by Lucas Flint
Stinger just took a step away from her, panting and shaking his head. He wondered briefly what that explosion earlier was, but whoever had created it, it had saved his life. He decided not to question his good luck; if there was one lesson he remembered from his mother, it was that you should never question your own luck, as that was the best way to lose it.
Mother … Stinger suddenly remembered that Bolt and Electrica were still in the warehouse below and that they might be fighting even now. He couldn’t hear any sounds of battle, but that did not mean they were not fighting.
Yet he could not just leave Moretta here like this. She was a wanted criminal, and it was Stinger’s duty as a superhero to bring in criminals like her to justice. On the other hand, Stinger could not easily drag her with him; she may not have been very heavy, but it would still be awkward and cumbersome to carry her around with him, especially if he was going to help Bolt fight Electrica.
“Okay,” said Stinger. He leaned closer toward her to ensure that she could hear him. “Since you’re going to remain paralyzed for the next couple of hours, I’m just going to leave you here while I go check on Bolt and make sure he’s okay. I’ll be back as soon as I’m done helping him, though, so don’t you go anywhere, okay?”
Moretta just glared up at him with that same murderous rage from before, though now it looked less scary and more amusing.
Deciding that Moretta most likely had understood what he said, Stinger rose to his feet. He was just about to run over to the nearest door to the interior of the warehouse when the roof suddenly exploded underneath his feet.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kevin found it hard to keep staring up at Electrica, because the glow from her finger nearly blinded him. But he did not get up or try to run, because he knew that Electrica had him where she wanted him. He just prayed that Talon, White, and Stinger would get inside the warehouse soon, but given how none of them had appeared yet, he wondered where the heck they were and what was taking them so long to come to his aid.
“Wait, isn’t this kid Bolt?” said Chip, who was somewhere behind Kevin. “The son of Genius?”
“Yes, it’s him,” said Electrica. “I’ve met him before, but I didn’t know he was going to be here tonight spying on my business dealings. Maybe he has a crush on me.”
Kevin grimaced. “Trust me, Electrica, the last thing I have on you is a crush.”
“But if Bolt is here, then doesn’t that mean that the Neohero Alliance knows about our meeting?” said Eli, the panic rising in his voice. “I am sorry, Electrica, but Chip and I must leave immediately. We cannot risk being captured by the—”
“Don’t get your underwear in a bunch, Eli,” said Electrica, cutting him off as smoothly as if he had not been speaking at all. “I don’t see Omega Man and the Leadership Council barging in to rescue the boy at the last minute, do you? No, I think the boy is alone. Right, boy?”
Kevin did not answer that question. He was not going to give Electrica any information that she could potentially use against him. If she thought he was alone, she might let down her guard enough for Kevin to take her down.
“But why would he be alone?” said Eli. “It doesn’t make sense. He’s the leader of the Young Neos. Shouldn’t he have the other Young Neos with him?”
“Apparently not,” said Electrica. “You know, Bolt, you remind me of your father, who I clashed with a few times before his untimely death. Even though he had teammates, he usually preferred to work alone. Alas, I was never able to convince him to join me in breaking the law; his sense of ‘justice’ always kept him from listening to my arguments.”
“Wait, you mean you tried to seduce my dad?” said Kevin. He shuddered. “Ew.”
“That’s not a very polite thing to say to a lady like me,” said Electrica. “Regardless, I must admit that I am surprised that you didn’t bring kitten with you. She was just a kitten, true, but she had the heart of a lioness trying to avenge her fallen pride. She would have been helpful in fighting me, that’s for sure.”
“Even if Bolt is alone, his mere presence here is a threat to our operations,” said Eli. “You should just knock him out and we can tie him up somewhere. If we kill him, someone will notice and eventually link his death back to us, which would get the government on our backs.”
“The government is already after both of us,” Electrica pointed out. “What’s one more murder to add to my long list of crimes?”
“Because we have never murdered anyone before,” Eli snapped. “Unlike you, Chip and I are not psychopaths who lack a conscience.”
“Consciences are overrated,” said Electrica. “But you do have a point. Murdering Bolt in cold blood would certainly make the government come after us even harder than before. We probably wouldn’t get a moment of peace.”
“Exactly,” said Eli, who sounded relieved that Electrica was agreeing with him. “That is why we should spare him.”
“But the idea of the government coming after me is … thrilling, to put it mildly,” said Electrica, her voice full of a perverse pleasure. She licked her lips. “I live for intensity and thrills. And what would be more intense or thrilling than the entirety of the G-Men coming after me for murdering a famous young up-and-comer? It might even cause the NHA and the INJ to come after me, too, which would be a bonus.”
“Hold on, Electrica,” said Kevin quickly. “We, uh, worked together, remember? The Mann Corporation Building? Ring any bells?”
“Oh, I remember, but since that alliance was only temporary, it is irrelevant to our current situation,” said Electrica. “But don’t worry your silly little head. I’ll make your death as quick and painless as possible.”
Electrica’s finger began crackling with energy. Kevin was not sure if a blast of electricity to the face would kill him or not, given his super endurance, but he supposed that he was about to find out.
But when Kevin blinked, he suddenly realized that there was a huge crate directly over their heads. Electrica must have noticed it, too, because she looked up at it just in time and said, “What the hell? Where did that come from?”
As if its string was cut, the crate fell straight down toward Electrica and Kevin. Electrica was too surprised to act, but Kevin flew up toward the crate and caught it in midair. It was heavier than expected; however, Kevin managed to keep it from falling down and crushing Electrica. He slowly but surely flew over to a spot away from Electrica, Eli, and Chip, and safely deposited the huge crate onto the concrete floor.
“Where did that come from?” said Electrica, who sounded slightly dazed. She looked at Eli suddenly. “Was that your doing? You wouldn’t happen to have some powers you’ve conveniently neglected to mention to me, would you?”
“Me?” said Eli, putting his hands on his chest. “Hey, lady, I’m just as surprised as you are. I don’t know where this crate came from. It just … appeared in the air there, like someone had teleported it.”
A dark chuckling sound came from somewhere within the warehouse. It started off small, barely noticeable, but as time went on, the chuckle turned into full-on laughter. It was a chilling sound, like the laughter of a demon from hell, and it sent shivers down Kevin’s spine.
Yet that was nothing compared to what the laughter did to Eli. Eli broke into a cold sweat and looked around the warehouse wildly for the source of the laughter. Chip was looking around, too, but unlike Eli, he did not look nearly as frightened, though he still looked quite scared nonetheless.
“Who’s there?” said Electrica, looking this way and that for the source of the sound. “What is so funny? Why are you laughing?”
“That laughter …” Eli’s face was a pale as the moon now. “He’s here.”
“He?” said Kevin. “He who?”
“Me,” came a voice tinged with laughter somewhere above them. “That’s who!”
Kevin looked up at the ceiling. He was surprised to see a man standing on the ceiling. Literally standing; the man was looking down at them in the same way t
hat they were looking up at him. He looked almost like a clown, with a long, humorous nose, a funny hat with a red feather sticking out of it, and over-sized shoes on his feet. Yet it was his mask that gave away his identity, proving that he was no clown, but a Venetian, though Kevin could not recall off the top of his head just which one this was.
“It’s him,” said Eli, whose voice was strangely small now. “Zanni.”
“Thank you for introducing me, Eli,” said Zanni with a chuckle. “It saves us quite a bit of time, doesn’t it? Especially since I already know who all of you are.”
Electrica raised an eyebrow. “Zanni? Are you one of those Venetians who I’ve heard so much about?”
“Indeed I am,” said Zanni. He took off his hat and bowed, though it looked weird since he was standing on the roof. “But I am not just any Venetian, I am the most powerful of them all, though still under the authority of our master like the rest.”
Kevin now remembered where he had heard of Zanni before. Blizzard and Shell had clashed with Zanni back in Phoenix. He remembered Blizzard telling him how difficult to beat Zanni had been and Kevin now wished that he had brought Shell along with him, rather than Stinger or White.
Zanni’s mad blue eyes shifted toward Kevin and widened with interest. “Ah, you must be Bolt, the leader of the Young Neos, if I am not mistaken. This is the first time we’ve met in person, but I did fight with a couple of your little friends back in Phoenix. They gave me a hard time, I will admit, but you don’t have their help at the moment, nor can you expect the help of your other friends, the one you brought with you to the warehouse.”
“What did you do to Talon, Stinger, and White?” said Kevin in a hard voice. “If you killed them—”
“Killed them? No,” said Zanni, shaking his head as he replaced his hat onto his head. “My own teammates are distracting them at the moment, though I can’t guarantee that that ‘distracting’ won’t involve murder. After all, I would be pretty distracted myself if I was murdered in cold blood.”
Kevin’s hands balled into fists. He didn’t know if Zanni was telling the truth or not, but he didn’t care. “Come down here and fight me like a man, then. I know what you Venetians think of me and what your boss, John Mann, thinks of me, too. Why don’t we get this done and over with if it’s a fight you want so much?”
“Because I don’t want to kill you, silly,” said Zanni. He pointed down suddenly, though not at Kevin. “I was given orders to kill him.”
Confused, Kevin followed Zanni’s finger and realized that he was pointing at Eli. Eli had grown even paler since Kevin had last looked at him; now he looked like a walking corpse, because his skin was extremely pale and he was sweating heavily now.
“Why do you want to kill him?” said Kevin, looking up at Zanni again. “What did Eli ever do to you?”
“It isn’t what he did to me that makes me want to kill him,” said Zanni. “It’s what he did to his dear old grandfather, though I think you might know him better as my master, John Mann.”
Kevin looked at Eli again. “Wait, your grandfather is John Mann?”
“That is interesting,” said Electrica, before Eli could respond. “I didn’t see it at first, but when I look a little closer, I do see that same face that has cheated me out of the millions of dollars I was owed, except about fifty years younger.”
“I …” Eli shook his head. “Okay, John Mann is my grandfather, but that doesn’t matter. I am not my grandfather and he is not me.”
“Oh, I would say it matters a great deal, Eli, because your grandfather so dearly wants you dead,” said Zanni. “He hasn’t forgiven you for stealing from him. And since your grandfather is a man of high ideals, he has ordered me to have you killed and for me to retrieve the Call from you.”
Eli chuckled bitterly. “Grandpa is a shrewd, calculating businessman. Whatever he told you about his ‘higher ideals,’ let me reassure you that the only ideal he lives by is whether he will benefit from it.”
“Family drama is so boring,” said Zanni. “In a way, though, I wish I had it, but I never got to know my parents before they died. Just one of those things I will never experience myself. Such is my tragic life.”
Kevin had no idea what was going on or why John Mann wanted Eli dead, but he asked Zanni, “So you aren’t going to kill me at all?’
“Not unless you get in the way,” said Zanni. “While Mann still hates you and wants you dead, he didn’t give me orders to hunt you down just yet. In fact, we didn’t even expect you to be here tonight at all, but perhaps once I erase Eli from existence, you can join him. Mann will no doubt reward me handsomely if I killed both of you tonight.”
“Not unless I beat you first,” said Kevin.
With that, Kevin launched into the air toward Zanni, zooming as fast as he could toward the Venetian. With his super speed and flight, he was as fast as a bullet, but right before he could punch in Zanni’s stupid mask, Zanni vanished into thin air. Kevin came to a halt before he could crash into the ceiling and looked around, trying to find Zanni, but it seemed like Zanni was nowhere to be seen.
“Where did you go?” Kevin said, his head whipping this way and that as he searched for the missing Venetian. “Show yourself, coward.”
“It’s not cowardice, but tactics, that inform my decisions,” came Zanni’s voice, which seemed to come from everywhere at once.
Abruptly, several large crates suddenly flew through the air toward Kevin. Kevin immediately fired several lightning blasts at the incoming crates, blowing a few of them up, but most of them had survived. The remaining ones crashed into Kevin, sending him falling to the floor. He crashed into the floor hard enough to create a deep crater, but before he could get up, tons of crates fell on top of him. They fell hard and fast, quickly burying his entire body under their weight. And, while it was not the heaviest weight that Kevin had ever been buried underneath, the impact of his fall had stunned him, leaving him unable to dig himself out of the crates.
As a result, Kevin soon found himself buried underneath tons and tons of broken crates, in addition to their contents, which appeared to be some kind of sharp metal, although it was so dark that Kevin could not tell what had been inside the crates. He thought he could hear the sounds of battle outside of the pile of crates covering him, but he wasn’t sure, because the sound was too muffled for him to tell.
What’s to stop Zanni from going after my friends? Kevin thought. I need to save them, before he decides to kill them in addition to Eli.
Grunting, Kevin summoned his super strength and burst through the crates. He soared into the air, stopping only a few feet before the ceiling, and then looked around once more.
This time, Kevin found what he was looking for: Eli and Chip, backing away from Zanni, who was walking toward them with a rather menacing gait. Chip had drawn a gun and was firing bullet after bullet at Zanni, but the Venetian vanished each bullet with a wave of his hand. At least, that was what it looked like to Kevin, because every time Chip fired a shot, the bullet would just disappear about halfway to Zanni. He did not see Electrica anywhere, which figured, because she was not the kind of person to risk her own safety for the lives of complete strangers.
Kevin flew toward Zanni. He pulled back both of his fists, intending to use the full strength of his power to take out Zanni.
At the last second, however, Zanni waved a hand at Kevin without even looking at him. Then Kevin smashed into something, an invisible wall of some sort, hard enough that he fell to the floor and lay there, his head spinning. He shook his head, however, and jumped to his feet just in time to see Zanni nearly upon Eli and Chip.
To his credit, Chip kept firing until he ran out of bullets and then he threw the gun itself at Zanni, but Zanni simply made that vanish as well. Knowing that there wasn’t much time before Zanni killed Eli and Chip, Kevin jumped to his feet and fired yet another lightning blast at him. But Zanni whirled around and made the lightning blast vanish with one wave of his hand.
; “Persistent little one, aren’t you?” said Zanni in annoyance. “I heard from Pantalone how difficult you are to keep down, but I didn’t realize how literal he was being when he told me that you would just keep getting up.”
“What can I say?” said Kevin with a shrug. “I’ve taken worse hits before than having a couple of boxes thrown on top of me. You’re going to have to up your game if you want to beat me.”
Zanni’s mouth twisted into a scowl. “I have no time for you. I came here to kill Eli, not you, but since you’re a bigger problem at the moment than Eli, I’ll take a few seconds out of my day to take you out first.”
Zanni held out a hand and squeezed it into a fist before Kevin could do anything.
Immediately, Kevin went flying upwards uncontrollably. He slammed into the ceiling of the warehouse hard enough to shake it, but not hard enough to fly through it. But before he could react, he found himself falling back to the floor even faster than before, and smashed into the floor so hard that he actually smashed through it, crashing into the warehouse’s foundation.
Pain exploded all across Kevin’s body and every bone in his body felt like it had shattered like glass. He breathed in dirt and concrete and who-knows-what else, trying to summon the strength necessary to stand up, but every bone in his body screamed in pain. Dimly, he was aware that none of his bones had actually broken, but that didn’t change the pain flowing through him like water.
Still, Kevin couldn’t just lie there. With a grunt of pain, Kevin grabbed the edge of the hole and pulled himself up. Every bone in his body rebelled and his muscles felt like they were about to snap, but Kevin didn’t care. He just hauled himself up, panting and breathing hard, but then a shadow fell over him and he looked up.
Zanni stood over him, his blue eyes burning with hate. He no longer looked like a mere clown, but more like a demon spawn from hell.
