Katana at Super Hero High

by Lisa Yee

  There was no time for Katana to be scared. She had fought in battles before, including the one against Granny Goodness’s army of Female Furies. Katana looked over at Big Barda, who had once helped rule the Furies and had fought the Supers. Now she was on their side, and Katana couldn’t help but smile at the way Barda shone in battle.

  Big Barda held her Mega Rod in one hand and one of the Japanese swords sheathed on her side, ready to use it when the time was right. As a mutant reptilian soldier raced toward her, Barda lifted her Mega Rod high and swung it—boom!—sending the reptile flying across the school grounds.

  “One down, dozens to go!” Barda said, looking pleased. “But who’s counting?”

  “Behind you!” shouted Bumblebee, who was flying after a winged warrior headed straight toward Barda.

  Big Barda twirled around, unsheathing the sword, and swung it, striking the armored enemy with such force that his shield cracked and he flew backward. The human-reptile hybrid didn’t stop until he hit the administration building.

  Barda looked at the sword, now bent out of shape. Using her incredible strength, she straightened it until it was as good as new.

  “Well, that’s not the Muteki Sword,” Dragon King said, yawning as he gazed out over the battle.

  Katana realized his strategy. He was going to let his mutants fight his war, and if and when he saw a Super whose sword was indestructible or gave some sign of bestowing great power to its wielder, then he would attack. As she looked at him, Katana felt a connection, albeit an unsettling one. However, there was no time to ruminate.

  “I need backup!” someone called.

  In an instant, Katana was fighting alongside Cheetah, who was battling a trio of reptilians. “Three to one? Not fair,” Cheetah purred. “But three to two? That’s just about right!”

  Katana and Cheetah easily defeated their opponents with a series of high kicks and low punches executed in tandem.

  Near the vehicle building, Batgirl was up against a hulking mutant reptile who had uprooted a tree trunk and was now swinging it at her, causing dirt from the roots to fly everywhere.

  “Seriously?” Batgirl said. “Poison Ivy is not going to be happy about that.”

  Batgirl pulled a small canister from her Utility Belt and unleashed its gaseous contents in the snarling mutant’s face. After taking a deep breath of the gas, the lizard warrior dropped the tree and fell to its knees. Batgirl bonked it over the head with the handle of her sword, knocking it out. “Well, that was easy,” she said. “I knew I should have made more reptile repellent after it worked so well on Croc.”

  As the Supers continued to fight, Katana joined in battles and had a few of her own. No one was a match for the granddaughter of a Samurai super hero, and several of Dragon King’s warriors fled at the sight of her.

  Fighting at Katana’s side, Supergirl said, “He’s a mutterer.”

  “Who?” Katana asked. She backflipped over a pair of reptiles who were about to attack Thunder and Lightning.

  “Dragon King,” Supergirl said as she tossed a couple of surly mutants into the air and watched Frost freeze them before they fell. “I’m using my super-hearing.”

  “What’s he saying?” Katana asked. She looked around, proud of what she saw. Beast Boy had turned into a reptile himself, confusing the enemy. Arrowette was hurling arrows, some flaming, faster than the enemy could take in what was happening. Wonder Woman had several tied up in her Lasso of Truth, and all were crying and saying that Dragon King had tricked them.

  “He’s not impressed with any of the swords he sees,” Supergirl reported, “though Dragon King is impressed with us.”

  “As he should be,” Katana noted. She motioned to Hawkgirl and Bumblebee.

  Both were flying circles around the enemy, and while Hawkgirl rounded them up, Bumblebee was blasting electric stings and bringing them to their misshapen hands and knees.

  Over in her student project garden, the usually sweet Poison Ivy was yelling at the reptile warriors. “Do. NOT. Trample. My. PLANTS!!!” she warned. When they didn’t listen, Poison Ivy reached into her bag for the flower bombs she had created in Mr. Fox’s class. She lobbed the weapons at them and watched with glee as they exploded, creating a net of thorny rose vines that captured several enemies at once.

  Supergirl and Katana high-fived each other. Before they could say anything, they were suddenly surrounded by a dozen angry mutants. The girls smiled at one another.

  “This is going to be fun!” Supergirl said.

  “Going to be? I thought it already was!” Katana replied. “Three, two, one…let’s go!”

  As Supergirl charged the warriors, Katana rolled into a trio of them, sending them flying into the air. Then, using her martial arts skills, she disarmed them while doing multiple kicks to bring them down. Taking out her sword, she fought six more with ease. Calling on the moves Onna had taught her, Katana displayed expert skill and grace. Though it was a battle, it looked more like a ballet—except, of course, when her enemies fell one by one, yelling “Oompf!” and “Ugh!” and “I give up!”

  With the dozen captured, it took less than a second for them to be tied up by The Flash, who ran around them with handcuffs and steel ropes in hand. Katana smiled at Supergirl, who, instead of smiling back, looked stricken.

  “What’s the matter?” Katana asked.

  “He’s what’s the matter.”

  Katana was surprised to find Miss Martian standing next to Supergirl.

  “You tell her,” Supergirl said. “I could only hear his muttering, but you may know more.”

  Miss Martian gulped and her voice trembled. “Katana, Dragon King wasn’t impressed with any of the Supers using their swords…until he saw you!”

  “Army!” Dragon King roared. “Keep fighting, but give me space. There is one battle I want to fight for myself. One that is long overdue!”

  Katana turned to see Dragon King, a sinister smile on his face, rising off the pedestal and flying toward her. Miss Martian disappeared. Supergirl balled up her fists and rose into the air to greet him.

  “No,” Katana said sharply. “No,” she said again, softer this time. “I will fight him myself.”

  “You sure?” Supergirl asked, looking uncertain.

  “Assist the others,” she said. “I got this.”

  As Supergirl flew away, Dragon King landed in front of Katana, casting a shadow over her.

  “Why, hello, little lady. You must be the granddaughter of Onna-bugeisha Yamashiro,” he said. His voice was smooth and untrustworthy. “I have heard of you.”

  “That’s funny,” Katana said as they slowly circled each other. “I’d never heard of you before today.”

  “No?” Dragon King hissed, looking insulted. “Your grandmother never ssspoke of me? She told me all about you and how even though you were young, you already were showing signs of one day being a Samurai super hero.”

  Katana was surprised. Onna had spoken to him about her? Wait!

  Suddenly, it made sense. Dragon. Dragon King. Dragon Prince. They were one and the same. Katana flashed back to the teak chest in her room. There were photos—photos of Onna with Dragon Prince. She had even talked about him in her diary. But he was scrawny back then. So, he had changed himself, Katana noted, and given himself a promotion!

  “You were friends?” Katana asked, surprised.

  “She was my friend,” he said, laughing. “In the end, I was not hersss.”

  atana stood very still, waiting for Dragon King to continue. He licked his crusty lips with his lizard tongue and smiled his serpentine smile. “She had something I wanted,” he said, looking at the battles that were taking place all around him. “We agreed to meet, years after high school….”

  That was when the truth hit Katana. It struck her so hard, she gasped and held her stomach. Her parents had said that on the night Onna had perished, she was to meet up with an old friend from high school. Of course it had to have been him. She had trusted him, and he betrayed
her.

  Dragon King laughed, though nothing was funny. “Yesss, yesss,” he hissed. “I think you know who I am now. I wanted the Muteki Sword, the one your grandmother had. But the sword I took from her didn’t hold any special powers. So I…Well, we all know how that ssstory ended.”

  Katana was speechless.

  “But you, my dear, you’re pretty good with the sword, and your style reminds me of your grandmother’s—fluid. So then, while the others battle in search of the Invincible Sword, I suggest we have a little fight of our own. Once I get rid of you, I can focusss on my mission. What do you sssay to that? I can’t have Onna-bugeisha Yamashiro’s little granddaughter standing in my way, can I?”

  A chill ran through Katana. In her nightmare, she was running, running. Something or someone was chasing her. Now she knew who it was. It was Dragon King. Katana’s nightmare had turned real.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” Katana announced, standing tall. Grief mixed with rage had unnerved her, but she couldn’t let Dragon King know that she harbored any fear.

  “Tsssk, tsssk. Oh, Katana, you’re just like Onna-bugeisha,” Dragon King said, shaking his head in mock sadness. Though he looked nothing like his high school self, the eyes, the beady eyes, were the same. Back then he had looked weak, but the villain before her now looked supremely strong and confident.

  Dragon King sharpened the blade of his sword against the metal-like scales on his leg. “She was fearless, yesss, but she had her flaws,” he mused. “The great ones always do, you know. Are you one of the great ones, Katana? Is that your goal? I wonder what your fatal flaw will be?”

  He was just trying to rattle her, Katana reminded herself. “My grandmother had no flaws,” she said defiantly. As much as she ached to attack him and avenge her grandmother’s death, she knew that Dragon King knew about young Onna, and had stories she longed to hear. “Tell me about her.”

  “Say pleassse,” Dragon King said, condescension mixing with his breathy reptilian hiss. He was enjoying her discomfort. Katana gritted her teeth and glared at him. The reptile man chuckled. “Well, close enough.”

  “Let’s sssee now,” he said slowly. “Onna was very popular in school. I’ll bet you are, too, aren’t you?” When Katana did not answer, his eyes narrowed. “I hate popular—it’s overrated. Those who are popular have it easy. Look at me. I wasn’t popular. I didn’t look like this.” He flexed his massive muscles, and then with a roar, flames blasted from his mouth as he set Crazy Quilt’s quirky vintage sports car on fire. Crazy Quilt’s gasped sob was heard above the roar of battle.

  “That’s all about you. What can you tell me about my grandmother?” Katana asked. She was using as much restraint as she could muster.

  “Ah, yesss,” he said, looking off into the distance. Frost was now covering the car in sheets of ice to put out the flames. Mutants were fighting Supers, and it looked like the Supers were winning. Commissioner Gordon had rows of specially reinforced armored transport vehicles from Metropolis’s S.C.U., and he was rounding up Dragon King’s soldiers and hauling them away.

  Still, Dragon King acted like he couldn’t be bothered with all that. “Yesss, Onna-bugeisha Yamashiro was a mighty Samurai. Beloved by all—well, mossst. Her fatal flaw?” He smiled at Katana, showing his lethal lizard tongue. “Onna’s fatal flaw was that she trusted me.”

  Every part of Katana’s body tensed. She longed to lunge at him but practiced restraint. The truth was what she was after.

  “I told her that I wanted to sssee her,” Dragon King continued. “That I had a present for her after all these years. She foolishly agreed to meet me. But it wasn’t me who had something for her. She had sssomething I wanted.”

  He stopped to savor the words and let his eyes linger over the sword in Katana’s hand, and continued, “The Muteki Sword, the legendary Invincible Sword. Everyone knew there was a famous female Samurai super hero, but no one knew who it was. I knew, though. It could have been no one else. With her swordplay, her strength and determination—and her quaint habit of wanting to sssave people from evil—why, obviously, it had to be my old ssschoolmate Onna-bugeisha. And how did she do it? With the aid of the sword, of course.”

  Katana could hardly breathe, but it wasn’t because of the smoke from the now-smoldering car. “Please, continue,” she said, unsure if she really wanted to hear what he had to say next. Her hands were sweaty, and it was hard to grip her sword.

  Dragon King wrapped his claws around his own sword and began to circle her. In turn, Katana pivoted. They moved around and around each other as slowly and surely as the moon around the Earth and the Earth around the sun. And equally unable to escape one another.

  “We met by the ocean,” he continued. “There were massive dunes, and the wind blew sand in my face. I told Onna that I wanted her sssword, and when she asssked me why, I said, ‘To rule the world, of course.’ ” Dragon King shook his head. “I was honessst. She didn’t like that.

  “So we battled. It may not have been fair that I had one hundred accomplices to help me, but I do what needs to be done. In the end, I did get her sword. But she double-crosssed me! It was not the Muteki Sword at all!” he roared. “She didn’t have it!” His eyes narrowed as he looked over his army fighting the Supers with swords.

  Bumblebee was in top form, her wings carrying her as she flew headfirst toward a mutant and zapped him with an electric blast.

  Wonder Woman had a sword in one hand and her Lasso of Truth in the other.

  Cyborg was fighting alongside Lady Shiva, who was combining lethal martial arts moves with sword fighting.

  And Harley Quinn had somehow mounted a camera to her sword, fighting with such glee that her crazy laugh was enough to make the mutants flee from her even before she could engage them in battle. “Come back!” she yelled as she chased them around the school. “I want to get you on video!”

  Dragon King waved a dismissive hand at the commotion. “One of those swords left in play is the legendary Muteki. I have ssspent the last decade of my life trying to find it, and will not ssstop until I do!”

  “How do you know it’s one of them?” Katana asked.

  He shook his head as if she had asked him a stupid question. “If Onna didn’t have the sword, it was a given that another Samurai must have had it.”

  The two continued circling one another, each waiting for the other to draw their sword first. With each step, the circle grew smaller as they got closer and closer to each other. So close that Katana could feel his hot breath.

  “And so you are here,” Katana said. Her normally bright eyes darkened. “Now what?”

  h, Katana. You are so insssightful,” Dragon King said sarcastically. “Yes, here I am now. Legend has it that there are one hundred mighty Samurai swords from fallen warriors, all enshrined in an underwater temple.”

  “Go on.” Katana baited him as she steeled herself for battle. She thought about Onna and how she had trusted Dragon Prince. Katana did not feel the same way.

  “Finally, I found the Temple of the Sssacred Swords,” he bragged. “But the swords were gone! It took a while, but I discovered that they were at Sssuper Hero High, and now I am here to claim what is rightfully mine.”

  “Rightfully yours?” Katana replied, her anger growing. “Why is it yours? You are not worthy!”

  “You speck of a girl!” Dragon King said, spitting. “You bore me. I have no use for you. Out of my way! I need to get to my Muteki, and you are wasssting my valuable time!”

  The two drew their swords at the exact same moment.

  The clanging of the metal blades echoed across the courtyard. Such was their skill that all the other battles slowed to a stop so that everyone could watch Katana versus Dragon King.

  Though he was incredibly strong, she was fast, ducking, leaping, and tumbling so quickly that he had trouble seeing her.

  “I’ll do away with you and find the Invincible Sword. Then the world will be mine!” Dragon King promised as he towered over her.
>
  “Not if I conquer you first,” Katana yelled back.

  “I was wrong,” he said as their swords struck each other’s with such speed and strength that sparks flew. “You aren’t as good as your grandmother!”

  Her grandmother. For a split second, Katana thought about her beloved Onna, and that was all it took for Dragon King to gain the edge.

  “Ha!” he cried as he knocked Katana’s sword from her hand. “This is what happened to her, too! All I had to do was mention that I would send my comrades to get her precious Katana—and Onna became distracted!”

  He had threatened Onna, saying he would harm her? Katana could not bear the thought of this. As she stood still, she glanced at her sword on the ground. Dragon King inched toward it, dragging his heavy tail. He picked it up.

  “It’s not very impressive, is it?” he said disdainfully. “You would think that the granddaughter of the world’s first female Samurai super hero would have sssomething better than this sssliver of a sword.” He swung it in the air. “Not bad. But it’s so plain, so light. Not a mighty sword like mine, and nothing like the Muteki, I am sure.”

  Katana watched in horror as he tossed it aside. It landed near a…Ghost Crab? What was it doing there? Katana had told them all to remain underground.

  “What is that?” Dragon King said, looking amused. “A little crab scampering away in fear? How quaint.”

  The crab fearlessly faced the mighty dragon, doing a little hop before it began running circles around him.

  “I could use a snack,” Dragon King said.

  Suddenly, the tiny crab had turned into a green dragon.

  “Beast Boy?” Katana whispered, though she could not help but be amused.

  “That’s right, mama. And I will fight fire with fire,” Beast Boy declared, attempting to send flames at Dragon King. When none came out, Dragon King laughed. “Fire with fire,” Beast Boy declared again. He took a deep breath, but instead of flames, Beast Boy let out a long, loud burp before turning back into a teen. “Oops,” he said, patting his stomach. “My lunch.”