by Lucas Flint
Nicknacks—who entered the room without his crutches and insisted that he was feeling well enough to come—did not get an environ or any of our equipment, because his Pokacu nature meant he wouldn’t have any trouble breathing on the Mother World. He just took his trusty staff, which he had somehow managed to repair over the last couple of hours, and said that it would be more than enough for him.
Once we were all equipped, we were ready to leave for Hero Island. But first, Cadmus came and told us what the plan was, because we needed to know the plan in order to make sure that everything went smoothly.
According to Cadmus, Shade was going to transport us two at a time to Hero Island. We’d then split into four groups of three, save for the last group, which would be made of four people due to Nicknacks’ inclusion. Three of the teams would work on destroying the Triangle Prison and saving the captured members of the NHA and INJ, while the fourth team would attempt to hijack a Pokacu spacecraft that would then be used to reach the Mother World. Nicknacks would be part of that last team, because he was the only member of the attack squad that could pilot a Pokacu ship and the only one with any knowledge of the Mother World at all.
But it wasn’t just the Young Neos and the New Heroes who were going to fight the Pokacu. A few G-Men agents were also coming along; Shade, Mr. Apollo, and Wind. Both Mr. Apollo and Wind had fought in the last Pokacu invasion, while Shade—who hadn’t been a member of the G-Men at the time—was coming to act as backup. As for Cadmus, he was going to stay in the Facility and monitor the mission from here, though he was also going to send any backup we might need in case the mission went south.
It seemed like a pretty simple plan, all things considered, but I have to admit that I felt a little nervous about it. Plans could always go haywire, but as long as I was with Nicknacks, I thought I was going to be okay.
But more importantly, I remembered Mom. She was somewhere on Hero Island, in the clutches of monsters that would likely not hesitate to kill her if they thought it would benefit them. I couldn’t let fear or nerves keep me from saving her. Nor could I let fear or nerves keep me from taking out Nicknacks if I had to. I glanced at Nicknacks as Cadmus explained the plan, but the alien didn’t look at me, probably because there was nothing to think or worry about. We just had to act.
When Cadmus finished telling us the plan and making sure that we all understood it, Shade started to take us to Hero Island two by two. She was going to deposit each team around different parts of the Island; that way, if we ran into any Pokacu, they would not be able to get us all at once. She would also be acting as defense, taking down any threats to the teams that they couldn’t handle themselves and not being a part of any particular team.
My team consisted of myself, Nicknacks, Blizzard, and Wind. Our goal was simple: Get Nicknacks onto a ship and then use that ship to go to the Mother World and end this invasion once and for all. I was glad to be working with Blizzard, but I wasn’t so sure about Wind. Although I was assured that he was a good fighter and G-Men agent and could trusted, something about him made me distrust him. Maybe it was because I still didn’t know what his powers were; when I asked, he just told me that I’d find out soon enough.
Anyway, Shade took Wind and Nicknacks to Hero Island first and the came back a few seconds later to get me and Blizzard. In the next instant, we were traveling through the darkness again, which were as hard to breathe in as always, until we passed through a bright light all of a sudden and were back in the normal world again.
Letting go of Shade’s hand, I looked around at our location. We stood behind the House, which I instantly recognized due to its high walls. It looked like it was in good shape, which either meant that the Pokacu had left it alone or they had not yet gotten to it; in any case, I didn’t see any Pokacu around, except for Nicknacks, obviously, who, like me, was rapidly analyzing the area around us for any traps. In the distance, I could see the Triangle Prison, which glowed brightly even from a distance.
“Here we are,” said Shade. “According to our satellites, there is a Pokacu spacecraft somewhere near here, which you guys are supposed to try to hijack.”
“Yes,” said Nicknacks, nodding. He raised his wrist, upon which was a watch that looked kind of like mine, except smaller. “I have its location on my watch.”
“Good,” said Shade. “The other teams are already in their positions, so I’ll go and tell the other teams to get started on taking down the Triangle Prison.”
Shade winked at me. “And Bolt, you don’t get into any trouble, okay? I would be rather … disappointed if you got hurt.”
I felt kind of uncomfortable when Shade said that, particular in the emphasis she used on the word ‘disappointed.’ I felt even worse when Blizzard glowered at her, but Shade didn’t seem to notice or care. She just slipped back into the shadows where we couldn’t see her.
“I hope we never see her again after this,” said Blizzard with a rather annoyed tone.
“We probably will,” I said. “She’s not going anywhere, as far as I can tell.”
“I wish she would,” said Blizzard.
Before I could comment on that, Nicknacks said, “Enough talking. We must focus on getting the spaceship that will take us to the Mother World. It should be nearby, but we’ll have to be careful. The Pokacu do not leave their landed ships undefended and will not hesitate to kill anyone who attempts to steal their ships.”
“Right,” I said. I raised my bomb staff. “Lead the way, man, and we’ll follow.”
Nicknacks nodded and then ran off to the right, sticking close to the back of the House. Wind, Blizzard, and I followed as quickly and quietly as we could, even though there didn’t appear to be any Pokacu nearby aside from Nicknacks. I kept looking up at the sky every now and then, expecting to see a Pokacu spaceship come swooping down at us at any moment, but the skies were clear. Indeed, the only real presence of the Pokacu was the Triangle Prison to the south, though there was definitely a powerful tension in the air that made me keep my wits about me.
Reaching the edge of the building, Nicknacks peered around the corner and then looked back over his shoulder at us. “The ship is right there.”
Curious, I activated my flight powers and flew over Nicknacks, though I kept behind the building as I peered around the corner to see what he had spotted.
A large, disk-shaped Pokacu spaceship was landed on the ground, near the entrance to the House. It looked very much like the Spinner, except with a very alien, neon green color scheme, plus a bunch of cannons on its top and bottom that looked more than capable of turning a whole small town into dust. Standing around it were about four Pokacu soldiers, each one armed with their arm cannons that shot blue glue, but there was a fifth soldier among them who was much taller and bulkier than any of them.
I mean, this guy was huge. He was about as tall as three of those guys put together and wore a helmet with wicked metal spikes jutting out of it. His arms were as thick as tree trunks and his legs looked as sturdy as boulders. The armor he wore was spiked and his helmet made him look like a goblin. And, instead of having an arm cannon, he had a missile launcher on his back and carried a huge sword/ax thing on his hands. He barely looked like any Pokacu I’d seen; in fact, I wasn’t even sure that he was a Pokacu.
Landing back down onto the ground next to the others, I whispered to Nicknacks, “What the hell is that?”
“Braalkaz,” Nicknacks said. “Roughly translated into English, it means ‘brute.’ They’re some of the strongest warriors in the Pokacu army; they’re not quite as numerous as the basic Pokacu soldier class, but they’re about as strong as ten of them put together and nigh impossible to kill normally.”
“How ‘nigh impossible’ are we talking about here?” I said.
“During one invasion, a squad of brutes were caught in the middle of a massive explosion that took out an underground fortress the size of the Pentagon,” said Nicknacks. “They simply dug themselves out of the rubble, hunted down the people who
tried to kill them, and then brutally tore them apart piece by piece … while they were still alive.”
“I don’t remember these from the last invasion,” said Wind. I realized that he had a slight Southern twang to his voice. “I remember the smaller guys, but not the big ones.”
“Because the brutes tend to be used only when necessary,” said Nicknacks. “Due to their immense power, they are more prone to carelessness and losing control of their strength than your average Pokacu soldier. This can be useful for when you want to totally eliminate an enemy, but not so useful when you only wish to conquer them or want to win with your own army intact.”
“I guess the Mother World must be serious about destroying us, then, if she’s sending those brutes against us,” said Blizzard. “But it should be easy to take them out. I’ll just freeze them with my powers, we can stride past them, and then take their ship without a fight.”
“It won’t be that easy, I’m afraid,” said Nicknacks. “Taking control of Pokacu spaceships is … difficult for people who are not Pokacu, if not entirely impossible.”
“What’s so difficult about hijacking those ships?” I said. “Mimic could pilot the Spinner and he was a human. I don’t see why it would be impossible for us.”
“That’s because the Spinner was renovated for human use,” said Nicknacks. “And quite frankly I am surprised that the G-Men can keep it in the air for even five seconds after all of the changes they’ve made to it. I suppose they are better engineers than I thought.”
“I still don’t understand,” said Blizzard. “What will stop us from taking control of that ship?”
“Pokacu ships are not designed like human ships, in the sense that they can be controlled by anyone who understands their controls,” said Nicknacks. “Pokacu ships are not purely mechanical. Most of the time, they’re at least partially organic, which means they’re partially alive, although it is only in the sense that plant life is alive in that they lack sentience.”
“Is all Pokacu technology like that?” I said, remembering the blood that came from the missile when I destroyed the rocket earlier.
“Much of it is,” said Nicknacks. “What makes hijacking Pokacu ships complicated is that the organic parts are usually biologically connected to the pilot of said ship. Thus, if the pilot dies, the ship cannot be used, making it impossible for anyone who isn’t the pilot to use.”
“Meaning that if we froze these guys, we wouldn’t be able to use the ship because we’d end up killing the pilot?” I said.
“More or less,” said Nicknacks, nodding. “They were designed that way in order to make it impossible for enemies to hijack them and use them against the Mother World.”
“And how successfully has that worked out?” I said.
“Let me put it this way,” said Nicknacks. “In all of my years in the Pokacu army, the Spinner is the only example of a successful hijacking of a spaceship that I know of. And that was only after it was shot down and modified for human use, a process that took many years to complete, long after the end of the first invasion.”
“Then how the heck are we supposed to hijack that ship?” I said. I jerked a thumb over my shoulder in the general direction of the ship. “Even if we beat its guards, we won’t be able to hijack it.”
“Not necessarily,” said Nicknacks. “What we need to do is capture the pilot and take him hostage. Or just take a part of his body and bring it with us.”
“Are you sure that will work?” I said.
“Unless there have been some major changes to the design of the ships since I abandoned the army, I don’t see why it wouldn’t,” said Nicknacks. “All it takes to activate and use a Pokacu spaceship is to have the DNA of the pilot with you. You can therefore, technically, get away with taking, say, an arm or a leg aboard with you, since it will still contain DNA from the pilot, and use it to control the ship even if you are not the pilot yourself.”
“Oh, okay,” I said. “So which one is the pilot?”
“The brute, obviously,” said Nicknacks.
Blizzard and I exchanged quick, worried looks while Wind said, “How do you know that?”
“Because he is wearing the helmet of a pilot, obviously,” said Nicknacks, gesturing at the brute’s helmet. “Therefore, we will either need to take him hostage or break off one of his limbs or some other part of his body in order to have a sample of his DNA we can use to hijack his ship.”
“Okay, but why did they park the ship here in the first place?” I said.
“I imagine there are probably some soldiers ransacking the House,” said Nicknacks. “Most likely looking for things like weapons, data, information, anything that could help them in the invasion.”
“That means they’re looking through my stuff,” said Blizzard with a gasp. “Those monsters.”
“That is another reason to defeat them,” said Nicknacks. “But we will need to be quick. If we take too long to take down the pilot and his fellow soldiers, they will have time to call in reinforcements and force us to retreat, if not overwhelmed entirely.”
“Right,” I said, a plan already forming in my head. “I’ve got a plan. Just follow my lead.”
Nicknacks opened his mouth, probably to tell me not to rush into danger, but I didn’t stop to listen. I just ran around the side of the building and toward the Pokacu, shouting, “Hey, losers! Remember me?”
Their only answer was to shoot blue glue at me, but I dodged it by flying into the air, allowing the stuff to miss me by a mile. The Pokacu soldiers aimed their arm cannons up at me, but before they could fire, I shouted, “Blizzard! Now!”
The Pokacu soldiers actually looked confused for a moment before Blizzard jumped out from behind the building and thrust her hands at them. Only the brute seemed to understand what was about to happen, because he jumped forward, rolling across the ground, just as the rest of his soldiers became encased in solid blocks of ice.
“Good job!” I shouted down at Blizzard, giving her the thumbs up.
Blizzard smiled back, but then looked at the Pokacu and gasped. “Bolt, watch out!”
I had no idea what she meant until I heard something flying through the air toward me and looked down in time to see one of the frozen Pokacu soldiers soaring through the air toward me. Before I could dodge, the frozen soldier slammed into me, shattering into pieces and sending me falling to the ground in surprise.
I crashed onto the ground hard enough to crack the earth, which left me briefly dazed. Shaking my head, my vision came back just in time for me to see the brute standing over me, raising his sword above his head like he was about to behead me.
I instantly rolled to the side, causing the brute to bring his sword down on the ground where I had been lying just moments before. Rolling to my feet, I swung my fist at him, but the brute actually blocked my attack with his thick forearm. Not only that, but the impact of the punch didn’t even make him budge; he just glared at me, as if insulted by my weak attack, and then shoved me backwards.
Staggering backwards, I just barely managed to block the brute’s sword with my bomb staff (avoiding the tip, of course), which came hard and fast. In fact, his sword hit so hard that it nearly snapped my staff, but the staff held and I managed to hold the brute back.
But even with my super strength, this brute was more than a challenge for me. Maybe it was the height differences or the weight differences or maybe he was just plain stronger than me, but I was doing everything I could to hold him back and it still didn’t feel like enough. The brute was snarling and growling, almost like a tiger, and I saw nothing but murder in his eyes. At least, I thought they were his eyes; given that he wasn’t even human, I could have just as easily been looking at his mouth or something.
All of a sudden, a powerful gust of wind blew through. It was strong enough to send us both flying through the air until we crashed into the ground. I managed to hit the ground with my shoulder and then used the momentum to roll back to my feet, but the brute slammed headfirst
into the ground and did not get back up immediately.
Looking in the direction that the wind had come, I saw Wind standing next to Blizzard, his hands raised. He was smirking through the helmet of his environ, an expression I found I didn’t care much for.
“Thanks for the save,” I said.
But Wind just shouted, “Watch out!”
I looked over to see the brute’s fist coming at my face. Instinctively I raised my arm to block it, but the brute’s fist came fast and hard. I was sent flying backwards and I smashed into the side of the House, which I fell from with a crash. Groaning, I shook my head as Blizzard shouted, “Be careful, Bolt! Remember, we’re trying to keep him alive, because we’ll need him to use the ship.”
I looked over at Blizzard in annoyance. “Why are you telling me to be careful? Why don’t you tell him to—”
I heard a grunt and looked forward to see the brute charging at me. Without thinking, I launched into the air, just barely avoiding the brute as he crashed headfirst into the wall. I landed behind him and slammed his back with my staff, but the staff just harmlessly bounced off him as if it was nothing more than a fancy stick.
Then the brute whirled around, swinging his sword at me, but I flew backwards out of the way, just barely managing to avoid getting cut in half. Landing on the ground, I shouted, “Blizzard, why don’t you freeze him?”
“He’s moving too fast,” Blizzard said. “You need to pin him to the ground somehow or distract him long enough for me to freeze him.”
I was about to say that that was easier said that done, but the brute came at me again. This time, however, I was not going to run. I tossed aside my bomb staff, which I found incredibly useless, and dashed forward to meet the brute halfway.
He swung his sword at me, but I jumped and landed on the flat of the blade, which was large enough for me to stand on. I swung my foot at his face, striking big ugly right in his mug. I hit him hard enough to hear something crack, but then he grabbed me and threw me like a doll.
