by Lucas Flint
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
About the Author
The Superhero's Summit
Third book in The Superhero's Son
by Lucas Flint
Published by Secret Identity Books. An imprint of Annulus Publishing.
Copyright © Lucas Flint 2016. All rights reserved.
Contact: [email protected]
Cover design by Damonza
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, send an email to the above contact.
Chapter One
I've been punched in the face before. I've been stabbed by a guy who thought using a nail gun made him a supervillain. I've been kicked, knocked out of the sky by murderous transforming robots, shot at, and mentally assaulted by crazy telepaths.
But I've never been crushed under the foot of a giant man the size of a small New York City skyscraper and about twice as thick based on how far his belly sticks out. That was new.
The giant man in question was notorious, small-time supervillain Enor, supposedly short for 'enormous,' but which sounded an awful lot like Eeyore to me. His name gave away his power; he could grow his size to gigantic proportions, including his own clothes and shoes, making him big enough to wrestle a whale. Based on the debriefing I received in the House, Enor—real name Ernest Rebus—could also shrink, though he usually preferred to be in his giant form.
Personally, I would have preferred it if he was in his small form, if only because then I wouldn't be desperately holding back his gigantic leather boot as he tried to squash me underneath. Although super strength was one of my powers, the fact was that Enor was still heavier than me, so all he had to do was keep pressing down on me until I either gave out and let him squish me like a bug or until I sank into the street under my feet. Considering how I could already hear the concrete cracking underneath me, I figured I didn't have much time before that happened.
Nor could I depend on any help. The other members of the Young Neos were out for the count. Stinger had been knocked from the air like a bug and was probably lying unconscious on the roof of some building somewhere, Blizzard had accidentally frozen herself to someone's car, Shell had tripped in a puddle and fallen on his back and couldn't get up, Talon had chipped her claws and was probably complaining about them somewhere, and Treehugger—who I couldn't even see—was basically useless because the closest plants were the sliced up tomatoes in an overturned burger cart, but I doubted that Enor was in any mood to have lunch.
Yeah, not exactly the team I was imagining when I was first made leader of the newest incarnation of the Young Neos. And that wouldn't have been a problem, perhaps, if I hadn't been about to be crushed like an ant.
“Stupid kids,” said Enor, his voice loud even though he wasn't sure. “I was expecting the Neohero Alliance to send an actual neohero to take me down. Is Omega Man taking a nap?”
I would have told him that we were sent to fight him because Enor was on the lower end of the supervillain threat scale, but I feared that if I spoke, I'd break my concentration and Enor would squish me.
Instead, I focused on pushing back as hard as I could. Unfortunately, Enor was almost too heavy. He pushed down on me harder than I could push against him. I looked around for anything I could use against him, but I was all alone. The cracking under my feet was getting louder and louder, while Enor felt like he was getting heavier and heavier.
But then, all of a sudden, a laser blast shot from a nearby building and struck Enor in the chest. Enor shouted, more in surprise than in pain, and staggered backwards. His foot immediately lifted off me, allowing me to see the sky again, or as much as I could see between the towering skyscrapers of New York City.
Then I looked over at the building where the laser had come from, wondering who had fired that laser, when I saw a guy about my age appear at the edge of the roof. I instantly identified him as a neohero, because he wore a costume similar to mine in design; but in contrast to my red and black, his was blue and yellow, like lightning. He also wore a cape, which blew in the wind behind him, which I had to admit looked kind of cool.
Then I heard someone running over to me and looked over in time to see Treehugger—a very thin, petite girl close to my age who wore a green superhero costume and a mask shaped like a leaf—running over to me.
“Bolt,” said Treehugger, coming to a halt before me. “Are you okay? Did Enor hurt you?”
I waved off her concern. “Nah, I'm fine. I've been through worse.” I glanced at the guy standing on the rooftop, his eyes glowing. “But who the heck is that guy? Have you seen him before?”
Treehugger looked at the guy on the roof and gasped. “Oh my gosh! That's—”
Treehugger was interrupted when Enor suddenly shouted, “Hey! That hurt. Who did that?”
The neohero standing on the roof smirked. “I didn't know you could speak English, ugly. You don't look all that smart.”
“Smart?” Enor rumbled. He was rubbing a burning hole in his chest, which seemed to be where the laser had hit him. “I will have you know that I have a PhD in physics from Harvard. But it doesn't matter. I've already beaten a few kids today. I can beat another.”
Enor grabbed a nearby lamppost and ripped it from its foundations. He raised it above his head, probably to throw it at the new guy, but then the new guy waved his hands.
Immediately, the lamppost started coiling around Enor's arm like a snake. Enor looked at it in surprise before it tightened around his arm enough to make him scream in pain. He tried shaking it off, but the lamppost was wound too tightly around his arm to get rid of.
“Why are you screaming?” said the new guy. “I just wanted to make sure that you didn't lose your new toy.”
Enor stopped screaming and now looked as furious as a bull. He stepped toward the new guy, but some kind of weird green sludge bubbled up through the cracks in the street and quickly encased Enor's foot in a thick blob. Enor immediately stopped and looked down at his foot in surprise.
“What the hell is this?” said Enor. He tugged at his foot, but it wouldn't come out. “It's like glue.”
“Good job, Slime,” said the new guy, giving the blob a thumbs up. “Hold him steady while the others finish him off.”
The blob—which I guessed was called Slime—rumbled in affirmation, which I took to mean that it was either the new guy's sentient pet blob or it was an actual neohero who had the ability to turn into slime. The latter seemed more likely to me, though given what I'd seen in my short time as a superhero so far, I wasn't willing to bet on it.
“So you think you can stop me with glue?” said Enor. “Ha! I will … I … oh, I'm starting to feel dizzy …”
Enor put a hand on his head and seemed about to l
ose his balance. I didn't know why, though, until I spotted a girl standing on the rooftop of yet another building. She wore a uniform similar to the new guy's, but hers was white and pink. She also wore a weird helmet on her head that reminded me of the helmet that my dad, the retired superhero Genius, sometimes wore. The helmet was glowing, but I didn't understand what was going on until Treehugger said, “She's making him dizzy with her mind.”
Before I could say anything to that, the new guy shouted, “Lightning Triplets! Finish him off!”
Out of nowhere, three streaks of lightning flew through the air and struck Enor in his forehead. When they hit him, it made a sound of lightning striking and caused Enor to fall backwards. Slime must have let go of him, because Enor's foot slipped out of the blob as he crashed onto his back on the street.
Immediately, Enor started shrinking and shrinking until he had returned to his original height. But he did not get up or make any noises. Smoke rose off his forehead from where the lightning had hit him in his giant mode, although it seemed to have knocked him out rather than kill him.
The lamppost that had been wrapped around Enor's arm—which was now much too big for him—started wrapping itself around Enor's whole body until soon Enor's arms and legs were bound against each other. Enor still didn't move, but I guess the new guy just wanted to make sure that Enor wouldn't be able to escape or grow again if he woke up.
“Wow,” said Treehugger, her hands on her cheeks. “They … they're—”
“Better than us?” I finished. “Faster than us? More efficient than us?”
Treehugger nodded. “Pretty much.”
Then I heard a hovering sound and looked over to see the new guy slowly hovering toward us. He was riding what looked like a metal surfboard, his cape fluttering in the air behind him as he came down toward us.
“Hey there,” said the new guy, his smile revealing a set of pure white teeth. “Bolt and the Young Neos, right?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said as the new guy landed in front of us. “Who are you?”
The new guy's smile didn't waver as he held out his hand. “My name is Strike and I am the leader of the New Heroes. And I wanted to meet you for a long time now.”
Chapter Two
I shook Strike's hand—who had a surprisingly strong grip—and said, “The New Heroes? I've never heard of you before.”
“I have,” said Treehugger, though it was a little too quickly for my tastes. She was looking at Strike like she was almost afraid of him, which seemed strange because he seemed friendly enough to me. “They're the young neohero team for the Independent Neoheroes for Justice.”
“Right,” said Strike. “We're not as famous as you guys, but we've got more than a few accomplishments under our belt.”
“A few?” said Treehugger. She sounded almost like a fan girl now. “You guys beat Tsunami. Even Omega Man had trouble against him.”
Strike shrugged. “What can I say? It was a tough battle, but we won through ingenuity, teamwork, and science.”
I didn't know the details about this battle with Tsunami (a name I was only vaguely familiar with, though I knew he was a supervillain with water powers and not much else), so I just said, “Well, thanks for saving us anyway. We were having a lot of trouble against Enor.”
“Yeah, size-changers are always hard,” said Strike. “Reminds me of the team we fought the Ants, a team of supervillains who could shrink. A lot more annoying than it sounds.”
“Right,” I said. “But what are you doing here in New York? The INJ is based on California. That's the other other side of the country.”
“We wanted to meet you in person, of course,” said Strike, nodding at me. “We've heard all about how you beat Master Chaos and exposed Vision, so we just wanted to meet the man Bolt himself.”
Although Strike spoke in a friendly voice, I could tell that he had another reason for being here but for some reason wasn't saying it. I figured that Treehugger's presence was what was keeping him from being entirely honest, so I looked at Treehugger and said, “Treehugger, can you go and round up the others? Now that Enor is down, we'll need to return to the House soon.”
Treehugger—who seemed mesmerized by Strike's good looks—suddenly shook her head and said, “Oh, yeah. Sure thing, Bolt. Be back in a bit!”
Treehugger dashed off, though not without looking at Strike one last time over her shoulder. I watched her go for a moment before looking at Strike again. “Okay, so what's your real reason for being here? I know you didn't come all the way from California just to meet me.”
Strike looked taken aback by my questions, which made me think that I might have overstepped, but before Strike could answer, the blob that had caught Enor rolled over to us. It smelled awful, like sewage water, forcing me to cover my nose before it stopped a few feet from us and started to change shape.
In a second, the blob had been replaced by a teenaged kid, probably about fifteen or so, who had sickly green skin and wore a black uniform just like Strike's, except without the cape or goggles. He was slouching slightly and his skin seemed to be constantly generating that slime, which made me step away from him involuntarily.
“Hey, Strike,” said the green-skinned teenager, who I remembered was called Slime. He sounded bored. “We beat the giant. Are we going home now?” He shivered. “New York's too cold for me.”
“Not yet, Slime,” said Strike. Then he looked at me again. “Bolt, this is Slime, my second-in-command and a member of the New Heroes. And Slime, this is Bolt.”
“Bolt?” Slime repeated. He looked at me curiously. He held out a hand that was dripping slime. “Nice to meet you. I saw the video where you and your dad fought Master Chaos. It was cool.”
I didn't want to shake Slime's hand, mostly because I wasn't sure how healthy his slime was, but I also didn't want to offend him unnecessarily, so I took his very slippery and disgusting hand and shook it as I said, as politely as I could, “Thanks. Yeah, it was cool, but hard, too. Master Chaos definitely lived up to his reputation.”
I quickly stopped shaking hands with Slime. Now goop was dripping off my own hand. It didn't seem toxic or anything, but I did feel ill just looking at it.
“You can wipe it off if you want,” said Slime. “I won't be offended.”
“Uh, thanks,” I said, though I wasn't sure if I wanted to get it on my suit, so I just shook as much of it off my hand as possible. “So you have slime powers, then.”
“Yeah,” said Slime, nodding. He didn't sound embarrassed about it at all. He gestured at his body. “My entire body is made of this stuff. I can change into almost any shape I want. I can also stick to surfaces, catch criminals, and carry things in side me. See?”
A smartphone pushed out of Slime's hands for a moment before going back in. I wondered how he could possibly use a smartphone, considering how slimy his hands were, but I decided not to ask that question.
“And don't worry,” said Strike, patting Slime on the shoulder, “his goop isn't poisonous or toxic, though you should avoid eating the stuff if you don't want to lose all your teeth.”
I was about to ask how they knew that would happen when I smelled ozone in the air. The next second, three flashes of light shot down from the rooftop of the nearest building and landed beside us. I raised my hand to protect my eyes from the flashes until they faded.
When I lowered my hand, I saw three kids standing there. They looked like triplets, with identical faces, hair, and heights, though each one had their hair done in a different style. Their uniforms, although similar in style to Strike's, were yellow, purple, and white, which reminded me of lightning. They couldn't have been older than fourteen at most and they seemed to be brothers.
“Hello,” said one of the triplets, waving at me so fast that his hand was a blur. He spoke fast, too, almost too fast for me to follow. “You are Bolt, yes? We are the Lightning Triplets, Volt, Watt, and Lumen. I know we all look very similar, but I can assure you that we are indeed triplets and not clones, a
s so many people seem to think we are. Our powers stretch across the electrical spectrum, so we can do things like control electricity-powered devices, shoot lightning, and even control thunderstorms sometimes, but that last is hard because when it is raining and windy that makes it hard to concentrate. Still, we always do our best and have helped the New Heroes win many battles. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
Volt said all of that in less than a second. At least that was what it seemed like, because he spoke so fast that I could barely keep up.
But I nodded anyway and said, “Hey, I've heard of you guys before. I thought you weren't part of a superhero team, though.”
Volt opened his mouth, probably to give me another long but quick explanation, but Strike held up a hand and said, “They joined a few months back. Right, guys?”
“Correct, Strike,” said Volt, who I could tell was going to give another lengthy speech. “The circumstances under which we joined the New Heroes was—”
“We can talk about that later,” said a feminine voice from nearby. “Or Bolt can just look up your history on Neo Ranks, since you can find out everything about us there.”
I looked over in the direction that the voice had come. The girl I noticed earlier, the one who had caused Enor to become confused, was walking toward us. With that weird helmet on her head, it was impossible to see what her face looked like.
“What's your name?” I said as the girl approached.
“Call me Dizzy,” said the girl, before Strike or the others could respond. She didn't hold out a hand to shake. “You're Bolt, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “What kind of powers do you have?”
“I can make people disoriented,” said Dizzy. She gestured at Enor, who still lay on the street unconscious. “It isn't the flashiest ability, but it's useful in combat, as you just saw.”
“Is this the whole team?” I said, looking at the assembled New Heroes. “Or is there someone else missing?”
“This is it,” said Strike. He folded his arms over his chest, taking up a pose that, to me, look quite practiced. “We're a six-man team, just like you guys. By the way, where is the rest of the team?”
