The OK Team 2 (8 page)

‘Answer me!' roars the Bushranger, still holding his helmet above his mouth. ‘A Knight-Hood Pact? Yes or no?'

‘Say no,' says Logi-Gal, sounding urgent. ‘Say no NOW.'

‘A Knight-Hood Pact?' I say. ‘I don't think so – it sounds dumb.'

The Bushranger curls his lip and laughs a hollow laugh. ‘I thought as much. Go home, little boy. Stay away from the real Hero world until you're ready to rumble with the big boys.' And he drops his helmet back over his face.

‘Focus, don't do anything stu –' says Logi-Gal, but I'm not listening.

‘Okay, we have a pact,' I say.

The Bushranger raises his helmet again. ‘A Knight-Hood Pact?'

‘You bet. Bring it on,' I say.

‘Excellent!' he yells.

‘Focus, what did you just agree to?' asks Torch.

‘I'm not sure, but I don't like being called a little kid.'

‘Fair enough. Anyway, how bad can it be?' says Cannonball.

‘You have no idea,' says Logi-Gal, sighing and shaking her head. ‘But would you listen to me? Ohhhh no.'

I tune her out because we're watching the shadows. We strike ready-for-action poses, expecting the trees around us to swing their branches, but instead a small monkey comes scurrying out of the dark.

‘Hey, look, a monkey!' says Torch. ‘Wow, Category 1 crooks really are at the lower end of the scale these days.'

‘Awww, isn't he cute? Hiya, little fella,' says Cannonball.

‘Careful, Team. He's with the Bushranger,' I say. ‘And don't forget those branches.'

A boy's voice sounds in the dark. We can't see anyone, but it sounds as though he's right in front of us.

‘We are Category 1 and Category 2 Villains,' he says. ‘I am Blink. In front of you is Monkey Two-Point-Oh and you're about to meet Morphul and Swoop Swoop.'

‘Morphul? What sort of Villain name is Morphul?' smirks Torch.

‘Swoop Swoop,' sniggers Cannonball.

The attack comes from the sky. Cannonball doesn't see it coming and a girl, dressed in yellow, lands on his head, pushing his skater helmet over his eyes. She sits on his shoulders, pounding his helmet, as he staggers around, trying to see.

‘Excellent work, Swoop Swoop,' yells the Bushranger.

Then a Villain, dressed in black and wearing a ninja mask, appears out of nowhere and whacks me hard across the face. ‘Like I said,' he says. ‘The name's Blink.'

I go down with my eyes streaming. The downside of being a Hero is that you occasionally get punched.

The Gamer makes a run at the Bushranger, but suddenly two large oak trees lean down and pound him with their branches. They land enough good shots that his vertical chest stripe is into the red. The Gamer suddenly takes a giant leap backwards, before pulling up some weeds to reveal a semi-transparent battery pack, which he waves an arm through. His energy stripe climbs back into the blues.

But as soon as The Gamer advances, an oak tree belts him again, with one solid branch, and The Gamer is back in the reds, just like that. Cannonball is still cursing, trying to lift Swoop Swoop off his shoulders. She's whacking his helmet with both hands, which isn't the most brilliant attack, luckily.

Meanwhile, Torch has crept up to the monkey, who watches him carefully.

‘Ook!' says the monkey happily. Torch reaches out a finger for the monkey to sniff and the monkey bites it, hard.

‘Ouch! My flame finger too! Stupid monkey!'

Monkey 2.0 produces a banana and throws it at Torch's face, hitting him right between the eyes.

Suddenly another figure emerges from the darkness. It's tall and . . . kind of like a vampire. Then I realise it IS a vampire, with fangs and a big black cape.

‘A vampire!' I yell as I become a cloud.

‘The name is Morphul,' the vampire says. ‘I can morph into anything awful. I can become your worst nightmare.'

He is not a very convincing vampire, now I can see him more clearly. His teeth look plastic and his cape is shabby and worn.

‘Well, a vampire is only my second-worst nightmare,' I say. ‘There's this other one where I'm on a crowded train and I realise I've forgotten to put my pants on and –' ‘Enough!' says the vampire. ‘Prepare to become my next victim!'

But I'm already invisible and floating away to the vampire's left. He looks around in surprise and creeps the other way. When Torch sees him he screams.

Suddenly, instead of a vampire, there is a fire hose pouring water straight at Torch, who runs fast to get away. And in the middle of a drought too. Talk about a socially irresponsible attack.

I hear a smack and swing around just as the tree branches finally knock out The Gamer, who wasn't able to find any more power top-ups in the nearby weeds. Swoop Swoop flies off Cannonball's shoulders then kicks him in the stomach, sending him to the ground. Logi-Gal is hiding behind a fence.

It's up to me. I turn invisible and race up behind Monkey 2.0, scooping him up, dumping him in a rubbish bin and slamming down the lid before he can chomp into my now solid hands holding him.

‘Logi-Gal,' I yell. ‘Make sure he doesn't escape.'

She runs over to sit on the lid as I duck under a tree branch and give the Bushranger a solid whack to the stomach again, working on the theory that punching his helmet would probably hurt me more than it would hurt him.

The yellow flying girl swoops down at me, but I turn invisible again and jump sideways so Swoop Swoop only kicks air where I had been. Her flying is pretty wonky, and I grab her cape and yank hard, pulling her to the ground. She lands flat on her back and I hear the air rush out of her as she is winded.

Morphul, the vampire-fire hose, is still off chasing Torch somewhere in the darkness.

That leaves only Blink – and there he is, the kid in black again, appearing directly in front of me at the exact moment I turn visible. I don't quite dissolve enough to completely avoid the punch, but I stay on my feet and see him reappear almost hidden behind a tree.

I'm a cloud as I drift towards his hiding place and there he is, peeking out from behind the trunk. Until he sees my cloud and disappears again, like I blinked and he was gone.

I'm so surprised that I stand there, more or less solid, and sure enough a tree branch swipes me hard across the head and I go down, ears ringing. As I get up the flying girl swoops down and knocks Logi-Gal off the bin, releasing the monkey and Torch returns dripping wet and flicking his finger ineffectively.

‘Shark!' yells Cannonball as an actual shark swims through the air towards him. Morphul makes a pretty dodgy shark, but it's enough to send a panicking Cannonball flying straight to the top of a tree, which belts him with its branches as the shark tries to swim higher in the air.

The Gamer is on all fours, shaking cobwebs from his head.

We're being blitzed and I can feel panic rising within me as the Team falls apart.

But suddenly the wind rises dramatically. The Bushranger looks over my shoulder and yells something that is muffled by his helmet. The four members of Bushranger's gang all back off. The wind is so strong that I can't keep my balance and fall to my hands and knees, not daring to try and de-moleculise my body in this sort of gale. I might be blown in a million directions. I have to stay solid.

Bushranger stops, lifts his helmet. ‘Until next time! Remember our Pact, Blur-boy.'

Torch has finally dried out enough to shoot a burst of flame with both index fingers towards Blink, but he's gone by the time the flames flare. Swoop Swoop scoops up Monkey 2.0 and lurches off into the night sky. The shark swims away as the bulky, helmeted figure of the Bushranger disappears into the dark gardens. A few of the trees wave their branches aggressively to block us from following them. I struggle to stay solid, my cape flapping and whipping across my back. Cyclone Tracy flies past me and stops in front of the tree defence. She lands gently on the ground and the wind dies down to a gentle breeze.

Cyclone Tracy is wearing a grey body-hugging costume with irregular lines swirling across the fabric, so she looks like a human cyclone, and if I wasn't so freaked out by the Bushranger and his gang, I'd be seriously distracted. Somehow her long blonde hair is perfect, despite the windy chaos she has been generating.

‘Focus! OK Team! What's going on?'

‘They were supposed to be Category 2!' I say, panting.

‘Category 2,' she frowns. ‘But they should be easybeats.'

‘Mostly they were, but they put up a much better fight than we expected,' I say.

‘I can't believe you agreed to that Pact,' Logi-Gal says, scowling.

‘What Pact?' asks Cyclone Tracy.

‘Oh, nothing. It's not important,' I say. ‘Everyone OK?'

‘I'm all right,' says Logi-Gal. She shakes her head. ‘But I fail to see how you will be,' she says quietly.

Cannonball is nursing his hand. ‘Bushranger's head is solid steel.'

Torch is wiggling his fingers. ‘My flames would have worked against them, but you guys let me down. There was no one to cover me.'

‘Steady, partner,' I say. ‘They landed some lucky shots. You okay, Gamer?'

‘Beaten by a disgruntled tree,' he says miserably. ‘Not a great start to my life in the Team.'

‘It's not your fault,' says Cyclone Tracy. ‘A Category 2 Villain shouldn't be able to control an entire tree, let alone all the trees in the park.'

I'm having trouble breathing as she quietly gazes at me with eyes, amazing eyes, from behind a fringe of hair.

‘Cyclone Tracy,' I finally manage. ‘Thanks for helping us out. Thanks a lot.'

‘No problem,' she says. ‘See ya.' And, with gale-force wind suddenly buffeting us, she rises into the air and sweeps off in a southerly direction. I watch her until she is out of sight.

CHAPTER 8
G
RL-STARS!

‘M
an, I hate it when other Heroes have to bail us out,' I say, although secretly I think that if anybody had to step in, I'm glad it was Cyclone Tracy.

We've just been released from another boring school day and changed into our costumes so we can comb the streets of Fairfield, looking for low-level criminal activity. The Gamer and Logi-Gal had to catch trains from a couple of suburbs away, to the east and west respectively. As we walk, The Gamer constantly darts onto the nature strip smashing mysterious crates and collecting flashing gold coins.

‘We weren't bailed out,' says Torch, who is wearing a black jacket over his fiery costume. ‘We would have toasted them if Cyclone Tracy hadn't shown up, looking to hog the glory. I had them just where I wanted them.'

‘Of course you did.' Logi-Gal adjusts her glasses.

‘I thought you were great in the battle, Logic-Girl,' says Cannonball. Torch gives him a strange look so Cannonball punches him on the arm.

‘Ouch. That really hurt,' says Torch. ‘You're not hitting Bushranger now.'

‘There's no way those guys were Category 2,' The Gamer says. ‘Who was that Morphul dude? He was genuinely scary. And Bushranger had the whole park under his command. That's no Category 2.'

‘You reckon? He could only wave a few branches in a threatening manner,' sniffs Torch. ‘Minor league stuff.'

‘This from the human candle,' says Cannonball. ‘I didn't notice you taking him out.'

‘I thought The Gamer had him covered. And don't call me a candle. I'm a Torch, Popgun. I'm going places.'

‘Yeah, novelty birthday parties,' mutters Cannonball.

‘Oh yeah,' says Torch, taking off his jacket. ‘Do novelty birthday party acts have a genuine tattoo?'

With his jacket removed, we can see Torch's bare arms. His costume is sleeveless. And on his upper right arm is a huge black tattoo.

‘Torch,' says Logi-Gal. ‘What in Golden Boy's name is that?'

‘You've torn the sleeves off the famous Torch uniform,' I say. ‘Your family will be mad.'