the Heroes (7 page)

WHAM!
Emily swooped in low. Having gained momentum by looping from the end of the street, she smashed into him like a cannonball. With the thug incapacitated she dropped to the ground, her feet sliding across the pavement before her momentum was lost; she felt like an ice-skater skidding to a halt. Caught in the moment, she flicked her arms out as though she'd just finished a performance.

Doc Tempest growled, taking Emily's actions as a taunt. The remaining henchman backed closer to his master. Tempest took off his red shades and his bloodshot gaze bore into Emily. “And what do they call you? Zoom Girl?”

Emily was repelled by his appearance, but remained silent, determined not to let the fear inside show through.

Doc Tempest looked up at Toby. “And you, Spider-boy, how do you intend to stop me?”

That hadn't occurred to Toby, especially since his power seemed to be limited to climbing walls; not at all useful in a situation like this. He prayed that his thoughts didn't show on his face. Instead he shouted back, “You've seen what we can do. Now we'll just let the authorities take you in.”

“Yes, I have seen what you can do. Most unusual to have a new group of Goody Two-shoes appear just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Unannounced, with no publicity. But, my dear boy, you have
not
seen what
I
can do.” Doc Tempest extended his hands like a maestro at a concert; his voice suddenly raised an octave. “A genius like me! And they send cops and children to stop me? Where are the Enforcers? Where are the
real heroes
? Do they cower in fear of Doc Tempest?”

Lorna had a suspicion he was being overly dramatic. But then Tempest slowly turned, raising his eyebrows and whooping with laughter as he brought his hands together in a powerful clap.

It was as if a nuclear bomb had detonated in the street. A shimmering wall of silver energy burst from Doc Tempest in a three hundred and sixty degree radius. Toby was the first to feel the force hit him like an explosion, sucking the breath from his lungs. The face of the clock next to him exploded in a shower of
glass and ornate lead beading. He felt his body crush against the brickwork, his hands slipping until he lost his grip like an insect being blown from the wall. He fell.

Fortunately the bank's old entrance hall, which jutted out several feet below, broke Toby's fall. Slates cracked under his body and he slid down the steeply sloping roof, arms and legs scrambling, until he dropped six feet to the street below.

Tempest's soldier got the full blast of the force-wall, which sent him reeling flat onto his back and pushed him across the debris-littered road like a water-skier thrown from a rope. He collided forcefully with a car, crumpling the door with his head, and lay motionless.

Pete raised his hands to fire a blast of ice. He had no idea if it would work, but it was an instinctive reaction. A jet of ice formed just as the invisible force struck—the sheer pressure curled the ice back against him, then shattered it into pieces. The cold fragments hit his face, smashing his glasses, as Tempest's energy blast pitched him hard into the side of a van, causing it to rock on rusting suspension.

Lorna tried to leap skyward but the blast caught her and knocked her down the street, rolling her end over end. She felt loose detritus, swept up by the force-wall, scratch her face.

Emily froze in panic, and suddenly teleported as the wall arrived. The energy blast dissipated against
the clothing shop behind her, shattering the wide plate-glass windows into a million pieces, tearing the plastic mannequins apart with jagged shrapnel. She reappeared moments later, surprised with herself.

Doc Tempest looked equally astonished as he surveyed his handiwork and saw that Emily was still standing.

“You are a pesky thing, aren't you? But you can't stop me, little girl.” Emily noticed something in the sky above and gasped. Doc Tempest quickly followed her gaze, and smiled. “Ah, it appears my ride is here. I'll have to cut our little party short.”

A disc-shaped object descended from the sky; the gimbal-mounted antigravity thrusters underneath hummed gently as the craft landed. At first Emily had thought it was some kind of flying saucer—right now, nothing would surprise her—but it was a circular platform, some ten feet in diameter, with simple handrails around the edge: a “glider-disc.” Doc Tempest seemed to control the final descent by adjusting a toggle on his wristband.

The skiff hovered inches from the ground and Tempest loaded the two cases on board, locking them magnetically to the floor. The skiff swayed from the additional weight, especially when Tempest climbed aboard. He threw a little salute toward Emily and the skiff ascended with a soft hum.

“See you in the next life!” he warbled.

One of the injured mercenaries looked around. The henchmen's getaway van had been trashed when Pete was hurled into it. He bolted past Emily and leaped for the skiff. His fingers caught the edge.

“Wait for me, boss!”

The machine struggled to ascend any higher. Tempest looked down and saw his soldier hanging by one hand.

“Not today,” Tempest purred, and he knelt down to grab the man's wrist. An icy chill rolled down the mercenary's arm. He howled in pain, but now could not let go as the frost slowly spread to consume him.

Toby groaned as he saw Tempest escaping over the buildings. The man dangling underneath was rapidly turning white.

“No! Don't let him get away!” Toby shouted.

Once the mercenary was frozen through, Tempest stamped hard on his fingers. They broke like glass and his body fell. He hit the ground behind several parked vehicles, but Emily and Toby both heard it smash. Emily looked away in distress. When she opened her eyes again she saw Tempest quickly disappearing over the rooftops.

Toby clambered unsteadily to his feet and approached her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, but the others are hurt.”

They ran across to Pete who was on all fours, searching
for his glasses. He had abrasions on his face, one nick above his eye bleeding badly from where his own ice blast had struck him.

“Pete!”

“I'm fine!” Pete waved away any assistance as he found his glasses. One lens was shattered, the other badly scratched. He put them on anyway. “Where's Lorna? She got hit pretty bad.”

“I'm here,” she said.

Everybody spun to see her. Like Pete, she had a few grazes on her face, and her black hair was full of dust and small pieces of concrete. Her face was pale, but she beamed with the thrill of it all. “Now
that
was terrifying.”

Distant police sirens sounded.

“How are we going to explain this mess? We'd better leave before any more police arrive,” said Lorna.

Toby peered in the direction Tempest had flown. “We've got to stop him.”

“Come on, he just knocked us away like insects!” said Emily.

“We're still alive, aren't we?” Toby was surprised by his sudden conviction. The excitement had washed away the fear.

“That's a bonus!” Pete said sarcastically. He took off his mangled glasses and examined them. “My dad'll kill me for breaking another pair. They're expensive, you know.”

“We can do this!” Toby said enthusiastically. “He took us by surprise. We can stop him.”

Emily frowned. “Why are you so eager to get him?”

“Because it's the right thing to do. We've been given a chance. A one in a million … billion … an opportunity to do something extraordinary. To have a
real
adventure. We have been chosen to do this. I say we do it. What do you all think?”

Pete slid his scuffed glasses back on his nose, pulled himself proudly to his full height, and nodded in agreement. “I say we fight.”

Pete was right, few people ever looked up. As if they have a phobia of the void above, people rarely venture to look higher than eye level when they walk down the street. It was this fact that allowed Doc Tempest to fly through the sky undetected. Below him the few tall towers in the city began receding. Tempest was sure a businessman had been peering from his window, but knew that the man's brain would convince him he'd seen nothing more than a large bird swoop past. His skiff gained speed and altitude.

The loss of his hired mercenaries was unfortunate. Running an evil empire was not much different from running any other business. He had a limited budget for hiring muscle, especially after blowing all his cash on his
new secret base and the army he kept there. It was that financial restriction that forced him to perform smaller robberies to finance his ultimate plan. Banks were never too willing to give loans to supervillains. Even though he would rather have worked alone, Tempest's scheme called for some additional protection while he amassed new funds. He knew the surviving men wouldn't talk when arrested. They knew better than that.

As usual, the authorities would describe the bank robbery as the work of just another organized gang trying to make a quick profit. Supervillains didn't fit well in police reports or media broadcasts, even though they were involved in a majority of crimes. People would rather not think there were such things as villains with extraordinary powers and their own political and financial agendas. It was too scary a concept for most of the population.

Tempest adjusted the speed of the skiff with a joystick on his wrist controls. He'd bought the control system from a secret supplier—a supplier named Basilisk. The technology was well beyond what was readily available in most countries. The wristband controlled the platform like a radio-controlled plane, and it allowed him to keep tabs on his evil empire. It was powered by his biometric pulses; another technology that was far advanced.

Doc Tempest had had the unique ability, since his
childhood
accident
, to manipulate the weather. Although his powers were limited to his immediate environment, he had been focusing his efforts on creating a super weapon, something that could alter the global weather patterns on his whim. With such a devastating weapon he could hold governments at ransom. Tempest had a vision: the world at his feet, every citizen a minion or a slave, and the planet basking in a perpetual ice age. This was the paradise he saw every time he closed his eyes.

What Doc Tempest didn't see were four figures gliding low toward him. He wasn't aware of their presence until a heat ray blasted the edge of the skiff. A chunk of metal was torn away, rocking the machine and forcing Tempest to grip the handrail as his feet slipped on the bucking floor.

The four superheroes powered toward Doc Tempest, determination etched on their faces. Toby led the formation.

“Fire again!” he yelled.

But they had lost the element of surprise. Tempest banked the skiff down and to the right, forcing Lorna's second blast to miss. Pete was quicker off the mark and pushed himself into a dive, Toby and Emily following.

The buildings rushed up to greet them as Tempest raced between rows of tall tower blocks. They had traveled so far that they were over a different town now.

“How do we stop him?” yelled Toby.

“I'm going for the controls on his wrist!” screamed Pete above the noise of the wind. He stretched a hand toward Tempest.

Something suddenly occurred to Toby. “Pete! Your glasses! You can't see …”

With only one scarred lens to see through, Pete aimed at the blur that leveled in front of him. Power surged down his arm and manifested itself as a blast of super-frozen air coming from his fingertips.

The jet of ice shot wide, hitting the window of the office block beyond, shattering several panes.

“I'll try again!” yelled Pete.

“No!” Emily and Toby simultaneously shouted back.

Doc Tempest raised his right arm toward the group. Toby saw a flare of blue, and the heat of a lightning bolt singed the hair on his head as it passed by. Emily and Pete had to bank sharply away, and Toby lost track of them.

Tempest raised his arm again. Emily blinked—and in an instant she was standing on the platform, right in front of him. Tempest's head snapped around in surprise.

“Who
are
you?” he cried in frustration.

Emily moved quickly; her hand snapped out and caught the joystick toggle on his wristband before she suddenly teleported away with a bang.

Toby watched in awe as Emily momentarily appeared
on the platform, then teleported alongside him. But her job was done, the brief adjustment on Tempest's controls sending the glider-disc into a wild spin. It barrel-rolled once in between two tall towers, before dipping across the roof of a shopping center that was littered with tires, satellite dishes, and air-conditioning units.

Before Tempest could regain control, the lip of his platform tore into a metal air-conditioning unit. With a crunch of rending steel the skiff flipped end over end, tearing up the asphalt roofing before coming to a sudden halt against the brick wall of a fire stairwell.

Lorna caught up with her friends as they touched down lightly on the rooftop. The skiff made a crackling noise as something electrical shorted, and streams of black smoke rose from tears in the machine's undercarriage. The two money-filled cases lay strewn aside, knocked free by the impact. There was no sign of Doc Tempest.

“Where'd he go?” Lorna asked.

Toby scanned the rooftop. The air-conditioning vents offered ample hiding places, but seemed too far for Tempest to have run without them noticing.

“Maybe he can make himself invisible?” warned Pete.

“Great,” said Lorna. “That's a nice thought. Everybody stay together.”

“At least he didn't get the money,” said Emily.

Pete knelt next to one of the cases and touched the
tip of a note poking out. His mouth was dry. He'd never seen so much money in his life, and he suddenly wished that every bit of it belonged to him.

“How much do you think is in there?”

“Millions,” said a deep voice that made them all turn. Doc Tempest stood on the edge of the roof. “And we could share it all.”