by Nick Place
We all ponder this.
‘I wonder if that’s why the Bushranger was so good?’ says Logi-Gal.
‘And what about Blink?’ I say, although I haven’t wanted to talk about it since the fight. ‘How is he so good at appearing and disappearing?’
‘What’s wrong, Focus?’ Torch is smirking. ‘This town not big enough for two invisible boys?’
‘I’m just saying he was very good at it. For a Category 2 Villain.’
‘We’ll just have to him ’em harder,’ says Cannonball.
‘Yeah, exactly,’ The Gamer agrees. ‘They can juice up with this stuff all they like, but we’ve got real muscles. Well, actually, I’ve got W.O.W. Hand of A’dal-level body armour, but you know . . . same thing.’
‘I hope that’s enough,’ says Chameleon. ‘And Torch? What’s with the penis tattooed on your arm? It’s a an odd choice.’
‘It’s a flaming pointing finger, like his power,’ explains The Gamer loyally.
Logi-Gal and I frown at one another. S.T.O.M.P. is definitely bad news.
‘And we haven’t even discussed you getting yourself into a Knight-Hood Pact yet,’ she says.
I frown. ‘One thing at a time.’
A female Super Newsreader is on the screen, wearing a black cape and lycra costume, with a small velvet mask.
ANCHOR: This is Channel 78737 News. All Heroic news, all the time. Concern tonight over Triple A’er Southern Cross, who collapsed for the third time in recent weeks midway through a routine capture of armed bank robbers earlier today.
The screen cuts to shaky mobile phone footage. The unmistakably huge frame of Southern Cross, stars gleaming weakly on his chest, is being helped up by a local Hero, The Big V, and a policeman. Three bandits wearing masks and waving guns are sprinting away from the camera. Suddenly Golden Boy appears, standing serenely with his hands on his hips. The robbers are knocked out on impact. In the foreground, Southern Cross is sitting, sipping a glass of Super water.
ANCHOR (VOICE-OVER): As this dramatic footage from the scene shows, the bandits would have escaped, if not for Golden Boy’s timely intervention. Southern Cross reportedly fainted moments after entering the bank. After sitting quietly for a few minutes, he flew away, but unconvincingly.
The screen returns to the Super Newsreader.
ANCHOR: Southern Cross released a statement later today blaming his lapses on a change of diet. He laughed off suggestions that his powers were weakening permanently and also refused to entertain speculation that his Triple A status might come under review if the episodes continue.
And now to other news . . .
CHAPTER 9
A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR
After lunch, autumn sunshine is streaming through the window of my classroom and I’m trying not to fall asleep when two adults appear at the door. The maths teacher, Mr Snotwrangler, frowns and opens the door a crack for a whispered conversation. Finally, he looks at me. ‘Mr Retina. You have visitors. I’m sorry the study of algebra is getting in the way of your social calendar.’
I ignore the sarcasm and simply shrug at him as I scoot out the door. Two men are in the hallway. One is unshaven and has a ponytail, a crinkled suit and a novelty Ironman tie. It’s Kyle Smythe-Davies, Cannonball’s agent.
The other guy is very tall and well built. He has golden hair and is wearing a golden suit, which is smooth and stylish and fits his enormous body like a glove. He has a golden suntan and is wearing tiny, rimless golden eyeglasses. He is also wearing golden shoes and carrying a gold briefcase.
‘Can I help you?’ I ask.
‘Focus, we need to talk,’ says the man in the golden suit.
I gasp. ‘How did you know who I am? I’m not in uniform. My secret identity is blown?’
They both stare at me and the larger man raises his right hand to lift his barely-there eyeglasses off his face.
‘Focus, it’s me. Golden Boy.’
‘Oh wow! I didn’t recognise you out of costume!’
They stare at me.
‘You’re kidding, right?’ says Kyle.
I laugh a little too loudly. ‘Of course I am. Great to see you. What’s up?’
‘Focus, it’s Southern Cross. This collapsing thing is serious. We need to talk.’
We find a quiet spot outside in the schoolyard so nobody can overhear our Super conversation.
‘What’s Kyle doing here?’ I ask. ‘No offence, Kyle.’
‘I represent Southern Cross. I’m concerned about his marketability in the Hero Sponsorship Marketplace. But I’m here as an observer.’
Golden Boy rolls his eyes behind his disguise glasses.
‘Listen, we’re worried. First the bad guys are using S.T.O.M.P. to magnify their powers and now one of our Triple A Heroes can barely stand up.’
‘I’m worried too,’ I say. ‘But what’s this got to do with me?’
‘We’re following up all active Heroes to see if they’ve come across any peculiar events. Did Trolley King or Bushranger give any hint about S.T.O.M.P.?’
‘No, nothing. We reckon that Bushranger was more powerful than he should have been – controlling an entire park of trees – and Blink seems to have extraordinary control of his power, but the rest of his gang didn’t seem to have powers beyond their Category.’
Golden Boy fiddles with his fake glasses as he says, a little too casually, ‘Did he mention anything about a star-stone?’
‘A star-stone? What is that?’
‘It doesn’t matter what it is. It only matters if Bushranger said it.’
I stare at Golden Boy and Kyle, the dodgy Hero agent.
‘You’re asking me if the Bushranger or his gang discussed a thing called a star-stone while they were kicking the OK Team out of the park?’
‘That’s right.’ Golden Boy’s face is serious.
‘No, Golden Boy, he didn’t.’
Golden Boy sighs, maybe with relief. ‘Fair enough. Thanks Focus. Oh, and one more thing, what’s this about you getting into a Knight-Hood Pact with the Bushranger? Is that true?’
‘Is it bad?’ I ask.
He stares. ‘You don’t even know what it means, do you? Unbelievable.’
For a moment I feel like the hopeless first-time Hero I was when I first met Golden Boy. I remember the scorn in his voice and eyes that day. But I’m not that rookie anymore.
I’m a reasonably experienced, lowly-rated Hero about town. Aren’t I?
This Knight-Hood Pact thing is starting to worry me.
From the Hero Times
newspaper:
TIGERS FLY HIGH
IN HERO BALL UPSET
A new-look Flying Tigers outfit scored its first victory tonight with a shock upset of the highly-rated Ninjaneers.
AutoMan’s rookie pair of Focus and Cannonball found their Hero Ball feet, with Cannonball flying and barrelling through the Ninjaneers for two goals in the 3-2 win.
GlueStik scored the Flying Tigers’ winner after a neat pass from Focus who appeared out of nowhere goal-side of the Ninjaneers’ chief defender, martial arts Hero Jackie Leechan.
‘This is encouraging,’ AutoMan told the Hero Times. ‘Focus was only playing his second game and was patchy, but that’s okay. Our team still has to learn to work together better, but tonight’s result will help everybody’s confidence.’
AutoMan admitted that the form of Freeze Frame, who stood motionless in a corner for the entire match, was a concern.
At home that night, still flush with Hero Ball victory, I log on to herohints.com and find an email from Mr Fabulous. I still get a thrill every time I see the name of one of the world’s greatest-ever Heroes in my inbox. We didn’t always see eye-to-eye during the time he was training the OK Team last year, but it worked out in the end and it means a lot to know he respects me, my power and my leadership of the team.
Rather than replying, I check Hero Skype and see that he’s currently logged on, so I hit ‘connect’. There is a whirring sound and then a window op
ens on my computer screen, showing a red telephone.
It changes to green, with the handle off the phone, as Mr Fabulous’s gruff New Yorker accent blares out of my Mac’s speakers.
‘Hello? Fab.’
The webcam in my computer clicks in and I can see my image in one window on the screen, and Mr Fabulous in the other.
He’s wearing a dressing-gown over his faded costume and his wrinkles have wrinkles on their wrinkles. He’s also wearing a beanie with a golden F on it. You know you’re talking to a big-time Hero when they have their own merchandise-beanies.
‘Mr Fabulous. It’s Focus, in Melbourne.’
‘Fuzz Freak! How are you, boy? Still turning into a cloud every time a pretty girl walks by?’
For a second I think of a girl surrounded by gale-force wind and curse the webcam that shows my body fade to invisibility, even if only for a moment.
‘Haw haw,’ Mr Fabulous cackles. ‘I thought so. How’s life in Melbourne? Battled any decent Villains lately?’
‘Hero life is never boring,’ I say. ‘The OK Team has a couple of new members. I’ve joined a Hero Ball team, which rocks. We just beat the Ninjaneers.’
‘Wow!’ he says, genuinely impressed. ‘Aren’t they that team of hard-case Hero engineers who go into war zones to rebuild schools and hospitals while also ninja-fighting the enemy?’
‘I believe so,’ I say, although I had no idea that’s who we’d been up against. If I had known, I would have been terrified. ‘Also, Cannonball has got a dodgy agent. And Torch got a bad tattoo.’
Mr Fabulous wheezes as he laughs. ‘Ah, kid Heroes never change. Spidey never talks about the tattoo he got very early in his career. What’s news in the Melbourne Villian world?’
‘There’s a new bad-guy called the Bushranger. He can make trees obey his commands,’ I say.
‘Ha! Excellent power.’ Mr Fabulous nods. ‘Reminds me of a fella I fought back in 1952, or was it ’53? Had an army of mutant sunflowers.’
‘This Bushranger has decided he doesn’t like me. He tricked me into agreeing to some kind of pact.’
‘A pact?’ Mr Fabulous leans in to the camera. ‘What sort of pact, son?’
‘Well, apparently it’s called a Knight-Hood Pact.’
Mr Fabulous stares out of the screen. ‘You signed up for a Knight-Hood Pact? With this tree-loving Bushranger?’
‘I didn’t sign,’ I say meekly. ‘I just said yeah, okay.’
‘You agreed then. Well, zowie, Focus! That was brave.’
‘I got mad. He called me a kid and told me to stop playing in the adult world.’
‘Oh Hazy . . . so not brave at all. Just stupid. That’s the sort of dumb taunt that I imagine Cannonball would fall for, not you.’
‘So what have I agreed to, exactly?’
‘Will you listen to this?’ He shakes his head. ‘The kid doesn’t even know what he’s signed up for. Well, Fuzzy, it’s a Knight-Hood Pact. In fact, its full name is a Dark Knight-Red Hood Pact. It’s an agreement between a Superhero and a Super-Villain that they will commit to battling each other, for the rest of their careers, to the death.’
‘To the – ?’
‘Yeah, to the death, genius. You agreed without checking . . . I say you got it coming. It goes all the way back to Bats and the laughing guy. Did you know he was the Red Hood before he started smiling too much and dyed his hair green? Wiki it. Anyway, they started it. No other Heroes are allowed to step in and sort out the bad guy . . . It’s up to the Hero or Heroes within the Knight-Hood Pact. Why do you think Supes can’t just fly in and sort out Bats’s enemies in an afternoon? Personally speaking, I could have taken out most of Spidey’s enemies without breaking a sweat, if it weren’t for Pacts.’
My head is swimming by now. ‘So I’m the only Hero now allowed to take on the Bushranger?’
‘More or less, yeah. Your little team can get involved in the wider battle. But so can any henchmen he might happen to have.’
‘He’s a cheater, Sir. He’s supposed to be Category 2, but he fights more like a Category 5. Golden Boy says it might be because of something called S.T.O.M.P.?’
‘Serum That Overly Magnifies Powers? These crooks are on that stuff ?’
‘It looks like it, Mr Fabulous.’
‘So you’ve agreed to a to-the-death Pact with some juiced-up Super-Villain, and you’re still a Level D?’
I don’t say anything.
Mr Fabulous chuckles again. ‘How’s the rest of your day going, kid?’
CHAPTER 10
FIRING THE CANNON
Wucka wucka wucka blort! The Gamer defies gravity as he runs at full speed horizontally along a wall, while wrapping a rope around three of the notorious Hardware Gang, a group of Category 1 bad guys who steal from hardware superstores. One of them throws a wheelbarrow at The Gamer, but he’s wearing an ‘iron fist’ upgrade that he won on ‘Challenge Stage Five’ in his alternate gaming universe, so he swats the wheelbarrow away with a loud THWONG!
I would help, but I’m a little sore from another game of Hero Ball last night (the Flying Tigers lost – I almost scored a goal, but Octo-Pretty flung a tentacle in the way right on the line). The Gamer doesn’t look too troubled, so I’m happy enough to let him do the work.
Torch is zapping the feet of a Gang member, making him dance in a corner of the superstore car park where we found them loading up a truck.
‘I still say you’ve got a dumb tattoo,’ says the Gang member. Torch blasts flame at his feet and he breaks into a jig and yelps.
Logi-Gal outlined our strategy and established a Hero haze before going into this showdown. She’s now standing over a dazed Hardware Gang member, lecturing him on why crime is an antisocial behaviour that alienates groups within society and, on a personal level, is destructive to the family and friendship network of those participating in crime. I think the semiconscious Hardware Gang member catches about one word in every five.
Cannonball is above our heads, showing us how comfortable he is with flying these days and still gloating after scoring two goals last night. Technically, he’s watching for any Hardware Gang members we might have missed or for a bad guy team-up that might take us by surprise, but in reality he’s posing as he flies so Kyle, his agent, can take promotional photos of an actual battle.
The Gamer is collecting flashing power-bananas from a turtle shell that is mysteriously zooming through the battle – choom, beep, beep, bloop – and all is going according to plan, until The Gamer’s captives suddenly flex their arm muscles and the rope tying them up falls away like a flimsy paper streamer.
‘Cannonball! They’re free!’ I yell, but he’s already seen it.
‘Did you see how easily they shook off that rope?’ Cannonball shakes his head. ‘They’ve got to be on S.T.O.M.P.’
‘We don’t know that,’ I yell, but Cannonball’s expression is one I haven’t seen on him before – fear. He hovers and snarls, ‘I’ll teach these S.T.O.M.P.ers what genuine power is. Kyle, make sure you get this! Let’s fire the cannon!’
Then he karooms down towards the three bad guys, and in one motion swings a huge roundhouse right hand punch, connecting flush on the jaw of a Hardware Gang member.
The Villain makes a horrible sound, like somebody has let all the air out of him, then falls backwards, landing hard like a sack of spuds. He doesn’t move.
Everybody stops fighting. Logi-Gal stops lecturing. The upright Hardware Gang members stare in disbelief. Silence descends on the car park. The Gamer creeps over, a couple of electronic sound effects dying behind him, and Torch stands silently, looking at the still form of the fallen Gang member.
Kyle’s camera clicks.
‘Cannonball, what have you done?’ The Gamer says.
‘That was a big punch for a Category 1 Villain, mate,’ says Torch.
‘They’re on S.T.O.M.P.,’ says Cannonball. He turns to one of the Gang members. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘What are you talking about?’ the kid as
ks. He doesn’t look much older than us. ‘Why’d you hit Kevin so hard?’
‘Because he was on S.T.O.M.P.,’ says Cannonball nastily. He’s short and stocky and only comes up to the kid’s shoulder, but that’s never bothered Cannonball.
‘What’s S.T.O.M.P.?’
‘Yeah, right . . . As if you don’t know, actor boy. It’s a performance-enhancer that artificially boosts your powers.’
‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘So how did you shake off that rope then?’ Torch asks.
One of the other Gang members shrugs. ‘Crap knots.’
The Gamer’s face goes bright red. ‘Actually, I never have been any good at knots. Not called for a lot in gaming situations.’ Bloop.
The Hardware Gang member still hasn’t moved.
‘I’m calling the AFHT emergency number,’ Logi-Gal says, pulling out her mobile phone. ‘And an ambulance.’
‘He was on S.T.O.M.P.,’ Cannonball says, but his voice is trembling, and he sounds more little boy than Superhero. ‘Logi-Gal, I’m telling you, I was sure they were on S.T.O.M.P. You thought so too, didn’t you, Focus? Kyle, stop taking photos!’
CHAPTER 11
RAMIFICATIONS
At school the next day, there is no sign of Frederick Fodder (Cannonball). Simon Fondue (Torch) and I shrug at each other across the classroom when his desk remains empty and at recess, Simon tells me that Frederick’s little sister, Alexandra (Tomorrow Girl) says Frederick is refusing to come out of his room. He was crying for most of the night.
At lunch, I check over both shoulders to make sure nobody is watching as I log in to my herohints.com email account (Username: hazy_retina. Password: carrot_taco). There’s an email from Logi-Gal: the AFHT reports that the Hardware gang member’s condition is unchanged. Medical Hero Doctor Dazzle is working the case.
At least he’s not dead, I think, sighing with relief. I log out and clear the browser history and cache, just in case another kid stumbles onto my Hero mail. I wonder what I’d be more embarrassed about – having my alter ego discovered by the library teacher, or having Simon discover I’d supergoogled Cyclone Tracy.
