Almost.
The three of us stood in the front yard and looked back at the mansion that had been our home for the past two years. Even if we did not pass the Trials, none of us would be returning to be the Old Man’s Apprentices. As he had already told us, he had taught us everything he could. Now it was up to us.
“My god, are you crying?” Isaac said to Neha. He sounded shocked. I looked at her. Sure enough, her cheeks were wet. I was as shocked as Isaac sounded. Of the three of us, Neha was by far the least emotional. She normally was about as sentimental as a cat.
“I’m not crying,” she insisted, angrily wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. “There’s something in my eye, is all.”
“Yeah, tears,” Isaac said. He easily dodged the punch she launched at his chest. It was merely a feint; Neha’s kick hit his right thigh with a solid whack.
“You should stay behind,” Neha said to him. “If you’ll fall for that, you’re not ready for the Trials yet.”
“I saw the kick coming. I could’ve dodged it if I wanted to. I just thought you needed more practice kicking, is all. Besides, it didn’t even hurt. You kick like a girl.” Despite his words, Isaac seemed to favor his left leg a little.
“That’s because I am a girl. And if you learned to kick harder, you could kick like a girl too. If I remember correctly, my girlish kick landed you flat on your back the last time we sparred together.”
“It was a lucky hit. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
“We should get going guys,” I said, trying to change the subject. I kind of wanted to start crying myself. I was used to Isaac and Neha’s non-stop bickering. It was strangely comforting. It was the sound of home, like the snoring of your dog. Leaving the Old Man’s mansion was the end of an era for all of us.
I pulled my new mask out of a pouch on my belt. This mask was larger than the old one from my Academy days. It covered more of the area around my eyes than my old one had. I affixed it to my face. It was held there by a technology that had been explained to me, but that I still barely understood. I also did not understand how the tech built into it subtly altered the contours of my face so that I would not be recognizable as Theodore Conley. I just knew it did.
The greenish-black color of the mask complemented the colors of the rest of my costume. The top was a dark green. It looked like it was covered by tiny fish scales. That was where the resemblance to fish scales ended. Fish scales could not stop a bullet, but the scales that composed my costume could. The part of my costume that covered my legs was made out of the same material, though it was black instead of green. My red cape, the one that signified I was a graduate of Hero Academy, completed my ensemble.
Isaac’s and Neha’s costumes had cowls. That was because, unlike me, they did not have a force field they could use to protect their heads and neck. They pulled their cowls over their heads. Their facial features altered before my eyes. Isaac’s costume was black with light blue bands on his wrists and ankles. His cowl covered his face from the nose up. A fierce-looking, blood-red dragon was emblazoned on his chest. Neha’s costume was gray and white. Black smoke shifted around on the surface of it, like storm clouds being blown by wind. Her cowl covered her entire face except her mouth, eyes, and nostrils. Her black hair extended out of the back of her cowl in a long ponytail. As I did, both Isaac and Neha had their red Academy capes on.
We took a moment to admire each other.
“We look pretty badass,” I said.
“The Guild should just skip the formalities and just give us our licenses now,” Neha agreed.
“Well, we’re off to see the wizard,” Isaac said.
Isaac started to glow, as he always did when he was transforming into a mythological form. His body shrank down and changed shape. In mere moments, Isaac’s human form was gone. He was now a big bird, roughly twice the size of a pigeon. His plumage glowed red, orange, and yellow, like the embers of a dying fire. His smoldering coal eyes looked at me and Neha. Isaac cawed loudly.
Then, with a flap of his glowing wings, Isaac took flight. I marveled as I watched him rise swiftly in the air. When I had first met Isaac, he could only turn into a handful creatures, and each transformation had been a slow process that took a lot out of him. Now Isaac could change forms as easily and quickly as changing his socks. If I ever had need to fight Isaac, I would have my hands full. Sparring with him while training under the Old Man had been bad enough.
A single red and orange feather that glowed like a spark drifted down to the ground in Isaac’s wake. I picked it up. The feather was warm in my hand, but not uncomfortably so.
“Do you know what kind of bird Isaac turned into?” I asked Neha.
“No.”
I was shocked that I knew something Neha didn’t. It was almost always the other way around.
“A Firebird. It’s a figure from Slavic folklore. And,” I said, holding up the glowing feather, “finding a Firebird’s feather was said to be a premonition that a difficult road was ahead.”
Neha snorted.
“Isaac probably let that feather fall on purpose, then,” she said. “Even with him as goofy as he is, he has a flair for the dramatic.”
Hoping the feather was not really a sign, I put it into my pocket. I launched myself into the air, carrying Neha alongside me as well as a large duffel bag containing changes of clothes for all of us and our Trial admission letters. In her vapor form Neha could fly, but not nearly as quickly as Isaac or I could.
We caught up to Isaac. We began the flight to the Trials.
CHAPTER 6
We were not in the air for long as the Trials took place in the Heroes’ Guild National Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
After a short while, the building came into view. I felt a lump form in my throat as we approached it. I had been to the building before with Isaac and Neha. But back then, we had merely been tourists, gawking with dozens of other people at all the artifacts the building contained from various famous Heroes’ adventures. Now we were going enter the building as Hero candidates. I felt like a devout Catholic approaching the Vatican, or a Muslim making his first pilgrimage to Mecca.
The Potomac River was a ribbon of silver as it glinted in the morning sun behind the Guild building. The sparkling white marble building was fashioned along the lines of an ancient Greek temple. Looking at it made me think this was what an ancient Greek might have seen when the Parthenon was new.
On top of the Guild building was a huge bronze statue. It was a depiction of Omega Man, who was widely considered to be the greatest Hero of all time, as well as one of the most powerful. It was from him that Metahumans with my power level, Omegas, got our name. Omega Man had died in 1966 when he sacrificed himself to destroy the spaceship containing the V’Loth queen when that hive-mind alien race had invaded Earth and nearly conquered all of humanity.
“Do you think the legend is true?” I asked Neha as we flew closer to the Guild building. “About Omega Man, I mean. That he’ll be reincarnated if Earth faces an existential crisis again?”
“Despite the fact I was raised Hindu and therefore I’m supposed to believe in reincarnation the way a Christian is supposed to believe in the virgin birth, in a word, no. Heroes don’t rise from the dead; they’re not gods.” Neha suddenly smiled. “Then again, I’m flying through the air inside an invisible force field alongside a flaming bird, so what the hell do I know about what’s possible and impossible?”
The statue of Omega Man got larger each second as we approached. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it, a bit awed by what it represented. Though I had never thought of being one until Iceburn had killed my father, I grew up idolizing Heroes.
“Just think: soon we might be Heroes too,” I said.
“No. Soon we will be Heroes too,” Neha corrected.
“Maybe.” The Old Man expressing doubts about me had shaken my confidence a little. More than a little, actually.
Neha looked at me closely.
“Wh
at’s been up with you lately, anyway? You’ve been a gloomy Gus ever since you woke up after that bank robbery.”
“I’m fine.”
“No,” she said definitively, “no, you’re not fine. Something’s bothering you, and has been for a while now. Even if you won’t talk about it, whatever it is, you need to shake it off. You need to focus on the Trials. We all do.”
Our conversation and our flight was cut off by a flying man who streaked seemingly out of nowhere. He slammed to a halt directly in front of us. He wore a green bodysuit and a flowing white cape, the sort only licensed Heroes were permitted to wear. Though Heroes weren’t required to wear their white capes, it was protocol to do so on ceremonial occasions, just as it was protocol for Academy graduates to wear our red capes.
The Hero demanded our letters of admission to the Trials. I showed them to him. Then, he scanned us, bathing us with a blue-green beam of light that shone out of his eyes. The beam tickled a little, like being stroked all over by feathers. He then said we could continue to approach the Guild building, and told us where we could land. He then peered off into the distance, squinting as if he was reading fine print. I couldn’t see anything but clear blue skies off where he looked. The Hero shot off in the direction he had peered, disappeared from view just as quickly as he had appeared.
“When our Guild letters said security would be tight, it wasn’t kidding,” I said to Neha.
“It makes sense, though. All us Hero candidates in one place must make an awfully tempting target for Rogues and others people who are not thrilled with the idea of Heroes.”
We landed at the foot of the marble steps in the front of the Guild building as the green-clad Hero had instructed us. Isaac turned back into his normal form.
Normally there would be tourists all around the building, both lined up at the front to get inside and walking the perimeter of the building, taking pictures. Now though, thanks to the Trials, there were no tourists, at least not immediately around the building. A huge chain-link fence with razor wire on the top of it has been placed all around the Guild building to keep the tourists out. There was only one gate in the fence. It was through that gate that non-flying Heroes and Hero candidates entered after their credentials were checked by guards posted at the checkpoint. Those guards wore black and tan uniforms. They also wore gold helmets that were so shiny I probably could have used them as mirrors to shave with. They held black assault rifles at the ready. The rifles looked more like something out of a science fiction movie than something you would see in the real world. The guards peered around as if they were itching for an excuse to fire their rifles and turn you to ash or electrocute you or break your body up on the molecular level or whatever else those lethal-looking guns were capable of doing.
On the other side of the chain-link fence I saw curiosity seekers staring at the Heroes and Hero candidates who were arriving at the Guild building. Some merely pointed and stared; others took pictures. I could hear their voices rise in excitement when they spotted a Hero they recognized. Beyond the spectators were protesters. They booed and hissed whenever a new costumed Metahuman arrived. Many of them held signs. They were too far away for me to read them, but I could guess none of them said “Welcome, Metahuman friends.” Like Neha had said, not everyone approved of Heroes. Some people thought we were more of a menace than a boon to society.
Isaac shook his head as he joined me in looking at the protesters.
“The next time aliens invade Earth,” he said, “who do those dimwits think is going to protect them if not Heroes? Sigourney Weaver? I’ve got half a mind to stand aside and let the aliens anally probe those yahoos to their little green hearts’ content.”
“It’s not little green hearts the aliens will be doing the probing with,” Neha said.
We turned and walked up the high marble steps. At the top was a portico. We were stopped there by guards dressed and armed as the ones who were at the fence. They had us look into handheld devices that looked like high-tech versions of the old View-Masters. The devices scanned our retinas. While the devices were up at our faces, the guards’ hands tightened around their rifles as if they would shoot first and ask questions later at the first sign of trouble. It felt like there was a bull’s-eye painted on my chest and back. I had to resist the urge to raise my force field.
Fortunately, I was who I thought I was, and the retinal scanner and confirmed my identity, as well as that of Isaac and Neha.
The guards then directed us towards the silver-colored double doors that were the main entrance to the Guild building. The closed door entrance was massive, easily three times taller than I and almost as wide.
“One at a time, step here please,” said yet another guard, this one posted by the side of the door. He indicated a silver and gold facemask that was etched into the marble right in front of the door. I took the initiative by stepping first onto the mask. I expected the doors to open to admit me to the building. They did not. Instead, I felt the stones underneath me vibrate a little, as if there was a mini-earthquake happening. I suddenly felt warm all over, like I was standing on top of a space heater.
“Now step forward,” the guard said.
I hesitated as the doors ahead of me were still very much closed.
“C’mon, you’re holding up the line,” the guard added.
My mind probed the doors with my powers. They felt as solid as they looked. I felt like a fool, trying to walk into closed doors. But, what if the first test of the Trials was whether or not I could follow directions? On the other hand, if the first test of the Trials instead was “Is the applicant such a dummy he doesn’t know better than to walk into closed doors?” I was about to fail.
Holding a hand slightly ahead of myself to keep from banging my head, I stepped forward. My hand passed through the door as if it didn’t exist. Surprised, I froze for a moment. Then, I continued forward. I passed through the door like I was a ghost.
I didn’t expect what I saw on the other side of the door. When Neha, Isaac, and I had been in the Guild building before as tourists, the first thing we had seen when we had walked through the front door had been the Hall of Heroes, a long hallway with statues of Heroes on either side.
This was not the Hall of Heroes. There were statues of Heroes all right, but these were not the life-size statutes I had seen in the Guild building before. The ivory-colored marble statues here were huge, easily thirty feet tall. They were carved so realistically, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they sprang into action if a supervillain showed his face. Omega Man was depicted in the center of the cavernous place I was in. A statue of Avatar was off to the right. Three other statues of Heroes dotted the cavernous area.
A bunch of costumed Hero candidates and a handful of fully licensed Heroes milled about in the huge room. The sound of their conversations filled the air. Behind me was simply more of the huge room I was in, not the closed silver doors I expected to see. Floating high in the air around the room were big glowing balls that provided light. In addition to the light sources, flitting around in the air were several teardrop-shaped objects. They were about the size of basketballs. They had the same kind of liquid metal quality that quicksilver did. The way they hovered in the air and then suddenly swooped up or down or side to side reminded me of watching dragonflies hunt for prey when I was back on Dad’s farm.
Looking up, I could see the sheen of a translucent dome glinting in the distance, like we were standing in the middle of a giant snow globe. Though there had been bright daylight outside the Guild building moments before, outside this dome, it was nighttime. I could see the dark outlines of trees and strange shadowy shapes I could not identify off in the distance beyond the dome.
The Moon was full and shone brightly in the heavens above. I stared up at it. No, on second thought, this was a moon, but not our Moon. With this moon, the face of it was all wrong for it to be our Luna. The Seas of Tranquility and Serenity, for example, were nowhere to be found.
In a few mom
ents, Neha and then Isaac appeared next to me as if they had been conjured out of thin air. They gaped around just like I did. As we watched, a huge creature that looked like a bat crossed with a tiger flew high overhead, momentarily blotting out the moon.
“Where the heck are we?” I asked a nearby guard once I had found my voice again.
“Washington, D.C.,” he said. His eyes looked amused.
“There aren’t flying monsters in D.C.,” Isaac protested. “Unless you count congressmen and lobbyists.”
“In this version of D.C. there are,” the guard said. “You’re in a different dimension than the one you started out in. You were on Earth Prime. Welcome to Earth Sigma.”
Earth Sigma?
What the what?!
“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” Isaac said.
“Who the hell is Toto?” the guard asked.
I guess he didn’t have a Hero sponsor who made him watch a bunch of classic movies.
“Carolina!” someone cried excitedly. “Smoke! Myth!”
I turned to see a burly guy in a red and black costume barreling towards us. His face was split in a grin and his hand waved excitedly at us.
“Hammer!” the three of us said almost simultaneously. I found myself grinning right back at Hammer as he reached us. Hammer had gone to the Academy and graduated with us. It was good to see a familiar face.
Hands were shaken and backs were patted all around. I reminded Hammer that I went by Kinetic now. He apologized for forgetting.
Hammer was a white guy around my height. He wore a loose fitting hoodie with the hood up, his Academy cape, and a mask that looked a bit like a necktie wrapped around his head with eyeholes poked out. The color of all of them were the same matching red. When I had first met Hammer at the Academy, he had been what he himself had described as fat. Because of that, a lot of the trainees at the Academy had thought there was no way Hammer would make it through the rigorous physical training there. He had proved the naysayers wrong, though it was rumored Hammer graduated dead last in our Academy class.
The Omega Superhero (Book 2): Trials Page 5
