The three of them raced to the tower entrance. Duncan opened the door and disappeared inside. Jack and Guga quickly shut the door and remained at the entrance where the tower guards had stood, trying to look official.
This had all happened in less than five minutes. Lincoln exhaled. Up to this point, everything had gone according to plan.
“Now it’s our turn,” he told Skylar, and together they quickly gathered the creatures and hurried toward the tower, hiding in the bushes next to the unconscious guards. Lincoln pulled the bottle of Vanishing Spray from his pocket. “According to Milo, this stuff only lasts for a few minutes, so you’ll have to hurry, but it should give you enough time to get through the lobby to the stairwell.” He looked at Samson. “Remember, we’re trying to get to the third floor. Take care of as many guards as you can before this stuff wears off.”
Samson nodded, and Lincoln continued, “The bregon, Skylar, and I will be there soon. Stay away from the windows, and if you hear the signal, retreat to the NE Zone immediately.”
Lincoln peeked through the bushes and signaled Guga, who then cracked open the tower door and peered into the lobby. He stepped back from the entrance and gave Lincoln a quick thumbs-up.
Lincoln looked at Samson. “Ready?”
Samson nodded. Lincoln ran from creature to creature and covered each of them in Vanishing Spray, watching in amazement as they disappeared from view. A now-invisible Samson made a series of grunts and clicks, the other creatures responding similarly.
“Try to leave us a few of the guards,” Lincoln told Samson, grinning. Lincoln heard a grunt and then felt someone push him hard on the shoulder, almost knocking him to the ground.
Seconds later, Lincoln watched Guga’s entire body sway backward as an invisible Samson tapped him on the shoulder. Guga glanced into the lobby one more time and then opened the doors, letting the invisible warriors inside the tower.
Lincoln looked at Skylar. Minutes from now, the two of them would be joining the fight, twelve-year-old kids battling full-grown and well-trained Guardians, their very lives at stake. A few short months ago, a battle like this was outside of Lincoln’s wildest dreams. Now it was very, very real.
“Nervous?” Lincoln asked Skylar.
She shook her head. “I’m ready.”
The two of them waited in silence until they saw bright lights flashing in the tower windows, followed by the sounds of explosions. They ran to the bregon.
“It’s time,” Lincoln said. The bregon lowered itself to the ground and Lincoln and Skylar jumped on, their feet dangling in front of the bregon’s giant wings. Once again, Lincoln grabbed onto the thick fur Mohawk, firmly securing himself on the bregon’s back as Skylar wrapped her arms around his waist.
The bregon jumped into the air and flapped its powerful wings. Lincoln felt Skylar’s hands tighten around his waist, and she buried her head in his back. Lincoln suppressed a grin. He had one more surprise for her and the bregon. He pointed to the giant stained-glass window in front of them.
“That’s our way inside,” he yelled. “Aim for the Founders. I’m pretty sure they’ll forgive us.” As the bregon dove toward the window, Lincoln offered a silent prayer.
CHAPTER 25
THE RETURN OF AN OLD ENEMY
“FOR ATLAS!” YELLED LINCOLN, SHOOTING a powerful air blast at the stained-glass window as they zoomed toward it.
Crash! The window shattered. Glass sprayed into the third-floor foyer. The bregon flew through the window, landed with a thump on the stone floor, and released a roar so loud that the marble statue in the middle of the foyer wobbled back and forth.
“I think they know we’re here,” Skylar shouted to Lincoln. He grinned and jumped from the bregon’s back. Skylar followed.
Samson and his soldiers were near the stairwell at the opposite end of the large room, battling more than a dozen guards. One of these guards yelled and pointed at the bregon. He and three of his friends broke away from the fight and charged the bregon.
The bregon roared again and shot a jet of ice from its mouth at the approaching guards. Their cries of anger changed to cries of fear, and they dove for cover. The ice stream hit the wall behind them and turned it to ice.
“Attaboy!” Lincoln yelled. “Go check on your friends at the lake. We’ll help Samson.” The bregon gave a third roar and leaped back out the broken window.
Lincoln glanced around the foyer. Of the five creatures sent with Samson, two had fallen. They lay on the floor in pools of their own blood. The others looked ragged, on the verge of defeat. Were he and Skylar too late?
The guard who had led those charging the bregon rose from the floor. He turned to glare at Lincoln, and for the first time, Lincoln got a good look at him. The temperature in the foyer seemed to drop below freezing as an ice-cold fury filled Lincoln’s chest. The guard was the man who had been haunting his nightmares for the past several months.
“Well, well,” the guard said as he smiled, revealing several chipped, stained teeth and causing his scar to gleam in the moonlight, “if it isn’t Lincoln Thomas.”
“I was hoping you were here,” replied Lincoln, his voice as cold as the blood running through his veins. He pulled the mayoke from his pocket. “I wanted to thank you for the present.”
The smile vanished from Boggs’s face. “That’s mine!” he snarled and took a step toward Lincoln. His friends rose from their hiding spots and joined him.
The marble statue of Roemick exploded. Samson had thrown two of the guards across the foyer and into the statue. Pieces of marble flew in every direction. The two guards bounced along the floor, skidding to a stop near Boggs’s feet. Samson roared and pounded his chest.
“Now,” Lincoln whispered. Skylar jumped at the distracted guards, kicking one in the chest and sending him flying backward. At the same time, Lincoln attacked with his powers. He threw Boggs to the ground with a powerful air blast and created a ring of fire circling his nemesis, trapping him behind the roaring flames.
Lincoln paused to look at Skylar. She was battling a pair of the guards, pushing them backward with her nimble yet powerful attacks. The final guard watched hesitantly, uncertain if she should help her friends.
Suddenly, Lincoln felt himself yanked into the air by an unseen force. He came to a stop near the foyer’s ceiling almost thirty feet above ground and dangled there, trapped. He looked down.
Boggs was no longer trapped inside the circle of fire. In fact, the circle of fire had somehow vanished during the two seconds it took Lincoln to check on Skylar. Instead, Boggs now stood almost directly beneath Lincoln, his eyes grey and glowing.
“You’ve got a lot to learn, newbie. For starters, never take your eyes off your opponent. And I’ll bet you didn’t know that a ring of fire can be extinguished by compressing it with air. The more you use the rites, the more—”
Lincoln overpowered Boggs’s control of the gravity rite, but he pushed too hard, slamming himself into the ground. He stood back up. Boggs knew more about the rites, but Lincoln was stronger.
Lincoln attacked with an air blast. Boggs took a step backward and blocked it with an air shield. Lincoln attacked again, shattering what remained of the Roemick statue into hundreds of pieces of marble and shooting them at Boggs like powerful bullets. A few of them pierced his air shield and smashed into Boggs, leaving him with several bleeding gashes.
“Better,” admitted Boggs, wiping some blood off his cheek. He stood straight and looked past Lincoln.
Bam! A piece of marble slammed into Lincoln’s back. He sprawled forward and tumbled to the ground. Boggs jumped at Lincoln. Lincoln rolled over just in time as Boggs’s fist smashed into the ground, cracking the stone tile. Lincoln sprang to his feet and transformed the mayoke into a wooden staff.
Back and forth, they continued, one attacking and the other defending, neither gaining a significant advantage over the other. Lincoln was stronger with the rites, but Boggs was more experienced and much better in physical combat. If
it weren’t for the mayoke, Lincoln wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Lincoln blocked another air blast. He could feel his strength decreasing. He had to do something fast before it was completely gone. He surrounded Boggs with a ball of water and lifted him high into the air, just like with the aide in the cafeteria. Boggs seemed overwhelmed, and for a moment Lincoln believed the battle was over.
Whoosh! Boggs surrounded the ball of water with a sphere of fire. It burst, water splashing in every direction, and Boggs crashed to the floor in a cloud of steam, gasping for air.
Lincoln’s energy was gone. He had used what little was left to create the ball of water. His knees buckled and he fell to the floor. The mayoke transformed back into its normal shape. In a final act of desperation, he reached into his pocket, grabbed a vial of Tonic, and gulped it down.
A burst of energy surged through Lincoln’s body. Refreshed, he felt something looming over him and looked up. It was Boggs.
He punched Lincoln square on the nose. Lincoln heard a loud crack and felt a searing pain that was so intense he nearly blacked out. Tears burst from his eyes, and blood oozed past his mouth and onto his chin.
“I’m a fully trained Guardian,” jeered Boggs, “one of the most feared assassins in the entire world. And you, you’re nothing but a punk kid. You think you can beat me?”
He must not have seen me drink the Tonic, Lincoln realized.
Boggs grabbed Lincoln and threw him across the foyer into one of the walls. The impact knocked the breath out of Lincoln. He fell to the floor and lay there without moving, watching for the perfect moment to strike. He tightened his grip on the mayoke and waited.
Boggs approached. He crouched and whispered into Lincoln’s ear, “Before I take my revenge, I want you to know something. I am the one who killed your grandfather.”
Lincoln’s soul filled with rage. He jumped to his feet and once again transformed the mayoke into a wooden staff. He smashed it into Boggs’s face and then swung downward, sweeping the man’s feet out from under him and knocking him to the floor. “This is for Grandpa.”
Lincoln used his powers to lift the scattered pieces of the broken Roemick statue. They floated toward Boggs, who tried to crawl out of the way. Lincoln used his control over gravity to trap the assassin on the floor. As the broken pieces of marble floated toward Boggs, they clumped together and transformed into a soft, putty-like substance. The pliable material landed on his chest and began to spread over his body. His eyes filled with fear.
“Please,” he begged. “Don’t—”
The putty covered his mouth. It flowed over the rest of his body and then hardened, transforming back into marble.
Lincoln sank to the floor. The energy from the Tonic was gone. He had no idea how he had done what he had just done. There had been no lessons on turning people into marble statues. He looked at Boggs. Was he dead? The horrified expression on his face was still there, permanently frozen beneath the stone.
A piece of flying metal zoomed past Lincoln’s head. Now was not the time to worry about what he had done. Right now, his friends needed his help. Skylar was battling a guard only a few feet away from him, another crumpled at her feet.
The fourth guard, who had still not joined the fight, stood off to the side, staring at her friend-turned-statue. She felt Lincoln’s gaze and turned to face him. For a moment, Lincoln thought she might attack. Instead, she fled, running toward the rest of the guards on the other side of the foyer.
Lincoln needed more energy. He drank another vial of Tonic and watched Skylar dodge a desperate strike from the final guard, slide in close, and take him down with a series of kicks and punches.
“Nice work!” yelled Lincoln.
“Thanks,” Skylar yelled back. “You weren’t too bad yourself.” Lincoln grinned, and the two of them raced to help the others.
Samson was down on his knees, alone against the five remaining guards. Like ancient cavemen hunting a mammoth, they circled him, attacking and then retreating.
The guards were so focused on their prey that they failed to notice Lincoln and Skylar approaching. Lincoln got close, leaped forward, and swung his mayoke, cracking one of the guards across his back. He cried out in pain and fell to the ground.
The four remaining guards left Samson alone and together attacked Lincoln and Skylar. Even with the Tonic, Lincoln was physically exhausted and overmatched. Within seconds, a sharp kick to the head from one of the guards sent him sprawling to the ground. Skylar soon joined him there, rubbing her left shoulder in pain.
The guards converged on the two recruits. Lincoln tried to stop them with an air shield, but they used their combined strength to easily overpower him. One of them stepped closer. Lincoln covered his face and prepared for the inevitable beating.
But nothing happened. After a moment, Lincoln opened his eyes. He couldn’t believe what he saw. The four guards no longer surrounded him and Skylar. They were twenty feet away, trapped inside a small, whirling tornado. They spun with the swirling wind, making Lincoln dizzy as he watched.
Samson stood next to the tornado, an empty glass vial at his feet. He motioned with one of his arms, and the tornado swirled to his right.
Even four on one, the guards stood no chance. Samson pointed at the tornado and it vanished, but instead of falling, the four guards remained suspended in the air. They rose another five feet and then separated, floating in different directions. Then they zoomed back toward each other, slamming together with sickening thuds before falling to the ground in motionless heaps.
Lincoln and Skylar stood. Lincoln’s head throbbed, and he saw Skylar wincing as she rotated her shoulder. As they walked toward Samson, Lincoln whispered, “After today, I think you and I both deserve a few days of R and R.”
Skylar smiled. Bodies lay all over the foyer, mingled with broken furniture and shattered glass. Two more NE creatures rose from the piles of rubble and met them at Samson’s side.
“Someone should keep watch,” Lincoln said. The two creatures trotted to the stairwell, disappearing through the exit. Now that Lincoln, Skylar, and Samson were alone, the foyer seemed oddly silent.
“We won’t have much time before more raiders show up,” Lincoln told the others. “Let’s get that door open before it’s too late.”
They jogged to the double doors of the RTC. They were secured with a strange lock. It resembled a black steering wheel from an old car. It had a thin outer ring connected to a solid inner circle by three wide spokes. In the middle of the inner circle was a slot for a large key. Lincoln grabbed the lock with both hands and tugged. It didn’t budge.
“Let me try,” growled Samson. Lincoln stepped back as Samson yanked on the lock. Nothing happened. Samson’s eyes darkened. He growled and yanked so forcefully his bulging muscles looked like they might explode beneath his white fur. Still, the lock remained unchanged.
“I don’t need to break the stupid lock,” Samson growled, rearing back with his fist. “I’ll just take the whole door down.” He punched the door with all his might. Immediately, Samson flew backward and crashed to the floor.
“Don’t touch the door!” Skylar yelled at Lincoln. She rushed to Samson.
“You okay?” she asked him tenderly. Samson stopped moaning and sat up.
“What happened?” he asked groggily.
“Whoever created the lock put a G2 shield on it,” answered Skylar. “Mr. Spencer said a G2 shield on a lock causes any force used on the locked object to reverse onto whatever made the force. Think of it as a force shield.”
“So,” said Lincoln, “when Samson hit the door, it just bounced back at him, like he hit himself.”
Skylar nodded. “Exactly. Why don’t you try using your powers to freeze the lock? Then we could smash it to pieces.”
Lincoln tried. “It won’t work. Something’s blocking my powers.”
“Too bad,” responded Skylar, “but I’m not surprised. So we can’t use our powers, and we can’t remove the lock.” Sh
e pursed her lips. “Maybe one of the guards has a key. Let’s search them.”
Lincoln and Skylar split up, running from raider to raider, grabbing the keys from their pockets. Samson, whose hands were much too large to sift through small pockets, remained by the RTC entrance, glaring at the doors. Skylar and Lincoln raced back to the doors and started trying to fit the keys they had found into the lock. Skylar went first. None of her keys fit. Lincoln had just switched places with her when sounds from the stairwell interrupted him.
“Keep trying!” yelled Samson. He turned and ran to the stairwell, the ground shaking with his heavy steps.
None of Lincoln’s keys were working either. He tried one after another after another. The sounds of fighting grew louder.
He had one key left. He shoved it into the keyhole and twisted as hard as he could. The lock didn’t budge.
Lincoln pulled the key out of the keyhole and threw it across the foyer. If only they had more time, they could wake one of the guards and force him to tell them where the key was.
“Link, we’re in trouble,” Skylar shouted over the roar of the approaching battle. “I don’t think we’re getting through that door. To destroy a G2, we need another G2.”
Lincoln snapped his fingers. “Skylar, you’re brilliant!” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the mayoke. He sure hoped this worked, because they wouldn’t have time to try anything else.
He closed his eyes and envisioned the black lock while concentrating on transforming the mayoke into a key. He opened his eyes. A large wooden key rested in his hand. Raiders were now rushing from the stairwell into the foyer. Lincoln crossed his fingers, slid the key into the keyhole, and twisted. There was a loud click, and the key rotated.
The outer ring and spokes disappeared. The lock fell. Lincoln caught it just before it hit the ground. The raiders were now only a few feet away. Lincoln knocked two of them backward with an air blast and then set up an air shield, blocking a piece of white marble flying at Skylar’s head. Skylar yanked the doors open.
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