by Lucas Flint
“Who is that?” I said.
“I'm not going to tell you,” said Maria. “That would be telling. The only reason I came here in person was to ensure your death.”
I still wanted to know who she was working with, but I decided that I would just have to live without that knowledge for now. “But I still don't understand it. You went to all this trouble just because you hate the NHA and the INJ?”
“Yes, but my ultimate plan is a bit simpler than that,” said Maria. Her mecha pointed at me. “You see, I want revenge. I want to avenge my husband and to do that I am going to kill you. I would kill your father, too, but he is in the middle of that battle at the moment and will likely be killed by someone in there, so I'm just going to focus on killing you.”
I took a battle stance. “That's nice, but you are still just a normal human, even if you do have a mecha. Shouldn't take me more than five seconds to take you down, if that.”
Activating my super speed, I zipped around Maria to the mecha's back. The mecha was trying to move around to face me, but it was as slow as mud. I threw a powerful punch at its back, intending to break its back and disable it instantly.
But when my fist hit the back of her mecha, I felt a jolt of electricity flow through my body that sent me flying backwards. I crashed onto the street, stunned by the impact, but tried to get up only to discover that my limbs were practically paralyzed.
“Like it?” said Maria, whose mecha had turned around now to face me. “The surface of this robot is electrified, so if you touch it, you will be shocked … literally.”
I forced myself to get back up to my feet. My body felt as stiff as a stick, but I had to get up. I looked down at my hands, which felt numb, and then looked up at Maria.
“So what?” I said. “I can still take you down some other way.”
Maria smirked. “Let's see you try, boy.”
The cockpit of her mecha closed shut and then the mecha hurled one of its arms at me, which extended like a chain. The chain wrapped tightly around my body, making me gasp in pain, but before I could break it, a jolt of electricity shot through my body. I screamed in pain before I was jerked off the street and then slammed back into it.
Dazed by the blow, I was unable to react when the mecha lifted me into the air and started spinning me above her head. The entire world spun around me so fast that it all blended together into one incoherent mass of color and texture before I suddenly found myself flying through the air, spinning crazily before I slammed into the side of a nearby building.
Shaking my head, my senses recovered just in time for me to see Maria's mecha flying toward me with its fists raised. My adrenaline kicked in and I zoomed out of the way just as the mecha slammed its fists into the building where I had been just moments before.
Stopping hundreds of feet away from the mecha, I groaned and rubbed my back. Though I was strong enough to survive the impact of the crash, the fact was that it still hurt. It didn't help that I was still trying to recover from being electrocuted, which made me slower and less agile than I usually was.
The mecha turned around to face me and then I heard Maria's voice coming from a speaker somewhere on the robot's body, “You cannot run away forever, Bolt! Why are you afraid of a middle-aged single mother? Am I that scary? Because I am about to get a lot scarier.”
The mecha aimed one of its hands at me and its fingertips flipped open to reveal gun barrels. Then the mecha started firing dozens of bullets at me. I had to use my super speed and reflexes to dodge the bullets, but I still was too slow and just barely avoided most of them. One of the bullets actually grazed my face, drawing blood, but I had no time to worry about that. I just ran toward the mecha, dodging its bullets as Maria laughed maniacally.
I jumped into the air and then flew into the sky, outracing the bullets and trying to get out of the mecha's range. I heard the bullets cease being fired behind me, but then I heard the sound of engines firing up and looked over my shoulder in time to see the mecha rocketing toward me thanks to the rockets on its feet. I had forgotten that the Chaos bots could fly.
I tried to fly away from her, going high into the sky. I had no idea how high Maria's mecha could fly, but maybe I could make it run out of fuel by out-flying it long enough.
Of course, just as I thought that, the mecha fired its hand at me again and the chain wrapped around my waist. Again, I was electrocuted and jerked down toward the robot, which now had a sharp blade sticking out of its wrist. I would be skewered if I fell on that blade, but it was hard to move out of the way because I was falling so fast and my body was so numb from the electricity.
Nonetheless, I managed to twist out of the way at the last minute, falling past the mecha so fast that I was a blur. But an idea occurred to me as I fell and I shot toward the ground as fast as I could, the numbness from the electricity wearing off as I flew.
I felt the mecha trying to pull me back, but I was going too fast and soon I was pulling the mecha along right behind me. With the wind in my ears, I couldn't tell if Maria was cursing at me or not, but it didn't matter. I was heading straight for the ground as fast as I could, not slowing down at all, because if I did, that would give Maria a chance to recover and stop me.
The ground was coming closer and closer with every passing second. If I didn't move out of the way quickly enough, I'd become a splattered mess on the ground, but the timing wasn't right just yet.
Then, at the last second, I pulled up abruptly, going back up into the sky. I flew past the mecha, but it was falling too fast to change course with me. It crashed into the ground with a loud boom and I was briefly jerked back before I put in a burst of speed and tore off its entire arm, allowing me to fly away with the chain still wrapped around my waist.
But then I stopped, tore the chain off my waist, and turned around in midair to get a good look at my work.
The mecha was lying still on its back. Smoke rose from the spot where its arm had been and the rest of its body looked crushed or broken. Its legs, in particular, were smashed to pieces, meaning it probably wasn't going to be standing up again anytime soon. Most of the lights on its body were completely destroyed, though I saw a red one blinking from within its dark cockpit.
The glass of the cockpit was cracked, but surprisingly not destroyed. I listened for any sounds of breathing from within, but it was incredibly quiet.
Was Maria dead? I didn't see how she could have possibly survived that crash. Even for a superhuman, that would have been a hard blow to recover from. If she wasn't dead, she was either unconscious or had every bone in her body broken and probably in a lot of pain. Her mecha, at least, was out of the fight.
So I carefully lowered down toward the mecha, keeping a close watch on the cockpit. If Maria was still alive and her bones were not shattered into dust, then she might try to pop out and kill me.
I landed on the robot's legs and looked closely at the cockpit, trying to see if I could spot any movement within. But it was too dark to see the inside through the cracked cockpit, except for a single blinking red light.
I grabbed the cockpit and ripped off the glass plate, which came off as easily as paper. Tossing it aside, I looked down at the cockpit to see a terrible sight:
Maria Candle lay in her seat, looking as dead as a corpse. Her forehead was bleeding badly and her body looked like it had been crushed by the impact. The fresh, metallic scent of her blood filled my nostrils, which made me cover my nose. But Maria looked dead, just as I expected her to be.
Shaking my head, I stood up. I was relieved that Maria was dead, because it meant that she would never be a threat to me or my family ever again, but I figured that Robert was going to hate me more than ever now, once he learned that she was dead. And I understood that, because he now had neither a mom or dad and I couldn't imagine what that would be like. Of course, he wouldn't actually be able to get back at me, so I wasn't very worried about Robert's reaction, whatever it would be.
Then, without warning, Maria's eyes
snapped open. The whites of her eyes were now red, probably due to a popped blood vessel or something, and it made her look crazy, like she had escaped from an insane asylum.
“Die,” said Maria.
Without warning, Maria slammed a button to her right. Immediately, the mecha's remaining arm wrapped around me tightly enough to make me gasp and then shocked me with more electricity. At the same time, a timer appeared on the tiny screen above Maria's head, which displayed thirty seconds on the clock and was rapidly counting down already.
“You can't escape this one, Kevin,” Maria hissed, a crazy grin on her blood-soaked face. “Soon, we will both be in hell with Bernard and we will get to spend an eternity torturing you for what you did to our family.”
I could have escaped if I had more time, but the timer was going down too fast and the arm around me was too strong. I could only watch as the timer went down from twenty to fifteen to ten all the way down to five seconds left.
But then, out of nowhere, ice started forming on the mecha's remains. It rapidly covered the entire mecha, covering it so fast that I could barely follow. It ran along the mecha's body, covering the arm holding me but not me, and made its way to the cockpit where Maria lay.
Maria was staring at the ice in shock and said, “What is—” before she was completely consumed by the ice itself. Her face was literally frozen in shock.
As for the timer, however, it was still going down and was now at two seconds. I was worried it was going to explode anyway, but then the ice covered the timer in a thick block of ice. Through the clear ice, I saw that the timer had stopped at one second, so I assumed that the ice must have somehow disabled the mecha's self-destruct mechanism.
“Bolt!” I heard a voice shout.
I looked up and saw Blizzard standing not far from where the mecha had landed. She was holding up her hands, which were glowing white, and had a worried expression on her face. She still looked sickly and tired, but she looked a little bit better, too, like she had just awoken from a nap.
“Blizzard?” I said. “Did you do this?”
“Yeah,” said Blizzard. She lowered her hands and said, “I didn't do anything wrong, did I?”
I shook my head quickly. “No, no, you did exactly the right thing. Your ice didn't even hurt me.”
Blizzard sighed in relief. “Oh, good. I was worried about that for a second. Do you need help getting out?”
“No,” I said. “I can free myself.”
With a simple shrug of my shoulders, I shattered the frozen mecha arm that was around me. I jumped off the frozen mecha and landed next to Blizzard. She had taken off her hood, revealing her long white hair and looking more like herself now.
Standing up and dusting some ice chips off my shoulders, I looked at Maria and said, “Did you kill her?”
“I wasn't trying,” Blizzard said, looking down at her feet. “But I bet she's dead anyway. There's no way a normal human like her could have survived being frozen alive like that, especially after that awful crash.”
“Well, I'm glad you stopped her anyway,” I said, looking away from the frozen mecha and at Blizzard. “I don't think I could have survived an explosion from that close, even with my costume and super endurance.”
Blizzard nodded, but then started and said, “Oh my gosh. Your cheek is bleeding.”
I touched my cheek, where Maria's bullets had grazed me, and felt a little blood there. “Oh, it's nothing. I've suffered worse. Thanks for noticing, but right now we need to focus on the fight between the NHA and the INJ in the Hero Hall. We have to stop it before anyone dies or it escalates. Everyone needs to know what Maria did.”
“Right,” said Blizzard. She hesitated and looked toward Hero Hall with a worried expression on her face. “But … how will they treat me when I get there? I froze the Midnight Menace. Everyone is going to think I killed him purposefully, even though I was really under Maria Candle's control when I did it.”
“Don't worry,” I said. I put a hand on her shoulder. “I'll be there with you. If anyone tries to hurt you, as your leader, I'll make sure that that person spends the next several weeks in the hospital with every bone in their body broken. Okay?”
Blizzard still looked hesitant, but then she nodded and said, “Okay. I just hope we are not too late to end that battle before it becomes an all-out war.”
Chapter Nineteen
After waking up Strike and Dizzy, making sure they were okay, and then explaining to them what just happened, the four of us went back to Hero Hall. We didn't hear anything from the inside, which made me wonder if the fight was over and, if so, who had won. I fully expected to see dozens of dead bodies scattered all over the floor, with maybe the survivors being herded by the winners into the corner or center so that they would all be in one place. I even expected to see Dad's corpse lying on the floor, a thought that sent chills down my spine just by thinking about it.
But when we entered Hero Hall, we came upon a scene that I don't think any of us expected: All of the assembled members of the NHA and the INJ standing around and watching a movie that was playing on the massive screen behind the platform. And even stranger, I was on it.
The screen showed my battle with Maria Candle. It was from a distance, so you couldn't really see it in full detail, but it was clear enough that you could see our every move. It was showing the very final stages of our fight, in which I slammed Maria to the ground and then Maria attempted to blow me up. It even showed Blizzard using her ice powers to freeze the mecha over and stop the timer from going off.
And standing on the platform, next to the frozen Midnight Menace, was Dad. His back was to the crowd, his helmeted head turned upward, as he also watched the scene playing out on the screen.
But then Dad suddenly turned around and said, “Bolt, Blizzard! There you are!”
Suddenly, the eyes of every superhero in the room were on us. Most of the heroes, now that I got a good look at them, were wounded or damaged, but I didn't see any corpses, at least. Still, it felt awkward for everyone to be watching us like this, especially when I noticed that a few of them looked at Blizzard with hostility.
“Bolt, Blizzard, Strike, Dizzy,” Dad said. He gestured at us. “Come on up here. Don't worry; no one will try to harm you.”
Confused, I decided I could trust Dad, so I let Blizzard wrap her arms around my neck and I flew us both over to the platform, trying to ignore the watching eyes of the other superheroes as they followed us. Behind me and Blizzard, Strike and Dizzy flew on Strike's metal board, following the two of us over to the stage.
I landed on the stage next to Dad and Blizzard let go of me as soon as her feet touched the floor. Strike and Dizzy landed next to us, too, and seemed as confused as I felt.
“Um …” I looked up at Dad in confusion. “Dad, what—”
Dad put a hand on my shoulder and then gestured at the screen behind us, except that he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at the crowd of people below us who were still watching us quietly.
“Did you all see that?” said Dad. It sounded like his helmet was increasing the volume of his voice, because his voice sounded louder than usual. “My son, Bolt, was fighting Maria Candle. You heard the audio. Maria Candle confessed to trying to manipulate the NHA to fight the INJ. That means that no one in either organization was trying to manipulate both sides against each other.”
Suddenly, Samurai, who stood near the front of the crowd and whose golden armor was bashed in several places, said, “But what about the Midnight Menace? He is still frozen. He must be dead by now.”
“Not necessarily,” said Dad. He looked at Blizzard. “Blizzard, can you please unfreeze the Midnight Menace?”
Blizzard looked extremely timid whenever all of the people looked at her, but she nodded shakily and raised her hands. They glowed white and the frozen form of the Midnight Menace started to slowly thaw out.
As the Midnight Menace thawed out, I whispered to Dad, “What happened? I thought both sides were trying to
kill each other. Why'd they stop?”
“I ended the fight by having Carl activate the security cameras on the outside of the Hall and display their feed in here,” Dad whispered back to me. “I originally did it because I wanted to keep an eye on you, but when I saw Maria, I had Carl increase the audio so everyone could hear her.” He gestured at the NHA and INJ members below. “When everyone saw it, they stopped fighting and started watching. We got very lucky, I think, that Maria was dumb enough to pick a fight with you and reveal her plan to the world.”
Before I could respond, the Midnight Menace finished thawing out. As soon as he thawed, the Midnight Menace's red eyes snapped open and he looked around wildly, saying, “What the hell? Where am I? What happened? Who did that?”
“He's still alive?” I muttered.
“The Midnight Menace isn't quite the same as normal people,” Dad muttered back. But then he said aloud, to the Midnight Menace, “Midnight Menace, it's good to see that you are all right.”
The Midnight Menace looked at Dad suddenly. “Genius? What are you doing here? The last thing I remember—”
The Midnight Menace suddenly stopped speaking when he looked at Blizzard, who stepped away from him and lowered her hands.
“You!” the Midnight Menace shouted, pointing at Blizzard. “You froze me! You tried to kill me. I will not stand for this.”
The Midnight Menace moved toward Blizzard like a shadow, causing her to make a small yelp, but then Strike stepped in between them and said, “Leave her alone, Midnight Menace.”
The Midnight Menace stopped and stared at Strike in confusion and anger. “Strike, what are you doing? She tried to kill me. She must be stopped before she kills anyone else.”
“Menace, Blizzard did not try to kill you intentionally,” said Dad. “She was under the influence of Maria Candle, the wife of the late Master Chaos, who has been manipulating both the NHA and the INJ in an attempt to get them to destroy each other.”
“Maria Candle?” said the Midnight Menace incredulously. “Ridiculous. She is just an ordinary human. How could she cause any of us trouble? Where is your proof?”
