by Lucas Flint
Table of Contents
Title Page
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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
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
PREVIEW: Team Up Chapter One
Other books by Lucas Flint
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Appendix 1: The Superhero's Son
Appendix 2: Minimum Wage Sidekick
About the Author
CROSSOVER
Dimension Heroes Book #1
Lucas Flint
Published by Secret Identity Books. An imprint of Annulus Publishing.
Copyright © Lucas Flint 2018. 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.
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CHAPTER ONE
While being a sidekick didn’t pay nearly as well as being an actual superhero, Alex Fry—also known as Beams, the sidekick of the famous superhero Rubberman—had come to love the job. In the year since he had started working as a sidekick, Beams had saved his city from multiple threats, not to mention learned a thing or two about the actual superhero business itself from his boss, Rubberman, who was more like a mentor than a boss. Beams enjoyed protecting his city, family, and friends from the criminals and supervillains who sought to harm them, and he had to admit that having his own fan club and getting paid to do it wasn’t so bad, either.
But if there was one thing Beams both loved and hated about the business, it was the unpredictability of it all. Some days, you might find yourself preventing a bank heist being pulled off by the local criminal gang. Other days, you might find yourself going toe-to-toe with a fanatic who believed that holding a high school full of students hostage was the ideal way to stick it to the man. And on others still, you might have to avoid getting killed by an assassin hired by a rival corporation that wanted your boss’ business.
And then, on some days, you found yourself at the vanguard of a full-on alien invasion of Earth, made even worse by the knowledge that Beams could have prevented it entirely if he had just thought through things a bit better six months ago.
The day had started out normal enough. Beams had woken up, showered, and got dressed before having breakfast with his parents and his older brother, James, who was in town for the summer due to his college being out for the summer. James, being the helpful big brother he was, had offered to take Beams to the local mall to help him pick up chicks, but Beams had refused because he had to get to work. Beams’ workload had increased since the start of summer, though it was mostly because Beams didn’t have any school in the summer, which meant he had more free time to dedicate to Rubberman’s business.
Looking back, though, Beams wondered what would have happened if he decided to play hooky. Beams never believed in the whole ‘butterfly effect’ phenomenon, but he wondered if there was an alternate universe somewhere where he accepted his brother’s offer to go pick up chicks and the alien invasion never happened.
It’s not helpful to regret the past, Rubberman always told Beams. Just learn from your mistakes and make sure you don’t repeat them in the future. That’s all we can do.
That was true enough, but when a huge alien spaceship descended from the sky above and sent out dozens of strange, flying creatures screeching at the top of their lungs, Beams wondered how this was his fault.
It happened when Beams was about halfway between his house and the Elastic Cave, his boss’ base. He had taken his usual shortcut to the Elastic Cave’s false storefront entrance, hoping to get to work early so he and Rubberman could get started on their daily patrol. Rubberman had informed Beams that they would be doing their usual afternoon patrol today, with Rubberman using the Rubbermobile and Beams using the Beams Cycle. Beams loved the Beams Cycle, because it was a motorcycle designed specifically for him and he rarely got to ride it.
The sky had been cloudy and thundering, with lightning lighting up the sky every now and then, but it didn’t make sense to Beams, because the weather app on his phone had said that it was supposed to be bright and sunny today. It was especially strange given how it was August, which was usually the hottest and driest month of the year for Texas. But Beams had dismissed it as the weather app being wrong as usual and hadn’t thought to bring along his umbrella or raincoat.
Still, the thunder had become so severe that Beams almost considered turning around and heading back home when the alien spaceship first descended from the sky.
At first, when Beams saw it, he thought he must have forgotten his glasses and was maybe seeing an airplane or something. But when Beams raised his fingers up to his eyes and felt the rim of his glasses, he realized that his eyes were working perfectly fine and his glasses were on his face where they were supposed to be.
Coming to a stop on his bike, Beams looked up at the massive alien spaceship as it descended from the clouds like some kind of god. The spaceship resembled a giant flying saucer, except with a weird pillar-like thing sticking out underneath it. Lightning crackled along its surface and Beams realized that the thunder he had heard earlier was not actually thunder at all, but the engine of the ship itself. Though the ship looked unarmed, an ominous chill went down Beams’ spine nonetheless.
A sudden ringing from his pocket made Beams start. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and, seeing it was Rubberman, answered the call and said, “Hey, boss, do you see what I’m seeing?”
“If what you’re seeing is a gigantic alien spaceship hovering over downtown Golden City, then yes, I see it,” said Rubberman’s voice over his phone. “I’m watching it through the monitors in the Elastic Cave. Where are you?”
Beams looked around at his surroundings. “I’m in an empty alleyway near downtown Golden City, about halfway between my house and the Elastic Cave.”
“Okay,”
said Rubberman. “Adams suggested I call you to make sure you’re okay.”
“Nah, I’m fine, boss,” Beams said, glancing up at the spaceship, “though I’m not sure for how much longer, given how dangerous that thing looks.”
“Get to the Elastic Cave as fast as you can,” said Rubberman. “We have no idea how dangerous these aliens are, so—”
All of a sudden, the phone connection cut out. Beams looked at his phone screen and saw that he had no data at all, which was odd because he had just renewed his plan yesterday.
Beams dialed Rubberman’s number again, but he just got the out of order sound. That wasn’t good.
Slipping his phone back into his pocket, Beams decided to make a run for the Elastic Cave when he heard a strange screeching sound above. Looking up, Beams wished he hadn’t, because the creatures he saw flying down from the spaceship would live in his nightmares forever.
They looked like giant bats, flapping their massive wings as they peeled off the core of the spaceship and scattered across the city in every direction. Their high-pitched screeches filled the air like exploding bombs and, though they flew well enough, there was something distinctly unnatural about how they moved. They flew as though they were used to a different level of gravity, though there was something more disturbing about them that Beams could not put his finger on.
One of the bats broke off from the rest and headed directly for Beams. It came fast, too fast for Beams to put his costume on. But Beams did manage to jump off his bike at the last second. As he hit the street, the bat’s claws snatched his bike, snapped it in two like a stick, and threw both halves away. The bat flew back up to the sky, while Beams scrambled to his feet and looked up at the creature.
That was no bat. Though its general physical appearance was bat-like, it had bug-like eyes and a beak like an eagle. It looked like no animal Beams had ever seen on Earth, but given where it came from, that wasn’t surprising.
The bat turned in an arc and rushed back toward him like a bull. Beams took off his glasses and fired twin eye beams at the bat. The lasers struck it head on, but the bat alien thing didn’t even slow down. It just screeched in anger and flew toward him faster than his eyes could follow, pushing through his lasers as though they weren’t even there.
Cutting off his laser beams, Beams closed his eyes and fired his lasers. They rebounded against his eyelids and Beams suddenly felt energy flow through his body.
Opening his eyes again, Beams leaped directly into the air, causing the alien bat to go underneath him. Beams jumped higher than he intended, however, and reached out and caught the ledge of a nearby building. He pulled himself up onto the roof of the building and scrambled to his feet, feeling both exhausted and yet energetic.
Looking up, Beams didn’t see the alien bat at first until it landed on the other side of the rooftop hard enough to crack the roof and sent tiles falling off to the street below. The alien bat growled and flared its wings out, though Beams thought it was just trying to intimidate him more than anything.
“What are you?” said Beams. “Can you even understand what I’m saying? Or are you stupid as well as ugly?”
The alien bat screeched again, but instead of rushing toward Beams, it made some kind of strange sucking sound and suddenly spat something out of its beak at him. Something green and ugly hurtled across the air toward Beams, but Beams jumped to the side, just barely avoiding the thing, which struck the part of the roof where he’d been standing mere moments before.
Coming to a stop, Beams looked over at the green thing and felt his stomach sink. It looked like snot, but the way it hissed against the roof tiles told him that it was actually some kind of acid. That meant Beams had just barely avoided getting splashed with acid.
“Oh, so you can spit acid now, too?” Beams said, looking over at the alien bat. “What else can you do? Can you pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time as well?”
The alien bat didn’t respond. Its wings suddenly folded over against its body and the alien bat began rushing toward Beams on four limbs, screeching the entire time.
Surprised, Beams nonetheless jumped into the air over it, but the alien bat suddenly jumped into the air and slashed at him with one of its claws. Going too fast to control his trajectory, Beams got slammed in the chest by the bat’s claw and fell back down to the roof below. He hit the roof hard and nearly rolled off, only catching the edge of the roof at the last second. Jerking to a stop, Beams looked down and realized that he was a couple of stories off the street below, meaning that if he fell, he’d likely break his legs.
Then Beams heard the sounds of the bat’s claws tearing across the roof and its head suddenly appeared over the edge of the roof. The alien bat was looking straight down at Beams, snapping its beak repeatedly, like some kind of nervous habit.
Only too late did Beams realize that the alien bat was preparing another round of acidic saliva, this time aimed directly at his face. And this time, he had no way to dodge.
I hate Mondays, Beams thought as he stared up into the monstrous face of the alien bat above him. I hate them a lot.
CHAPTER TWO
Kevin Jason—better known as the superhero Bolt, son of the late superhero Genius—thought that becoming a full-time member of the Neohero Alliance, the largest superhero organization in the world, would make his life easier than it had been when he had been the leader of the Young Neos, the most famous young superhero team in the country. At the young age of eighteen, Bolt had already faced his fair share of supervillains and world-spanning catastrophes that even a lot of adult superheroes twice his age had never dealt with. He had looked forward to living a much easier but also more exciting, life, because adult NHA members had more privileges than Young Neos members did.
I thought I might get to fight more supervillains, travel around the country protecting innocents from danger, and doing all sorts of cool things, Bolt thought. But I didn’t think I’d get stuck with janitor duty, of all things.
It was true. Hovering in the air with a bucket of soapy water in one hand and a brush in the other, Bolt surveyed the work he had done on the Justice Statue already. The Justice Statue was a massive marble statue depicting Omega Man, the leader of the NHA’s Leadership Council, and the Midnight Menace, the leader of the Independent Neoheroes for Justice, which was the second largest superhero organization in the country, standing together and shaking hands. It was supposed to be a symbol of unity between the two superhero organizations, whose past relations had been strained due to their differing approaches to crime and the non-superhuman world. It was a beautiful statue, Bolt had to admit, and both Omega Man and the Midnight Menace were so realistic that they looked like the real people just blown up to titanic sizes.
But the Justice Statue didn’t look pretty on its own. It took effort to maintain and clean it, and Bolt had just spent several hours cleaning the Statue by himself. Well, it wasn’t entirely by himself. The lower parts of the Statue had been cleaned by the Hero Island Janitorial Team, but the upper parts were considered too difficult for the non-superhuman janitors to reach.
So, naturally, the task had fallen on Bolt, who, with his flight and super speed, was considered the best available candidate for the job. Bolt had been told by the head janitor, a jovial black man named Curtis, that it would take him less than a couple of hours to clean the upper half of the Statue and that all he needed was a good bucket of water and soap to get the hard-to-reach parts.
Now Bolt was starting to wonder if Curtis knew just how dirty the upper part of the Statue was. Although the Justice Statue looked beautiful from a distance, up close, you could see where all of the dirt and even bird droppings collected on the heads of Omega Man and the Midnight Menace. The bird droppings in particular were bad, because the seagulls which lived on the beaches of Hero Island sometimes liked to come inland and rest on the Justice Statue, which they seemed to think was a toilet.
Bolt had started at eight that morning and now it was about lunch
. That was good, because Bolt had gotten hungry from all of the scrubbing he had done, not helped by the fact that he dropped the brush a couple of times and had accidentally knocked over the bucket at least once. The Janitorial Team were always patient with him and let him refill whenever that happened, but Bolt felt embarrassed every time he had spilled the bucket nonetheless.
For that matter, Bolt was tired from all of the work he’d done. He was strong, young, and in good shape, but scrubbing dirt and bird droppings off the Statue took a lot of effort, not helped by the harsh wind that blew around up here. He was glad that the sky was mostly clear, because if it had been raining, he was certain he would never have gotten the job done.
Of course, if it had been raining, they’d probably find some other job for me to do, Bolt thought. Maybe they’d have me pick garbage off of Hero Beach or entertain tourists or something like that.
Shaking his head, Bolt lowered down to the base of the Statue. Here, he found the rest of the Janitorial Team gathering their supplies and getting ready to go to lunch. There were about a dozen janitors in all, not counting Bolt himself, and they all wore the distinctive blue uniform that all Hero Island workers wore. Bolt didn’t have to wear it, because he was technically not a janitor, though he found himself asking again why he was doing janitorial work if he didn’t even get to wear their uniforms.
Then again, I like my costume just fine, Bolt thought as he gently landed on the ground, glancing down at his red and black full body spandex costume, which also had a cool lightning bolt design on the chest. Way cooler than their uniforms, that’s for sure.
“Kev!” a loud, jovial voice shouted suddenly. “Good work!”
Bolt started and looked around until he spotted a huge black man, clad in the same blue janitor uniform as the others, walking up to Kevin, with a big, friendly smile plastered on his face. The middle-aged man had very little hair, but he did have a big black mustache across his upper lip that made him look much older than he actually was.
