by Simon Archer
“Well, for one, Triple Triad doesn’t make an appearance in the notebook until almost the end, but it doesn’t mention anything about Diamond, Dark Rose, or Malik alongside it,” he started. “The only name that’s associated with it is Daniel Phillips.”
“That’s the guy who killed Margo Wicker’s parents,” I remembered.
“Right,” Eric said, “but get this. He didn’t just kill them for sport. There was a reason.”
My eyes went wide. “Like what?”
“Teddy and Amelia Wicker were local business tycoons in the weapons industry. They were killed because they had created a weapon for an unnamed source, and when they refused to let Daniel in on the deal, he murdered them and stole the plans.”
“What the hell?” My heart sank. No wonder Margo wanted answers.
“That’s not the best part of it,” Eric added sarcastically. “The plans he stole were never recovered. They’re still out there floating around somewhere.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned into the receiver and wiped a hand over my face.
“I wish I was.” Eric sighed. “There’s more, Nick. Apparently, the three villains you guys have been facing off with have vendettas against the heroes that arrested them.”
“I’m not surprised,” I chortled dryly. “Anything else?”
“There is actually,” he continued, but whatever he said next, I didn’t hear him as a chill raced down my spine, and I shivered so hard that my body ached after. I wasn’t the only one, because Kara had, too, and she groaned in discomfort against my chest.
“Sorry,” I apologized, “you were--”
I stopped in mid-sentence as the room grew colder, so much so that ice crystals formed on the glass of Kara’s fish tank.
“Nick? What’s wrong?” Eric’s voice sounded over the receiver, but I couldn’t answer him through the sound of my teeth chattering. What the hell was this?
“Nick?” Eric tried again, but when I tried, a shrill scream tore through the air, like a ghost racing through the walls, followed by a bitter laugh, and then it was silent. Too silent.
“Revenge is best served cold,” a female voice that was barely above a whisper floated through the stagnant quiet, leaving a harsh chill to race down my spine.
Kara gasped, and my eyes went wide as we sat up together, leaving Eric hanging as we rushed to the door. There was no way this was real, right? I had to still be dreaming. I reached for the handle, but before I could pull the door open, the silence suddenly turned into deafening noise, and we were tossed backward by the force of an explosion. I managed to grab onto Kara and held her against me so that I took the brunt of the blast, and my back slammed against the wall that the head of her bed was situated. After that, my world went dark, but I remembered being able to hear Eric on the other side of the phone yell to me.
“Nick!”
20
I came to, but everything was black. I couldn’t make out whether or not it was because of the smoke or because there seemed to be no more roof over my head, and I had been out that long. I laid there for a moment, simply analyzing my body. I wiggled my toes, so I wasn’t paralyzed. That was a good start. My head pounded something awful, but as I slowly reached up to check for blood, I found none. There was a pretty large gash on my chest that had turned my shirt into tatters, and that was certainly a bloody mess, but thankfully, the cut seemed superficial. I wasn’t going to bleed out, not today anyway.
Where was I? I had been on the phone with Eric, I recalled, and I was sure my phone was decimated by the blast. I’d heard that voice in the air and then ran to the door with--
“Kara!” I shouted. When I heard nothing in response, I tried again. “Kara!”
Still nothing. My heart lodged itself in my throat as I forced myself onto my hands and knees. My eyes scanned the debris, but there was no one around me. Everyone must have still been in classes on the other side of the Academy.
Finally, I caught a glimpse of her shattered fish tank. Glass shards were everywhere, and her fish desperately flopped amongst the rubble for a chance to breathe. Beside it, I saw Kara sitting up, rocking slowly to and for. Something wasn’t right.
“Kara?” I tried more softly, but there was no reaction. I crawled to her and put my hand on her shoulder. She jumped, then started to cry.
“Hey, hey, hey,” I soothed as I wrapped my arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”
“I can’t hear you,” she sobbed after a moment.
“You don’t have--”
“I can’t hear anything!” she yelled this time, and it hit me then that was why she didn’t respond to me calling her.
I ran through the rollercoaster of emotions of fearing that she was dead to finding her to now her telling me she couldn’t hear anything. This wasn’t happening. What the fuck was going on?
“Nick! Kara!” a familiar voice called to me, and my head shot up, causing Kara to look up as well. It seemed she was already taking physical cues from me. Some feet away, I saw the small figure of one of the many Adelaide Joneses traversing the mess.
“Are the two of you okay?” she asked as she fell to her knees beside us. “You look a right mess!”
I nodded at first, then shook my head. “Kara can’t hear anything.”
Adelaide frowned and brushed some of the tears from Kara’s cheeks before she turned her attention to me. “Likely due to the explosion. It should return naturally over time. What about you? Are you fighting fit?”
“Other than this,” I motioned to my chest, “I’m fine.”
“We need you in this fight, Nick,” she told me with her voice heavy and full of emotion.
Panic surged through my veins. "What happened? Do you know?"
"I don't know the details, but Valcav has being infiltrated," Adelaide informed me. "We need all the hands we can get because whoever they are… They're strong, Nick. I've never seen anything like it."
I put a hand on Adelaide's shoulder and squeezed. "It's going to be okay. Stay with Kara and get somewhere safe."
“Don’t worry, this me’ll take care of her. Knock ‘em dead, darlin’.” She forced a smile as I stood, but as I did, Kara’s weight tugged me back down.
“No! Don’t leave!” Kara yelled, and I frowned deeply. I knelt back down beside her and kissed her softly. I knew she wouldn’t be able to hear me, and it broke me to leave my Moon like this, but I had to for the sake of saving what I could have the Academy. I hoped that she understood.
When I pulled away, she had fresh tears in her eyes, but there was also a hardened look, one that knew that I had to do my duty as a hero. She nodded, more to herself, I think, then handed me something that had been hidden at her side. It was the drill gun that she’d been working on just before the explosion. Kara’s hand shook as she held it out and sniffed.
“Come back alive.”
My heart squeezed tight, but I forced myself to give her a cocky grin and a wink as I took the drill gun from her and pocketed it into my waistband. The sharpness of the edges dug into my skin a little, but it was nothing compared to the injuries that I already had.
“I will,” I promised, even though my words fell on her deaf ears.
With that, I turned and entrusted Kara to Adelaide. My boots crunched as I ran across the debris. Everywhere I looked, there were blown out bedrooms and fires. I was thankful that it looked like Kara and I had been the only ones that were in the dorms at the time. If there was anyone else, well, I didn’t want to think about it, but they had likely been injured and buried under the rubble, for I saw no one else.
I ran as fast as my feet could carry me through the wreckage and only stopped for a brief moment when I realized that I was no longer standing on uneven wreckage but a more stable surface. This was the floor of the dining hall, though the rest of it was nearly unrecognizable. There were chairs and tables flipped, turned, and scorched, and hallways that billowed with smoke as flames licked the walls.
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“Is anyone in here?” I hollered at the top of my lungs. “Does anyone need help?” I heard nothing, and then hoping that the explosions began between meals,, I moved on.
It wasn’t long until I heard the screams and yelling of the battle taking place, however. Through the flames, past a series of collapsed walls, I could make out the distinct sound of metal crashing and the howl of a wolf. That must have been Kristen and Matt, and it sounded like they were in the fight of their lives.
Not wanting to tap into my powers for fear of wasting even a second, I looked around for something, anything that would help keep the flames at bay as I charged through them. What I found was a sheer black curtain that had fallen from one of the windows in the dining hall. Scooping it up, I examined it for holes or tears and found none. It wouldn’t be much, but it was at least a little bit of protection. I ran the lightweight fabric through a pool of water from where a water fountain used to be, soaking it before I wrapped myself in it. With one last deep breath, I stormed through the blaze.
I held my breath as I ran down the hall, and the lack of oxygen made me dizzy halfway through, but I did manage to come out the other side with only a minor burn on my left leg. It hurt like hell, but it would heal, and I pushed on.
“Oh my God, Nick!” Kristen cried as I burst through the flames shed the now bone dry curtain. As I coughed and tried to catch my breath, I was able to get a clearer view of the wreckage. Char marks scarred the once white walls, and holes were blown into them that allowed me to see the grounds as well as others, heroes and students alike, fighting against… something. I couldn’t make them out. In fact, it didn’t look like there was anything there to be fighting in the first place.
The lights had blown out, but the fire was enough illumination to see that Kristen and Matt had been hard at work. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I assured her as Matt finished off what looked to be a robotic phantom. It was a small, humanoid thing, only barely visible because it was surrounded by a shimmering field of warped light. “What about you two?”
“Fine as well,” Matt growled through his wolfish snout. “Kara?”
I shook my head. “She’s sitting this one out. The explosion… I managed to shield her from the brunt of it, but the shockwave made her go deaf.”
“Oh no,” Kristen gasped and covered her mouth.
“She’s going to be fine,” I assured her again. “Adelaide doesn’t think it’s a permanent injury. Do you know what’s going on?”
“Carter,” Matt interjected and kicked the little robot across the room. It smashed into the wall and whirred, then died again. “They’re calling these fuckers ghouls. They have cloaking devices that allow them to see and hear everything that’s been going on in Valcav.”
“They’re easy to take out, but you have to find them first,” Kristen added as she raised her hand. A wave of magnetic force rippled outward, sweeping the wreckage of the ghouls aside to clear the battlefield.
“They caused the explosion?” I asked. The bots might have been small, but strap enough of them with explosives and use their cloaking fields to place them strategically, and they could cause all this damage.
“Gahahaha!” an all-too-familiar woman’s voice rang out through the smoke and flames. “Good guess, Nickie, but nope! That would be me!”
I whirled around to see that Diamond had emerged from the flames, but that wasn’t what grabbed my attention. On either side of Diamond, Dark Rose and Malik appeared through the walls. Behind them, though…
“Switch!” Matt snarled as his wolf’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “I knew I smelled a familiar rat under all that stink when we busted Malik. What the hell are you doing here?”
Switch twirled a finger into her pixie-cut blue hair and grinned cockily. Our last encounter with her had been during World’s Finest where the arrogant little minx turned out to be the most powerful member of the Carter Academy team. Her vast power to create portals through space was the reason the members of the villainous academy had all been able to escape after their assassination attempt on Judgment, Triton, and my dad during the final round. However, instead of sporting the colors of a Carter uniform, Switch was sporting a slim new power suit that appeared to have similar properties as the stealth armor that the ghouls had, judging by the weird shimmer of light when she made her presence known.
“I love you too, Barbur.” She laughed behind her hand. “But isn’t it obvious? You’re taking part in my final exam!”
I growled under my breath and looked at Diamond. Everything suddenly made sense. “This is how you ended up in the ice cream parlor.”
“Pffft! Yup! It was all part of the plan to send you lot on a wild goose chase!” Diamond cackled.
“I don’t understand,” Kristen muttered.
“You wouldn’t,” Switch scoffed, “but don’t worry. If I pass my exam, you’ll never have to, and just so you know, I always go for bonus points. That means for each Valcav student I murder, I get extra credit.”
“You’re a monster,” Matt hissed, but Switch was unphased by his name-calling.
“I don’t see any other monsters here but you,” she slung back. Her eyes landed on the shattered, twisted frames of the broken ghouls. “Oh, I see you found my toys.”
“These are your doing.” It wasn’t a question that escaped my lips, but a statement. After all, with Switch’s almost endless ability to create portals through space, it would have been child’s play for her to slip the ghouls right into Valcav, through all our defenses, and then their cloaking fields would do the rest.
“They sure are. They’ve been spying on you throughout your entire semester. How else do you think we knew this was the time to strike?” Switch cackled and ran a hand through her hair. “We’ve been watching you, Nick Gateon. We know everything.”
Her eyes landed on Kristen, and it didn’t take any of us long to make the connection. Bright red anger rose on Kristen’s cheeks as she raised her hands and tore down the ceiling at the end of the hallway that they stood at. Switch was, to no surprise of mine, faster, and a brilliant blue portal whisked her and the Triple Triad away from the destruction. The most frightening thing about Switch was that her mental speed was as fast as I was when fully powered up. I’d never beaten her without using my powers to the fullest.
A blink of an eye later, the villains reappeared behind us, all of them with cruel, knowing smirks that made my skin crawl.
“I’ll leave you to play with these guys. You should all be familiar with them, after all.” Switch opened another portal beneath her, and she faded from view as her stealth armor turned on. She and her portal were gone in a blink of an eye. We were left face to face with Diamond, Dark Rose, and Malik.
“What is your deal?” Matt snarled, fangs dripping and ready to tear apart the enemy.
“Chillax, Mutt,” Malik cooed as he stomped on the ground. The tile under his feet exploded upward and shaped into a and created a muzzle around Matt’s snout out of tile, effectively causing him to whine and thrash about. Kristen and I moved to help him, but a wall of ice shards plummeted from the ceiling and blocked us.
“He’ll be fine, as long as he’s a good boy.” Dark Rose giggled. Her rose gold hair and red eyes were hauntingly beautiful, but as much as I love to flirt with danger, this was one rose that had too many thorns to pick, and I wasn’t about to bloody myself up with the likes of her if I didn’t have to. I saw what she had done to Akemi’s arm.
She looked at Diamond expectantly, like he was supposed to have something to say or do at this moment. The big guy only bumbled a laugh and smacked his gemstone belly.
“Whaddya want me ta do? I’m just here as a shield, remember?” Diamond shrugged and gave his comrades a cheeky grin.
“Isn’t there anything you can do other than be completely annoying?” Malik asked with a raspy voice, as though he had smoked for a decade.
“I can fire a gun and intimidate people.” Diamond laughed. “Like I said, I
’m more of a protector kind of guy.”
Dark Rose rolled her eyes as Malik sighed. I honestly couldn’t blame them. How someone like Diamond ended up in a group as seemingly devious and malicious as Triple Triad was beyond me.
And the thing was?
I didn’t care.
“You know,” I said as I glanced at my friends before narrowing my eyes at the villains. “You made a huge mistake.”
“How’s that?” Diamond asked as I powered up. And as I threw open that door and let the golden light flow through my veins, everything dialed itself down so that I could actually see the big lug moving in slow motion.
“You forgot something,” I said as I reached out and grabbed him by the arm, shifted my weight, and straight-up flung him into the air with all the strength I could muster. His body punched upward through the ceiling with a crash that caused plaster and debris to fall down around us as he disappeared into the night sky. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
I didn’t waste time following his upward arc with my eyes because I’d already turned my attention to Malik.
He was moving, of course, but I didn’t really mind as he caused the ground to swallow me up. Instead, I shouted out my plan to my friends.
“Matt, can you take out Rose? Your regeneration should be able to deal with her ice, right?” I asked as I flexed, shattering the rubble Malik had used to capture me. “Something tells me she probably sucks at fighting hand to hand.”
“I think you’re right,” Matt growled eagerly as he leapt into action and tackled Rose.
Sure enough, I was right. Rose might be a fearsome fighter, but a lot of that was predicated on the whole “don’t let her touch you” thing. Matt, on the other hand, was a damage sponge, and so even though she impaled him with gory ice, he simply walked toward her and grabbed her around the neck. Then he squeezed. And as someone who has been on the receiving end of his choke, well, let me just say that it’s not exactly pleasant.
So, yeah, Rose probably tried to ice his blood or whatever the hell it was she did, because I could see crystalline shards explode out of his flesh from time to time, but the thing was, it was pretty hard to concentrate when your air supply had been cut off. She was losing the war with him and quickly.
