by Lucas Flint
My electricity charged blow sent White Lightning’s lightning form flying the other way. It exploded through the back wall, sending chunks of plaster and wood flying everywhere, some of it hitting Mastermind, who still hadn’t moved from his position on the desk. The resulting collision between my electric-charged fist and White Lightning’s lightning form had also burned the floor and walls, but not very much.
“Whoa,” said Triple, staring at the hole in the wall in astonishment. “What the—”
At that moment, Ivan and Rime appeared in the doorway, both looking harried. They gaped at the scene before them, like they had completely forgotten what they were about to say.
“What happened here?” said Ivan. “We heard shouting and an explosion. Was anyone hurt?”
“Just Mastermind and White Lightning,” I said, gesturing at Mastermind, who still hadn’t moved from the desk, which made me wonder if he was actually dead or not. “Oh, and Emma and Blizzard were knocked out.”
Ivan looked over at Blizzard and Emma and gasped. “Oh, my god! They look terrible.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But you guys need to get them both out of here. And fast, because White Lighting is going to be back soon and he’s going to be very, very angry.”
“What about Mastermind?” said Ivan. “Should we not take him as well?”
“He’s not going anywhere,” I said. “What matters is getting Blizzard and Emma to safety. Get them in the van and drive as far away from here as you can.”
“Why?” said Rime in surprise. “D-Did Mastermind set up a bomb or s-something?”
I shook my head. “No, but my fight with White Lightning will probably be like one and I can’t guarantee that I will be able to protect any of you from the side effects.”
“Understood,” said Ivan. “Good luck, Kevin. Godspeed.”
I nodded and flew through the hole in the wall that White Lightning had created, grimly remembering what Grandfather had told me about Grandmother’s vision. I hoped that my fight with White Lightning would not end the way he had said it would.
Chapter Twenty-One
White Lightning was lying in the middle of a smashed bookcase in the next room. He looked dazed from the blow, but what few cuts had appeared on his skin were rapidly healing. It made me wish I had gotten a healing factor; in fact, I wondered why I didn’t have one, since he was my twin, but I guess that just being twins doesn’t automatically mean we have the same powers.
Landing in front of White Lightning’s smoking body, I said, “White Lightning, are you awake?”
Immediately, White Lightning’s eyes flickered open. But when I looked into them, I didn’t see reason. I just saw angry and madness, angry and madness that was about to be directed toward me.
With an angry groan, White Lightning rose from the smashed bookcase, burnt book pages fluttering off his body as he rose. He was breathing heavily now, sounding less like a human being and more like a bull that was about to attack its prey.
“White, we don’t need to fight,” I said. “I know you don’t know me very well, but we’re brothers. We shouldn’t fight. I don’t hate you.”
“You … killed … Dad …” Each one of White Lightning’s words were so laced with pain that I felt sorry for him.
“I didn’t do it,” I said. “That was Triplet. But either way, we can put our differences behind ourselves and work together. I might even be able to help you avoid going to prison for everything you’ve done.”
“You … killed … Dad …” White Lightning either didn’t understand what I was saying or didn’t care. Either way, I didn’t like it. “You … killed … Dad …”
“I know you’re upset,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean you need to—”
White Lightning rushed toward me with a scream. He threw a punch at me, but I caught it and twisted his arm, causing him to practically screech in pain before his other fist came out of nowhere and smashed into the side of my head.
That blow jarred my senses, causing me to stagger to the side and let go of White Lightning’s other fist. White Lightning then grabbed me and threw me hard enough to send me flying.
I smashed through the wall and ended up in another room, which must have been the house’s bathroom, because I smashed a porcelain bath tub into pieces upon crashing into it. Dazed, I shook my head just in time to see White Lightning fly toward me, his eyes glowing with electricity.
I immediately rolled to the side just as White Lightning landed hard on the spot where I had been lying mere moments before, shattering even more of the tub and cracking the tile. I jumped to my feet and swung my fists at White Lightning, but he blocked them with his arms and then punched me.
But I dodged his blow and, grabbing a chunk of the tub, smashed it against White Lightning’s face. White Lightning cried out in pain, grabbed his face, which was now bleeding from being cut open by the sharp porcelain.
I wasn’t going to let him recover, however. I grabbed the shower curtain and tossed it over White Lightning’s head, obscuring his vision and making him stumble around blindly. He backed into the toilet, causing him to slip and trip, but, before he could fall onto the ground, I swung my fist at his face and struck him in the jaw.
The blow sent him flying through the bathroom’s other wall, which sent him out into the streets. I saw him slam into the streets outside, slam so hard into the pavement that he created a small crater where he’d landed. He was still covered in the shower curtain, but he was already tearing it apart.
I jumped out of the house and flew toward White Lightning, but before I reached him, he ripped apart the last of the curtain and fired a lightning bolt at me. I narrowly dodged it, feeling the heat of the lightning bolt as it flew by me. I landed on the ground about a dozen yards away from White Lightning, who had risen back to his feet, throwing away the last of the shower curtain as he turned to face me.
“You … killed … Dad,” said White Lightning. “You … killed … Dad …”
This time, he wasn’t speaking in a purely angry voice. There was pain, pain and sadness, and it struck me because I recognized it as the very same pain and sadness I’d felt when Dad (real Dad, that is; Genius, not Mastermind) died. It occurred to me that White Lightning really did see Mastermind as Dad, and him seeing Mastermind die was like when Dad died in my arms so many months ago.
That realization stunned me to the point where I didn’t notice White Lightning running at me until it was too late to dodge.
His fists came flying at me, but I dodged them both and kicked him in the gut. That blow knocked the air out of him, so I grabbed White Lightning by the shoulders and slammed his face into my knee. That should have knocked him out instantly, but instead, White Lightning just growled and his whole body crackled with electricity, causing me to let go in order to avoid getting electrocuted.
But then White Lightning tackled me, but not to the ground. Instead, he tackled me up, pushing us both high into the air. We rose higher and higher, going at speeds even I didn’t usually dare to go, high above the buildings that surrounded us on all sides.
And before I could recover, White Lightning came to an abrupt stop and hurled me down to the street below. He threw me hard and fast and the wind whipped by my ears, making it impossible for me to hear anything or regain control of my trajectory.
Then I crashed into the street, crashed into its so hard that I smashed straight through its surface and into the sewers below. I splashed into the sewage water, falling into it so hard that I actually struck the bottom of the sewer. A loud crack followed, but I wasn’t sure if that was my skull cracking open or the bottom of the sewer itself cracking from the impact of my crash.
In any case, I needed air. I stood up, gasping for air, but started coughing up the sewage water I’d accidentally inhaled. God, it tasted awful; it tasted like six year old gym socks worn by a skunk that lived in a dump. In fact, I didn’t really cough so much as I threw up pretty much all of my internal organs.
But
then I heard something above me and looked up. White Lightning fell through the hole above and splashed down into the sewage water beside me, spraying me with more of that awful stuff. Before I could react, he grabbed me by the throat and forced me underwater again.
Shocked, I’d opened my mouth, allowing water to fill my lungs. I gasped and coughed, but underwater, that did nothing except fill my lungs with more of the disgusting crap. I struggled against White Lightning, but his grip on me was too strong. He was determined to drown me, I realized, because he couldn’t kill me any other way.
That thought sent panic running through my whole body. I thrashed and splashed hard, but White Lightning’s grip was like steel. I couldn’t see or hear anything; in fact, my consciousness was rapidly slipping away even as I thought this. That was how I knew I was going to die.
But I couldn’t. Not with White Lightning still alive. As long as he was alive, he’d go after the others once he finished with me. And if he did that, there was no way they’d survive.
The thought of White Lightning killing my friends sent anger shooting through my veins. In fact, it gave me an extra boost of strength, allowing me to push myself upwards so fast that my head finally emerged from the water. White Lightning actually staggered backwards, a fact I took advantage of by socking him in the face hard enough to send him falling backwards into the sewage.
Wanting to end this right away, I jumped out of the water and flew over to the part of the sewer that was above the water. I landed on that part and immediately sent red electricity flowing through my hands; in fact, I charged so much energy through my hands that they were sparkling and crackling like fireworks.
By now, White Lightning had recovered from my punch. He was rubbing his cheek and scowling, looking around for me, but when he saw me, his scowl turned into an animalistic lust for blood.
“You … killed … Dad …” said White Lightning. The pain was still in his voice, a pain so terrible I almost hesitated because of how much it reminded me of my own. “You … killed … Dad …”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “But this might kill you. I’m sorry.”
I brought my electrified hands down on the water. At the last second, I saw realization dawn on White Lightning’s face as he realized what I was about to do, but I was too fast for him to react.
When my hands touched the water, it was like a bomb had gone off in the sewer. The electricity ran from my hands into the water, sending sparks crackling and popping everywhere. White Lightning screamed in pain as the water conducted the electricity. He shook and staggered, his body jerking in unnatural ways. His hair even burned, while the electricity tore holes in his costume and ate at his skin. The stink of burning human flesh mixed with the stink of the sewer, but I was too focused on White Lightning’s agonizing screams to pay attention to that.
But it was all over in a minute. White Lightning still stood in the water, but his whole form was smoking. Awful burn marks were visible on his face and body, which weren’t even healing, though it was possible that his healing factor just hadn’t kicked in yet.
As for White Lightning himself, he didn’t even say a word. He just fell over face first into the water and floated there. I couldn’t tell if he was dead or just unconscious; if the latter, I doubted he would be in any condition to fight for a very long time.
Exhausted, I flew back up through the hole in the ceiling. Maybe I should have gone to pull White Lightning out of the water, but the way I saw it, he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I wasn’t sure whether or not he should go with the government—since it was the government that messed him up in the first place—but I decided to worry about that later. Right now, I needed to check on my friends and make sure they were okay.
Rising out of the sewer, I took in a huge breathe of fresh air. I mean, New York City air wasn’t exactly the cleanest in the world, but compared to the air in the sewer, it was like taking a step into the countryside after a nice rainstorm.
I landed on the street and stretched my limbs before I heard a voice say, “So you beat him.”
I looked over and saw, with a shock of anger, that the voice had come from Mastermind. He stood a hundred feet away from me, a hand covering the bullet wound in his chest. I had no idea where he had come from, but that didn’t matter, because I knew where he was going: To jail.
“How did you survive getting shot?” I said.
Mastermind shrugged. “I’ve made some … improvements to my armor. It can automatically heal wounds created by any foreign objects sent into my body, like a bullet. It’s still uncomfortable and inconvenient, but hardly lethal. Still, Triplet is a good shot, just like the Triplet from my universe was. Too bad I will have to kill him for that; I had hoped White Lightning would do that for me, but given that you beat him, I guess I will have to do it myself.”
“You won’t be doing anything yourself once I’m through with you,” I said. I slammed my fist into my other hand. “I don’t care if you’re my father or not. All that matters is that I am going to finish you off.”
“Some son you are,” said Mastermind with a snort. “Ronald was better. Unlike you, he actually got angry when I got shot. Like a true son, he didn’t want any harm to come to his father.”
“Only because he’s too mentally stunted to realize what kind of monster you are,” I said.
“And why is he that way?” said Mastermind. “Think, Kevin, think. It’s because the government did that to him. They would have done the same to you, too, if I hadn’t heard them stealing Ronald. What kind of life would you be living now? Locked up in some government facility somewhere, officially off the books, with every government official from the President downwards denying your very existence?”
“That may all be true, but that doesn’t change the fact that you and White Lightning have killed a lot of people for no reason other than to get my attention,” I said. “And I can’t support that, even if you are my father.”
To my surprise, Mastermind chuckled. “Ah, Kevin, still as stubborn as ever. You remind me of myself when I was your age. I feel like I just took a step back into the past.”
“It’s not amusing,” I said. “But if you want, you can laugh all you like once you’re in prison, where scum like you belong.”
“Scum like me? Or scum like you?” said Mastermind. “Think about it, Kevin. You were in prison not so long ago yourself, weren’t you? Why would you want to put me in there, too? Do you really trust the government—the very institution that tore apart your family, that made it impossible for you to know your own twin even existed—to hold me?”
I hesitated. Mastermind, again, had a point. If I beat him and sent him to Ultimate Max, he would be at the mercy of the government. They would probably extract all of his secrets from his brain, and he probably knew loads of important things; I mean, he’s Dad, even if he is an evil alternate universe version of him. Did I really trust the government with whatever knowledge that Mastermind had? What kind of power would that give the government over our country and the world, assuming they could get that knowledge from his head?
“And you still don’t know what the Apocalypse Switch is,” said Mastermind. “I can tell you, if you like, because it factors into my plans. But on one condition.”
“What is it?” I said.
“That you join me,” said Mastermind. He held out a hand. “Now that you have beaten White Lightning, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are the stronger of the two twins. You are truly the son of a superhero. With you by my side, taking over this world will be a piece of cake.”
Again, I hesitated. I was interested in knowing what the Apocalypse Switch was. It sounded important, especially if Mastermind was going to use it for his own gain.
But at the same time, I didn’t want to join Mastermind. I didn’t trust him. In another universe, he might have been my dad, but in this universe, he was just another supervillain. Or was he? If he really did intend to take down the government, wasn’t that a
good thing? Wouldn’t it be better for us all if Dad was in charge of the world, rather than the various corrupt governments?
It was a hard decision, so hard that I wasn’t sure I would be able to make it. I thought I was just going to stand there forever, constantly weighing the pros and cons of both decisions, but never coming to a final choice on the matter.
“Choose, Kevin, choose,” said Mastermind, his voice almost hypnotic. “You know your choice. All you need to do is act.”
Finally, I shook my head. “You’re right. I do. And it’s stopping you.”
Mastermind’s helmet hid his expression, but I could tell he was shocked. “What? But I’m your father. Isn’t family more important than government?”
“It is,” I said, nodding. “And that’s why I’m disgusted at you. You don’t really love your family. You’re just using that as an excuse to commit crime and terror.”
“But I rescued my son from the government,” said Mastermind. “If I didn’t care for my family, why would I have saved Ronald?”
“Because you needed a weapon,” I said. “That’s why you saved him, isn’t it? You needed a weapon you could use to take over the world. You couldn’t get me, because I was in prison, so you went for the next best thing: My brother.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that Ronald is my son and I love him,” said Mastermind. “That’s more than you can say for the government, isn’t it?”
“You don’t love him any more than the government did,” I said. “Whereas the government saw him as a science experiment, to be dissected and experimented on as they saw fit, you saw him as a weapon. If you didn’t, then why is he so … pathetic? Why haven’t you taught him how to speak properly or how to be normal?”
“Because he doesn’t need to know that,” Mastermind snapped. “He need know only that which will help me take over the world.”
“So you only taught him knowledge that would benefit you,” I said. “Right?”
